The main hazards of Ethinylestradiol（EE2） and the treatment capacity of municipal wastewater treatment plants at home and abroad were reviewed. It was pointed out that the removal efficiency of EE2 in existing wastewater treatment plants is still low， and microbial degradation is the main way to remove EE2 and other steroid estrogens. The representative research results of EE2 microbial degradation were summarized， and the research progress of EE2 in heterotrophic metabolism， nitrification cometabolism， heterotrophic cometabolism， microbial synergistic degradation and functional genes was emphatically analyzed. It was proposed that cometabolism is the main removal mechanism of EE2. In the future， the research on microbial cometabolism mechanism could be carried out to improve the removal efficiency of EE2 and effectively control the water ecological and health risks.