What Feminism Does and Doesn’t Mean

Vicki Enscoe and her fellow “anti-feminists” (“Other Voices Crying Out Against the Feminists” by Betty Cuniberti, Oct. 2) might do well to stop a moment and consider what exactly “feminism” is--and what it is not.

Feminism is seeking equal rights, equal opportunities and, above all, equal consideration as a human being. Feminism is not “being one-up and on top.” Neither is it resenting men or pressuring happy homemakers into becoming hassled career women. Feminism is, above all, a commitment to freedom of choice in the broadest sense: a commitment to giving women the right to choose how to run their own lives--a right men have traditionally enjoyed to a much larger extent than women.

If Mrs. Enscoe used to be “constantly dissatisfied” with her life but failed to do anything positive about it for seven years, she never was a feminist before her “conversion” on Highway 10. Only now, having established her own values and living a life of her own choosing is she on the way to becoming one. Provided, of course, she is prepared to grant the same privilege of free choice to other women as well--even to “non-traditional” ones.

V. F. SABL

Los Angeles