Wife Beating

I was glad to read Ellen Goodman’s essay (Editorial Pages, Feb. 28) on John M. Fedders, the Securities and Exchange Commission official who was forced to resign. I disagreed with her conclusion that “his personal woes didn’t affect his work.” I think brutalizing another human being probably has affected every aspect of Fedder’s life and work.

But the important thing is that Goodman wrote her essay and brought to the attention of very many people the fact that highly respectable men beat and brutalize their wives--men in power, men in highly respected jobs. The more wives who speak out, the more chance there is for everyone to see how much abuse of women takes place every day at the hands of those who profess to love them, their husbands. And those same men run our society, makes our rules, enact our laws, sit in our courts, and influence all our lives.

Isn’t it about time we looked at the truth about them? Should a man who has brutally violated one code of behavior have the power to enforce another? Goodman asks. No, she says. Absolutely no, I say. How many more are there just like him?

NANCY WILLIAMS

Ventura