I've been "accused" a couple of times recently of being a women's Libber. There is something amiss or out of place when an active interest in the rights of women lays one open to an accusation of any sort, and I feel the need to articulate my feelings on this issue -- which is still an issue only in the most provincial parts of our country and principally with the "macho" type of man.

It has been my observation that only in those members of the male population who are not secure in their manhood and are not altogether certain of their innate superiority that the resistance to ERA and a natural equality for women reposes. Those who are secure in themselves feel no threat from recent advances in the women's movement, and those who actually are superior welcome the challenge from an additional 51% of the population.

I've been lucky in my professional life, in writing, I can feel certain that my manuscript will receive as sympathetic--and as critical-- a reading as it would if it carried a man's name in the upper left-hand corner. When I worked for an advertising agency, I replaced two men and was paid accordingly. When I passed the flight test for a commercial pilot's license, there was no easing -- or stiffening -- of the requirements because I was a woman.

I've never known that sort of discrimination, but I know many women who have and my sympathies are with these, my sisters. My sympathies are also with you, my brothers, who still resist the emerging freedoms of your wives, sisters and daughters. But that's all you'll get from me. My admiration is reserved for the increasing number of men in our midst who want complete human beings as their consorts, who welcome the metamorphosis and who enjoy meeting their female counterparts on a basis of equality and mutual respect.

Ginny Long, E TX Mensa Spectrum, April 1977