In support of all the brave people speaking up about experiences with rude male behavior, I want to add a beacon of hope. That is, I want to mention three men who were wonderful mentors to me when I was a young woman. All three led very public lives, and they were gentlemen.

One was Jim Fowler, the man wrestling the alligators on the show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” at whose New York City office I worked in the 1980s. Another, now deceased, was Donald Graves, a professor of education at the University of New Hampshire who revolutionized the teaching of writing. A third (and there are many more) was Tom Perry, the principal of the public school in Orono where I subsequently worked. All of these men I praise unequivocally.

Mariana Tupper

Yarmouth