“A White House official said the two countries would launch a new task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. The official said Trudeau’s office reached out to discuss working on a joint effort, noting that this was seen as an area of shared interest between both leaders.”

Every once in a while, the administration will say something that sounds normal and positive.  The kudos erupt and we are all supposed to breathe a sigh of relief and sit down.

But take note, the council focuses on entrepreneurs not workers.  And was suggested by the Canadian leader – not ours [follow the leader is not a powerful move].  There are also discussions of this being championed by Ivanka Trump – who caused ethics violations to occur in her defense.

But the proposals put forward by Ivanka have all benefited those with much and altered programs that benefit women with less.  Tax Credits require you to have income and the capacity to fund the costs upfront and to fund the difference between cost and credit.  All while giving tax benefits to those who already have the capacity to fund the services / help.

Our president nominated people who are largely rich, white men.  They hold positions that have not supported women’s rights.  One appointment is the wife of the Senate Majority Leader – who just silenced another senator for saying things on the floor that were tolerated on the same floor.  The president then resumed use of a nickname when referring to this Senator – challenging her legitimacy and showing no respect.

The focus on de-funding Planned Parenthood hurts women – but mainly the young and less affluent.  Loss of services provided by Planned Parenthood can hurt the health of women.  Yet this is a widely held position of this administration and of the Republican party.

The appointment of the massively incompetent but very wealthy donor, Betsy DeVos, as head of Education insults women everywhere.  There are competent women who would take this role and use it to elevate our public schools and overall education of our kids to be competitive.  He selected someone whose policies caused Michigan’s standings to drop from middle of the pack to the bottom.

It is the actions that matter.

So don’t get distracted by what looks like one good deed.

Pay attention to the continued silence over the slams against women.  The lack of any outrage over the silencing of Elizabeth Warren is unacceptable.

It is the real issue with women’s rights and of the remainder of the human rights concerns.  You point to a specific situation where  you take action that is positive in some way.  You use this to claim you are ‘for’ women’s rights, because you are not against all rights that some women are given.

This human rights thing is simple.  If you tolerate the challenge of basic rights to any group, you are simply not for human rights.

The same is true of women’s rights.

And this president, the Republican Party and far too many others are fine with selective acts being sufficient to make this issue go away.

But most of us will not go away.

This was the lesson of the Women’s March.  Democracy will not end quietly and Women are not going away.  We, the people, want equality for all.  We want the principles of our country was founded on to finally rise to their full measure.  To end the wink-wink exceptions of privilege.

What do we expect?  Wrong question.  What will we accept?  You need to acknowledge the past acts as being wrong.  You need to declare the new thinking that you are committed to adopt.  And you need to act in ways that are fully aligned with your new thinking for a sufficient time that it is possible to begin to trust you.

Otherwise, we will consider this one more pile and we no longer look for the pony.