By Alexis Alex

Mrs. Ivanka Trump. The first daughter, Adviser to the President. Self - proclaimed feminist. High expectations, no results.

Ivanka Trump is a wife, mother of three, and a successful business women, which are seemingly the ingredients to make a successful feminist.  Ivanka had the potential to step up and be voice for women alike in America, but ever since Trump has taken office, she has failed to do anything. Despite being such a feminist, Ivanka has sat by idly while Trump and the Republicans have waged war on women (i.e Medicaid cuts, defunding Planned Parenthood, weakening Roe. Vs. Wade). Certainly no feminist would sit by and allow men to constructively weaken women’s rights. This is surely not the strong and powerful voice Ivanka claimed she would have for women during the campaign trail. Do better, Ivanka.

Since the administration took office, Ivanka has done little to nothing to promote her feminist agenda that she heavily promoted on the campaign trail. Ivanka’s supposed “platform” is #WomenWhoWork where she claims to advocate for the modern working women and change the system to make it better for women, but her efforts have been bleak. So far, she has proposed a family paid leave plan (that Republicans are publicly stating they will never vote for) and she lead the White House discussion for “workforce development week” to promote vocational training and apprenticeship. Wow, that is quite a list of accomplishments there Mrs. Trump. Granted, the Trump administration has only been in office for about half a year, but that has surely not stopped her father from making a slew of executive actions and hitting the ground running. Therefore, there is no excuse why Ivanka has not taken any type of real initiative yet.  

In addition to her lack of action, it has been proven she does not even have much influence over Trump’s decisions. A few examples of this:

1.    Ivanka met with Planned Parenthood leaders during the campaign trial and after the inauguration and often expresses how much she supports the program, while her father helped pass a bill to defund the program.

2.    She is a climate change supporter and was a huge proponent of the US staying in the Paris Climate Agreement, but still President Trump chose to back out. Ivanka even pulled out all the stops including contacting business leaders to discuss the US business benefits for staying in the deal and bringing in climate activists such as AL Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Scott Pruitt to convince Trump to stay in the agreement. But, it was still a fail.  

3.    She is a supporter of the LGBTQ community. On June 1, Ivanka was heavily criticized by the LGBTQ community for tweeting celebrating Pride, “Logging back on after Shavuot, wishing everyone a joyful #Pride2017. This month we celebrate and honor the #LGBTQcommunity.” This tweet caused an eruption of tweets slandering Mrs. Trump for her statement.

To top it all off this past week, Ivanka stated in an interview that “she tries to stay of politics.” If this is true, then why is she employed by the White House as an adviser to the President? Does this sound like a job title of someone trying to stay out of politics? I think not. It’s safe to say no one knows what is Ivanka’s role in the Trump administration, not even Ivanka herself. What happened to the strong feminist that was advertised during the campaign trial? It seems that since Ivanka has now realized she does not have much influence over her father’s decisions, she is trying to bow out of politics gracefully. Ivanka now has one of two choices: find your voice in the administration or just get out. The choice is yours, Mrs. Trump.