Aint that the truth. i’m so sad my mom didn’t live to see it.

I am still in shock this morning that this issue has been laid at the feet of an individual contributor. If Klein had been attacked I would have understood better, but to personalize the issue of sexism and lay it at the feet of Frank just makes no sense to me. I don’t respect that type of meanness in men or women. Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager is a man. Many of the people on her staff are men. Is that a sexist issue? Sometimes I think that the charge of sexism is a dumping ground for other types of rage, and, in this particular case, I think it’s misplaced. Since wOw’s inception, men have contributed. To my way of thinking, most of them haven’t said much of real worth. Except for Frank. So, I’m asking, why go after him and not someone like Klein? And Ulla, as for Frank ‘s being “a little boy” and “sulking” - that’s just so far off what he wrote that I’m almost laughing. What on earth would you do if you were attacked so viciously? Fight back? That certainly would validate the attackers, wouldn’t it? If there are issues with the way the founders are operating this website, I think they should be dealt with with the founders…and not in this way. I honestly think there are other things going on here that have no relationship to any man writing on wOw, and I think those are the issues that should be discussed.

I have just finished reading this contentious thread and am flabbergasted. I have really nothing to add to Maurine’s and Lily’s postings, which, by the way, I certainly agree but I will say that in a strange way I feel that I am back in the playground of my youth where children’s needs, fears, loves, and hates were all being acted out there among the swings and the teeter-totters.

ALL of you are missing the point entirely. Hold on here folks. Frank is patting America on the back for having female and black candidates neither of which is new. This year there was no choice to have the traditional “white male” Democrat run among the last two standing. While I am moved and impressed with this along side Frank, I withhold the cigar for the actual victory of seeing a POTUS of colour’s moving van behind the White House. I see where you are at as a mere baby step towards healing the rifts of men/women or black/white. The fact that those battles rage on on these pages in the profound reaction of women that a MAN’s words were chosen saddens me. Or the fact that some people still recognize fellow citizens/comerades by their colour or sex. I will get a tear in my eye on the day people stop raging over what colour or sex someone is and simply give them the raspberry based on their faults or praise them on their merits. The founders seem to have done this. They would be guilty of sexism by NOT choosing Frank’s comment because he has no ovaries. THAT is true enlightenment. I applaud them for that. We all colour our world based on our past experiences, and we need to have compassion for those who are hanging on to anger, not at souls like Frank, but because of the fact that he represents something in their past that still upsets them. Go ahead and break out the champagne over this baby step towards breaking barriers. And then go ahead and stop talking about race and stop talking about women versus men, and just become people of compassion for all human beings. If America is a melting pot, then somebody better put the blender on high. Mix it up! And if you really want to do some good, go ahead and insist that this next President dust off that old bill sitting around since 1982 about equal rights for women and finally pass it. It shocks me that you all think that a woman could win the WH knowing that women still don’t have equal rights in the USA! Maybe I am connecting the dots in an odd way, but to me it just seems like logic. Bless you all!

Jackie - you are so right about the ERA. I belong to a women’s organization which was formed to pass the ERA and during the past few years it has lost sight entirely of that mission. Whoever is elected President will receive a letter from me in January requesting that the passage of the ERA be made a priority. Thank you for bringing up that bottom-line topic.

Forty-one years ago this coming October 25 I killed a Vietnamese man my age in a war that should never happened. I was a medic and we shouldn’t do harm but I did and since that day I have felt the guilt of my action and the sorrow that has never left me. After that day with Anne’s help I came to a way of thinking on how I would live my life: do no harm. This is my belief, it has been my belief since that day and I will never change that core belief. If my presence on the site upsets, causes anguish to one woman who has been abused, been the victim of the rampant sexism in this world then I have no choice but to leave. Were Anne alive she would have agreed with me whole heartedly. She spent years helping me to forgive myself over that one day. But she is gone and I have no one like her to talk with but I can only do what I think she would have affirmed with all her heart. I’m not running away, I’m certainly not sulking, I made a rational decision and I will stick by it. It’s me, the way I am, the way I am made up, the way I will be. Do No Harm. I have come to admire and yes love the women on this site and I have been bettered as a human by you. I can only thank you and say God bless. The following is my e-mail address if you wish to talk about any issue—but please, not about my decision. That is firm and will not change. Frank frank_peterson@hotmail.com