MARGO KAUFMAN

This is one male who found Margo Kaufman’s “It’s in the Male” (Private Lives, April 1) an inspired piece of humor, making me laugh out loud at parts of myself and much of the male world around me. Certainly, nothing in its tone made me feel bashed or immoral. Like all good humor, the hyperbole had a good foundation of truth.

Most males, from iguanas and sticklebacks to ocelots and apes, have a much stronger tendency to mark their territory and take a confrontational position toward the world around them than their female counterparts. Sometimes it’s helpful to survival and other times it just looks silly. In the modern world some of the biological baggage we human males carry makes us look foolish more often than heroic. Evolution hasn’t separated us completely from our heritage, as we are reminded so often by the Donald Trumps and Hugh Hefners of the world. It’s not a much different situation for the female crying over the flat tire. For both sexes, with a sense of humor, it’s “tragic, but not serious.” However, evolution has given us the possibility to recognize and subsequently modify the expression of our biological heritage if we wish.

BOB MCGIVERN

Los Angeles