Women's Issue

Sir / Re "The American Woman" [March 20]: congratulations! You have stated our case with realism, legitimacy, statistics, and sanity.

GAIL BASKIN

Cincinnati

Sir / Some of the women, all of the TIME. All of the women, some of the TIME.

Please never again all of the women, all of the TIME.

JEANNE MCNALLY

La Jolla, Calif. Sir (or Ms.) / Female chauvinist pigs!!

JOHN F. MCGRATH

Boulder, Colo.

Sir / Your issue on Women's Lib should be used as a bible by those who are trying to correct inequalities to women. Publicity for Women's Lib has been unfair. Through frivolous publicity, emphasis has been placed on silly demands which completely obscure the real and serious issues.

EDWARD LYSEK

Chicopee, Mass.

Sir / I found your issue of March 20 from start to finish an absolute and utter bore.

GRAHAM BARKHAM

Larchmont, N.Y.

Women's Gallery

Sir / "A Gallery of American Women" tells the success stories of eight white women and the failure story of one black woman. What was the point? To show us that white women can successfully cope and black women cannot? There are thousands of black women who are success stories, and thousands who are coping successfully (yes, even some on welfare).

I am a black woman who usually gives you high marks for integrity and fair play, but this time your insensitivity to Betty Jackson, and black women in general, is showing.

ROSETTA B. MOORE Columbus

Home v. Job

Sir / Professional ambitions and the desire to perform social services are commendable, but I cannot accept the idea that working outside the home is necessarily better than working in it. I worked seven years before I was married (I was the first industrial diamond-powder saleswoman in the U.S.) and dreamed of a time when I would have enough leisure to pursue a wide range of interests: academic subjects, painting, photography, poetry writing, reading, tennis.

In 25 years of marriage, constant examination and evaluation of my husband's life (he is an advertising man) has not led me to believe that his life is more satisfying than mine. His days are long and arduous, stressful, hectic, immensely tiring and relatively confined to one track. By contrast, I have been free to pursue my college career to graduation, become a published writer, a portrait photographer, a reasonably accomplished painter, and even a mediocre tennis player. No one in our house has ever been a slave, least of all me.

MRS. IRVING A. PINSKY

Los Angeles

Sir / I have a question for Gloria Steinem: How many times in her job has she felt frustrated? Although I am now a full-time housewife, less than a year ago I was a working wife. I had one of nursing's "glamour" jobs in the intensivecare unit of a hospital. The demands of the job were emotionally satisfying. Yet at times I felt another disaster would make me leave.

The purpose of this letter is just to inform the housewives who wonder what it would be like to hold down a full-time job that although the grass may seem greener, there is just as much frustration and monotony at times.

EILEEN M. RETTIG

Eglin A.F.B., Fla.

Sir / Thanks, TIME. Though an English major in college, I have always wanted to be a welder, and there now seems to be hope for the homemaker to break out and into a new career.

Not that the life of an ordinary house-husband is unrewarding. Now that I have mastered my mother's frozen-food recipes, ring around the collar and thread around the Singer bobbin, the Ms. seems reasonably happy in the home she comes home to. Perhaps I could vacuum days and weld nights.

Heavens, that's her Mercedes coming; my beds are still airing and I haven't started the meat loaf. If only she would take me out to dinner, but she's always too tired. And although she is a good provider, I have nothing to wear but these old blue jeans I was married in.

JOHN T. MCCUNE Menasha, Wis.

Sir / What about the American woman who has the self-possession to take pride in giving to her family, even though it means feeding a screaming child at 3 in the morning and then waking up at 6 to make breakfast for her husband? Perhaps she is the most liberated of all.

LESTER M. HADDAD, M.D.

Arlington Hospital Arlington, Va.

Cover Artist

Sir / You chose a man to construct the cover

for the special issue "The American Woman."

That choice not only casts doubt on the sincerity of your efforts on behalf of women, but it has resulted in a work of art that heavily reinforces the stereotype of the "female mind" preoccupied with weddings and cookery.

VICKI KIRSCHBAUM

Plainview, N.Y.

Sir/Your own report said that 75% of art-school students are women. Could not one female artist be found qualified for that desirable cover commission?

ANN CARTER

Chicago

Ms-ery

Sir / (TIME is male?)

So TIME "believes that Miss and Mrs. convey valid information," does it? I am usually addressed as Mrs. Boal. What valid information does that give you? That I am married? That I was once legally married? That I am a common-law wife? That I have children? That my children are legitimate? I might be married with children and be generally addressed Miss because of my profession.

Why should any of us, male or female, identify ourselves in terms of our relationships with the opposite sex? It so happens that I am divorced, with children, and for me, as for many divorced women, neither Miss nor Mrs. is right.

MS. KATHRYN G. BOAL

Larchmont, N.Y.

Sir / I am curious to know what "valid information" you derive from my signature--if I may be forgiven for the fact that "Mrs." makes an ill-mannered signature (Emily Post).

Does my name lead you to some assumption about my physical condition? Now really! Even if verifiable, what business is it of yours? Have I a living husband named Mr. Carlyle Otto? Have I a dead husband named Mr. Carlyle Otto? Have I a living husband named Mr. William Otto and a dead husband named Mr. George Carlyle? Have I a living ex-husband named Mr. Otto Otto and a dead husband named Mr. Carlyle? Was I married to Mr. Carlyle Otto first, being now divorced from subsequent husband Walters (acceptable to Emily Post)? Or have I (also by her rule) a living ex-husband named Mr. Otto, my maiden name having been Miss Louise Carlyle? Perhaps I have two dead husbands, a living ex-husband named Walters, a living husband named Mr. James Otto, and my own given name of Carlyle! Have I a living husband named Mr. Otto with whom I am not living? Am I living with a Mr. Otto to whom I have never been married? Or was once? Is Mr. Otto, living, husband or ex, good for my debts (if he can be found)? Is the estate of Mr. Otto, dead, good for my debts? Am I liable for his? Or does Otto, living or dead, married or unmarried, to me or anyone else, have anything whatever to do with my debts? Perhaps this guy Walters . . .

And once you have closed your eyes and pointed a blind finger to select a "valid" conclusion, what, by God, are you going to do with it?

MRS. CARLYLE OTTO

Kansas City, Mo. P.S. Answer is none of the above.

Sir / Here's a more precise appellation to differentiate between single and married men: You can use Mister for single men and Stupid for married ones. (It can be abbreviated as Stp.)

STP. JOHN VASSILES

Jamaica, N.Y.

Sir / May I suggest Mr. and Mrr. (pronounced Murr).

M. GEORGE HADDAD

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Sir / Why not bring back the designation Master for unmarried men and retain the Mr. for married men. Women's Libbers should like the idea of a man losing the title of Master upon becoming married.

WILLIAM A. CRUME

St. Louis, Mo.

Bad Taste

Sir / Julie Eisenhower's expose of Mrs. Nixon's teetotaling secret during her recent China sojourn [March 20] was a display of extremely bad international manners. Our initial overtures toward our Eastern neighbor could hardly be enhanced by such an insensitive statement.

MRS. PETER CHARUBAS

Cumberland, Md.

Continued Challenge

Sir / The issue on women was inspiring, but perhaps the best indication of the struggle ahead may be found in the Milestones section. Of five entries, four concerned men; the fifth dealt with a woman identified by reference to a man, her grandfather Franco, and portrayed in the traditional matrimonial role. Ours is still a society in which men are allowed to make the milestones. Therein lies the challenge.

ELLEN PARKER HANLIN SHARON K. MARTIN

Washington, D.C.

No Nude Scenes

Sir / Concerning the National Enquirer story [Feb. 21]: sorry--the leopard has only changed half its spots if their story on Howard Hughes (which included me) is any example.

I was never interviewed by these gentlemen, and much of their little story is a complete lie. There were never any nude scenes shot during or after a day's shooting. I have never posed in the nude above or below the waist.

Like Lucifer, publications of this ilk tell a little truth and slip the lies in like chopped liver in a sandwich. The gullible don't know they've been had till they get sick.

JANE RUSSELL

Los Angeles

Correction

Sir / I read concerning my interview with Jerrold Schecter [March 20] this sentence: "China is trying to isolate its No. 1 enemy, Russia." I never said that China was trying to isolate Russia. I said that China very legitimately owed it to itself to get out of isolation.

PRINCE NORODOM SIHANOUK

Peking

Address Letters to TIME, Time & Life Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, N.Y. 10020

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