First daughter Ivanka Trump has worked as a senior presidential advisor with one pet project promoting women and businesses led by women. But the women she claims to empower are actually being held back, according to one feminist site.
Trump authored an op-ed for her father's least favorite outlet CNN, about the women she's met across Africa, who overcame odds to "succeed in their economies."
“Their stories are tangible proof of what is possible if we deliver smart development assistance to empower women to succeed in their economies,” she wrote, seemingly desperate to appear as the "nice Trump."
According to the feminist site Jezebel, Trump does little to "empower women." Rather, "she pays lip service to empowerment, she represents an administration that has slashed their access to critical healthcare."
Trump's clothing brand was caught with serious labor abuses of the women working in her Chinese factories and she's faced criticism for turning a blind eye.
"That Ivanka Trump has no credibility on women’s issues is by now a pretty straightforward thing," Jezebel wrote Wednesday. "She worked very hard to get her father elected, now works for him, and has worked very hard to aide this administration through its many cruelties. So why give her an op-ed line to bullsh*t, then?"
The post noted that just after taking office, Trump reinstated the global gag rule, which prevented doctors from offering information on abortions, even in the case of the life and health of the mother. The consequences can be dire for women in the third-world, who don't have access to health clinics every few miles.
"In some rural areas, this means that women can’t access contraception or get basic medical care because the clinic also provides patients with information about abortion services," Jezebel noted. "Clinics that have refused to comply with rules that lead to suboptimal care have been forced to close locations, leaving some areas with severely limited access."
It also harms survivors against sexual violence. In her op-ed, Trump wrote that the White House is “committed to combat grave human rights injustices, such as child and forced marriage, gender-based violence, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation and abuse." But the White House actually threatened to veto a United Nations resolution that would work to combat sexual violence because it used the words "reproductive health" and the word "gender." The White House claimed it would promote abortion and transgender rights. So much for Ivanka Trump standing up for survivors of rape and human trafficking.
"Ivanka’s op-ed omits the fact that the policies that she and her administration enforce are holding back the very women she hopes to empower. Like her empty-calorie feminism, it sounds nice, but ultimately means nothing. Why let her pretend otherwise?" Jezebel closes.
