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I heard the ringing of the bell of what I believed was a vendor heading our way. Like one of Pavlov's dogs, my mouth began to water in anticipation of a possible refreshment of some sort.

I leaned forward on the bench slightly and looked in the direction of the ringing in order to see if my initial supposition had been correct. It looked like the vehicle of an ice-cream vendor.

Turning to Jennifer, I asked: "Would you like an ice-cream?"

"I wondered," she replied, "when you were going to break down and part with some of those big, professorial bucks that you've hoodwinked your college into giving you. I must admit, however, I had something in mind which was a little more up-scale than an ice-cream."

"Is that a yes or a no?" I responded.

"It's a yes under a flag of protest," she countered.

Looking for a flag above her, I said: "Your protest is duly noted. You may file the appropriate affidavits with The World Court at your earliest convenience.

"In the meantime," I indicated, "if you can manage to rise above your state of vexation, we need a decision on a flavor. I await your pleasure with much anticipation."

"Too bad," she said, "you are not as free with your money as you are with your hyperbole. I'll have strawberry."

I motioned the vendor to stop. "I would like to have your most deluxe strawberry cone and a simple, working man's vanilla ice cream bar," I requested.

The vendor looked at me and then Jennifer, smiled and said: "I'm a Henry Ford type of person. You can have anything you want as long as it's what I sell."

As the vendor rummaged around in the cooler, he said: "I don't know how deluxe or simple they are, but I do believe I have a strawberry and vanilla cone somewhere in here."

The vendor found what he was looking for. Handing the cones to me, he received the required amount of money in exchange.

He peddled off. I returned to the bench and gave Jennifer the strawberry cone.

We spent a minute, or so, unwrapping the cones. I began to eat, and Jennifer began to speak again.

"Since the issue of power is a common theme running through patriarchy, gendering and the ideology of confinement, many feminists believe that: understanding power, acquiring power, and wielding power, have become the keys to unlocking the door to democracy's promises concerning freedom, equality and justice. For instance, through the acquisition and exercise of power, some women have gained enhanced access to the public sphere; equal treatment before the law; educational and economic opportunity; a re-calibration of duties and responsibilities within the domestic realm; control over their sexual and reproductive lives; medical treatment that reflects their biological differences from men; and roles of leadership in education, science, medicine, law, politics, economics and religion.

"All of these have made differences in the lives of the false self of many women. None of these changes, however, has necessarily brought them any closer to realizing their true spiritual identity or essential capacity.

"In fact, in my opinion, almost all of the benefits that feminists have fought for and won, have, in many cases, pushed women further away from their true identities and essential capacities, just as it has done in the case of men. Many women, like many of their male counterparts, have merely become further entangled in a purely worldly context and have, as a result, become intoxicated with the possibilities and choices surrounding the ego."

Jennifer took a few, tentative licks of her ice-cream and noted: "For some women, the horizons of the false self have expanded tremendously. Yet, at the same time, the horizons of the true self have narrowed proportionately for these same women.

"In fact, mystics have indicated that the relationship between the false and the true self is governed by a spiritual law or principle. Whatever permits one realm of self to expand, necessarily closes-off possibilities for the other realm of self to expand.

"In the terminology of quantum physics, the false self and the true self have a conjugate relationship with one another. Focusing on one kind of self prevents the individual from knowing about the other kind of self.

"Now, by the grace of power, women are 'free' to make, and are making, many of the same mistakes that men have made concerning the way one engages, and participates in, the world. The only difference is that women do so with a feminine twist and through the modality of their own 'voice'.

"One of the mistakes many women are now making is to have learned so precious little from the mistakes which men have made. For instance, many women, as has long been true of many men, have failed to understand the difference between a calling and ambition.

"A calling is not synonymous with ambition. A calling is the voice of true identity and essential capacity making entreaties for our attention and co-operation. Ambition is merely a manifestation of the ego or false self.

Becoming a little more aggressive with her cone, she took a few bites. "In the view of some feminist theorists," she indicated, "one of the historical sources of inequality between men and women can be traced to the fact that the roles of men proliferated, but the roles of women did not keep pace. For instance, when society began to undergo one transformation after another, as a result of industrial and technological changes, although the social, economic, and political role opportunities available to men expanded tremendously, the role opportunities available to women, did not proliferate in the same way or at the same rate.

"Some feminists maintain that the differential between men and women with respect to the issue of role proliferation caused many women to seriously question what being a women meant and entailed. On the one hand, women didn't identify with the narrowly defined roles into which patriarchy and gendering had stuffed them. On the other hand, women had been excluded from the process of making progress through the opportunities afforded by the proliferation of roles.

"Consequently, women seemed to be suffering from an interstitial disease. This kept them in a no-person land - between something with which they didn't wish to identify and something with which they were not permitted to identify."

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