
The White House may be eager to distract the public from Donald Trump's most recent burst of misogyny, but Ivanka Trump's op-ed supporting national paid family leave can't hide her father's sexist nature.

Donald Trump's recent repulsive attacks on MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski offered further proof — as if any more were needed — of his deep-seated and barely contained sexism.

But ever his valiant defender, his daughter Ivanka Trump did her part to attempt to convince the nation that her father's administration really, truly cares about women and families.

In an op-ed at the Wall Street Journal, Ivanka pushed for a national paid family leave policy, touting her father's proposed budget for "emphasizing the need for mothers and fathers to have access to paid leave to encourage both parents to share parenting responsibilities and to strive toward minimizing hiring biases."


She declared that the policy would have "an especially positive effect for women," who are more likely to have to leave their jobs to care for a baby or child.

And she tied the issue to the wage gap, as well:

Additionally, making it easier for new parents to return to work after the arrival of a new baby is a critical part of solving the persistent gender and minority pay gap that exists in part because of prolonged periods away from the workforce and challenges with re-entry.

Incidentally, Ivanka failed to mention that said wage gap is most pronounced within her father's White House.

And while Trump's budget proposal does indeed include six weeks of paid leave to mothers and fathers following the birth or adoption of a child, that meager offering hardly excuses the myriad other policies the administration has proposed or implemented that are detrimental to women and children.

Six weeks of paid leave can't compensate for draconian cuts to Medicaid, defunding attacks on Planned Parenthood, or the massive $2 billion reduction to the Social Services Block Grant, which provides aid to states on issues such as "child care assistance, ... child abuse and neglect, [and] community-based care for the elderly and disabled."

28 million Americans depend on services funded by those grants — half of them children, about whom Ivanka claims her father cares so deeply.

Going after programs like Meals on Wheels, public television, and food stamps further evinces an utter lack of concern for the well-being and thriving of families with less financial means than those who are more well off — like Ivanka's.

And her praise for her father's paid leave policy is certainly not enough to excuse or cloak Trump's rampant, pompous sexist attitude.

Ivanka can write all the op-eds she wants, but her father is still the same man who lobs playground-level insults at female news anchors who don't give him fawning coverage or female candidates who dare to run against him; who treats contestants in beauty pageants like little more than livestock or objects for his amusement; who proudly boasted about getting away with sexual assault; and who had the galling audacity to insist that, as president, he would be better for women than Hillary Clinton.

Six weeks of paid leave aside, nothing Trump has done thus far in office offers any support for that incredulous claim.

Trump's disregard for the concerns of women, and his overarching sexism, is part and parcel of who he is, no matter what ostensibly "women-friendly" policies he deigns to include in his budget — or how much his dutiful daughter elevates him with undeserved accolades.