Under the leadership of Ivanka Trump, over 12 million women in the United States have been helped economically in the past year through the White House’s new Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP).
Last February, President Trump launched the initiative with an overview of this program to the public in hopes to inform them.
The goal of this program is to make women more economically successful in order to support themselves and their families.
Their motive with this is to spark overall economic growth and global solidity and tranquility. W-GDP’s main goal, however, is to help 50 million women under this order by 2025.
Since 12 million have been helped so far, their mission is to help roughly around 40 million and more. Jennifer McGovern, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, said that it is a positive sign to see that Ivanka Trump has made efforts to increase women’s opportunities for work.
“Hopefully, many positive benefits will flow from these investments,” she said, noting that the cause is worthy but much of the investments are happening in other countries.
“It is important to be good global citizens and help women throughout the world, but we can’t forget that here in the United States, some groups of women are still excluded from the labor force for many reasons,” McGovern explained. “It would be great to see a similar investments made in education, training, and support of some of the most vulnerable groups here.”
Timothy Foley, a junior communication student, had a different perspective on Ivanka’s work heading the W-GDP.
“I think it’s great for women all over the country and it shows women who haven’t been helped yet that there is hope and that there is work to be done to support them in becoming more financially stable and have more economic freedom,” he said, stating that the United States is getting a step closer to equality.
Several professors in the Department of Political Science and Sociology had not heard about W-GDP, and so decided not to comment on the topic because of this.
Eleanor Novek, Ph.D., Professor of Communication and a journalist, explained why this topic may not have been popularized.
“As a journalist, I would have to say anytime we have some information that we don’t know whether is true or not, we need to find it from multiple sources,” said Novek. “If this is coming from a single source, nobody else has heard about it, it means we have to dig deeper to see whether we think it’s true or not”.
Foley added, “I think our country is very divided since Trump got elected into office and I really think a lot of people lean more for the left than there are more people who lean more for the right for these last ten years or so.”
“So, I really think that people don’t really like hearing about things that Trump and Ivanka have been doing for the good of this country,” he continued.
Nate Gonzo, a senior TV and radio communication student, said that he believes the reason the W-GDP has not been covered is because Ivanka’s father, the president, takes up most of the media coverage, citing the impeachment trial and attacks in Iran and Iraq.
“President Trump is a media personality, and on top he’s a businessman. So, he knows how to wrangle the news coverage in his favor, and he knows how to do it,” said Gonzo.
“He’s been doing it basically his entire career. It’s not that she’s not doing it. It’s that it’s not an imperative of him to make sure it gets out there that she is doing it.”
The Trump administration is also working towards the goal of improving economic conditions for women entrepreneurs in order to great jobs and economic growth for women.
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