Tee Lin Dee believed that "whatever a man does, so can a woman" ('Women must battle estrogen crusade' Oct 31). Yes, in cases especially of educational and job attainments in which intellectual skills are required. No, in many other cases. For examples:

Can women afford to be less discerning and more profligate in their choice of sexual partners as men?

Can single women at age of 40 or more find long-term partners, mates and husbands as easily as men of similar age or more?

Can women afford to neglect their figure and looks as men could?

Where men could sire children and maintain more than one family with different women (a wife and one or two mistresses) can women do likewise?

Where men could be fertile and sire children at the age of 60, can women do likewise?

Is the pressure to marry exerted on single women of 35 years of age the same as that exerted on single men of same age?

Are women, when they sit alone in a pub or restaurant, just as comfortable as men alone?

Isn't it true that heterosexual women are more likely to view other heterosexual women as competitors for the opposite sex's attention than men who are more likely to view other men as potential collaborators in making money?

The incontrovertible fact is that men and women have different biological, emotional and psychological make-up and different socialisation experiences.

How can the different be equal? Men are better than women in some tasks, and women better than men in others.

The attempt by the so-called emancipated and Western-educated women to do each and every endeavour as equals of men, as if this equality (in all aspects) were the only criterion of women's self respect and confidence, is misguided as it is foolish for it neglects and refuses to acknowledge the fundamental differences inherent between the sexes.

Effective equality that matters is not where the sexes are equal in all areas but only in some areas whilst in the remaining areas, the men are allowed (depending on the circumstances) to be dominant or, as the case may be, weaker in relation to their women counterparts, with differences acknowledged and accepted!

There is really no point in competing, or by affirmative action equalising, in areas where the respective gender's strength is not inherently equal, or circumstances, same.

The writer thinks that due to cultural conditioning, many women are as great a conspirator as men in holding on to out-dated attitudes demeaning to themselves.

I am of the opinion that the situation pointed out by the writer may be explained in more than one way.

First, it is human nature of which women are equally subject to want to have their cake and eat it at the same time. So nowadays many modern women expect equal educational and employment opportunities and yet have no qualms to play the feminine/subordinate role of having their expenses being paid for by the men.

Second, when a woman plays dumb, it is not, as co-conspirator for inequality, just to reinforce the men's conditioned expectation of their demureness or femininity.

It may be to provide an opportunity for her male interest to ventilate his "substance" or intellectually-challenged condition as the case may be in order for her to make the proper assessment as to what to do with him.

So maybe it is true that women, whilst playing subordinate roles, will resort to wiles and strategy to secure the longer term "upper hand" over the unsuspecting dominant male opponent. One recalls that many a "subordinate" in a corporate or political organisation or other context will use strategy, wiles and deception to equalise against those appearing dominant without at the same time upsetting the established power relations and hierarchies.

I am reminded once again of the parable of the fly in motion and the motionless spider. A man like the fly is in constant motion displaying energy and freedom until it gets enmeshed in the spider's web of invisible tensile strength that he often cannot extricate himself from and, after some struggle, eventually capitulates.

To the writer, I would suggest she ponders why given this set of circumstances, a spider need move around like the fly to be equal.