News and Politics

Ivanka Trump's New Book Doesn't Address These 5 Issues

Her new book has huge gaps.

In this op-ed, writer Lily Herman explores avenues left unturned in Ivanka Trump's new work manual for women.

This week, Ivanka Trump's new book, Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success, hit bookstores after months of delays.

It's come with a string of bad reviews, including NPR writer Danielle Kurtzleben's take, which called Trump's book "more the aesthetic of a Pinterest board than a career guide." Jennifer Senior, writing for The New York Times, saw Trump's book as a regurgitation of the type of material espoused by self-help authors and business gurus.

If Trump really wants to speak to women in the workforce across all demographics about problems they're facing, here are five issues she can start with.

1. Women can be paid less than men based on previous salaries.

In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling that declared it illegal for an employer to base an employee's current salary on a previous salary, which was seen as discriminatory and in violation of the Equal Pay Act (which gives people of any gender equal opportunity to receive the same amount of money for equal work).

According to the National Women's Law Center, women enter the workforce with lower salaries than their male counterparts in the same roles, and a 2015 study showed that those differences only increase over time.

“This decision is a step in the wrong direction if we're trying to really ensure that women have work opportunities of equal pay,” Deborah Rhode, who teaches gender equity law at Stanford Law School, told the Los Angeles Times. “You can't allow prior discriminatory salary setting to justify future ones or you perpetuate the discrimination.”

2. Roughly one in four women has experienced sexual harassment at work.

According to a 2013 Huffington Post/YouGov poll, only around 25% of people who experience sexual harassment report it, and one study estimated that about one in four women in the U.S. have dealt with workplace sexual harassment. Teens and young adults aren't excluded from this group; in fact, according to an NBC News report, the government's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office deals with hundreds of sexual harassment cases involving teenagers each year.

Additionally, earlier research has found that sexual harassment not only affects women's mental health, but it can affect their job performance, too. This can, in turn, affect a woman's job prospects and salaries along the way.

3. Women are less likely to be promoted than men.

The 2016 Women in the Workplace study, from McKinsey & Company and, found that while women ask for promotions at the same rate as men, they're less likely on average than men to be promoted. Moreover, in an except from her book published on Refinery29, Ivanka wrote that women should just ask for more money if they're taking on more responsibilities but not being paid adequately. However, it's not that simple for most. The same study found that women are negotiating at the same rates as men, but are 30% more likely than men to get feedback that they're being "bossy" or "too aggressive," which in turn keeps them from promotions.

Trump also recommended that women ask for feedback if they're not given a raise, but again, the numbers tell a different story: The 2016 Women in the Workplace study found that women are less likely than men to say they received "difficult" (i.e. direct) feedback from their managers that helps them improve their work performance.

4. The gender pay gap even further impacts women of color.

When it comes to negotiation and salaries, according to a report from the National Women's Law Center, women of color across the board earn less than both their male counterparts and their white-women counterparts. White women earn roughly 77 cents to the dollar of white men, while black and Latinx women earn 64 cents and 56 cents to the dollar, respectively.

It's also equally important to consider the women of color who do low-wage work and the wage gaps that exist in those industries. For instance, ThinkProgress reported that black female restaurant servers are paid only 60 percent of what male servers overall make, according to a report from Restaurant Opportunities Center United.

5. Child-care policies (or lack thereof) largely affect low-income families.

In the past, Ivanka has advocated for better family leave and child-care polices, but her father's child-care initiatives, which she reportedly helped to craft, were found by an analysis from the Tax Policy Center to largely benefit families making over $100,000 per year, while working-class families would receive few benefits if the legislation were to be enacted.

Why does this matter? The Center for American Progress found that low-income families (i.e. those who bring in less than $1,500 per month) spend roughly 49.5% of their income on child care compared to families who make more than $4,500 per month and spend around 8.6% of that income on child care. And other recent research highlighted by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth showed that rising child-care costs reduced the women's overall employment rate by 5% and the employment rate of working mothers with children under five by 13%.

Related: Ivanka Trump Got Booed for Calling Donald Trump a Champion of Women and Families

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