‘FEMALE CLONES’?

I am responding to Linda Mathews’ derisive review of Suzanne Gordon’s “Prisoner of Men’s Dreams: Striking Out for a New Feminine Future”--specifically to her fatuous comment:

“Gordon’s portrait of corporate America as a place where relentlessly striving, emotionally detached male executives and their ‘female clones’ methodically suppress the masses makes me wonder if she has ever worked in a corporation (or perhaps read too much Marx).”

It seems that Linda saw herself in the reflection of Gordon’s “female clone” and so dismissed the author. I’m certain her emotional reaction was unconscious. Linda works for the parent company, Times Mirror, whose upper echelons included one woman at last count.

I’m not discounting the less “ghetto-ized” areas of opportunity for women such as journalism, nursing and teaching. However, the reason is not equality, but economic. How many teachers or nurses earn three-figure salaries?

Statistics from the Small Business Administration show that women are becoming entrepreneurs in increasing numbers over the past few years. Running the show is the only way for them to control their economic futures.

Women are often cited as their own worst enemies. Linda Mathews, in her distorted, unreliable review, perpetuates the centuries-old devaluation of the feminine in our society which ultimately and inevitably leads to children being sacrificed at war by old men.

It started with the myth of Abraham and Isaac, and it needs to stop . . .

SHAKTI KARLIN, LOS ANGELES