Letters: Sep. 14, 1970

Women's Lib

Sir: Women's Lib [Aug. 31]—phooey! They are only leading us to Orwell's 1984, where men and women are such equals that life is sterile and children are reared by the state in nurseries away from their parents. Brrr. That's not for me.

A lot of our nation's problems, financial and social, are due, in part, to women leaving home to take jobs and compete with men instead of devoting their time and energy to the really important jobs of wife and mother. If all those "Libs" were married to the "right man" and were blessed with children, then they would find the most rewarding, completely full life possible. I feel sorry for them all.

(MRS.) BONNIE J. HUGHES

San Gabriel, Calif.

Sir: All (woman) power to dear Abby Adams! After only 194 years, her wise advice on the necessity for feminine equality is getting the attention it deserves.

But your editors (overwhelmingly masculine?) missed the timeliest quote of all. "Whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations," she wrote her Congressman husband, "you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. You must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard; very liable to be broken."

Right on, Abigail.

JANE F. DETMOLD

New London, Conn.

Sir: What is puzzling is the fallacy that women are the gentler sex. On the contrary, women have always been associated with violence. Hurricanes bear feminine names, and a warship is referred to as "she." The long-range gun that shelled Paris in World War I was called "Big Bertha." Even in nature, it is the lioness that makes the kill.

BENJAMIN ROSEN

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Sir: I am the wife of a business executive, mother of five children aged nine to 21, and manager, with only part-time cleaning help, of a large twelve-room house. I do all my own cooking, entertain fairly frequently and have the usual assortment of suburban-mother-type chores (assistant den mother, vice president of the League of Women Voters, active on the citizens' committee on the schools, etc.). In addition, I manage to hold a half-time position as instructor in sociology at Long Island University in Brooklyn, 41 miles away.

So who the hell is Male Chauvinist Hugh Geyer calling lazy?

(MRS.) MARY JEAN TULLY

Armonk, N.Y.

Sir: Sisters—don't give up one form of slavery in favor of yet another; resist the draft!

FRED NIEVEEN BREUKELMAN

Dover, Del.

Sir: It's time that TIME liberated us too. How about a Woman of the Year?

(MRS.) VALERIE K. FLYNN

Syosset, N.Y.

> The Duchess of Windsor held that title in 1936; Madame Chiang Kai-shek shared the honor with her husband in 1937; Queen Elizabeth II was chosen in 1952.

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