An advocate dedicated to advancing female leadership in the United States says women fearful of the presidency of Donald Trump have reasons to be hopeful, despite the many low points during his campaign and election.
Lauren Leader-Chivee, CEO and co-founder of the non-partisan All in Together Campaign, says the 45th U.S. president will have to work hard to rebuild trust among many women, but she believes progress is possible, mostly thanks to Trump’s daughter.
“I’m actually very hopeful about that for a number of reasons,” she told CTV’s Your Morning Friday. “And it starts with Ivanka Trump because I think Ivanka is someone who is very serious about advancing women’s equality, certainly in the workplace. She’s spoken about family leave and other issues that I think matter to a plurality of American women.”
Ivanka Trump is expected to play an important role in her father’s administration and she has been behind the hiring of “some really exceptional women” who are “very serious about advancing women’s equality,” said Leader-Chivee.
Among them is Dina Powell, a former Goldman Sachs executive, who joined the Trump administration in a senior role focused on entrepreneurship, economic growth and the empowerment of women.
While women’s protests around the world are planned for Saturday, Leader-Chivee says Trump is the first Republican in her lifetime who has talked publicly about advancing paid leave and childcare bills. Those are huge economic issues for working women in the U.S., where 38 per cent of women are now primary breadwinners.
If he took action on those fronts, they could be “incredibly important common ground” between Trump’s administration and women who didn’t support him, she said. And there were plenty of reasons not to for women disgusted by his comments about groping women, punishment for those undergoing abortions or his anti-immigrant stances.
While the election was an opportunity to elect the first woman to the country’s highest office, Leader-Chivee “absolutely believes” that glass ceiling will be broken in her lifetime. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign didn’t resonate with many, including the 42 per cent of women who voted for Trump. But there is an “extraordinary pipeline” of women on both the Republican and Democratic side and Clinton paved the way for one of them to eventually break through, she said.
“I do not think this election, in the end, was just about whether we were going to break the glass ceiling. There were so many complexities to it and complexities to her reputation, as we all now know. But on the whole, women have advanced at extraordinary rates in America and Republican and Democratic women all agree that we’d like to see a woman president in our lifetime.”
While Leader-Chivee remains hopeful for continuing progress, she is participating in the Women’s March on Washington Saturday, which she calls a “historic moment” to show solidarity with women’s equality. It’s expected that more than 200,000 people will march in the nation’s capital, in an event that has expanded into a global movement with more than 600 marches planned in 57 countries.
While march organizers have emphasized the event is not about being anti-Trump, but about fighting for the rights of women, and end to racism and for equality for the LGBTQ community, it is widely seen as an opportunity to express disgust with Trump’s past words and actions about women and immigrants and a protest about the election itself.
“I think for a lot of Americans the shock has not worn off,” Leader-Chivee said. “And I think the shock for those who did not vote for the president-elect continues because I think many in the opposition continue to see his behaviour even after being elected as inappropriate and not presidential and confirming some of the worst fears of the kind of leadership he would demonstrate.”
