Women’s Movement

* Re “MacKinnon Does Not Speak for Me,” Column Left, Feb. 9:

Ruth Rosen should know better. The women’s movement is not monolithic. No one decides what subject the entire movement should work on. Each woman works on the area of interest to her; which means that Catherine MacKinnon works on pornography. This does not mean that the women’s movement “has been derailed.”

Thousands contribute to “Emily’s List,” hundreds of thousands march and work for choice, hundreds work with battered women, with legislators, on child care, child abuse, sexual harassment, etc. Believe me, there is enough anguish for each woman in the movement to have plenty to choose from. Why shouldn’t MacKinnon have the same right?

And what gives Rosen the right to decide on the preeminent issue for all of us? Of course, poverty issues are important. And thousands of women work on those issues. But other feminists may work on art or performance or writing; and their contributions are important and welcome, too.

Get real, Dr. Rosen. The women’s movement is not a dictatorship. You, as a historian, should know that.

SHIRLEY BERNARD

Fullerton