FEMINISTS.......FEMINISM

I even met Gloria Steinhem in a speech in Portland, Oregon. To me, at the time, she seemed reasonable. I said so on the public address system. Guys stopped me in the street in Tucson for weeks after with " aren't you the guy who stood up and asked Steinhem.......?"
     Yeah, I'm him. I had a lot to live down. I'm 74 now, born in February 1940, slowly fading down the trail behind the barn, and tken as a whole I've dec ided this feminist thing is a mixed bag for the culture.
     I don't like it. AS OF TODAY, young woman have been burped out the other end of the culture, rude. They are. Young women are not ladies as I recall.
    My mother taught me " treat every woman and give her a chance to prove she is a lady." So, I did. My father and I didn't get a long but he did teach me the basics. Don't ever hit your sister. Not ever for any reason, never. She was two years younger and a wonderful girl and love her still, two years dead and gone. My father told me you never hit a woman, NO EXCUSES. And I didn't .
     I digress. I watch TVs " The Five " on Fox and have a tough time with those women screeching at each other. Not feminine. The girls can and (use to) get the point across much more effectively without this combat between each other, let alone trying to scream over men.
    And the men fight with women verbally to do the same.
    Women do NOT have to act like men to be equal to them. I have a large photo of the late Marilyn Monroe in my den, the queen of womanhood, dressed in grey sweater and skirt, facing the camera. The caption reads, " Women who want to be equal to men -- Lack Ambition." She convinces me.
     "Feminists" who attack men turn them off, pissing off the very advocates they can recruit to their cause. My late wife Janet had a tactic that worked well with me and every man in the law firm she helped manage in Philadelphia. She was a beautiful woman, blond, blue eyes, tall, and when the room got loud, she dropped her voice to a low purr.
     The men quieted down to listen. ( Atta boys, she thought. Now, she had them) In moments she was passing out agendas, instructions, and what became an easy afternoon for a bunch of pushy, ego-driven Philadelphia lawyers. And one of them was used to dealing with Jack Kennedy.
     Today, one TV host - a lawyer - is proud of yelling during interviews and boasting that she can kick ass with anybody who gives her trouble.
     I think of my late wife, and her management of the world, the life around her ( and me ) and of people like Deborah Kerr, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn - where have the likes of those wonderful women gone?
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