It's hard to decide who should be more embarrassed by Ivanka Trump presiding over Tokyo's annual "womenomics" event: Shinzo Abe or my fellow Americans.
The first daughter made cognitive dissonance great again on Nov. 3, keeping a straight face as she said "all too often, our workplace culture fails to treat women with appropriate respect" and "harassment can never be tolerated." She's part of a White House, mind you, claiming Harvey Weinstein's accusers are brave truth tellers, but Donald Trump's are scheming liars.
This epic transference is an apt metaphor for why Abe's womenomics is flopping: all photo ops, no substance. A day before Prime Minister Abe and Ivanka mugged for the cameras, the World Economic Forum once again downgraded Japan's gender-equality ranking. On Abe's watch, Japan has gone from 98th place to 114th. It now lags Guinea, Nepal and Guatemala, sits 14 rungs below India and 104 behind the Philippines.
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