LORD CHESTERFIELD'S VIEW

And Lord Chesterfield declared: "Women are only children of a larger growth. A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly, forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them, with serious matters."

What is remarkable about the state of mind these observations reflect is not that it is a curiosity from the reactionary past, but that it is a state of mind persisting today. Usually without realizing it, most men continue to think of women as splendid, troublesome, useful accessories. They go well with wine and song; they seem to have a knack for housekeeping; and their childlike interest in clothes, gossip, and sentimental stories deserves only the baffled smile of generously tolerant male.

Such is the prejudice women have been bucking for centuries. It shouldn't be surprising then, that some particularly ardent feminists have set as their goal an exact equality with men; that is there would never be sex discrimination, even if that discrimination amounted to a privilege for women. No more alimony. No more male door-holding. No more exclusion from the draft. No more anything that underlines a social distinction between men and women.

Well, it's possible to sympathize with women activists without buying the package insisted upon by their more radical fellows. Women, after all, have come a long way since 1879 when Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, the play that outraged society by laying bare the absurdly subservient role of wives in the Ninetenth Century. Still it was only 50 years ago that American women got the vote, and in England women weren't fully enfranchised until 1928.

The equal-rights amendment recently passed by the House of Representatives has been kicking around for 47 years, but at least it seems to be getting someplace now. Every male human on earth gives lip service to the proposition that women should be paid equally for equal work, and many of the old barriers against women holding more responsible jobs are being dismantled.

DIMINISHING RETURNS

The question, which the feminists have not articulated very well is at what point in the process of "liberation" would women begin to realize diminishing returns?

If fair-minded people agree that women should be treated equally in the job market and that the aspirations of women to make the most of their lives and intellects merit something more than mockery, what else can be done? Should the cause of equality be pursued to such an extreme that the subtle tensions in man-woman relationships are destroyed? Those tensions, after all, go far to assuage the travail of living a human life.

Even casual relationships between men and women are different from those between members of the same sex. And no matter what the more radical feminists say, the reason lies not in custom but in nature. Beauty in a woman is forever a distraction to every man she meets; he may admire her other qualities and respect her for them, but he is always aware he is not in the company of a man. The tension, of course, is reciprocated. A woman may be mindful that the man at the next desk is a proficient worker and an amiable individual, but she is ever conscious that he is a male.

If this is true, then how is it possible to re-engineer society so that men and women will be treated identically? It can't be done. But are women really the losers because of it?

Let me tell a little story. Some years ago a young, single man living in New York made it a practice to go alone to the theater on Thursday nights. About half the time he wound up sitting next to a single woman, a different woman each Thursday night, who had also purchased only one ticket.

It was an easy matter for the man to strike up a conversation and, after the show, to invite the woman out for a post-theater snack. Emerging from the theater, the man would grasp the woman firmly by the arm, guide her to a taxi, see her into it and then climb in himself. Without asking the woman her preferences, he would tell the cabbie the name of the restaurant. Once there, the man would tell the head waiter what table he preferred, and he would then proceed to make some strong suggestions to the woman about what she might enjoy eating and drinking.

With the logistics taken care of, the man would then settle back and converse with the woman about whatever seemed to interest her. Once they were seated

at the table, the man and the woman were indeed equals and the conversation took care of itself. The woman, far from resenting the man's control of the situation in getting them from theater to restaurant, was always pleased that that business had been handled by the man. As a result she quickly developed confidence in him while gaining confidence in herself-after all, he went to all that trouble for her.

FEMINISTS WOULD OBJECT

Radical feminists would undoubtedly despise the man's behavior. They would be happier if the couple discussed, in democratic fashion, what corner to head for to catch a taxi, what restaurant to go to, what table to sit at, and what in the world to have to eat. It probably would have been drawn by the time they agreed on what cab to hail.

It is not mockery or in any way belittling to observe that men and women, by nature, ask of each other certain considerations they would not ask of members of their own sex. A woman is no less "equal" for permitting the man to expedite the logistics of a date. Nor is a man contemptuous for assuming such responsibilities.

The feminists, when they hold their "strike" Aug. 26, would do themselves and society a favor if they made it a point to distinguish between economic sex discrimination and the natural differences between the social behavior of men and women.

That wouldn't settle the matter, but it would help bring the nation's fuzziest debate into far better focus.

[From the Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, Aug. 18, 1970]

RETAIN PROTECTIVE LAWS FOR WOMEN, ERVIN ASKS

Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr., D-N.C., who says he wants to give women the best of both worlds, is leading an attack against the House version of a constitutional amendment to guarantee women equal rights.

Ervin, one of the Senate's experts on the Constitution, has no quarrel with the portion of the House-passed amendment that would invalidate laws discriminating against women.

But he plans to introduce a substitute tomorrow that also would retain laws designed to protect women. This provision, for example, would continue to exempt women from the draft.

FEARS CHAOS

He said in an interview that if the amendment which passed the House last week by a 350-15 vote should be approved by the senate and ratified by the states, it would create chaos in the field of constiutional law.

He said constitutional lawyers with whom he has consulted say the proposed amendment-which has been pending in Congress 47 years either means nothing or would have the effect of invalidating all federal and state laws making any distinction between men and women.

On Ervin's motion, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to take testimony from constitutional authorities and explore all legal ramifications of the House-passed amendment.

PLACED ON CALENDAR

But Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., had it placed on the Senate calendar without being referred to the Judiciary Committee for consideration. The effect was to put the amendment in position to be called up on the Senate floor at any time.

The substitute Ervin will introduce provides, as does the House-passed amendment, that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.

PROTECTION ALLOWED

But it also specifically exempts women from compulsory military service and permits passage of any law "reasonably designed to promote the health, safety, privacy, education, or economic welfare of women, or to enable them to perform their duties as homemakers or mothers."

51-146-70- -3

Ervin contends the House version "invalidates all acts of Congress and all' state laws making any distinctions between men and women, including a multitude of laws which are reasonably designed to afford necessary protection to women."

He said these include laws making a husband primarily responsible for the support of his wife and children, securing dowery and other property rights to women, barring women from hazardous jobs, and requiring separate restrooms and segregation of men and women in jails.

Senator ERVIN. We have two distinguished witnesses today, and despite the fact that it might offend, to some slight degree, the Housepassed equal rights amendment, I am going to extend to the lady who is present the opportunity of testifying before the gentlemen, so I will now call on Mrs. Myra Wolfgang, vice president, Hotel & Restaurant Employees, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, as our first witness, and Mrs. Wolfgang, we are delighted to welcome you to the committee.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MYRA WOLFGANG, DETROIT, VICE PRESIDENT, HOTEL & RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES, MICHIGAN, OHIO, KENTUCKY, WEST VIRGINIA; SECRETARY-TREASURER, DETROIT HOTEL & RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES; MICHIGAN WOMEN'S COMMISSION

Mrs. WOLFGANG. Thank you, Senator.

My name is Myra K. Wolfgang. I reside in the city of Detroit, State of Michigan, and am represented in this body by Senator Philip Hart. I am sorry he isn't here. I am the vice president of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union, AFLCIO, and secretary-treasurer of its Detroit Local No. 705. I am a member of the Michigan State Minimum Wage Board and I have served on the mayor's committee of human relations. I am, presently, a member of the Michigan Women's Commission (the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women), the first such State commission to be organized, and I have been appointed commissioner by the past three Governors of our State. I agree these credentials aren't as imposing as the judge from North Carolina. I am not a legal expert. I certainly can't interpret the law as would Paul Freund, but I think my credentials do qualify me to speak on behalf of the working women of America.

I am opposed to the enactment of the equal rights amendment to our Constitution. I state my position after long and careful consideration, in spite of the fact that we find sex prejudice parading in the cloth of tradition everywhere. We are aware that it is tailored to the patterns of ignorance and special interest.

The principle of equal pay for equal work is being violated throughout the breadth and length of this Nation. Women are being discriminated against unjustly in hiring and in promotion. Our social security laws remain discriminatory. Equal access to our educational institutions is still denied women. Qualified women are, in the main, excluded from the policymaking bodies of this Nation from the Cabinet down to our county institutions.

Fully aware of all of the inequities visited upon the women of America, I still appear here today to oppose the equal rights amend

ment. I believe that the amendment is not only undemocratic and its effect will bring frustration and tragedy, but that it will accomplish the exact opposite its proponents claim it will do.

I think it can be safely stated that any law which adversely affects the majority of the people of this country is undemocratic in concept and should not be adopted. The equal rights amendment in its Housepassed form, now under your consideration as Senate Joint Resolution 61, should be defeated or the adverse effects removed from its provisions before passage. A simple enough syllogism from which my testimony will flow.

My major premise includes not just the concept of women being the majority of this country, as indeed we are, it includes in that concept, the vast majority of men, our counterparts in their roles as fellow human beings and citizens, husbands and fathers, fellow workers and associates. Their welfare is so intricately tied up with what adversely affects the women of America in matters of this character, we are all indivisible. I intend to discuss the undemocratic concept of the mendment itself, its philosophy and the damage its passage would create. As to my minor premise, my testimony is directed at proving the adverse effects of the passage of the amendment, covering not only the sociological field, but the economic and political fields as well. The conclusion is inescapable.

In less than 6 years, our country will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In 1987, we will also celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of our Constitution. Quite a pair of documents. You, the Judiciary Committee of the highest legislative body, provided for by that Constitution, now sit to determine the fate of an amendment to that very Constitution. Your considerations are being made in one of the most tempestuous times in our 200-year history. Seldom, if ever, has a Judiciary Committee been presented with so difficult a decision. I am sure you are fully aware of the fact that it is our Constitution, the most precious document we possess, that you are being asked to change. Not that I am necessarily opposed to change, per se, but I would hesitate to change the orbit of our world in order to get rid of smog. That the proposed change in our Constitution is submitted on the grounds that the substantive nature of the amendment will expand the equality concept of that instrument makes it all the more serious. For the fabric of our democratic concept is stitched together with the thread of equality. The fact that you consider this matter in the tumult of sexual confrontation that reaches into the homes of every American, makes your decision of all the more import. It's not a pot that you are about to tinker with. It is the needs and the wants of the overwhelming portion of the women of America. This is their special stake in the Constitution.

Until last week, I had many grave misgivings about the outcome of this legislation. I had seen the equal rights amendment run through the House of Representatives like a herd of stampeding cattle on a discharge petition maneuver. Never have so few business and professional women been so effective and done such harm. The hysteria created by bra-burning and other freak antics is not a justification for the action taken by the House of Representatives, nor is the fear of political reprisal. Let me assure you the threat is not borne of

reality. It must have been this same type of hysteria that created the conditions for the passage of the Volstead Act. But now that the dust has settled and we begin to look around at the damaged past, the damaged present and the damaged future, more seasoned hands seem

to be in the saddle.

Even though I appear here before you in by various capacities, capacities not usually associated by chauvinistic males with philosophical legislative considerations, I want you to know the women of America are not unaware of what Government is, what it means and what it should mean. We grow more aware daily. We know the theory around which our Constitution was conceived. Abigail Adams is not the only woman who had or has ideas about its structure, or about man's predilection for tyranny in designing laws. Molly Pitcher knew that we threw off the yoke of oppression with these words "we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal" comma, not period, for she knew that the Declaration of Independence continued on to further define equal with "that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And Martha Wayles Jefferson knew that her husband in penning the Virginia Declaration of Rights had written "that all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring safety."

Yes, Dolly Madison knew, as I know, that our Constitution was based upon the best of man's thinking down through the ages. We know that the very foundation of all government worth having, is predicated upon laws designed to protect the unequal, those who are smaller and less strong from those who are larger and stronger.

We know that this concept is as American as squash and chitlins. We know that the Book said "So God created man in His own image, male and female created He them." The Book also says "at the end of every 7 years thou shalt make a release." That debts shall be cancelled that men may be brought back to equal. That it says "if there be among you a poor man, thou shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need." That's the great legal equalizer. That all shall stand equal before God "from the least of them unto the greatest."

The primitive Israelite knew that all are created to be equal, that all are not of the same capacity, talent or ability, but that society shall make covenant and enact laws which shall protect those of lesser stature, no matter what the difference.

We know, as did Mrs. William Blount, and the wife of Hu Williamson know that John Locke had written that the rights of the individual was to liberty and equality. He reasoned in his second treatise on civil government that "When any number of men have, by their consent made a community, they have made that community one body with the power to act as one body, by the determination of the majority. They unite for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates." The goal of maintaining the concept of natural equality, was the prime internal function of that society.

The very basis of government is therefore to give equality by its laws and rules and regulations. John Rutledge and Patrick Henry repeatedly preached that the women in the drawing rooms of Phila