Card games

Re “The gender card,” Opinion, Nov. 9

To give Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) credit where it is due, she has not been playing the gender card, the media has. That said, having the right genitalia is not a defining characteristic of a feminist. Clinton’s talk of the old-boys network and glass ceilings in the rarefied air of Wellesley College doesn’t compare with John Edwards’ discussions on poverty and healthcare.

The feminist position has nothing to do with making sure women are rescued -- whether by John Wayne or Sharon Stone -- and everything to do with working to ensure that no one needs rescuing at all.

Gretchen Adamek

East Hartford, Conn.

Susan Faludi is that most dangerous of demagogues: a delusional fantasist who is nevertheless articulate and convincing. She sees things that aren’t there. The political events she cites to demonstrate her “male rescuer” thesis have nothing to do with gender and do not promote weakness in women. But they do focus on the very real threats of crime and terrorism, which she ridicules as inventions of male politicians. May she never have to learn firsthand how wrong she is.

She sees the American public eagerly swallowing the male-rescuer myth in response to fabricated boogeymen. A more accurate appraisal is that Americans recognize danger and will welcome any leader -- male or female -- who displays the realism and toughness to confront it.

Clinton could yet be such a leader, but commiserating with a coterie of adoring girls at Wellesley is not the way to show it.

Bill Ireland

Ontario

Faludi says Clinton did not play the gender card in the Democratic debate or in the aftermath of that debacle, but instead she employed the rescuer card. Yet the debate was followed not merely by a speech at Wellesley but by her campaign’s release of a TV ad titled “The Politics of Pile-On.” What card would that be?

While we’re on the subject, it’s hard to imagine Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher or, truly amid the danger of today’s world, Benazir Bhutto adopting the role of victim or responding to a debate moderator, “You know, Tim, this is where everybody plays ‘gotcha.’ ” Those were not words that would rescue anybody, let alone herself.

Alan Dirkin

San Clemente