* I was there and suffered the full force of the beginnings of the feminist PMS movement. My first wife dove in head-first, literally, when the pill became available in the mid-sixties. She informed me she was her ‘own’ woman and could do with her body what ‘I want to.’ And she did. She told me straight away that she had done ‘everything she could for me and it was time to move on.’ And she did. Less than two years later, she was back at my door admitting that she had made a fool of herself – Would I consider reconciling? Nope. I had moved on. It was a bad time for me and has been since that year – 1963 – so much so that I’m surprised when people place the ‘ovary revolution’ during much later times.
* On hard times, I had a job once, I won’t say exactly what it was, but it required, shall we say, getting people to fulfil their legal obligations. These people, being somewhat disinclined to shoulder these obligations, would seek any means to shift or delay the burden. Taking offence, or rather, pretending to, was popular, as it brought, or so they believed, the relieving levity of righteousness to their side, and could even delay proceedings against them. One case sticks in my mind for its ridiculousness. I had to write a letter to a woman whose marital status I knew not, and so I decided, not unreasonably, to address her as “Ms”, confident that here at least, in this tiny detail, in this honorific address fit regardless of marital status, there could be no opportunity for the offending party to pretend to be the offended party. I received a reply in which, sure enough, the woman brazenly seized the opportunity to be the offended party on account of my addressing her as “Ms”. Her exclamation-marks came in triplicate: “How dare you address me as a ‘Ms’!!! I am a ‘Miss’!!!” Etc. Etc. Naturally in the office it had to be noted, drolly but rather obviously, that she was very amiss.
