Girls Who Code Founder Fires at Ivanka Trump

Ivanka Trump wants to highlight and celebrate women in business, but at least one prominent businesswoman is saying “count me out.” Reshma Saujani, who founded Girls Who Code, is making no bones about not wanting anything to do with Ivanka, at least as long as she’s working for her father.
When Saujani learned Trump cited her in Trump’s new book, “Women Who Work,” the subject of that story was not too happy about it. Trump’s comments were certainly complimentary, saying of Saujani: “She personally witnessed the gender gap in computing classes and set out to do something about it…”

That gives Saujani big props for doing something about an issue many others were just complaining about. That might have been taken as a compliment, despite politics … but seems like everything is political these days. Saujani certainly took it as such, tweeting: “”.@ivankatrump don’t use my story in #WomenWhoWork unless you are going to stop being #complicit #askivanka.”

That “complicit” label has nearly reached hashtag saturation levels in modern political vernacular after Ivanka Trump, who spoke strongly about successful women and the rights of working mothers throughout the campaign, started working in her father’s White House. Trump might be an unpaid federal employee, but that hasn’t stopped critics of the President from accusing her of materially supporting all manner of anti-women activities and ideas.

That topic came up in a recent CBS interview, to which Ms. Trump responded: “I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence. I think there are multiple ways to have your voice heard.”

Specific to her admiration for Saujani, Ms. Trump said she plans to study coding this summer with her daughter, Arabella. They are just two of the tens of thousands of women and girls in the States who have connected with coding through Saujani’s programs. And it’s that work which Trump says she want to highlight. The daughter of the President realizes the current political climate, but she says she never intended for her book to be any kind of political statement.

Representatives have said the book is a collection of thought leaders from across the social and political spectrum:

“Ivanka has always believed that no one person or party has a monopoly on good ideas. When she was writing this book, she included quotes from many different thought leaders who’ve inspired Ivanka and helped inform her viewpoints over the years…”

Seems reasonable, but intent may not be enough to win over Saujani and other critics.