I HAVE long suspected that the greatest evil of our time is feminism and now I know it.

After reading the self-centred, hard-headed and acquisitive drivel spouted by Mandi Norman ("Let it be me", June 14), I tremble for the generations to come.

If every woman took the same view and had calculators instead of hearts, I doubt if any children would be born of loving relationships at all. Women would grab as much worldly goods as possible, revel in promiscuity, and dismiss finer feelings such as love, loyalty, responsibility, kindness and decency.

It is just as well that, years ago, women were happy to be homemakers, wives and mothers while men got on with building homes, finding food and making their families safe, and later becoming the world's philosophers, writers, composers, doctors, architects, scientists, navigators and fighting for its safety.

If there had been feminists around then, busily emasculating men and eroding their place in society, heaven knows where we would be now.

Heather Causnett,

Escrick Park Gard

Updated: 11:52 Friday, June 20, 2003