NEW YORK: US First Daughter Ivanka Trump revived
ethics concerns Tuesday by publishing a self-help book for working women, which
was immediately criticised for offering little help to millions of Americans
living outside the moneyed elite.
"Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success" was released
simultaneously in hardback, ebook, 497-minute audio download and CD, Donald
Trump´s favorite child sitting on the cover in a dark frock.
The purpose of the book, she writes, is to empower others with skills she
has learned in matters as diverse as starting companies, negotiating,
maximizing your influence at work and "helping change the system to make
it better for women."
The text is peppered with quotations from the likes of Mahatma Gandhi,
business leaders Jeff Bezos and Sheryl Sandberg, even former secretary of state
Colin Powell.
Among the women she cities as her inspirations is Pakistani-origin
entrepreneur Umber Ahmad, who left Wall Street to open her own bakery.
Umber, the child of
Pakistani immigrants who came to the States right before she was born,
graduated from MIT and the University of Pennsylvania. She rose through the
ranks at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, working in investment banking and
private equity, before leaving the Street to pursue her passion for baking.
The name of her pastry
shop ‘Mah-Ze-Dahr’ is derived from the Urdu word ‘mazedar’ meaning ‘delicious’
in English. Umber began selling her bakery items online, before eventually
expanding to a physical shop in Manhattan in 2016.
´Completely out of touch´
Ivanka Trump, the
millionaire mother of three, assistant to the president and wife of White House
advisor Jared Kushner, says she wrote the tome, published by Penguin business
imprint Portfolio, before her father´s shock election.
She took leave from the
family real estate business and her eponymous clothing line in January. She is
now an unpaid federal employee, with an office in the West Wing, who fulfills
duties traditionally carried out by a first lady.
Yet the book spotlights
the gulf between the gilded world of a 35-year-old woman thought -- with her
husband -- to still hold investments worth up to $740 million and the struggles
facing middle- or working-class working women.
She makes only fleeting
reference to a nanny as she details an exhausting schedule for managing her
companies, her household and date nights with her husband.
At extremely busy times,
such as her father´s presidential campaign, she admits: "I wasn´t treating
myself to a massage or making much time for self-care."
She references her joy at
spending weekends "at our country home in New Jersey," her love of
transcendental meditation and shares tips on treating your children to a
"spa bath:" run the shower for steam, play rain forest music and lower
the lights.
Fatima Goss Graves,
incoming president of the National Women´s Law Center that promotes equality
for women and families, wrote in US News that the book was "completely out
of touch with the obstacles working women face."
"Millions of women
are in no position to follow any of this advice."
The New York Times, a
newspaper repeatedly criticized by the Republican president, called it
"not really offensive so much as witlessly derivative." The "why
of her book becomes easy to discern. She´s extending the Trump brand."
Online booksellers Amazon
listed the book with an average of three out of five stars, an instant
bestseller in the category of "job hunting and careers."
Alongside glowing reviews
extolling her as a role model with practical advice, irrate comments criticised
her as a woman of privilege who never had to work.
Likely galling to many a
hard-up student will be the revelation that Anna Wintour, the legendary editor
of Vogue, called her in person to offer her a job while she was yet to graduate
-- a position which she "graciously declined."
Ivanka, who uses social
media to showcase a carefully curated image, reveals that she shared the first
picture of her daughter only after being ambushed by paparazzi.
She justified sharing a
photograph of herself digging in the garden with "messy" hair and
"dirt on my cheek" thinking it might help "debunk the superwoman
myth."
Ivanka was pre-paid an
advance for the book, but has tried to fend off concerns that she is profiting
from public office by promising to donate further profits to charity and
announcing that she would not go on a promotional tour.
"In light of
government ethics rules, I want to be clear that this book is a personal
project. I wrote it at a different time in my life," she wrote on
Facebook.
The book closes with her
often-stated desire for the United States to enshrine paid leave and affordable
high-quality childcare, but offers no concrete blueprint on how that might be
achieved.
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