Letter: Clinton the hero

Sir: Did he or didn't he? Is President Clinton guilty of asking for oral sex, again, or is it perjury this time?

Enough ink and air time have already been spent on the highly plausible Republican agenda, as well as the oft stupidity of an otherwise brilliant, exuberant, and economically successful President. What I will find interesting to observe is how this will affect the current social strife between American women and American men.

It was largely due to the female vote that Clinton won in 1992. There is a long history of women who find him not only charismatic, but supportive of their goals and their struggle. American women, as working wives, divorcees, jilted lovers, single mothers and striving career women, may not want to see the most powerful man in the Western world, who isn't afraid of a strong woman, fall off his horse.

At a time when the average American male has had his fill of feminism, equality, sensitivity and all the rest legislated into him, he might find it refreshing - he might even find it inspiring - that the Commander-in- Chief dared to ask for, and get, what most of them can only dream of. The danger is that a president who has been a champion of women could, overnight, turn into a hero of men.

MARYANN BARONE CHAPMAN

London W14