LETTERS
Girl talk
Sir: Barbara Amiel's article, 'The secret agenda of gender' (17 October), is the best short history of late 20th-century feminism that I have seen, and also the best analysis of the current feminist agenda. Miss Amiel correctly notes the disturbing fact that this agenda is extremely radical, yet has some- how been accepted as innocuous and main- stream, even by British conservatives, who ought to know better. Alas, it has happened here as well. Many is the time that other- wise conservative friends have tried to bully me into joining some 'women's' business, professional or political group whose sole purpose was to advance women, as a group, in a particular field of endeavour. When I have declined to join, on the grounds that I prefer to associate with people with whom I share common ideas or interests, rather than simply gender, I have been treated as reactionary, or accused of being somehow ungrateful to the 'women's movement'.
The most irritating manifestation of this new version of feminism is occurring this year in the United States election, under the banner of 'the Year of the Woman'. We women are meant to vote in a bumper crop of liberal female Democrats to show indig- nation with male Senators' tough question- ing of the appalling Anita Hill. (If you don't know who she is, believe me, you are fortu- nate.) Prior to this year, there has been simply no evidence that women will vote for other women just because of their sex. We must pray that many of the female Democrats lose, as a lesson to all politicians who would try to manipulate women in this Way.
Catherine Barr 333 East 56th Street, Apartment 9L, New York, USA
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