It’s not a male thing

With regard to Gloria Steinem’s commentary on “The Hours” (“Self-Discovery: A Noble Journey,” Jan. 12), her condescending and arrogant fatuousness never ceases to amaze. While discussing the character of Laura, played by Julianne Moore, she says, “Some male moviegoers have emerged bewildered about why Laura wasn’t happy with just her nice house, nice marriage and nice son -- as if they would have been.” I’ve met a number of women who also found the character’s behavior perplexing, not because she was dissatisfied with her life, but because she contemplated suicide while pregnant as her only option, and never once emerged from the narcissism of her own depression to express to her husband or anyone else what exactly she was yearning for. Conversely, I also know a couple of men who found her behavior perfectly understandable, plausible and even sympathetic.

Such gender-generalizing has been a hallmark of Steinem’s work. After all, she’s the one who said that women needed men like fish needed bicycles and protested the war in Afghanistan, preferring to leave her Muslim “sisters” to suffocate and die under the fanatical tyranny of the Taliban.

Kario Salem

Santa Monica

Kario Salem is the Emmy Award-winning screenwriter of “Don King: Only in America”