EDITOR’S PAGE

One evening last fall I took Ellen Levine, the editor of Woman’s Day magazine and an old friend, to dinner at the Mansion. The Friday night Mansion regulars were engaged in the usual rituals of jostling at the bar, dabbing at aesthetically correct dishes, seeing and being seen. Our conversation turned to the subject of Dallas women. I was trying to make the point that we are as intelligent, as street smart, and as driven as women on the East Coast. I recall saying something like. “It’s not that Dallas women are any less ambitious than women in New York. It’s just that they put it all into. ,.” And I paused. As I searched for the proper noun to sum up the collective psycho-status of the Dallas female. Ellen looked around the room and said, “Their hair. They put it all into their hair.” It was one of those comments that wilts conviction as surely as spring rain on a Final Net hold. When will the world forget Farrah Fawcett?

As 1 think back on that night, and countless other encounters with what surely are the most manicured women in the world, I concede that sometimes it seems that Dallas women have an unnatural preoccupation with beauty. Anyone who has gone to exercise class at Jenny Ferguson’s salon in Old Highland Park knows what I mean. There’s something deviant about meticulously applying makeup only to sweat it off.

Perceptions, like beauty, are only skin deep. But we have to live with the superficial judgments of others, and sometimes they can hurt. Women have been battling unfair raps since the dawn of time, and after two decades of feminism, the victories have been arduous and few. A recent Dallas Morning News survey of the most influential women in Dallas made that painfully clear. The women who have real impact on the policies and politics of this city could be counted on one hand. On the other, count the number of women you know who can claim beauty titles, and you have a list to be reckoned with.

To be sure, there is nothing wrong with maximizing one’s God-given physical charms. But we’ve learned the hard way that looks only take you so far. In what remains a male-dominated world, machismo will triumph over mascara every time.

Just look at the women who project our image to the world. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders play to millions of fans on national television and millions more on goodwill tours around the globe. These high-stepping bombshells are doubtless worthy of appreciation on more than one level. But to most people, especially to most men, the cheerleaders look best at the other end of a pair of binoculars. I doubt that any of these beauties has been asked to sit on a city commission or a board of directors.

The most pervasive symbols of female Dallas, though, aren’t the Cowboy Cheerleaders-who, after all, strive for an image of the American-girl-next-door. (1 promise, that’s what their director says.) Mention the name Dallas anywhere from Madison Avenue to Machu Picchu. and the women who spring to mind are Sue Ellen and Pam Ewing. Lucy and Miss Ellie, At least we don’t have to listen to the inner cravings and calculations of America’s Girls. With the “Dallas” crew, nothing is left to the imagination.

Witness this excerpt from a series on “Soap Cities” that recently ran in a British magazine. In an effort to explain “What Dallas Really Is.” the author had this to say about our women: “(The Ladies Who Lunch] gather every day at noon at the Mansion on Turtle Creek and any one of them might be Sue Ellen. Thick face-powder immaculate in the air conditioning, a full set of sequins and sparklers in broad daylight, they have come from the designer boutique on the way to the interior decorator by way of the child psychiatrist. There is not a man in sight….

“Dallas women only communicate with their men in bed and through a divorce lawyer. Whereas the men have all given up alcohol and are into self-discipline. . .the women are sozzled like Sue Ellen most of the time. At lunch, it’s French wine with diet salads. In the evening they are three martinis to the wind.. .before the charity partying begins. They leave their mothers-in-law babysitting and trying to build together a dynasty like Miz Ellie.”

Admittedly, Dallas men didn’t fare too well either at the hand of this ridiculous excuse for a writer. But at least the men were depicted as savvy, cunning money-grubbers. As women, we’ve gone from bubble brains who see our reflections in clean china to sexed-up sots who can’t even claim success in the traditional arena of family and home.

As irritating as these misguided assessments of Dallas may be, they are really beside the point of what it is to be a woman here today. Beneath the bow blouses and the blush-on and the silver beads, I sense a new awakening among women of all ages that transcends feminist causes. Women of my mother’s generation, most of whom were aghast at encounter groups and the ERA, are enrolling in computer literacy and creative writing courses, They have seen the hollow truth of the empty nest. Many younger women are struggling to reconcile the rigors of nurturing a family with maintaining a secure ego, whether through paid employment or not. Surely our efforts won’t be lost on the next generation.

Yet I wonder. I recently saw a display at my son’s preschool, where four-year-olds were asked, “What Does Daddy Do?” “What Does Mommy Do?” and “What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?” Most of the daddies “went to work.” Most of the mommies “made dinner.” But one little girl had the right idea. She said, “Daddy goes to the office. Mommy goes shopping. And I want to be a brain surgeon.”



Chris Tucker’s “Parting Shot,” page 176, returns to an important issue that always elicits strong emotion: gun control. We believe that local congressmen Richard Armey, Steve Bartlett, and John Bryant behaved irresponsibly in voting recently to weaken existing gun control laws. We find it hard to believe that the congressmen are responding to the genuine needs of their constituents, and we will pay $100 to the campaign of the first one who can produce five personal letters from citizens in their districts asking for less gun control. The letters must predate the April 10 vote.