How to know a thing
Lindy West on the feminist awesomeness of Ivanka Trump:
Ivanka Trump, first daughter, strode into Washington back in January with big promises: She was passionate about helping “working women,” she said, and she was going to close the gender wage gap even if it killed her.
Well, not if it killed her, not literally, but even if it mildly inconvenienced her, she was on it 110 percent, for the women. Well, not if it mildly inconvenienced her, she’s very busy, but definitely if there was a wage transparency policy already in place, she would not openly and glowingly support overturning it.
Well, unless her dad wanted to overturn it because doing so satisfied two of his top 10 vindictive fixations (constraining women’s independence and destroying the legacy of America’s first black president), but Ms. Trump would absolutely offer a better replacement solution, such as saying the words “child care credit” and “female entrepreneurs” repeatedly near a camera while wearing a blush-pink toggle coat. That, ladies, is the Ivanka Guarantee. Enjoy your money!
Or, at least, enjoy watching Ivanka Trump enjoy her money.
Ms. Trump’s self-professed commitment to corporate gender parity (about as milquetoast as feminism gets, but in Trump’s America, radicalism is relative) was trotted out incessantly during the campaign, especially as an antidote to her father’s self-professed commitment to nonconsensually sticking his hands on women’s genitals.
Yet, in a statement last week, Ms. Trump endorsed the decision to abandon an Obama-era initiative, set to go into effect next spring, requiring federal contractors and companies above a certain size to report salary data. “Ultimately,” Ms. Trump explained, “while I believe the intention was good and agree that pay transparency is important, the proposed policy would not yield the intended results.”
And she knows this because something something something bureaucrats something data something something something.
Because her last name is Trump, and the Trumps know things other people don’t know.
I think the role of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the Trump campaign was to give people who care a little about not being seen to be too anti-feminist or antisemitic some figleaf coverage. They could pretend to their shocked and repulsed friends that Trump as a president would not be a disaster for every last minority.
“Ultimately,” Ms. Trump explained, “while I believe the intention was good and agree that a minimum wage is important, the proposed policy [creating a minimum wage] would not yield the intended results.”
“Ultimately,” Ms. Trump explained, “while I believe the intention was good and agree that construction safety is important, the proposed policy [enforcing construction safety standards] would not yield the intended results.”
“Ultimately,” Ms. Trump explained, “while I believe the intention was good and agree that avoiding death via dehydration is important, the proposed policy [drinking water] would not yield the intended results.”
etc.