VIEWERS’ VIEWS

Press, 31 January 1986, Page 15

VIEWERS’ VIEWS

Misunderstood Sir, — I enjoyed Ken Strongman’s stimulating review of the superb Marilyn Waring interviews, “Power and Powerlessness” ("The Press,” January 24). Your reviewer seemed, however, not to understand an interviewee’s remark that she "was recently beginning to re-explore and enjoy the world of men.” Professor Strongman responds: “The men ... she begins to explore will

not enjoy her quest.” Yet if I understand correctly, myself, the interviewee was not even referring to her relationships with particular men. She was saying that with a secure grounding in the “woman’s system,” she felt ready to re-enter and struggle anew with the “male system” of power and privilege hierarchies. It is unwise for men, even professors of social psychology, to suppose that they understand fully the thrust- of feminism. Real meh will. struggle ’ humbly to do so, but we have much to learn. An introduction to alternative "systems” is A. Shaef’s “Women’s Reality.” — Yours, etc., A. MOORE. January 27, 1986.

Not forgotten Sir, — In his rather cynical review of "For Valour” (January 28) Ken Strongman was rather du-, bious that “ageing gentlemen” (to use his words) could remember events of 40 years ago. I should imagine that sitting in a bren-gun carrier, with your boots shot off by a shell that had also taken off the two legs of your driver would take some forgetting. Strongman’s remarks about the same men having "less than complete control of the disposition of their teeth” was in very poor taste. To me, neither funny nor clever. — Yours, etc., W. YOUNG. January 28, 1986.