Editor

Letters

SADLY, JOST IS RIGHT

I recently received an email about John Jost's study ["An Experimental Replication of the Depressed-Entitlement Effect Among Women"] conducted in the Business School. [See Stanford Business, June 1998.] I was only slightly surprised to hear of the results, although I was quite dismayed. Holding "generally positive attitudes toward feminism" is different from putting those attitudes into daily practice and belief. It should come as no surprise that women still demonstrate the behavior and thought patterns of oppression. After being paid less for decades, why would their notion of how much a job is worth be higher than what they've always been paid to perform it?

I don't see much evidence of "the acceptance of many feminist beliefs" in our society today. Feminism gets a bad rap even from young women. "Feminist" is a label that many distance themselves from, it is so disparaged in the society at large. If they do embrace it, it is again the taking on of what the rest of society considers a negative identity. The only thing that seems stable is that we do have the right to vote. But how long will our reproductive rights be assured, for example?

I will end by saying that I think studies like these are extremely important, as they keep the issue at the forefront of our minds and make it harder for everyone to hide from it.

--ELAINE MICHAUD
San Francisco, California

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

I was both sorry and surprised to note in your December issue of Stanford Business ["In Memoriam"] the passing of Gordon M. Steel, Class of 1971. He and I appear to have had much in common. We both graduated from the Business School in the same year. Even more surprising, our names are absolutely and unequivocally identical. In fact, I suspect our ages, academic background, and (even more amazing) fingerprints bear a more than casual resemblance. My wife and close friends occasionally suggest to me that I "get a life," but seeing this declaration in your redoubtable publication gives me even more serious cause for reflection. To paraphrase Hamlet, "To have been, or not to have been. That is the question." Indeed, it does give one pause.

My father, Marshall Steel, Jr., never attended Stanford (he was a UC-Berkeley graduate and very proud of that fact). Sadly, he passed away in June 1997, the same month and year that you attribute to me.

--GORDON M. STEEL, MBA '71
Los Altos, California

Editors' response:

We appreciate Gordon Steel's humorous response to the report of his death in our December issue. We take the reporting of alumni/ae deaths very seriously and do not publish names without what we believe to be proper confirmation. In this case, the confirmation we received was simply wrong. Bad information doesn't change the fact that we goofed, and we happily welcome Mr. Steel back to the active roster.

We'd love to hear from you! Please send your letters to Stanford Business, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015 or gsb_newsline@gsb.stanford.edu. Letters may be edited for length.

Contributors

Illustrations by artist BRIAN CRONIN (cover) are published regularly in major international periodicals, including the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone. In 1998, Cronin had a solo exhibition of his commissioned and noncommissioned works in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Ireland, his native city. Cronin describes his work as "clean and precise" and says he "enjoys the search for an idea."

Rand Anderson

RAND ANDERSON, MBA '85, is a general management consultant and educator. A former chief operating officer in the electronics industry, Anderson has worked in North America, Europe, and Asia. He lives in Sacramento, Calif., with his wife, Fran, and their two sons, John and Vic.

Born and raised in New Zealand, SARAH WILKINS is now based in Paris, where Parisians can enjoy her 7-story-high building mural. In her career of 10 years, Wilkins has also made her artistic mark on children's books, magazine covers, museum installations, and public transportation.

ARTHUR COLEMAN, MBA '85, Sun Microsystems market segment manager for card and payment systems, writes: "I am happily on the parent track with a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, who is the joy of my life. Last year I commuted regularly to Europe Sunday night, returning Friday afternoon in time to pick up Evan at day care." Coleman contributes a regular column on technology to the Sun Journal.

If you're a regular reader of the New York Times Book Review, you've probably seen the detail-rich, black-and-white portraits of literary and historical figures by scratchboard artist MARK SUMMERS. His editorial work can also be found in Sports Illustrated, Time, and the Atlantic Monthly. Summers, whose clients include book publishers, advertising firms, and corporations, works from his studio in Waterdown, Ontario, Canada.