Lips pursed in concentration, eyes focused behind safety goggles on the beaker before her, not a hair out of place atop her white-coated shoulders. With this #Scienceselfie published on her social media channels,
Ivanka Trump was trying to spread the word about government investments
in infrastructure projects supporting women in the fields of science,
technology, engineering and math. What she really did with that ridiculously staged photo was feed the
flames of her critics’ most salient argument against her — that she
positions herself one way (in this case as a “supporter of women in
science”) while remaining silent as her dad strips away policies or
fails to craft those that would make a real difference. (Despite this
infrastructure plan, Trump’s 2018 budget is poised to slash funding to science agencies.) Hey @IvankaTrump it’s great that you like to cosplay as a scientist on Instagram but some of us are an #ActualLivingScientist. Tell us about what you’re doing in this picture. I’m making a battery. #ILookLikeAnEngineer pic.twitter.com/fW5CFxLYAF — Holly aka Leia (@absolutspacegrl) March 20, 2018 As one of President Donald Trump’s senior advisers, she has White
House security clearance, the trust of her father and the momentous task
of managing “the woman file” at a time when women are flooding the
streets annually to protest a lot of the policies her dad has enacted,
and all he represents. The science photo op is far from the first example of the First
Daughter trying to have her cake and eat it too. Here are a few more: Ivanka was just as fired up as the rest of us after Oprah Winfrey’s stirring speech at
the Golden Globes—so much so that she took to Twitter, pledging her
(verbal) support of Time’s Up, the movement to put an end to sexual
harassment and assault in the workplace beyond just Hollywood. No word
yet on whether she actually donated to the campaign, which provides legal assistance to women coming forward with reports of sexual misconduct, but she has since said publicly that she feels questions posed to her about her father’s sexual misconduct are “inappropriate.”
She claims to support #TimesUp, but defends her father against numerous allegations of sexual misconduct
