What does she mean, ‘We’? Are there not females who have won Guvernorship? What about the woman running the State of Louisiana when New Orleans was flooded. Are there not female Prime Ministers, Chancellors, Presidents? Have there not been female leaders in virtually every age and place?

It is well to distrust them, frankly, just as ‘we’ have distrusted male leaders who join the female ones in proving our distrust is warranted. A leader isn’t elected because he/she is trusted. Even in the most democratic of places, leaders ‘take’ leadership by a mixture of money, guile, bullying, lies and false promises – and destroying the credibility of their opponents. They win because half-wits vote. Maybe what she should be considering is not so much the past and present distrust, but the future possibility of the trust of intelligent people being earned by leaders. Is she up to that I wonder. If not, she is in majority company. I can’t see it happening either. (see my eyes roll)

Arnie in California carried the vote on broad shoulders that have sagged and sloped ever since. I don’t know how he appears to Californians but from over here he seems to be the Girly-man he decried. I am surprised there haven’t been posters in the streets asking if he shops at Fredericks and what his bra size is. (Do they make a 52 B?). There was a moment of hope in the MRM when he ascended the Purple Throne of Gay Capital of the world, a hope that he might turn the anti-fatherhood anti-male tide. Oh vain hope. All we have is the hope of fine weather when Ray Blomhorst and CRISPE and F4J have a picnic in the park to protest the continued feminisation of all walks of Institutional life.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars, and Arianna can carry forward a lie with the best. I am constantly staggered by the way even the most intelligent women, those that can see clearly in most issues, still fall prey to hyperbole, mendacity, sheer invention to make their case. Fear of success; Fear of failure, indeed ! Pay gap ! Oh her giddy aunt, spinning in the grave rather than at the wheel. She castigates women with a feather duster with her denunciation of ‘fear’, then confuses the issues she focuses on with trivia; mice under the table.

“…whether you stay at home or work – when they take the baby out, they put the guilt in….”

First the ‘We’ and now the ‘They’.

Who are these ‘theys’? She doesn’t mean women (gasp) does she? Heaven forbid. No chance. Not when there is a donut or a Black Forest Cake to blame. (Did I say Black? Wash yo mouf out, Amfortas). She’ll de blaming B.O. next even though Hilary is the one about to succumb to that contender.

She writes a good book, does Arianne. She has been a fierce critic of some of the forces working against the humane in humanity for as long as I have been around (crikey, she must be getting on a bit now) and I do appreciate her efforts. But oh dear, this book is aimed, as you said Denise, at women and girls and she lays on the female ego-stroking a bit thick. She lays on the trivia too, appealing to the ‘trinket’ mentality of those starry eyed girl groupies. Having a chap carry her bags is one thing; here you are carrying her books for her. You are a courteous woman, Denise.