Sir, - John Waters's column of March 19th was bordering on the ridiculous. Maybe silly is a better word.
I presume the mother whose son asked why he couldn't grow up to be president told him that there have been only two female presidents in this country since the foundation of the State.
Presumably she also reminded him that he might become a cardinal some day, like the recently elevated Desmond Connell. The boy possibly noticed the powerful boys' only club at the Vatican. Maybe she even went on to tell him that the majority of world leaders and heads of state are male. Possibly this is why Mary Robinson treated the subject lightheartedly.
When I brought my nine-year-old son to the casualty department of Tallaght Hospital last week to have an injury to a finger looked at, he wanted to know why he had been seen only by a nurse and not by a doctor. The young, attractive girl who saw to his injury was a doctor.
I suggest that male supremacy is alive and thriving. - Yours, etc.,
Rachael Stanley, Palmerston Grove, Milltown, Dublin 6.