Dear Editor
Dear Editor The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. Women As a middle-aged Englishwoman of working-class origins, I get the...
...I became addicted to the Hartman family and their friends...
...There are more such women in the United States than in England, possibly because the greater aggressiveness of American men induces a strong reaction in the women...
...What it does mean is gaining recognition for herself as an individual, a person, and not merely as someone's wife, mother or daughter...
...she will have no cause to complain...
...I consider this state of affairs altogether odd...
...Women As a middle-aged Englishwoman of working-class origins, I get the impression from articles such as Walter Goodman's "Whither Women's Lib...
...This does not mean I feel myself to be some kind of a neuter creature, simply that I believe any one person's individuality is the most important thing about that person —even more important than what sex he or she happens to be...
...I, for one, grew up in a home where my father always treated my mother as an individual...
...It will be an uphill task, because no one can deny that many men enjoy having power over their wives—just as a number of whites get their kicks out of refusing equality to blacks, and certain Women's Libbers now appear to want to dominate men...
...I would agree with Goodman that the Women's Movement has taken a wrong direction, particularly in America...
...Indeed, some mill owners were enlightened men who treated their workers justly...
...If he chooses to keep a large chunk of his wages to spend on drink, cigarettes or gambling, there is absolutely nothing, in law, that the wife can do about it...
...it did "destroy" my traditional 10 o'clock (Central Time) news-show habit...
...And if men would like to see fewer women opting out of family life and competing with them in the job market, they should press for reform of the legal and financial position of the nonworking wife...
...If we really have a high regard for family life, why is the raising of children the job with the very lowest status of all...
...Instead of pressing for equal job opportunities, feminists should be thinking deep and hard about raising the status of the woman who works in the home...
...To be sure, the vast majority of women in England are interested in achieving real equality—and despite recent antidiscrimination legislation, we still have a long way to go...
...I hope the women's movement starts working along these lines here, in your country, and elsewhere...
...Despite Goodman's forebodings, this in no way would "dig into their most private values...
...In modern times housewives arc the only adults in normal mental health who receive money in the form of handouts...
...The sexes in your country seem to be in competition for dominance, regarding each other as rivals, and American marriages appear to lack a spirit of cooperation, the sort of quiet, easygoing, relaxed atmosphere one expects to find in a reasonably happy relationship...
...It also means receiving acknowledgement for whatever contribution she makes to society...
...These may be generous, and again, may not be...
...My uncle showed the same respect to my aunt, as does my own husband to me...
...But exactly the same argument was made by those who saw no need to improve the lot of mill-workers in the 19th century...
...An unmarried mother living on state aid is actually in a less degrading position as an individual...
...I see myself as a person first, and a woman second...
...And now I have to finish and run...
...On the contrary, it is seen as a sign that the two people are ill-matched for each other, perhaps that they are neurotic or have twisted values of some sort...
...It might be objected that if a woman is married to a decent and fair-minded man...
...An economic arrangement is one thing, whereas human relationships are quite another...
...NL, December 22) that there is something strange, even a bit sick, in the relation of American men and women...
...In the U.S., a similar argument was used to support slavery in the Deep South...
...Goodman observes that "within a household, basic power tends to he in the hands of the breadwinner, who is normally the man" —as though there were nothing monstrously wrong about such a situation...
...London M. Bussell Marvin, Marvin I would like to tell Marvin Kitman...
...But equality doesn't mean, to the average woman, joining in a frantic struggle to be a managing director of some corporation, or feeling hard done by if she is not getting her ration of orgasms (which, apparently, is the attitude amongst some American women...
...Marvin Kitman how happy I am to discover somebody else who appreciates Mary Hartman, Mary Harlman as much as I do (NL, February 2...
...I think it is a fantastic satire and I enjoy every word of it...
...He is so right...
...Were she his paid housekeeper, on the other hand, she could have recourse to the law immediately...
...The "fatal hour" is approaching and I have to turn on the TV...
...But who cares...
...Louis Renata Rotkowicz...
...She lives on the handouts of her husband...
...In England, certainly, we have married couples who strive to dominate each other, but this is not regarded as normal...
...I am surprised (or maybe not really) that it has not yet been generally understood as such...
...She has no fixed income of her own...
...This is most important in the case of the nonworking wife with preschool-age children...
Vol. 59 • March 1976 • No. 5
