Last Tuesday, Ivanka Trump spoke at Berlin’s W20 Summit on female entrepreneurship. At this summit, she provoked much audience response when she defended her father as a “tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive.”
As a disclaimer, I have not seen Ivanka Trump’s entire participation on the panel, and so her comment could easily be taken out of context. However, I do not think it is entirely unfathomable to believe that she made the following comment in the context of women’s rights, considering the fact that she is speaking on the topic of women as entrepreneurs and also considering the numerous criticisms President Trump receives in regards to women’s rights.
Ivanka Trump’s ridiculous comment in the context of feminism is not only common for Trump-era conservatives, but it is also enormously offensive to and disrespectful of feminist movements, both current and historical, and lawful gender equality, specifically in terms of enfranchisement.
During the Women’s March in January, I remember being confronted by friends and family members who were confused as to why women, let alone any other group, wanted to march. Particularly, my aunt told me that she did not need to march for women’s rights, because she supported “family rights.” On Facebook, many of her friends liked her posts and commented in agreement as they congregated via social media as “family rights” activists in opposition to those oppressive leftist, snowflake feminists. I told myself not to get into it on social media, and I tabled this discussion for another day. Having seen Ivanka Trump claim a First Daughter status, and by extension of the her father’s presidential office represent the United States in some unofficial capacity, I decided now was a good time as any to pick the issue up. So, let’s get into it. Women’s rights are not and cannot be trumped by so called “family rights.”
But Grace, what do you have against family rights? Well, for starters, family rights do not exist. Individuals get rights. Families do not, even in terms of abortion. When American women were trying to legalize their right to vote in the 1800s, women’s rights were the family’s rights in a sense. At least, that’s how their rights were portrayed. Guess whose rights the family’s rights were? If you guessed the man’s rights, then you would be correct.
Before the passage of the 19th amendment, people who criticized women’s suffrage movements argued that women did not need the right to vote, because their political opinions were already represented by their husbands and fathers. Could you even imagine what giving women the right to vote would do? Enfranchisement would give women twice the amount of representation they had beforehand, and that would be completely unfair to men, since men would continue to represent the political opinions of the family unit. How dare those women’s suffrage activists. How unjust. Why can’t they be happy with the representation they already have? (We are not even going to stipulate what happens to the political rights of a woman when she is not married, has no male children, does not live with a male family member, and is completely self-supported.)
Good Ole Elizabeth Stanton certainly ran into this. In her address delivered at the Seneca Falls Conference on July 19th, 1848, she responded to the following criticism:
“But you are already represented by your fathers, husbands, brothers and sons?” Let your statute books answer the question. We have had enough of such representation. In nothing is women’s true happiness consulted. Men like to call her an angel—to feed her on what they think sweet food—nourishing her vanity; to make her believe that her organization is so much finer than theirs, that she is not fitted to struggle with the tempests of public life, but needs their care and protection!! Care and protection—such as the wolf gives the lamb—such as the eagle the hare he carries to his eyrie!! Most cunningly he entraps her, and then takes from her all those rights which are dearer to him than life itself—rights which have been baptized in blood—and the maintenance of which is even now rocking to their foundations the kingdoms of the Old World.
For Stanton, it was obvious that men’s political opinions can easily diverge from the political opinions of women. Most fundamental to the founding of America’s political state is the idea of self-representation. A woman’s rights were not her family’s. She must then be able to represent herself.
Even in the context of abortion, which is what I assume people are using “family rights” in the context of, this simple message applies. A woman’s rights are not confounded with the supposed rights of the family. If people want to have an abortion conversation, then have the conversation about whether the individual rights of a fetus, if indeed the fetus has rights, conflicts and trumps the individual rights of the woman. Restructuring the conversation to reflect “family rights” is not only deceptive for its intended use, but it is also fallacious in its approach.
Please stop using family rights to undermine modern feminist movements. Be more creative than that.
Photo Credit: https://www.granger.com/results.asp?image=0014755