31 JANUARY 2004, Page 30

Front-line feminists

From Irene Coates Sir: In your edition of 17 January there is a patently ridiculous article by Ross Clark CV is for victory — and for vagina'). Whatever is the female version of ad hominem (ad feminam?) has been committed by Clark to no uncertain degree. Trying to separate his reason from his rage, we find that he is spitting bricks about a group of British feminists who, at the invitation of some courageous Muslim women and financially assisted by the UN, are going to Iraq to talk about gender equality.

Who can possibly object to this? Surely only someone who objects to the possibility of introducing the first stages of gender equality into a society that enslaves women, commits genital mutilation and uses women as breeding machines. Why publish Clark's article, I wonder? It is built on sand, and worse.

Irene Coates

Blackheath, NSW, Australia