This week the First Daughter-Lady-Girl boldly defended her father-man for his treatment and support of women in the workplace after being booed at a women’s forum in Germany.
Ivanka Trump was greeted with jeers at the W20 conference in Germany after praising her father as a “tremendous champion” of families — and social media users savored the schadenfreude.
The president’s eldest daughter took part Tuesday in the international conference on women’s issues, but the crowd booed and hissed when she touted President Donald Trump’s support for women.
Ivanka defended her father’s record with women arguing that in her experience, how he has treated her and other executive women in the workplace was exemplary.
Ivanka: Thousands of women who have worked with and for my father, when he was in the private sector, are a testament to his belief and solid conviction in the potential of women.
I am honest enough to admit that may be true to a certain extent for Ivanka herself, if they were executives in his organization or he thought they were “cute” enough to work for him — but for many, many other women who have encountered or worked for Trump that simply isn’t the case.
First of all we have to address the big elephant in under the comb-over which are the sexual assault allegations against Trump. It has to be noted that Ivanka’s statement, being limited to those who “work for” him leaves out Jessica Leeds the airplane passenger who accused him of assault, it leaves out Kirsten Andersen who accused Trump of sticking his hand up her skirt in a nightclub, it leaves out Shark Tank Star and real estate mogul in her own right Barbara Corcoran who says Trump made inappropriate comments about her body when she was pregnant, it leaves out Cathy Heller who says that Trump inappropriately kissed her on the mouth when meeting him at Mar-A-Lago, a complaint also made by former Miss Utah Temple Taggert, and Rachel Cooks who worked for an real estate investment firm located in Trump Tower, it leaves out MIss Teen USA contestant Maria Billado who says Trump inappropriately walked into the dressing room while contestants were disrobed, it leaves out Jill Harth a former business aquaintance who sued Trump for attempted rape, it leaves out Karina Virginia who says Trump touched her breast while she was waiting for a car at the U.S. Open., it leaves out Mindy Milligray who while working with a photographer at Mar-A-Lago says she was groped by Trump 13 years ago when she was 23, it leaves out claims made by PEOPLE magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff that Trump assaulted her when she visited Mar-A-Lago for an article on him and Melania, it leaves out adult film star Jessica Drake who accused Trump of sexual misconduct, it leaves out former Miss Finland Ninni Laaksonen who says Trump groped her prior to an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, and it leaves out former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos who says Trump assaulted her in the Beverly Hills Hotel aggressively kissing her and touching her breast during a meeting,
So sure, she could say Trump didn’t mistreat women who worked “for” him, because none of these women were employees of the Trump company, which goes to show that even if Ivanka’s statement was completely and totally true — it’s not the whole and complete truth.
Then there are the women who did “work” for Trump, but not in an executive capacity. Women such as the models he brought into the U.S. Illegally to work for his modelling agency.
But the mogul's New York modeling agency, Trump Model Management, has profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work here, according to three former Trump models, all noncitizens, who shared their stories with Mother Jones. Financial and immigration records included in a recent lawsuit filed by a fourth former Trump model show that she, too, worked for Trump's agency in the United States without a proper visa.
Foreigners who visit the United States as tourists are generally not permitted to engage in any sort of employment unless they obtain a special visa, a process that typically entails an employer applying for approval on behalf of a prospective employee. Employers risk fines and possible criminal charges for using undocumented labor.
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Two of the former Trump models said Trump's agency encouraged them to deceive customs officials about why they were visiting the United States and told them to lie on customs forms about where they intended to live. Anna said she received a specific instruction from a Trump agency representative: "If they ask you any questions, you're just here for meetings."
On top of working in the U.S. illegal, as encouraged by the Trump agency, these women — some as young as 14 years old — were also placed in near sweatshop living conditions.
Models' apartments, as they're known in the industry, are dormitory-style quarters where agencies pack their talent into bunks, in some cases charging the models sky-high rent and pocketing a profit. According to the three former models, Trump Model Management housed its models in a two-floor, three-bedroom apartment in the East Village, near Tompkins Square Park.
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"We're herded into these small spaces," Kate said. "The apartment was like a sweatshop."
Trump Model Management recruited models as young as 14. "I was by far the oldest in the house at the ripe old age of 18," Anna said. "The bathroom always smelled like burned hair. I will never forget the place!" She added, "I taught myself how to write, 'Please clean up after yourself' in Russian."
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Living in the apartment during a sweltering New York summer, Kate picked a top bunk near a street-level window in the hopes of getting a little fresh air. She awoke one morning to something splashing her face. "Oh, maybe it's raining today," she recalled thinking. But when she peered out the window, "I saw the one-eyed monster pissing on me," she said. "There was a bum pissing on my window, splashing me in my Trump Model bed."
Some would argue that’s not different from most New York Apartments, but then people aren’t also paying $1,600/month each while being packed five people to a room like sardines in a can. (That’s $8,000 a month for one apartment in a city that averages about $3.500 for 2 bedrooms)
And then you had the wonderful way that Trump treated his female employees at his various casino and Golf club operations, for example removing women dealers from the floor when gamblers complained, or hiding less attractive employees when Trump showed up.
The New Jersey investigators said Trump’s casino managers would remove female dealers from the Trump Plaza floor because a particular high-roller gambler didn’t want women – or for that matter, black people – working at his tables when he played.
Employee Cathy Carlino testified at one state hearing that patron Robert Libutti “started cursing, screaming, banging the table, ‘I don’t want no (expletive) woman here. I don’t need these (expletive) in my game. I told you people before. Get her out of here. Why are you doing this to me?’” Lubutti, who has since died, was later banned from all Atlantic City casinos over alleged ties to the mafia. He was cited repeatedly in casino board investigations of Trump’s managers’ penchant for catering to him to keep him spending money at Trump casinos.’
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In one lawsuit, a female supervisor at Trump National Golf Club near Los Angeles said Trump pulled her aside one day to complain about hiring.
“I want you to get some good looking hostesses here,” Trump told Sue Kwiatkowski, she recounted in a sworn statement corroborated by many other employees' testimony. She said he went on to say, “People like to see good looking people when they come in.” Managers acted on Trump’s directive, she and colleagues testified, to hire younger and “prettier” staff and to make sure other female workers were not seen whenever the big boss visited.
I would argue that these women did work for Trump, but he wasn’t exactly the most encouraging of their careers — not if he didn’t happen to like how they looked.
It’s also worth noting that Ivanka herself isn't all that great a champion for women even at her own companies, which didn’t have currently have a family leave program.
Marissa Velez Kraxberger — who, according to LinkedIn, worked as the creative director for Ivanka Trump from 2013 to 2015 and chief marketing and creative officer for part of 2015 — came forward about the company’s abysmal record in a Facebook post on Monday.
She shared that she initially interviewed for the job at two months pregnant and asked about the maternity-leave policy when she was offered the role. “When I asked about maternity leave she said she would have to think about it, that at Trump they don’t offer maternity leave and that she went back to work just a week after having her first child,” Kraxberger writes. “Our team–the ones who created#WomenWhoWork and the ones who the hashtag really stood for–fought long and hard to get her to finally agree to 8 weeks paid maternity leave.”
Spokesman for the Ivanka Trump organization disputed this arguing that they did offer “paid leave” — but the fact is that that was standard vacation time, not maternity or family leave.
According to the Huffington Post, which checked her claims with employees at Trump hotels in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and Trump’s beloved Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, they do not have the option of paid maternity time off. Instead, they are able to take the federally mandated 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. An undated employee handbook from the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas reportedly stated that workers are entitled to unpaid leave, but they are allowed to pool their unused paid vacation and personal days to help subsidize their time off.
“The policies and practices allowing employees to enjoy a healthy work-life balance vary from property to property,” Deirdre Rosen, the senior vice president of human resources at the Trump Organization, told the Huffington Post. “We take an individualized approach to helping employees manage family and work responsibilities.” Ivanka Trump’s own brand does offer eight weeks of paid time off and flexible work hours for its employees.
And then there are the overseas sweatshops that make Ivanka’s clothing line.
The Washington Post reports that inspectors with the Fair Labor Association found dozens of violations of international labor standards during an audit of a factory in China owned by the G-III Apparel Group — which owns the rights to manufacture and distribute Ivanka’s fashion line.
The newspaper noted the timing of the inspectors’ report, “comes as the president’s daughter has sought to cast herself as both a champion of workplace issues and a defender of her father’s “buy American, hire American” agenda.”
Just yesterday, G-III was busted for rebranding Ivanka’s clothing line and dumping it on the discount retailer Stein Mart.
The Wapo states that:
Workers at a factory in China used by the company that makes clothing for Ivanka Trump’s fashion line and other brands worked nearly 60 hours a week to earn wages of little more than $62 a week, according to a factory audit released Monday.
The factory’s 80 workers knit clothes for the contractor, G-III Apparel Group, which has held the exclusive license to make the Ivanka Trump brand’s $158 dresses, $79 blouses and other clothes since 2012. The company also makes clothes for Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and other brands.
Dresses for $158 made by workers — almost entirely female — who are only earning $1.03 per hour during a 60 hour work week? Yeah, that’s a sweatshop.
Ivanka may talk a lot about how her father “treats women”, but it is a very carefully and artfully crafted lie, one that strategically ignores his own personal behavior including not just the dozen allegations of sexual misconduct against him, but also how he has badly treated women within his own organization from models, pageant contestants, Apprentice contestants, hostesses to female dealers in his casinos.
A so-called “champion” of some women, some of the time, who basically already have every advantage while ignoring those who are the most vulnerable and are at the highest risk for mistreatment is basically a “champion of the misogynist status quo”. Or to put it another way, worthless to women in need.
Sure, he’s treated some women nicely, including Kellyanne Conway and Ivanka herself. We can all see that, but it proves nothing.
That’s not proof he does that with women generally or consistently. It’s not really proof of anything other than he plays favorites, and if you’re one of those favorites everything will be great and rosey for you when dealing with him.
But if you’re not...
Wednesday, Apr 26, 2017 · 7:02:42 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
I want to give fair credit to Ivanka's new efforts to create a completely opaque unexplained “Women’s Empowerment” charity.
Ivanka Trump told me yesterday from Berlin that she has begun building a massive fund that will benefit female entrepreneurs around the globe. Both countries and companies will contribute to create a pool of capital to economically empower women.
Because collecting money from foreign donors and governments shouldn't cause any problem at all of someone currently working in the White House and directly advising the President.
And maybe one thing she should advise him is to not cut foreign aid money, which already does exactly what her new “charity” would do.
Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama talked about the importance of advancing gender equality and women's empowerment in developing countries. "It is not simply the right thing to do. It is the smart thing to do," the State Department said in its 2017 budget request.
The State Department asked Congress in February to approve $1.34 billion in foreign aid to support gender equality and address gender-based violence. Investments in women — their rights, benefits and representation — could lead to greater economic growth and increased peace and security, the department said. (The FY17 budget is still awaiting approval after delays in Congress.)
Trump has sought to cut all that.
Field missions, regional bureaus, global health funding and food programs are all on the chopping block, FP reports.
Acting USAID Administrator Wade Warren reportedly told employees during a recent staff meeting that the White House may merge USAID with the State Department in order to comply with Trump’s executive order aiming to streamline the executive branch. The order requires every agency to submit a plan for the approval of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.
The administration’s 2018 budget proposal pointedly suggests the consolidation, saying, “The need for State and USAID to pursue greater efficiencies through reorganization and consolidation in order to enable effective diplomacy and development.”
So unless Ivanka is planning to raise about $1.3 Billion in charity donations, these women around the world are facing a massive cut in funding and support — thanks to her oh-so-supportive daddy.
And that’s assuming she doesn’t run this charity the way that she, her dad and brothers ran the Trump Foundation.
President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the Internal Revenue Service that it violated a legal prohibition against “self-dealing,” which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families.
The admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s IRS tax filings for 2015, which were recently posted online at the nonprofit-tracking site GuideStar. A GuideStar spokesman said the forms were uploaded by the Trump Foundation’s law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
That’s in addition to using charity funds to pay off politicians, corporate lawsuits and fines. So as long as she raises $1.3 Billion and doesn’t do any of that, it should be fine. Unless she runs it the way the Eric Trump Foundation is run.
In promotional videos and press releases, ETF touts a 95 to 100 percent donation ratio and implies that by benefit of being a Trump, namesake properties are handed over for charity events at little or no cost. But according to a Daily Beast analysis of annual IRS reports and New York state financial disclosures from the charity’s inception in 2007 to 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, ETF spent $881,779 on its annual Golf Invitational at Trump-owned clubs, a portion of which—$100,000 in 2013 and $88,000 in 2014—was reported as paid directly “to a company of a family member of the Board of Directors.” In other words, Donald Trump himself.
So, y’know, as long as $Thousands and $Millions of foreign donor and government money doesn’t end up right back in Ivanka or Donald’s pockets as a result of this “Charity” to “empower women” — we should be golden, right?