LETTER: Brainwashed?

Jennifer Kornreich's column "Public People, Private Lives," (DP 2/25/92) left me unsettled. She writes, "Just because someone does something ethically dubious in his personal life does not indicate that he will extend his lack of propriety to the public sphere, where he knows the stakes are higher and he'll much more likely to be caught." There are two very frightening allusions within this single sentence. 1. The assumption that a Presidential candidate will automatically be male. At first I assumed the masculine pronouns were chosen for simplicity and clarity. Then I read on to discover Kornreich's archaic views toward gender in the workplace. 2. The assumption that a politician behaves ethically and works within the limits of the law simply so that he or she will not "be caught." What about integrity? What about acting properly out of respect for fellow citizens? The President is our equal, not our dictator. She said it herself: "This is not a totalitarian state." I agree with Kornreich when she claims that there are very few or no people who haven't at some point broken the law. However, a Supreme Court justice or a President should gain such responsibilities because of his or her extraordinary training, achievements and reverence for the laws which govern American society. Finally, it is my opinion that any woman so accepting of the secondary treatment and status of women in our society must see the system as working for her. But this isn't consistent with Kornreich's experience. She indeed has been victimized by a male dominated society, possibly unwittingly -- she admitted, even bragged, in her first column about her nose job and its monumental effect on her social life (DP 1/14/92). Kornreich contradicts herself when she criticizes the "P.C.ers" for making "correctness the focus" at the expense of the real issues, whose "healthy awareness and debate" she encourages. She is the one who continually misses the important issues, instead of focusing on the superficial. Break free, Kornreich. Realize that even you are the victim some of the time. The system doesn't work for you. It has merely brainwashed you into seeing importance in the superficial and overlooking what's important -- including the integrity of the man or woman who will influence every decision made on important issues during the next four years, abortion included. JENNIFER WROBLEWSKI College '95