I note that bicyclists in the Bay Area seem inclined to claim the privileges of vehicles or of pedestrians according to whichever status happens to carry with it the greater advantage at any given intersection. At some risk of forfeiting all of my gender politics street cred, it has begun to seem to me that many women are disposed to opt for post- and pre-economic emancipation stances, again depending on which one confers the effective upper hand. For example, almost every woman who has linked her economic status to mine in the several decades since I attained my full growth has implicitly relied on me to pay the rent, pay the bills month after month in the event that she could not. None have ever paid the rent when I could not (although I've always contrived to meet that metric); all, I think, would have been scandalized had I applied to them for support; all, finally, would have described themselves as "feminists" without a trace of irony. Am I missing something?

cordially,

...it was suddenly all about money. I was unprepared for this; imagined that the issues were still emotional, but she'd gone way past that. I confess to being half-persuaded by the evolutionary sociology argument that relations between the genders are ruthlessly self-serving at a certain level. I'll go further and assert that in my experience women are far more practical, less sentimental in these matters than men are. Makes sense, when you think of it...

cordially,

I saw what you did there.