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      Should Gay People Seek to Be Seen as ‘Normal’?

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      More from our inbox:Domingo Germán, Simply PerfectTrump and EvangelicalsArt in Private Hands, Lost to Public ViewMissing: Younger Women’s Voices Amir Hamja/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As a Gay Man, I’ll Never Be Normal,” by Richard Morgan (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, June 25):Mr. Morgan just reinforces the concept of normalcy. Better that we just be ourselves, and ignore the labeling altogether.I live in a college town, and what I see every day is gender fluidity and sexual orientation boundaries continuing to be dissolved at a pace that middle-aged queers like me should find both inspirational and enviable. Young people today don’t care so much about the “who is normal/abnormal” space that the author writes about.We should not retreat from the many hues in our “rainbow” of people, including all those who dwell in the borders. We should neither spend too much time separating out the colors (as the author does), nor dig our heels into concepts of “true” or “pure” queerness.Young people aren’t normalizing queer; they are finding newer and braver ways of being themselves. Whether that means walking in a parade, or never doing it; whether obviously or imperceptibly gender fluid; whether in, out or through the back closet into Narnia; whether normal, abnormal, homogenized or wildly unique. Everyone belongs, and we should have a wide open door.James SeniorMarquette, Mich.To the Editor:Richard Morgan makes the mistake that countless individuals have made in equating heterosexuality with normality and being gay with … something else. Heterosexuality isn’t normal … it’s just common.Yes, Mr. Morgan, as gay folks, you and I are in a distinct minority. But why take on the burden of allowing others to categorize us as abnormal?Yes, homosexuality is less common than heterosexuality, but it’s entirely natural and entirely normal. Raise your consciousness, brother.Jim SkofieldWalpole, N.H.To the Editor:“As a Gay Man, I’ll Never Be Normal” was such a touching reflection of emotions I’ve long held myself. As a teenager I cried and prayed for the “normalcy” he described, but only now have realized that it was ease I hoped for. As a proud gay man I’m happy to have survived such a difficult and uneasy journey to adulthood.The Human Rights Campaign’s messaging for marriage equality, grounded in the claim that gay relationships are deserving of equal protection because they are just like straight relationships, did unmeasurable good for the community. But it was flawed in the sense that it set a requirement of likeness for legitimacy.We aren’t like heterosexuals; we often live and love very differently and across a wide spectrum. I’ve seen a shift in the queer community away from “we’re just like you” messaging recently, and applaud those who demand acceptance despite their differences.While this might not be the easiest path to tolerance, it’s the only path to acceptance.Austin RichardsChicagoTo the Editor:I do not agree with Richard Morgan that “L.G.B.T.Q. folks have a peculiar interest in normalization.” Whether or not he, or I, or any gay man feels either “normal” or “normalized” matters only to the individual.What seems much more important is that our legal, religious and educational institutions come to understand that a society composed of people of varying sexual and gender identities is, in the end, what is truly “normal.”David CastronuovoRomeTo the Editor:Richard Morgan is right. As a gay man, I will never be “normal,” even if I always wanted to be accepted like everyone else. I have accepted that truth now and have offered that up as my cross to bear.But I am grateful for the empathy and caring it taught me and for the kindness of strangers, and, of course, for my kind and strong husband.It’s OK to be different. Just learn to let go of the stress and anger it can sometimes bring.Patrick Sampson-BabineauEdmonds, Wash.Domingo Germán, Simply PerfectDomingo Germán of the Yankees needed only 99 pitches to complete a perfect game against the Oakland Athletics.Godofredo A. Vásquez/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Yankees Pitcher Throws M.L.B.’s First Perfect Game Since 2012” (Sports, nytimes.com, June 29):He had been so imperfect his last two starts. His statistics were ghastly. And before that, there was the 10-game suspension for being the poster child for this year’s worst sin: a pitcher with too much sticky stuff on his hands.He was a mere afterthought in the starting rotation, an asterisk caused by injury to others. Domingo Germán, hanging on by a thread.So Wednesday night seemed more likely a final chance, a last gasp at redemption rather than a ticket to baseball immortality.Maybe his choice of uniform number — zero — was prophetic. Maybe mere serendipity that he had his best stuff against a uniquely inept opponent, the Oakland Athletics. Whatever the cause, there it was, and there it will be in perpetuity.My most prized piece of sports memorabilia is a ball signed by the pitchers and catchers of the three previous perfect games thrown by the Yankees. Suddenly, that ball needs two more signatures. But I forgive Mr. Germán his transgression.Not good. Not great. Perfect.Robert S. NussbaumFort Lee, N.J.Trump and EvangelicalsIn an effort to consolidate evangelical support, former President Donald J. Trump emphasized his role in appointing three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Burnishes Judicial Record at Evangelical Conference: ‘This Guy Ended Roe’” (news article, June 26):Evangelicals’ support for such a morally compromised and ethically challenged individual as Donald Trump never ceases to amaze me. Their dubious rationalization for this — that he brought an end to Roe v. Wade — borders on the absurd, given that every Republican candidate running in 2016 and today would have nominated three “pro-life” nominees for the Supreme Court if afforded the same opportunity that Mr. Trump had as president.So why continue to support someone who has made a mockery of almost every fundamental Christian value and endorse such a deplorable example of leadership for our youth when so many others are available who represent those values so much better?Ira BelskyFranklin Lakes, N.J.Art in Private Hands, Lost to Public ViewTo the Editor:Re “$108.4 Million Sale Sets Auction Record for Klimt” (news article, June 28), about the sale of “Lady With a Fan”:Art sold to private collectors is often lost to public view. As someone who spent many years researching Gustav Klimt and his work, I found that your story raised critical issues about ownership and access to important paintings.When the philanthropist and World War II restitution activist Ronald S. Lauder purchased “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” for a record $135 million in 2006, he put the portrait in the Neue Galerie in Manhattan, where it has remained on continuous display.By contrast, “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II” is now in private, unnamed ownership in China, and “Lady With a Fan” is now in the possession of a private collector in Hong Kong.Klimt’s paintings show us the lost world of his Jewish patrons in turn-of-the-century Vienna. Some may applaud Sotheby’s record European sale, but art is more than a commodity; it is part of our shared history.When a painting is sold to private collectors for record millions, it becomes unaffordable to museums and too often inaccessible to the people who would appreciate its beauty and significance.Laurie Lico AlbaneseMontclair, N.J.The writer is the author of “Stolen Beauty,” a novel about the creation and restitution of “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.”Missing: Younger Women’s VoicesTo the Editor:Re “Nine Kansas Women on Abortion” (“America in Focus” series, Opinion, June 25):Come on! Of the nine women who discussed their thoughts and votes on abortion, the youngest was 37 years old. The other women interviewed were in their 40s, 50s and 60s!Why be so removed from the women who are the hardest hit subjects of the bans? You should have given readers a chance to hear from the many fertile women in their teens and 20s whose bodily autonomy is being challenged now.Lisa LumpkinOsprey, Fla. More

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      Taiwan Faces a #MeToo Wave, Set Off by a Netflix Hit

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      A torrent of sexual harassment accusations has prompted questions about the state of women’s rights on an island democracy that has long been one of Asia’s most progressive places.In the past few weeks, a wave of #MeToo allegations has raced to the very top of Taiwan’s political, judicial and arts scenes, forcing a new reckoning of the state of women’s rights on a democratic island that has long taken pride in being among Asia’s most progressive places.Nearly every day, fresh allegations emerge, setting off discussions on talk shows and on social media, with newspaper commentaries and activist groups calling for stronger protections for victims.In many ways, Taiwan stands out for the significant strides that women have made that helped elect the island’s first female president and bolster laws against rape and sexual assault, before #MeToo took off in the United States. But the flood of new sexual harassment accusations points to what activists and scholars say is entrenched sexism that leaves women vulnerable at work, and a culture that is quick to blame victims and cover up accusations against powerful men.President Tsai, in 2020, with other officials. Some of the earliest #MeToo allegations centered on senior members of her political party, posing risks to the party’s credibility with younger voters.Makoto Lin/Taiwan Presidential Office, via ReutersThe outpouring of complaints was set off by a popular Netflix drama about Taiwanese politics called “Wave Makers,” which featured a subplot about a female member of a political party telling her boss that she had been sexually harassed by a high-ranking party member. Her boss promises to help her report the harassment, and in an indication of how often such politically inconvenient complaints are ignored, says, “Let’s not just let this go this time.”That quote from the fictional supervisor became a clarion call, inspiring more than 100 accusers, mostly women, to speak out on social media, sharing their accounts of unwanted kisses, groping and in a few cases, attempted rape. They described the indignities endured at the workplace, including inappropriate touching and unwanted advances by male colleagues and bosses, as well as lewd comments. Some of their posts have been shared thousands of times.The stakes are particularly high for President Tsai Ing-wen’s governing Democratic Progressive Party. Senior party and government officials were among the first accused of harassment and of seeking to silence accusers, forcing Ms. Tsai to apologize twice for her party’s mishandling of internal complaints. The criticism runs counter to the party’s record as a champion of liberal values, which includes legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019 and granting gay couples the right to adopt earlier this year. And it poses risks to the party’s credibility with younger voters ahead of a presidential election next year.“The Democratic Progressive Party has regarded itself as the governing party that supports gender equality,” Fan Yun, a party legislator who is also a professor specializing in gender issues at National Taiwan University, said in a telephone interview. “The Netflix show was seen by others as a snapshot of what’s happening within the party, and it has brought about great impact.”A scene from Wave Makers. A line from the show about properly addressing a sexual harassment complaint, “Let’s not just let this go this time,” resonated in Taiwan.NetflixAmong the most senior figures accused of harassment is Yen Chih-fa, who denied the allegation but resigned from his post as an adviser to President Tsai. Taiwan’s highest legal body said it would investigate a complaint against a former chief justice, Lee Po-tao. Tsai Mu-lin, a high-level party official, has been accused of bullying a female party staff member into silence when she reported that a male colleague had tried to enter her hotel room.Mr. Tsai, who is not related to the president, has since stepped down.The woman who accused him, Chen Wen-hsuan, said she felt empowered to speak out publicly by the other women who had shared their experiences. “This movement has taught me that no injustice should be swallowed,” she said. “After all, we can’t just let it go.”Allegations have also been made against men from the main opposition party, the Kuomintang, as well as across Taiwan’s society more broadly, including in academia, journalism, and most recently, entertainment.Mickey Huang, a TV personality, apologized after being accused by a woman he met at work of kissing her without her consent and forcing her to be photographed nude. Aaron Yan, a pop star, apologized after an ex-boyfriend accused him of secretly shooting videos of them having sex, when the ex-boyfriend was 16, a minor. Local prosecutors said this week they would investigate the allegation.Mickey Huang, a TV personality, apologized after being accused by a woman of kissing her without her consent and forcing her to be photographed nude.Visual China Group, via Getty ImagesIn some ways, the #MeToo movement points to a generational shift in attitudes brought about by the hard-fought advances won by women’s rights activists in decades past. Taiwan’s younger generation started learning about gender equality in elementary school, as part of curriculum changes enacted in 2004, and have since come of age.But workplaces are struggling to keep pace.Taiwan’s younger generation has “a higher awareness of gender diversity and equality than the older generation,” said Wei-Ting Yen, an assistant professor of government at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “However, the workplace that young people are entering is still dominated by the older generation.”Lawmakers have pledged to quickly pass changes to laws to make workplaces and schools safer by holding organizations accountable for protecting victims of harassment. The changes would require organizations to track complaints and provide independent, third-party review panels if needed. Women’s rights groups have called for Taiwan to extend the statute of limitations for sexual harassment complaints, currently at one year.But activists also say more needs to be done to address the culture of sexism that underlies the misconduct and deters many women from speaking out. A survey by Taiwan’s labor ministry last year showed that only a tiny percentage of female respondents who said they had encountered sexual harassment at work had filed complaints. Activists and scholars in Taiwan say that men in power, whether they are supervisors in workplaces or police officers or judges, are often seen as sympathetic toward other men in power, and likely to blame the victim.This month, Lai Yu-fen, 27, accused a Polish diplomat, Bartosz Rys, on her Facebook and Twitter accounts, of what Ms. Lai described as sexual assault last year. She said that when she filed a police report, investigators asked why she had apologized to the diplomat as she rejected his advances, and why she had not told her family about the encounter. She said a defense lawyer gossiped about her to mutual friends. “I want to take back my own story,” Ms. Lai said in an interview.The Polish Office in Taipei, Poland’s de facto embassy in Taiwan, confirmed that it cooperated with the authorities. Prosecutors decided not to charge Mr. Rys, whose posting ended last year and who later left Taiwan. He did not respond to an emailed request for comment, but said on his Twitter page that Ms. Lai had sought money in exchange for dropping the accusation. (She said the request for money was part of negotiating a legal settlement.)To those working in Taiwan’s civil society, perhaps the most concerning of allegations are those directed at activists seen as influential leaders in the rights community. Lee Yuan-chun, 29, an activist, this month publicly accused Wang Dan, a veteran Chinese pro-democracy dissident, of pressing him onto a bed and asking him for sex in 2014. He said he was suing Mr. Wang.Wang Dan, middle, a Chinese pro-democracy dissident, was accused this month by an activist of pressing him onto a bed and asking him for sex. Andres Kudacki/Associated PressIn a statement, Mr. Wang said he hoped that the public would reserve judgment until a court ruled on the lawsuit. “As a public figure, one’s private life will be subject to more stringent scrutiny,” he said. “Through this incident I will pay more attention to this in the future.” More

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      The Trump Indictment: A Changed Landscape

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      More from our inbox:Our Failure to Support New Parents and BabiesThe indictment followed criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump in a hush-money case brought by local prosecutors in New York.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Is Indicted Over Classified Files” (front page, June 9):The indictment of Donald Trump heralds a new chapter in American history. His trial could come sometime next year during the Republican primary season. He will continue to tell his followers that he has done nothing wrong and that this is all part of a vendetta by the Washington elite.His followers will continue to support him. If he is found guilty in any of his trials, he will appeal. If he is nominated, the appeals process will play out during the election campaign. He could be elected and then have a guilty verdict upheld as he is about to be sworn into office.Mr. Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith serve as the protagonists in the first act of a Shakespearean tragedy. The full effects on America of Mr. Smith’s essential action will not be known until the final act.Sidney WeissmanHighland Park, Ill.To the Editor:Is no one above the law? We are about to find out. The stakes couldn’t be higher if the country hopes to remain a legitimate democracy.Tom McGrawGrand Rapids, Mich.To the Editor:The indictment of Donald Trump on federal criminal charges might improve his odds of receiving the Republican nomination, but it almost certainly means that if nominated, he would lose the general election.It may increase the sympathy and anger of millions of his hard-core supporters. They will give him even more money to run and turn out in even greater numbers in the primaries, but it will not persuade many, if any, supporters of President Biden to vote against him in November 2024.This is not yet a banana republic. The greater number of Americans who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 will continue to believe that this and future indictments are legitimate.Even if Mr. Trump manages to beat all the charges against him, he has been further disgraced by all these legal battles. And the effect of the indictments after the lessons of the Jan. 6 hearings will bring new voters, particularly first-time voters, to Mr. Biden.If he remains healthy, President Biden wins again.Allen SmithSalisbury, Md.To the Editor:Journalists need to get to the meat of the Republicans’ support of Donald Trump’s behavior in the classified documents case and ask them the following questions:Are you saying you do not trust the Florida grand jury, made up of ordinary citizens from a state that twice voted for Mr. Trump? The prosecutor presents the facts, but the grand jurors vote on whether to indict. Do you really think all of them are on an anti-Trump witch hunt?Why are you making judgments about this case when you don’t know the charges or the facts? It sounds as if you are advocating for Mr. Trump to be able to break the law at will with no consequences; do you deny that?Stop allowing Republican politicians to hide behind specious arguments bereft of facts or even common sense. They are spouting anti-democratic nonsense, and the press should be exposing them for what they are.Jean PhillipsFlorence, Ore.To the Editor:In all the discussions, among all the various talking heads, about the various aspects of this new criminal indictment, one significant factor has been overlooked.At no time, during any judicial proceedings, will Donald Trump ever take the witness stand. It will never happen.Stuart AltshulerNew YorkTo the Editor:It is vital that Donald Trump’s trial be scheduled to start no later than four months after his arraignment, so that the trial can be finished well before the Iowa caucuses. This can be done by actions of the judge assigned to the case immediately after the arraignment, setting strict time limits for all pretrial matters.Both parties have experienced attorneys who can promptly complete pretrial matters, including discovery and pretrial motions, within that four-month period so that the trial can end well before the voters have to make their decisions.Robert LernerMilwaukeeThe writer is a retired lawyer who tried many cases in federal courts as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney.To the Editor:Jack Smith, all I can say is thank you. Thank you for believing in our country. Thank you for trying to uphold our democracy. Thank you for your courage.I have tears in my eyes. You have restored my hope. Grateful. Stay well.Dody Osborne CoxGuilford, Conn.Our Failure to Support New Parents and Babies Shuran Huang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Risk to Mothers Lasts a Full Year After Childbirth” (front page, May 28) and “A 3-Month-Old Baby Was Found Dead Near a Bronx Expressway” (nytimes.com, May 29):As a midwife working with pregnant people and new parents, I found these articles — about increasing rates of maternal mortality from hypertension, mental illness and other causes and about parents charged with murder or reckless endangerment — heartbreaking.This represents the total failure of our society to support pregnant people and new parents. After receiving only rudimentary maternity services with limited access to care, new parents are turned out of the medical system without proper follow-up and support. Our health care system has not responded to the increasing challenges of parenting in the modern world, leaving parents and children to face preventable dangers.Patient-centered care in pregnancy and improved postpartum services could prevent the suffering and deaths through early identification of risks and swift intervention. Access to care is far too limited.There has been enough hand-wringing about our horrible statistics. We need immediate investment in maternity services, expanded access to obstetric and midwifery care, mental health services, postpartum care and support for new parents.How many more deaths will it take for us to invest in the well-being and safety of our parents and children?Laura WeilSan FranciscoThe writer is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.To the Editor:Our nation’s failure to properly care for expectant and new mothers and their babies speaks to a larger problem: Our health care system is siloed and focused on delivering urgent services. We treat pregnancy as an event, focused on a safe delivery and a healthy baby and mother, and our systems respond to problems only when they arise.There is a pressing need to address increasing maternal and infant morbidity and mortality — and the many other health issues across the country that are rapidly getting worse — by considering the entirety of factors that make up a person’s health and well-being. We need to spend more time upstream, creating the vital conditions that are key to good health and well-being, like a healthy environment, humane housing, meaningful work and sufficient wealth.If we increase our investments in order to create the conditions people need to thrive, we can build the long-lasting change that is needed to prevent many serious health problems. This is much harder than treating a single person presenting in the emergency room, but it is a much smarter investment for our long-term health and well-being.Alan LieberMorristown, N.J.The writer is chief operating officer and chief health care strategist for the Rippel Foundation, which is working to rethink systems that have an impact on health and well-being. More

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      Erdogan Pushed to Victory in Turkey by Conservative Women

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      In winning another term as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was propelled to victory in part by the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency — conservative religious women.Ten years ago, Emine Kilic, was focused on raising her two children at home in Istanbul when she decided to set up her own clothing company to help support her family.Her business, started with an interest-free government-backed loan for female entrepreneurs, now employs 60 people and exports to 15 countries, said Ms. Kilic, who has an elementary-school education. She credited a powerful motivator who inspired her to transform her life — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — calling him a champion for women.“Thanks to my president, I became the boss of my own company,” said Ms. Kilic, 38. She said she had voted for him for years and did so again to help him secure another presidential term on Sunday.To beat back the most serious political threat to his two-decade tenure as Turkey’s dominant politician, Mr. Erdogan counted on the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency: conservative religious women.Across Turkey, devout women, both professionals and those who don’t work outside the home, not only turned out to vote for Mr. Erdogan in large numbers, but also coaxed their friends and relatives to do the same. Women are also active across the country in his governing Justice and Development Party, ranging from activists who spread party messages among their neighbors over tea to the dozens of women who represent the party in Parliament.Since arriving on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, Mr. Erdogan has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesUniting these women and Mr. Erdogan is a shared conservative Muslim view of female roles in Turkish society, first as mothers and wives, second as members of the work force. In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector because he pushed to loosen those rules.“Voting in Turkey, especially for our community, is not only about electing someone. It is making a decision about your life,” said Ozlem Zengin, a lawmaker and senior female member of Mr. Erdogan’s party.For many conservative women, the bitterness of having their ambitions limited by public expressions of their faith runs deep, even affecting the children of those who lived through it, she said. That resentment also fuels the tremendous gratitude toward Mr. Erdogan.“Erdogan is loved that much, because he changed people’s lives,” Ms. Zengin said.The electricity between Mr. Erdogan and his female supporters coursed through an Istanbul conference hall during a women’s rally two days before the May 28 runoff. Thousands of women, some with babies or children in tow, packed the hall, clapping and waiving their arms to campaign anthems and holding up their cellphone flashlights to welcome him onstage.“Women are the most important heroes in our struggle to serve the country,” Mr. Erdogan said, to rapturous applause.“Women are with you!” the crowd at a campaign rally chanted to Mr. Erdogan.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHe reminded his audience that he had delivered on conservative causes, lifting head scarf bans and turning the Hagia Sofia, one of Turkey’s architectural treasures, from a museum into a mosque. And he made a new promise to seek retirement pay for women who do not work outside the home, garnering more cheers.“We will burst the ballot boxes,” Mr. Erdogan said. “Don’t just go by yourself. You must make sure your families, neighbors and distant relatives also go to the ballot box.”“The women are with you!” the crowd chanted.Mr. Erdogan’s loyal following among conservatives is rooted in Turkey’s history.Though a predominantly Muslim society, the country was founded in 1923 as a secular state. That gave the government oversight of religious institutions and the power to keep open displays of religiosity out of the public sphere.Some Turks treasure that secularism as a founding pillar of the republic. But it rankled many devout people, including women who felt that it made them second-class citizens. Some women had to remove their veils to attend university. Others wore wigs.In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMs. Zengin, the lawmaker, said she had worked as a lawyer for 20 years without being allowed to even enter the courtroom because she covered her hair.“If you were a defendant or an aggrieved party, you could enter the courtroom, but not as a lawyer,” she said. “It was incomprehensible.”Since Mr. Erdogan arrived on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, he has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites and consolidated more power in his own hands. Along the way, he pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.The restrictions were lifted on university campuses in 2008, and in 2013 four veiled women from Mr. Erdogan’s party became Parliament members, a first. Now, there are many more, and conservatives still thank Mr. Erdogan with their votes.“I feel like I have a debt to him,” said Eda Yurtseven, a kindergarten teacher. “I owe him a lot because now I can live freely.”Mr. Erdogan’s vision of the family remains conservative, holding sacrosanct the notion of marriage being only between a man and a woman, preferably with three children. His idea of personal freedom leaves little room for L.G.B.T.Q. people in Turkey.“We believe the family is sacred,” he said during the women’s rally. “We must take precautions now against these trends that are spreading like the plague.”Turkey’s Constitution grants equal rights to men and women, and its labor code bars gender-based discrimination. But women still earn 15.6 percent less than men on average, according to a United Nations report last year.Mr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIn 2021, Mr. Erdogan shocked rights groups by withdrawing Turkey from an international treaty on preventing violence against women that he had signed in 2011. Women’s advocates consider the country’s domestic violence laws strong but say that physical and sexual abuse against women remains common and often goes unreported or is not properly investigated by the authorities.Female political representation has increased during Mr. Erdogan’s tenure, and women won about 120 seats in the 600-member Parliament in this month’s election. Still, the United Nations report said, most women work in campaigning, communications or support roles, not in high-level decision making.Mr. Erdogan has been a pioneer in tapping the power of devout, conservative women in grass-roots politics in Turkey, said Nur Sinem Kourou, a professor at Istanbul Kultur University who has studied his party’s women’s groups. Many work in their neighborhoods, she said, spreading party views through informal meetings or religious activities while gathering information to feed back to the party.“The fact that the women’s branches are on the ground every week, every day means that they analyze society very well,” Ms. Kourou said. “That data leads back to Erdogan’s speeches on TV.”Those activists remain fiercely loyal to Mr. Erdogan and consider him key to Turkey’s future, she added.“We have to protect him,” Ms. Kourou said, summarizing their views. “Erdogan protects us.”That bond means that Mr. Erdogan’s staunchest female supporters tend to give him a pass on the country’s problems, including a painful cost-of-living crisis, blaming instead other members of his party or foreign powers.Woman at a meeting of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in Istanbul. He pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule. But his vast control does not bother his loyalists. On the contrary, they say he needs it to do his job.Mina Murat, 26, said she voted for Mr. Erdogan and his party because they protected her right to cover her hair.“My teacher used to wear a wig over her head scarf in school,” she recalled. “Women couldn’t attend college and couldn’t get government jobs because of their head scarves.”Now, Ms. Murat works in a clothing store geared toward conservative women, with head scarves in a vast array of colors and patterns.“Now we can dress fashionably and conservatively,” she said. More

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      Gloria Molina, Pioneering Latina Politician, Dies at 74

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      In three elections, she was a “first,” becoming one of the leading Latina politicians in California and the country.Gloria Molina, a groundbreaking Chicana politician at the city, county and state levels in California who was a fierce advocate for the communities she represented, even though that often meant defying entrenched political structures, died on May 14 at her home in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was 74.Her family announced her death, from cancer, on her Facebook page.Since she announced she had terminal cancer in March, colleagues, constituents and the California news media had been praising her achievements in articles and on social media. The Los Angeles Metro’s board of directors voted to name a train station in East Los Angeles after her. Casa 0101, a performing arts organization in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, designated its main stage theater as the Gloria Molina Auditorium. Grand Park, in downtown Los Angeles, which she helped bring into being in 2012, is now Gloria Molina Grand Park.“She championed for years to increase access to parks and green spaces,” the park’s overseeing body said in announcing the renaming, “as well as recreational opportunities that engage culture, support well-being and improve the quality of life for everyone in Los Angeles.”The accolades reflected her legacy as one of the leading Latina politicians in the country, with much of her more than three-decade career encompassing a time when few Latinas were in important positions.In 1982, after working on other politicians’ campaigns, including that of Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, who would later be elected to Congress, Ms. Molina became the first Latina elected to the California Assembly. She ran for that seat even though the political leadership of the Eastside area of Los Angeles County had already selected another candidate, Richard Polanco. She beat him in the Democratic primary and easily defeated a Republican opponent in the general election.A similar thing happened in 1987 when she ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council that had been created by redistricting. The political leadership had chosen Larry Gonzalez for the post, but she beat him and a third candidate to become the first Latina council member.Ms. Molina in 1984 campaigning with Walter Mondale, center, who was running for president, and Art Torres, a California state senator.Wally Fong/Associated PressIn 1991, she scored a political hat trick of sorts, becoming the first woman to be elected to the powerful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. (In 1979, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke became the first woman on the board when she was appointed to fill out the term of a retiring member.) Some 1,000 supporters attended her swearing in.“We must look forward to a time when a person’s ethnic background or gender is no longer a historical footnote,” Ms. Molina said at the time. “And this election is another step in that positive path to the American promise.”Ms. Molina, who served on the board until term limits ended her tenure in 2014, was right that her victory was no token; today, all five supervisors are women.Roz Wyman, a groundbreaker herself — in 1953, at 22, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council — once reflected on Ms. Molina’s “firsts.”“We had a saying in those days: ‘Can a woman break the glass ceiling?’” she said. “Not only did she break it, she busted it in every way that you could possibly bust a glass ceiling.”Gloria Molina was born on May 31, 1948, in Montebello, a Los Angeles suburb. Her father, Leonardo, was a construction worker who was born in Los Angeles but raised in Casas Grandes, Mexico, and her mother, Concepción, was a homemaker from Mexico. The couple immigrated in the 1940s, and Gloria was the oldest of 10 children.“She was almost like a second mom in the family,” Ms. Molina’s daughter, Valentina Martinez, said in a video about her mother made in 2020 for the Mexican-American Cultural Education Foundation. “She did everything. She would tell me that she would come home from school every day and make tortillas for her brothers and sisters. She didn’t get to have fun or go to after-school programs. She was always kind of doing the hard work, making sure everyone was taken care of, changing diapers, cooking, doing all of that. So she was a tough lady from the very beginning.”She was, Ms. Molina said, “brought up in a very traditionally Chicano family.”“The expectations were that you were going to get married and have children,” she said in an oral history recorded in 1990 for the Online Archive of California. “You weren’t going to go on to be anything other than maybe what your mom was.”But she told her mother that she didn’t want to get married young; she wanted to travel and work and get her own place.“She thought I was sort of nuts,” Ms. Molina said.She studied fashion design at Rio Hondo College, in Whittier, Calif., and took courses at East Los Angeles College and California State University, Los Angeles, though she did not get a degree because for most of that period she was also working full time to support herself, including as a legal secretary for five years. She joined in the student activism of the 1960s and early ’70s, demonstrating against the Vietnam War and for Chicano rights.One thing she realized, she said in the Cultural Education Foundation video, was that those activism movements were generally led by men and “really didn’t allow the women to have any role whatsoever.” She banded with other Chicana women try to change that culture.“We were Chicana feminists when there weren’t any around,” she said.She was drawn into politics, working for several prominent figures and, in 1982, deciding to seek the assembly seat over the objections of the male political hierarchy. She and her Chicana supporters knew it would be a difficult battle.“We wanted to destroy everything that they had said I could not do,” she recalled in the oral history. “Like I said, we always accepted the fact that we needed to work twice as hard; we really physically went out and did that.”In her career in the State Assembly, she told The Los Angeles Times in 1987, she prided herself on “being a fighter, one who doesn’t just go along with the program because that’s how the pressure is being applied.” That was certainly true for her signature issue during her assembly years — her opposition to a proposal to build a prison in her Eastside district, a plan whose proponents included Gov. George Deukmejian.She won that battle, a significant one.“She stopped the 100-year pattern of dumping negative land-use developments on the Eastside,” Fernando Guerra, the director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said in a phone interview.In the process, she earned a reputation for being tough and uncompromising that stuck with her throughout her political career.“Just listen to her talk,” Sergio Munoz, then the executive editor of the Spanish language daily La Opinion, told The New York Times in 1991, shortly after Ms. Molina won election to the Board of Supervisors. “Listen to her answer questions. You are going to get a direct answer, whether it affects other interests or compromises someone else.”Ms. Molina’s last elected position was on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, where she served for more than two decades.Reed Saxon/Associated PressAfter leaving the Board of Supervisors, Ms. Molina made one more bid for political office, challenging José Huizar, an incumbent, for his Los Angeles City Council seat in 2015. She lost. Mr. Huizar later pleaded guilty to corruption charges.Though no longer in office, Ms. Molina remained active in various causes. In 2018, she was among a group protesting outside an Academy Awards luncheon in Beverly Hills, denouncing the scarcity of Hispanic characters in films.“The movie industry should be ashamed of itself,” she said then.In addition to her daughter, Ms. Molina is survived by her husband, Ron Martinez; her siblings, Gracie Molina, Irma Molina, Domingo Molina, Bertha Molina Mejia, Mario Molina, Sergio Molina, Danny Molina, Olga Molina Palacios and Lisa Molina Banuelos; and a grandson.Professor Guerra noted that Ms. Molina, in her various elections, faced the task of convincing voters to choose her over another Latino candidate.“What she had to show was, of the other Latinos that were running, she was the one who was going to represent them better,” he said. “Her secret sauce was that she came across as incredibly authentic, and she was a populist.”“Her only interest, and it came across,” he added, “was the community.” More

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      A Generation of Women Named for Connie Chung

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      More from our inbox:The Dangerous Debt Limit DebateRon DeSantis, AuthoritarianForming a Community With Homeless NeighborsU.S. Role in Sex Exploitation in South KoreaConnie Chung, center, is one of the most famous Asian women in the U.S. Connie Aramaki for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “I Got My Name From Connie Chung. So Did They,” by Connie Wang (Opinion guest essay, May 14), about the many Asian women named after the TV journalist:It feels strange to know that there are so many Asian Connies out there, all close in age range in our 30s and 40s. But it’s a good strange feeling. It feels as if I have serendipitously entered a vast sisterhood, where the profound bond among us was formed by the influence of one woman on our mothers over 30 years ago.In my family, watching Connie Chung host “CBS Evening News” in the early ’90s was a family event. There were barely any Asian faces on TV at the time, let alone on a major news program. Connie Chung stood out in every way.“You can’t be what you can’t see.” When Ms. Chung came on the screen, my mom saw what was possible for the next generation right in front of her, far from the sights of Asian women working in menial jobs that defined my mom’s day-to-day life as a new immigrant.So when I suggested Connie as my English name, my mother liked it right away. “Keep it. It’s good, it’s just like Connie Chung,” she would say. With that choice of a name, my mom had poured all her hopes for me. Little did I know then that across the country people were being named Connie for that very same reason.Times are different now. There is a lot more diversity in the media and other professions. While we still have much work ahead of us, let us take a moment to celebrate this progress.Connie WuSan FranciscoTo the Editor:My daughter was adopted from Guangdong Province, China, in 1998 when she was 13 months old. She has no memory of the following story except through my retelling.It was a spring afternoon in the year 2000 at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C. My toddler and I took our places on the open-air train for a ride through the grounds.“It’s who you think it is,” the ticket taker whispered, nodding over her shoulder. Two seats ahead, surrounded by visitors, were Maury Povich and Connie Chung.Celebrity watching prevailed over scenery and animal sighting during that ride. Afterward, as a cluster of visitors lingered with Mr. Povich, Ms. Chung strolled ahead alone. But not for long. My daughter, rarely more than an inch from my side, leery of all strangers, let go of my hand and trotted up to grab Connie’s leg. Surprised, smiling, Ms. Chung lifted my daughter into her arms.Connie Wang’s wonderful article describes the surprise that Ms. Chung expressed when told: “There are so many of us out here. Named after you.” Something about that surprise, of not knowing her effect on others, stays with me.Anne TooheyChapel Hill, N.C.The Dangerous Debt Limit Debate Kiersten EssenpreisTo the Editor:Re “Ignoring the Debt Limit Would Be Dangerous” (Opinion guest essay, May 15):I disagree with my longtime friend Michael McConnell about the politics of the debt ceiling.Of course Congress has the power of the purse. But the problem here is not Congress as a whole; it is a slim majority in the House. And that majority is controlled by a handful of its most extreme members.The debt ceiling debate is certainly not politics as usual. It is a threat to destroy the country’s finances and its position of world leadership unless the Senate and the president give in to that faction’s extreme demands.Neither the country nor the Constitution can function if every choke point in the system of checks and balances is exploited for maximum leverage without regard to consequences. If one side is willing to wreck the economy unless it gets its way, why not both sides? If one faction, why not many different factions with inconsistent demands?The House, the Senate and the president bargain over spending in the budget and appropriations process, not through threats to destroy the economy if I don’t get my way.Douglas LaycockCharlottesville, Va.The writer is a professor at the University of Virginia Law School.Ron DeSantis, AuthoritarianGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has long been a presumptive but undeclared rival to former President Donald J. Trump.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo the Editor:The efforts by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to harass Disney for exercising its rights of free speech and to ban books from the classroom that do not support his political or racial beliefs are the mark of an authoritarian tyrant. They show that right-wing politicians are the perpetrators, not the victims, of “cancel culture.”Republicans should consider how they would react if a Democratic governor retaliated against a corporation for opposing a Democratic program or embarked upon a program to ban conservative books.This is not the sort of person who belongs anywhere near the White House, and this is not the sort of person whom anyone should support. Hard to believe that Mr. DeSantis attended two fine academic institutions — Yale and Harvard Law — and learned so little about free speech, democracy and American constitutional values.David S. ElkindGreenwich, Conn.The writer is a lawyer.Forming a Community With Homeless NeighborsIntensive mobile treatment teams meet mentally ill clients where they are. Chris Payton and Sonia Daley visited M in Lower Manhattan.To the Editor:“In New York City, Making the Invisible Visible” (The Story Behind the Story, May 7) yields a question: To what extent is the mental illness we see in homeless people the result of — not the cause of — their being homeless?Hundreds of people silently pass them by each day, turning away, ignoring a hand held out for a donation. In plain sight, day after day, they live in public solitary confinement, the sort that is now being attacked in the courts as an inhumane, cruel and unusual punishment that often leads to mental illness when used in prisons.A civic organization I belong to in Florida recently began refurbishing a public park, long known as the home of the homeless in our city, by organizing periodic cleanups by volunteers and painting a mural honoring a local eccentric woman, long dead.After a while, the homeless folks began approaching our volunteers and the painter, viewing the art and then striking up tentative conversations. One homeless woman turned out to be an amateur painter, and a small portion of the mural was turned over to her to design and paint.Within weeks, the homeless frequenting the park began policing it — picking up trash and chastising people who dropped it. And, most important, collectively and individually, some bizarre behaviors faded away, replaced by social interaction.I now wonder what the results would be if the public at large began acknowledging the homeless, even by saying, “Hello,” or “I don’t have any cash with me today, sorry,” rather than simply walking on.As someone who lived in New York City for 30 years, I know that the city is filled with visible-yet-invisible people and am, frankly, ashamed that I didn’t catch onto this notion earlier.Stephen PhillipsSt. Petersburg, Fla.U.S. Role in Sex Exploitation in South KoreaTo the Editor:Re “South Korea Created a Brutal Sex Trade for American Soldiers” (front page, May 3):As your article so painfully makes clear, the brutal forced prostitution of young and vulnerable South Korean women and girls was caused not just by the government of South Korea but by the United States as well.There is much that the U.S. can and should do. It should be paying reparations. The government and the armed services chiefs should offer apologies to the women who went through this and to their families.And those who are in charge of curbing sexual harassment in the military today should redouble their efforts as they grow to understand just how systemic sexual assaults and misogyny have been in the armed forces for so long.Jean ZornFort Lauderdale, Fla. More

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      Nikki Haley, on the Trail in South Carolina, Says, ‘Yes, I Am in My Prime’

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      Nikki Haley drew a rally crowd’s applause with a reference to Don Lemon’s remarks about women and age as she struggled to gain ground against Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis in the Republican field.Nikki Haley’s supporters are quick to repeat a theme that has become central to her campaign: She has been underestimated before.So when Ms. Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, recounted on Thursday evening what the former CNN anchor Don Lemon had said about her during a recent broadcast, the crowd of hundreds who had gathered to hear her speak erupted in applause.Ms. Haley, who has couched her campaign message in a call for “a new generation of leaders,” encouraged the crowd to “leave the drama of the past” behind — a thinly veiled allusion to former President Donald J. Trump’s administration. And she repeated her calls for term limits and mental competency tests for elected leaders, adding that she was willing to be flexible about age ranges.“We’ve got to make sure that these people are ready to fight — and I don’t care if you do it for ages 50 and over,” she told the crowd in Greer, in the northwest corner of South Carolina. “Because yes, I am in my prime.”She added: “God bless Don Lemon. I just want to say, ‘Who’s in their prime now?’”Ms. Haley, 51, was alluding to a moment in February when Mr. Lemon said that he was “uncomfortable” about Ms. Haley’s raising the question of age and mental competency among political leaders.Ms. Haley “isn’t in her prime, sorry,” Mr. Lemon said. “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.”Mr. Lemon later apologized for the remarks. He was ousted from CNN last week.The energy that Ms. Haley can capture on the campaign trail contrasts with her struggle to build national momentum.Meg Kinnard/Associated PressThe line resonated in particular with women in the crowd, and several attendees said they saw Ms. Haley’s response to Mr. Lemon as a creative means of pointing out — and making fun of — a moment of sexism.Yet, the energy that Ms. Haley can capture in a room like the one in Greer contrasts with her struggle to build national momentum in an increasingly crowded Republican primary field. She will most likely soon have to contend with the entry of a fellow South Carolinian, Senator Tim Scott, into the race, as well as with the two candidates who are garnering the most attention and the bulk of the support in polls: Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.After her stump speech, as Ms. Haley greeted supporters and took photos with them, Rachel Dankel, a real estate agent in her 50s who is based in Greenville, S.C., said she had told Ms. Haley how much she appreciated her pushing back on Mr. Lemon’s words. When she first heard about his comment, she said, “I wanted to throw up.”“I thought that was, to me, the worst thing that somebody could say,” she said. “That’s so degrading. You have men in their 80s, and they’re not over — they’re not too old?”Ms. Haley, who was the first Republican presidential candidate to challenge Mr. Trump in the current campaign, has aimed to separate herself from the pack by taking early stances on issues like age limits among political leaders. Last week, she suggested in an interview with Fox News that President Biden, who is 80, would not live until the end of his second term if re-elected.Ms. Haley has also raised money off Mr. Lemon’s comments. Her campaign website sells a beverage koozie that reads: “Past my prime? Hold my beer”Ms. Haley’s campaign is counting on her in-state bona fides — she was a longtime State House member in a district close to the State Capitol and the first woman to serve as governor — to bolster her standing in the Palmetto State. The South Carolina primary is third on the Republican calendar, after Iowa and New Hampshire, and it is the Haley campaign’s belief that her home-state electorate will propel her to the top of the primary field.And while she is polling in the low single digits in most national surveys, an April poll conducted by Winthrop University showed her with her 18 percent support in her home state, well behind Mr. Trump but within striking distance of Mr. DeSantis.“There’s a certain segment out there that’s very excited about her running, and then there’s the hard-core Trumpists who are mad at her for running,” said Chip Felkel, a South Carolina Republican political strategist.At the rally on Thursday, Christy Willis, 50, a teacher who is still undecided about whom she will support in 2024, said she had not heard about Mr. Lemon’s comments before hearing Ms. Haley repeat them on Thursday at the Cannon Center, an event space. After learning of the context, she said she had found the back-and-forth intriguing.“It does open a discussion about ageism and sexism and feminism,” she said, referring to Mr. Biden’s age. “He’s allowed to do things that a woman probably would not be able to do.” More

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      What Should Kamala Harris’s Role Be Now?

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      More from our inbox:Conflict in Montana Over a Transgender LawmakerWomen at Peace TalksMedical Assistance in DyingVice President Kamala Harris with President Biden at the White House in February.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Kamala Harris Really Matters in 2024,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, April 26):Mr. Friedman identifies the heightened peril of this moment and states that President Biden “absolutely has to win.” Having declared his candidacy for a second term, Mr. Biden needs to address age-related questions head on. Consequently, his running mate faces greater scrutiny.Thus far, Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t forged her own identity. By the very nature of the job, she is confined to a supporting role, but she needs breakout moments of not being a tightly programmed V.P. She must trust her own best instincts. Go off script. (Her handlers will be aghast.) Make mistakes and learn from them.After many years of being the consummate pragmatic politician, Mr. Biden seems to be more fully at ease in his own skin and seems to revel in the daunting challenges his presidency faces — head on with admirable grace and courage. He can free her to dare to do the same.Barbara Allen KenneyPaso Robles, Calif.To the Editor:Thomas L. Friedman is way off base in suggesting that Kamala Harris may be saved by giving her a variety of portfolios. She simply lacks the foreign policy and defense chops to justify putting her a heartbeat away from the presidency, especially when the president, if re-elected, would be well into his 80s as his second term progresses.The challenges posed by Russia, China, North Korea and others are simply too great to put a rookie in charge.Rubin GuttmanClevelandTo the Editor:Thomas L. Friedman’s column about a Biden-Harris ticket as a must win in 2024 is spot on. I disagree, however, with his suggestions for how best to elevate Kamala Harris on a national and international stage. Working on rural U.S. initiatives?! Ensuring our pre-eminence in artificial intelligence?!Come on! She needs to be in charge of those things she does best: passionate defense of social justice issues, including international diplomacy and equity for nations that are struggling with ruthless civil wars.We need Kamala Harris to develop and demonstrate her ability to both challenge autocracies and support struggling democracies à la Madeleine Albright.Judy WagenerMadison, Wis.To the Editor:Here’s an idea for the Democratic Party to consider: Get Kamala Harris back to California by having her take Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat. Ms. Harris was very productive in California as attorney general and later as a senator. Unfortunately the 89-year-old Ms. Feinstein is no longer capable of doing the job.Ms. Harris might relish the opportunity to once again represent the Golden State. Furthermore this would free President Biden to select a running mate without its looking as though he were abandoning his loyal vice president.A relatively progressive running mate such as Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona would likely garner more votes and the electorate wouldn’t have to ponder whether it is Ms. Harris they’d want in the Oval Office should Mr. Biden’s health become an issue.Steven BrozinskyLa Jolla, Calif.To the Editor:While I agree completely with everything that Thomas L. Friedman says in his insightful column, there is one aspect about it that mystifies me. I agree that President Biden’s age is a concern for voters. But why isn’t Donald Trump’s age an even greater concern for voters? He is only four years younger than President Biden, is seriously overweight, and apparently never encountered a hamburger he couldn’t resist.Please stop focusing so obsessively on President Biden’s age without also raising the issue of Mr. Trump’s age and physical condition.Stephen CreagerSan FranciscoConflict in Montana Over a Transgender LawmakerRepresentative Zooey Zephyr, right, with Representative SJ Howell in the hallway outside the main chamber of the Montana House. Ms. Zephyr was monitoring debate on a laptop and casting votes from the hallway.Brittany Peterson/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Montana House Bars Transgender Lawmaker From Chamber Floor” (news article, April 27):Our legislature’s problem is that this is the 21st century. Young people and marginalized communities want to express themselves and to have a voice, but many older Montanans remain set in their ways. From Native American rights to climate change to transgender rights, the old guard appears oblivious.Historically, the state has suffered from a lack of diversity, and the influx of recent transplants in communities such as Bozeman and Missoula exacerbates a reactionary mind-set.The state is struggling to find a new equilibrium. Until it does, unfortunately, we may see more pictures in the news of stodgy old people making fools of themselves at the Montana statehouse.In the meantime, all Montanans and all Americans should stand behind Representative Zooey Zephyr, who was barred from participating in deliberations because of her impassioned comments on transgender issues, and the other courageous young people working to bend the arc of history toward justice.Peter CaposselaWhitefish, Mont.Women at Peace TalksA destroyed military vehicle in Khartoum, Sudan.Marwan Ali/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “The Violence in Sudan Is Partly Our Fault,” by Jacqueline Burns (Opinion guest essay, April 24):The admission that U.S. and international peace negotiators got it wrong by engaging with leaders of Sudanese armed groups must spark a new kind of action to ensure that peace negotiations include women and the concerns that they bring to the table.Women’s exclusion from peace processes is all too common, such as in Syria and Afghanistan, and the consequences are dire. Women must be at the table, not only because that’s what fairness demands.Research has shown that when women are meaningfully included in negotiations, a peace agreement is 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years. That’s because women’s leadership represents the needs of wider communities, resulting in greater legitimacy and democratic participation.We must also ask: Why? Why was it so much easier to patiently engage armed leaders with no demonstrated interest in peace, while women and other civil society leaders were told to wait their turn? If we can name the answer — patriarchal attitudes that permeate policymaking the world over — we will be in a better position to confront them and get peacemaking right.Yifat SusskindNew YorkThe writer is executive director of MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization and feminist fund.Medical Assistance in Dying Kyutae LeeTo the Editor:Re “Medical Assistance in Dying Should Not Exclude Mental Illness,” by Clancy Martin (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, April 21):As a psychiatrist, I have always had concerns about physicians assisting dying in those with terminal medical illnesses. Patients can change their minds about that wish with better pain control. If depression is present, its treatment can help lift spirits and facilitate discovery of reasons for wanting to live longer.Medical assistance in dying (MAID) for mental illness, scheduled to start less than a year from now in Canada, is more problematic, as the wish to die is a symptom of depression. Significant improvement has been made with psychiatric treatments. But the movement for MAID is a clear message that greater progress and access to care are essential.Jeffrey B. FreedmanNew York More