(THE NATION)
By Lucia Graves
There’s one good thing about reading Ivanka’s Trump new book: it’s a bit like getting the top lines from ten different self-help books for the price of one. The bad thing is you probably already read them — if not in a book, then in a fortune cookie or on a framed motivational poster on the wall of the worst job you ever had.
Published on Tuesday, “Women Who Work,” — named for a 2014 branding initiative of hers by the same name — reads like an odd mashup of block quotes borrowed from everyone who’s ever said something inspirational, and at least a couple people who, apparently, never did.
The are insights from the Dalai Lama and Socrates, and misappropriated lines from black authors. Toni Morrison’s thoughts on actual slavery are applied to being “a slave to…returning calls, attending meetings, answering e-mails.” Conservationist Jane Goodall felt so misused she wrote out a complaint, saying of Ivanka: “I sincerely hope she will take the full import of my words to heart.”
There is also quite a bit of advice from Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.“Your life doesn’t just ‘happen,’” reads a Covey excerpt. “Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours.” What Ivanka ignores throughout her book, little of which feels uniquely directed at women, is that our choices right now are very much of her father’s making.
This is the president who inspired a sea of pink pussy hats to march on Washington, the country’s largest demonstration in history.
