For conservatives, it is a little disorienting to have the daughter of a Republican president, who works in his administration, peddling feminist propaganda about equal pay.
For instance, on Tuesday, “Equal Pay Day”, first daughter Ivanka Trump posted about the holiday on social media, promoting the myth of persistent pay inequity that many conservatives have spent years debunking.
While it is disappointing that Trump is using her platform to tell women they are victims of widespread wage discrimination, it should not be surprising. Ivanka Trump, after all, was raised in the ultra-liberal circles of Manhattan’s elite, attended both Georgetown and the University of Pennsylvania, and has spent her professional life working in the same bubble in which she grew up.
Given her long record of supporting liberal politicians from Cory Booker to Hillary Clinton to Chuck Schumer, Trump’s less-than-conservative worldview is no secret.
But her position on so-called wage inequality is a helpful reminder that an entire generation of privileged, intelligent young women like the first daughter was raised to see the workplace as a sphere of persistent inequality. Rather than presenting a fair outlook on the issue by teaching the research of economists and academics who have debunked the myth, Ivy League professors at schools like Penn recite it as fact. (And popular culture follows suit.)
Women sitting in those classrooms graduate to enter the highest echelons of power in America, perpetuating those falsehoods they were taught not to question from their influential new platforms.
Unfortunately, Ivanka Trump is only one of thousands of powerful women who grew up steeped in the victimhood myths of contemporary feminism. Unlike the pay gap, which, fortunately, has mostly closed, this is one pattern that actually continues to persist.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
