US President Donald Trump displays the national security presidential memorandum launching the "Women's Global Development and Prosperity" initiative. Martin H. Simon/DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved.
Ivanka Trump has had numerous opportunities to do right by women workers in her life, and the record shows she hasn’t taken them. Since her father took office, she has adopted a number of pet projects related to women’s economic empowerment. Her latest effort is more of what we've come to expect from Ivanka: talk of empowerment without paying any attention to what really makes a difference. The Women's Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act of 2018 (WEEE Act), signed into law by President Donald Trump in early January, claims to “address gender-related barriers to economic growth and support women-led businesses” by mandating that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) take certain steps to be more gender-sensitive in grant making and reporting. The most significant piece requires USAID to dedicate at least 50% of its small- and medium-sized enterprise resources to target businesses owned by women.
Despite its lofty title, this law has a limited scope and weak language. It pays lip service to gender-based violence, access to fundamental labour rights, and women’s access to property rights, but fails to establish measures to substantively address these important issues facing women workers. Jobs and economic empowerment opportunities are only useful insofar as they are good jobs – jobs that pay a living wage and allow workers to form unions, without fear of retaliation. There is no guarantee that because a business is woman-owned, that business will provide good jobs. And if an initiative is not pro-worker, it can’t claim to be pro-women.
