She is obviously not the first person to wonder why India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka had female heads of government before the United Kingdom and why all of them have reached that goal while the United States hasn't even been looking in that direction. McDonagh's data confirm our sense that modernity does not necessarily guarantee the advancement of women. If they choose to pursue a professional or political career, they have almost as much time and energy to devote to it as their husbands, thanks to the ready and reasonable availability of maids, housekeepers, and nannies. This is not, of course, especially liberating for the working-class women who do those jobs. In short, in more traditional societies, class may trump gender.
Exceptions are rare and hard to engineer.
Most of the high-achieving women I know, given a wife and a secretary, could cure cancer, bring peace to the Middle East and the Balkans, and learn to play tennis by next Christmas. Thank you very much for the thought- provoking, refreshing, and revitalizing perspectives in the Winter 1998 Quarterly. McCarthy Flynn '89 San Francisco, California Support for Proposed Institute Kudos to the Quarterly as well as all of the advocates and educators behind the concept of an Institute for the Study of Women and Gender. Ten years ago, I was the first person to graduate from Harvard and Radcliffe with a combined degree in women's studies and government. My research included a quantitative and qualitative case study of the Massachusetts legislature.