BETWEEN CARS, dust flies: Between cars, dust flies, morning early; I hold tightly not to fall, and watch passing towns. Away from Harvard, between cars on Long Island Railroad, too early to get a seat; I watch (through grey dust) passing towns to avoid eyes of heavyset leering businessman who offers me a smoke, a stick of gum, a wink. Too early. Perhaps I should have looked harder for a seat; this area between cars is no-man's-land, and certainly no woman's. Same hazards as walking alone down 42nd St. Mister, mister, leave me alone; today is the day of Women's Liberation. Tonight I am going to march, strike for equality. Strike for Equality. I think I should talk to this man, explain why his low-voiced suggestions are an insult, but it is too early.

Eventual conversation, reduced: Miss, I like your breasts. Sir, I am a human being. Yes, but you have very nice breasts. I'd like to touch them. (I find a seat.)

Dusty, my city: Long Island Railroad leaves me in my city, to walk dusty through streets of commuters (resentful) and cripples (dying), or risk ultimate trip (subterranean) and possible brain damage. I choose the underground; I must admit I generally enjoy the subways here (not Boston's sterile parody), in much the same way I might enjoy a roller coaster, a truly garish wedding, or a Fellini movie.

However. More men. The hell of it is it's encounters with men like these that make me think of the march tonight, the clenched fist, being a Radcliffe student at Harvard University. Better if I talked to the tired woman waiting with closed eyes for this morning's F train to Brooklyn. Better if I talked to myself; I understand, but my head does not. (Who taught my mother to iron so well?) Whoever it was, they're more sophisticated now: my little sister isn't told don't be too smart, you'll scare the boys away, but go ahead, boys like girls who think. And a Harvard shrink told me last year: "Men are unhappy because there is nothing, women because there is no one." Harvard shrink is a man. What he says is effect, not cause; women learn that there is only one route to happiness. I understand this; my head does not.

AT CITY HALL: At City Hall the sun is shining, and lollipops grow from trees. Sprawling on the grass of a small park, encircled by police barricades, are young mothers, lots of children, and swarms of press. (I'm press too: summer job reporting for New York Post, but reluctant to use press card. For one thing, without it it's easier to believe in my own integrity-two years of attending all Harvard demonstrations with a notebook, dutifully recording each friend expelled by CRR, leaves bad taste. For another thing, my press card says Nancy O'Sullivan, who as far as I know does not exist). Reporters gather eagerly around young mothers, and pat children in passing. Old man hawks American flags, pins, pennants, or car decals. Nobody buys.

The scene is a sample day-care center in City Hall Park, set up to dramatize one of the strike's demands-free day-care throughout the city. Onlookers, men and women, crowd against police barricades-only mothers with children and press are to be allowed in. Except for Betty Freidan, the strike's national coordinator, without press card or child. And Bella Abzug, Congressional candidate. Not, however, Lucy Komisar, national Secretary of NOW, who is wearing slacks and hurling insults and behaving unlike a lady. A sound truck plays, over and over again, a recording of Liberation Now, the strike's official song. Liberation Now is a terrible song.

I talk to a young woman, in jeans and work-shirt, who is giving her third interview of the morning, and she sighs: "I once thought I'd get a job in publishing, perhaps in films, perhaps... oh, I don't know, something. I'd had a Master's in literature when I graduated. Everywhere I went, though, they said the same thing: learn a little shorthand and you'll make a great secretary. So, what did I do? I became a great secretary and married the boss." She grabs her three-year-old down from the tree he is trying to climb. "I love my husband, you know, but I'm... so tired..."

An older woman, overhearing: "I always knew I had to be a good wife, and I am. I want my daughter to learn something different. We're going to march together."

SUDDEN RUSH of newsmen to center of park, I am nearly trampled by cameraman. Betty Freidan has arrived. "No woman that I've encountered is not feeling great elation on this day," she says. The beat of Liberation Now gets louder. "Ah, they're not burning any bras; let's get out of here," a man mutters. "Flags, flags, flags for sale-look real good on television," that old man calls. A woman tries to interest the photographers in plastic playground equipment she is demonstrating. They ignore her.

Speeches and things: Speakers stand atop sound truck, and we all drip sweat. I write down every word I can get for the Post; don't feel like going through it again here. Spell speakers' names, with great difficulty, in French for woman from Montreal newspaper.

Confrontations: Speeches over, we stand around, arguing/talking/shouting in small groups, explaining what it's all about to curious men, to hostile men, to ourselves. Long-haired young woman argues with man (later identified as old high school friends). Man: "But women are different, you know. I want to go home to a woman, not a man. You're different-your hair is longer, your voice is softer..." Woman: "You mean you have a penis and I have a vagina, that's all." Man, blushing as crowd snickers: "A lady shouldn't talk like that."

Elderly black woman, shouting: "What are you bellyaching about? You're not suffering-why don't you go to Vietnam if it's so bad? You've got it made." Younger black woman: "I am a black woman; how can she tell the black woman has it made? No good, no good... you've been in this society too goddam long. Somebody has told you got it made and you believe them." Cheers.

I stand in small group, mostly men, mostly shouting. I want to be calm and reasonable and explain. "I'm a third child; where would I be now if my mother had an abortion?" someone calls. Very old man next to me takes my arm. "You're selling yourself out, lady. Make them take out the garbage, do the dirty work... you're selling yourself out." He shakes his head. I try to tell him, yes, I would take out the garbage, and yes, I'm willing to be eligible to fight immoral wars as long as men are, but he shakes his head. "Listen, honey, the system's good. Now I'm no one, but its my own fault. If I had a brain, I'd of got somewhere." His eyes, so empty.

And another man, also old, in bright red T-shirt and dirty cap. "Look at the animals. What do you think you have breasts for? Babies, babies. What..." He loses his thought, begins again. "If the woman works, she's too tired for love. Too tired, too tired, I'm always too tired. If the woman also is too tired, it's no good." If I were your wife I'd like to work, so maybe you wouldn't be too tired. Maybe.

A YOUNG male law student, three-piece suit and curly sideburns: "I'm here to learn; how are you discriminated against?" Female lawyer, bellbottoms and dangling earrings, rattles off examples "from your own field, the courtroom." I think of the examples I could cite. My own university, where merger seems unwise because people might then urge-equal enrollment of women and men, and Harvard has a duty to provide our nation with leaders. Leaders. Men. My own university, where the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid told a Faculty meeting that continuation of coed housing would require renovation of Radcliffe dorms and provision of bus service from Radcliffe to the Yard. (We can't send our men to live up there!)