Ivanka Trump used her speech on Thursday night to appeal to a group of voters her father hasn’t done a very good job reaching out to – young women.
Before Donald Trump took the stage to officially accept the Republican nomination for president, his daughter vouched for his commitment to gender equality, equal pay for equal work, and access to quality, affordable child care.
Ivanka said her father is “color blind and gender-neutral” when making hires to the family company. “He hires the best person for the job, period.”
She said there are more female than male executives working for the Trump Organization, women are paid equally for the work that they do, and the company supports its female employees who choose to become mothers.
She brought up the so-called “gender wage gap,” but pointed out that there are other factors, outside of just gender, that influence women’s wages.
In her speech, Ivanka said while single women without children earn almost exactly as much as men do, married mothers earn, on average, just 77 cents on the dollar.
“Gender is no longer the factor creating the greatest wage discrepancy in this country, motherhood is,” she concluded.
This is a fact that is not often cited by equal pay advocates, who tend to look at the average wages of men and women without considering the different choices each person makes in their career.
Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women’s Forum called Ivanka’s speech a “good start” for Republicans reaching out to women on these issues, but explained that “a mother’s lower pay isn’t just an outcome of discrimination, but rather a result of the different choices that women with children tend to make about work, by working fewer hours, commuting less, and with more stable schedules.”