Another Day, Another Pointless Media Attack on Ivanka Trump

It’s unfathomable to me how fanatically desperate some media outlets are to smash Ivanka Trump to bits, destroy her reputation, and denigrate her – despite the fact that she is a successful, educated, accomplished, charitable woman in her own right.

Yes, I’m sure her family name didn’t hurt when she was starting her career.

Yes, her father’s presidency is the only reason why she currently holds an official position at the White House (albeit an unpaid one).

Yes, many of the views she espouses are hardly consistent with conservative principles of limited government, spouting the liberal talking points about the “wage gap,” a soft stance on Syrian refugees, and pushing family leave, which while a desirable benefit, should hardly be within the purview of the federal government.

Policy-wise, especially given her position, criticisms of Ms. Trump are certainly fair game, but this unmitigated assery? Not so much.

You see, when Ivanka Trump was starting her fashion business, she apparently failed to consider that some of her employees may want to take some leave after having a baby. GASP! How terrible!

Four years ago, she expected women to return to work soon after giving birth, according to a report in The New York Times.

Marissa Kraxberger, a former executive for Trump’s fashion company, told The Times that she asked Trump about paid leave when she was pregnant in the summer of 2013.

Kraxberger recalled Trump saying: “Well, we don’t have maternity leave policy here; I went back to work one week after having my child, so that’s just not something I’m used to.”

Afterward, Kraxberger and others pushed Trump to adopt a paid-leave policy, but the company didn’t implement one until the next year, according to The Times.

This is what Yahoo! Finance and the hysterical creature that has published the original piece in Business Insider Hayley Peterson consider newsworthy! Wow.

Let’s take this apart a bit, shall we?

Let’s start with the New York Times report Peterson quotes about Ivanka “expecting” women to return to work soon after giving birth. That’s not at all what the NYT story said. What it actually said was that Ivanka herself returned to work a week after giving birth, so she didn’t give much thought to having a maternity leave policy until one of her employees brought it up. There’s nothing in the Times piece to imply that she expected the same of her employees. Quite the opposite, actually.

While Peterson sniffly implies that it took way too long to implement said policy, the company did consult with its employees before developing a good plan that also included some other benefits that many other companies don’t offer, such as two months of paid family leave, flexible hours, and a play area for children in its office. Not too shabby, and a good business practice to boot to sit down with one’s employees and take their concerns to the table, especially since the company was young and apparently still in the process of developing its operating procedures.

So why is this news, Ms. Peterson?

Why the clickbait headline Yahoo! Finance? Ivanka Trump had a surprising response when a pregnant employee asked her about maternity leave

The headline predisposes the reader to an negative response, especially given the third paragraph of Peterson’s piece, which claims Ivanka “wasn’t always a supporter of family-leave policies.” This is a blatant lie. Not having a company policy in place, and implementing a damn generous one after consulting with employees is not in any way equal to not being a supporter of family leave policies.