US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump’s new book has not gone down well with critics many of whom have brutally slammed her for writing it.
The book ‘Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success’ was released on May 2 and offers advice to women to achieve work-life balance and personal fulfillment and also cities example from other successful working women.
The Washington Post ‘s review by James Hohmann was called, “Ivanka Trump’s life of privilege undermines the credibility of her new book’s message,” which pretty much sums it up.
The New York Times‘ review is titled ‘Having Trouble Having It All? Ivanka Alone Can Fix It’.
Jennifer Senior ‘s review reads, “Eventually, though, a pair of related existential questions emerge. Namely: For whom is Ivanka Trump writing? And what did she write “Women Who Work” for? As Sinek likes to ask, what is the why of this book? Just looking at Women Who Work gives you a clue. It’s a strawberry milkshake of inspirational quotes.”
Annalisa Quinn writes in her review for NPR , “Trump’s new book shares a name and a mission with her company’s marketing campaign: Women Who Work.”
“Organized into sections with titles like “Dream Big” and “Make Your Mark,” Women Who Work is a sea of blandities, an extension of that 2014 commercial seeded with ideas lifted (“curated,” she calls it) from various well-known self-help authors. Reading it feels like eating scented cotton balls.”
Emily Peck writes in her review for The Huffington Post , “Trump’s book… is a grab-bag of generic work-life advice for upper-middle-class white women who need to ‘architect’ their lives. But underneath that, and perhaps more remarkable, is Trump’s inability to truly recognize how her own privileged upbringing was key to her success.”
Business Insider UK‘s reviewer Kate Taylor writes, “The book, which the first daughter and White House adviser wrote while her father was running for president, reads like a mashup of countless essays and articles written in the past decade aimed at female entrepreneurs.”
Jia Tolentino’s review for The New Yorker is titled ‘Ivanka Trump wrote a painfully oblivious book for basically no one’.
“Women Who Work is mostly composed of artless jargon (“All women benefit immeasurably by architecting their lives”) and inspirational quotes you might find by Googling “inspirational quotes,” it read.
Buzzfeed‘s reaction to the new book is, “Ivanka Trump’s new book, Women Who Work, reads like an alien who speaks only French wrote it with Google Translate.”
Katherine Miller wrote in her review, “If you accept that this is not a good book — it does not adequately achieve its stated purpose of advising women on how to navigate their careers — then there’s actually something of worth to be found here, even something revealing.”
Women Who Work also cites stories of famous and successful women including Facebook COO Sherly Sandberg and Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani. However, Saujani called out Ivanka on her Twitter account telling her not to feature her work unless she is “going to stop being complicit.”
Pakistani entrepreneur Umber Ahmad is among those quoted in the book. Ahmad, who spent a decade on Wall Street before setting up her own bakery, is quoted as an example of women who succeed by following their passions.
However, Ahmad wasn’t too optimistic about Ivanka’s involvement in her father’s presidency. Talking to The New York Times, she said, “The only test is whether she [Ivanka] is able to achieve something other than personal gain.”
Many people quoted in Ivanka’s new book have been outspoken critics of her father, US President Donald Trump including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, New York Times columnist David Brooks, Mark Zuckerburg and Richard Branson. Actress Cynthia Nixon, also quoted in the book, has said Trump’s presidency makes her “scared for her daughter.”
Political scientist Anne-Maria Slaughter’s work is extensively quoted even though she was a a Hillary Clinton supporter in the 2016 elections. She has called Donald Trump ‘toxic’ and is well known for her article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, which covers issues women face in the workplace.
Fatima Goss Graves, incoming president of the National Women’s Law Center that promotes equality for women and families, wrote in US News that the book was “completely out of touch with the obstacles working women face.”
“Millions of women are in no position to follow any of this advice.”
A passage on anthropologist and primatologist Jane Goodall reads, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
Goodall when asked about it told The Washington Post , “I understand that Ms. Trump has used one of my quotes in her forthcoming book… I was not aware of this, and have not spoken with her, but I sincerely hope she will take the full import of my words to heart.”
Goodall believes that environmental laws have been “jeopardized” by the Trump government. In fact, she had previously made a critical comparison between President Trump and a chimpanzee too.
Women Who Work is Ivanka’s second book. Her 2009 debut self-help book The Trump Card offer advice to young women to achieve success in any field based upon what Ivanka has learned from her father and from her own experiences.