In Donald Trump’s “Motherhood: Ivanka Trump Political Ad,” Trump utilizes his daughter and her family to gain support of women. The direction of this advertisement clearly distinguishes that the target audience is females. In the video, the first clips illustrate women mothering their children and cuts to Ivanka Trump stating that the most important job that any women can have is being a mother and that it shouldn’t mean taking a pay cut. Initially, the ad establishes that the primary focus pertains to women. The tone of the video is light-hearted, but serious. This is exemplified when the female characters within the B roll are smiling while playing with their laughing children. Moreover, the serious tones are exhibited when Ivanka discusses women in the workforce as well as Donald Trump’s plans for working women. The ad then focuses on the character of Ivanka Trump by displaying photographs of her with her children and her business, thus depicting her as a mother and an entrepreneur. The predominant subject of Trump’s ad is working females that are raising a family, therefore Ivanka serves as the ideal advocate. Her narration furthers by claiming that Donald Trump understands the needs that women should acquire in the modern workforce. At this time, the video displays clips of Donald Trump conversing and being cordial with females. These clips convey that Donald indeed does care for women and value their role in the workplace. It also humanizes him because he is associating himself with everyday people. The video then transitions to Ivanka broadly explaining her father’s stance on women by claiming that Trump will change outdated labor laws to support women and American families. He will enact this by providing childcare tax credit, paid maternity leave, and dependent care savings accounts. All while Ivanka is explaining Trump’s initiatives, B roll of perfected, traditional families and strong, professional females are displayed. Most notably, Trump’s voice is never heard throughout the video until the very end of the when he states that the advertisement is approved by Donald Trump. I suppose the reason being that the creators didn’t want to add attention to Donald considering his character isn’t highly morale, especially in regards to women. Regardless, through the focus of supporting women and their roles as mothers and employees, it appears evident that this political ad targeted female demographics.

Apart from my obvious issue with Donald Trump himself, this ad contains flaws. The advertisement defines mothering a family acts as the primary role of women. With this notion, it limits females to just that. The video establishes that women can still take place in the workforce, but its more important than being the sole tender of the household when Ivanka states “the most important job that any women can have is being a mother”. This belief furthers the stereotype that women belong in the household and not in the workplace. Personally, I do not want to have children or raise a family, so this bothers me greatly. Throughout all the exemplar B roll, the ad suggests that in order to be an ideal women, you have to become a mother, which again angers me. There should be no predominant standard of an ideal women. Women vary; every attribute or every flaw should be praised, regardless of the status of motherhood. It’s not practical that everyone will fit the stereotype that Donald’s ad creates, therefore women will feel excluded. Additionally, Donald Trump desires to implement paid maternity leave. Though I am fully in support of paid leave, this implementation still falls under the same societal norm that women should mother their kids and not the father. Males should have paid maternity leave as well which this ad fails to mention. Essentially, because males are too powerful and too important in the workplace to stay at home and baby their infant, paid paternity leave is not valued. Therefore, it is solely the females obligation to mother a child, though the child was conceived by both male and female. If Trump wants represent activism towards paid leaves, then he should include both sexes. In this ever-progressive country, American families aren’t traditional anymore. As a result, the roles that both parents take are intermixing. Paid leaves for parenting should mirror that reality. Personally, I believe the ad is ineffective, but I have major bias because I think Donald Trump’s support of women is entirely bogus. My perception has especially heightened due to recent comments on his part. His perception of American women is too corrupt for me to even consider sympathizing with his stances. I also feel as though the use of his daughter actually hurt him. Ivanka, though a female and an entrepreneur, continues to fall under the dominating patriarchy. In news of Donald Trump’s vulgar and sexually explicit comments that involve sexual violence, she has deemed his words as “complex.” She stood up for her father more so than women. In turn, her compliance with Donald gave into cultures of rape and the objectification of women. Therefore, idolizing her in this political ad presents disadvantages because she isn’t widely perceived as the definition of a “women’s activist.”