Marks on Liberal Women

* Marlene Adler Marks (Commentary, March 8) makes a number of assumptions which are unfounded regarding “liberal” women. Liberal women and feminists are not “weary” and tired of their own agenda. Most women we are in touch with at the Feminist Majority are fighting mad at what is happening to the social fabric of the country.

Newt Gingrich and the House are acting disgracefully regarding children and those citizens least able to fight their heartless agenda. No feminist and very few liberal women will vote for a presidential candidate such as Gov. Pete Wilson who is unabashedly against affirmative action, which has helped women more than anyone else in our society. And it is not easy for us to forget Wilson coming out in support of the racist Prop. 187 in November. I think women will run, not walk, from the candidacy of such a person, whether or not he is pro-choice. We really don’t want to go back.

Marks’ entire article is a commercial for Wilson under the guise of writing about women--and on March 8, too, International Women’s Day. Tsk, tsk. (And for me, that’s mild).

PEG YORKIN

Chair, Feminist Majority

Los Angeles

* I strongly disagree with Marks’ comments. With the defeats last year of Kathleen Brown, Ann Richards, Mario Cuomo, et al. combined with the ascension of Newt Gingrich, Arlen Specter, Jesse Helms and Bob Packwood, women more than ever need to be politically active and vocal. Women who want to continue to undo 12 years of Reagan and Bush cannot afford to give into a perceived sense of weariness. If women were to “sink into neutrality or oblivion” now because they are “weary,” what happens in two or four years when they decide to once again pick up the mantle? If the Republicans win the White House in 1996, then we’re really in trouble and we’d better be prepared to accelerate the fight for women’s rights, starting this very minute.

MARISA N. PICKAR

Agoura Hills