I go back to the example of a woman I know, whose uncle worked for the railways and went to Japan to help rebuild them after the war. He used to say, "There are good Japanese, and bad Japanese. There are kind Japanese, and cruel Japanese." I believe that people hold people of a different ethnicity, the opposite sex or a different gender to a different standard to which they hold those like themselves. I revert to the example of the woman's uncle, some men who were POWs under the Japanese hated all Japanese, even if there was a guard who treated them humanely, if not kindly. There was an Australian doctor, Captain Rowley Richards, who was a POW in Japan, and for some of what he saw and experienced, he would have been justified in feeling that way, but he didn't. He had two Japanese Army doctors with whom he could work, with whom he developed lifelong friendships. He travelled to Japan frequently after the war.

Men hold women to different standards to which they hold other men. I mean, there are men who supported the orange-haired misogynist who was in the White House for four years, who, this week, was found to have been a sexual predator after a civil trial. But then again, I know some women who think the orange-haired misogynist is great.

My father worked with a woman who wasn't a pleasant woman. A little bit of authority saw her believe things were beneath her and she was unafraid to use her sexuality to achieve her objectives. My parents have cited her to make points, but I say to her that I had a female deputy principal in high school who, if you were sent to her for smoking, for example, would blast you skyward (I remember, one overcast Wednesday morning, in October, 1987, I went to collect the roll, and she was blasting a student for doing just that), but if you were sent to her for not doing your homework, and you broke down in tears and told her that you hadn't done your homework because your father had come home drunk and started belting your mother and she stabbed him in self-defense, she'd make you a cup of strong tea with extra sugar and give you a blanket to wrap yourself in while she cooed over you like a mother pacifying a baby. She even, when the male acting principal became emotional, would be reasonable. For example, he said that he didn't give a damn if it was cold, if you weren't wearing the school jumper you were in trouble, while she said, "If it's cold, you may wear a different coloured jumper under your school jumper, provided they couldn't see it."