Happy Equal Pay Day to all you ladies out there! Well, except for those of you who work for federal contractors and are no longer protected from wage discrimination.
On Tuesday, Ivanka Trump tweeted out a message championing Equal Pay Day, the day marking how far into the year women need to work in order to close the pay gap and get paid what men were paid the previous year. (For the record, Equal Pay Day doesn’t apply to all women—black women must work until Aug. 12 to achieve the same pay.)
Sharing an article from USA Today on the gender and race pay gap, Ivanka tweeted the message, “#EqualPayDay is a reminder that women deserve equal pay for equal work. We must work to close the gender pay gap!”
#EqualPayDay is a reminder that women deserve equal pay for equal work. We must work to close the gender pay gap! https://t.co/CcwsoBXWdF
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) April 4, 2017
The entire tweet is very on brand for the president’s official but unpaid advisor, who has championed certain aspects of gender equality, like paid maternity leave, while remaining mostly quiet about her father’s actions and behavior toward women. For example, her message of women’s solidarity and feminism comes just a week after her father (and employer) revoked an Obama-era nondiscrimination executive order that mandated paycheck transparency for federal contractors.
Last Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rescind the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order, which prevented federal contractors from discriminating against workers by requiring them to comply with 14 civil rights and labor regulations. Such requirements included maintaining transparency on paychecks and banning forced arbitration clauses for claims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and discrimination.
By revoking the order, Trump essentially allows companies to work with the federal government without proving they’re not financially discriminating against female and LGBTQ workers. It also allows sexual harassment and discrimination cases to be secretly resolved without other employees or the public learning about such claims.
And yet, though Trump has gutted protections to prevent pay discrimination and uphold the integrity of government contracts, Ivanka shared this message advocating for women to earn the same pay as men, for the same amount of work.
Critics say her complicit silence regarding her father’s actions is a tad hypocritical, especially for a woman who can afford to work for the administration for free.
https://twitter.com/rideatdawn/status/849250031584645121
