Ivanka is basically the new Malala, isn’t she? It can’t be long now until an inspirational movie is made about her life (He Named Me Ivanka) and she is awarded the Nobel peace prize for her tireless struggle to empower women and fight for women’s rights.
Of course, not everyone sees it that way. On Tuesday, the first daughter was loudly jeered at the W20 summit on women’s economic empowerment in Berlin. Speaking on a high-profile panel which included Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, and Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Ivanka Trump drew groans and laughter when she defended her father’s attitudes toward women and described him as “a tremendous champion” of working families.
Explaining her father’s misunderstood feminism, Trump told a less than credulous audience: “I think the thousands of women who have worked with and for my father for decades, when he was in the private sector, are testament to his belief and solid conviction in the potential of women and their ability to do the job as well as any man.”
It’s worth remembering that Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment by at least 15 women (accusations that he denies). It’s worth remembering that he paid men on his campaign staff one-third more than women, while Hillary Clinton paid equal wages, according to an analysis of payroll data last year. And it’s worth remembering that he appeared to refuse to shake Merkel’s hand when they met at the White House last month.
But never mind those inconvenient facts – look how nice he’s been to his own daughter! In what might be described as “clutching at straws”, Trump invoked her own impressive achievements as an example of her father’s commitment to equality. “I grew up in a house where there were no barriers to what I could accomplish beyond my own perseverance and my own tenacity ... There was no difference for me and my brothers.”
It’s worth remembering that the president once praised his daughter’s body and said: “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” I’m not sure he ever talked about his sons as sexual objects on TV. But perhaps that’s beside the point. Trump is, indeed, a wonderful example of what women can achieve with just perseverance, tenacity and millions of inherited dollars.
The W20 summit marks Trump’s first international trip as part of the administration. Exactly what she (who holds an unpaid, informal advisory role but has security clearance) does in that administration is not clear. Not even, it seems, to her.
Trump’s opening question on the panel, from moderator Miriam Meckel, editor-in-chief of business weekly WirtschaftsWoche, was whether she was in Berlin representing her father, the US or her business. Trump replied: “Certainly not the latter ... I am rather unfamiliar with this role as well, it is quite new to me.” She added that she was “humbled” to be in Berlin “with so many formidable leaders. I’m listening; I’m learning.”
It’s all very well that Trump is listening and learning, but her unelected role in the administration isn’t supposed to be some sort of taxpayer-funded degree in international politics.
If she wants to be taken seriously as an advocate of women, she needs to stop listening and start speaking. Her silence since her father has cut funding for women’s reproductive rights, for example, has been deafening. If she wants to be taken seriously as an advocate for women, then she needs to stop her meaningless platitudes about “empowering women” and actually start using her position to empower women.
Trump is widely considered to be an important influence on her father. It was Merkel herself who invited Trump to speak at the W20 summit, and it seems likely that this invitation was an attempt to open a backchannel to the president. That the panel was a chance for Merkel to “kiss the ring” of Trump (diamond paneled, a wonderful price but, alas, not available in Nordstrom) and curry influence with the president.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the largest German subscription daily newspaper, said that luring Trump to Berlin was a “veritable coup for the chancellor”. And “it would be difficult to find a more important and influential representative” from the US.
There is no doubt that Trump is influential and that she has her father’s ear. But there also seems to be no doubt by now that she doesn’t plan to use this influence to help empower any women whose last name isn’t Trump. She is still, as she told Gayle King in an interview earlier this month, “her father’s daughter”.
The fact that Trump is still mentioned in the same breath as “women’s empowerment” is insulting to women everywhere. It’s fitting that she was booed at the W20 summit today, but really, it’s time that she was booed off the world stage.