Ivanka Trump’s Appearance At CES 2020 Draws Criticism

First Daughter and Presidential Advisor Ivanka Trump is being criticized for her appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Some are calling her decision to accept the invitation to speak as “an insult to women.” 

Many critics were upset that Trump was invited to the tech conference. One technology Elisabeth Fullerton, condemned Trump’s “privilege,” saying, “We did hard times in university, engineering, math, and applied sciences. This is what extreme privilege and entitlement get you. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know I guess.” She continued to criticize the conference for not adequately including women in the technology industry. 

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No critics took particular offence to the content of her speech, but were still very upset she was invited in the first place. 

Brianna Wu, a video game developer and congressional candidate in Massachusetts, agreed, stating simply that, “Ivanka is not a woman in tech,” and called her appearance, “a lazy attempt to emulate diversity.”

In an opinion piece published by Forbes just days leading up to the conference, tech analyst Carolina Milanesi explained that her exasperation was, “rooted in the fact that there are many more women who are in tech and are entrepreneurs who could run circles around Trump on how technology will impact the future of work.” 

“Given the track record we have had at CES and the state of the tech industry…you might now better understand the frustration of seeing Ivanka Trump selected to be one of the two women delivering a keynote,” Milanesi said, stating that CES organizers had much more to learn. 

In a statement to Newsweek, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) responded to the controversy saying, “Trump leads the White House efforts on job creation and economic growth through workforce development, skills training and entrepreneurship…CTA invites officials from every White House–both Republicans and Democrats–to participate in and speak at CES.”