No, these two things had specifically to do with women (although so did the haircuts, now that I think about it).

Happening #1: In 1977, the National Women’s Studies Association was founded.

Based upon the assumption that “women are oppressed,” members of the NWSA dedicated themselves to expanding women’s-studies programs across the world in order to create a “world free of sexism and racism.”

While they claim the world is still sexist and racist, they certainly have succeeded in expanding. One Web site lists almost 700 women’s-studies programs, departments or research centers.

Happening #2: In 1979, Margaret Thatcher was appointed British Prime Minister, the first woman to ever lead a major western democracy. Mrs. Thatcher served as prime minister for more than 11 years (1979-90), a record unmatched in the 20th century.

Now, you might think that the women associated with the first happening would be thrilled with the second. After all, if women are oppressed, then surely a national female leader with such global clout would be heralded with some serious cartwheel turning.

But you’d be wrong.

The world of women’s studies, to put it simply, does not like Margaret Thatcher. At all. You don’t have to look any farther than their textbooks to see that.

In a report on women’s-studies introductory textbooks, Christine Stolba, a scholar with the Independent Women’s Forum, found that three of the five most popular texts don’t even bother to mention Margaret Thatcher.

At the same time, the texts are more than happy to educate students on liberal leaders such as Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan or Democratic First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton.

But Mrs. Thatcher? Nada. Zip. Zero.

Now how can this be? After all, women’s studies exists — supposedly — because the traditional curriculum has ignored women and women’s achievements.

As Women’s Realities, Women’s Choices, (one of the textbooks Stolba investigated) claims, “To provide female models and to keep them alive, even when the wider culture ignores them, is one of the most important functions women’s studies can perform.”

So why leave out Thatcher?

Answer: She’s not the right kind of role model.

You see, women’s studies is not about women. It’s about women who are feminists. As the NWSA’s constitution states, women’s studies programs are about “being a forum conducive to dialogue and collective action among women dedicated to feminist education and change.”

Catch that? It’s not to provide a forum for women, but for women dedicated to feminist change. And since conservative women don’t tote the “women are oppressed” party line, they are left out, or, worse, verbally horsewhipped.

“Conservative women leaders, when mentioned at all, are usually depicted as traitors to their sex,” Stolba reports. For example, one of the two textbooks that mentioned Thatcher lumped her with Florence Nightingale, Helen Deutsch and Golda Meir as “women who turned from other women” and “are not proud of our female heritage.”

Author Joan Smith sums up the feminist position, “Mrs. Thatcher may be a woman, but she’s no sister.”

Well, Mrs. Thatcher may not be a “sister.” But neither are a huge percentage of women.

Poll numbers ebb and flow, but, in general, the majority of women do not identify themselves as feminists. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly half of all women vote Republican — and that becomes a Republican majority for married women.

But that really doesn’t matter to women’s-studies programs. Though they trumpet the word “women” in their departmental titles, they have no interest in representing the diversity of thought that women have.

For some authors, it isn’t even enough to kick conservatives out of their textbooks. In an ultimate trip to the twilight zone, they claim that if a woman holds the “wrong” political positions — like having reservations about abortion or contemplating putting her career on hold to raise young children — she isn’t even a woman.

“The movement suffers when successful women disavow women’s struggles,” states Women’s Realities. “In essence, such women have sacrificed our identity as women, we have become ‘honorary men’.”

“Successful women,” it continues, “will sympathize with and support women’s aims when we identify as women, not as ‘honorary males’.”

No word on whether the title “honorary male” comes with a tiara. But, absurdity aside, feminists want you to take this very seriously. It’s their ultimate put-down.

According to them, to be male is to be inhumane. “Men and the system are oppressive,” reads a quote in Women’s Realities. The solution, it later suggests, is simple: “It seems more reasonable to suggest that men should be more like women.”

But that’s not a “reasonable” suggestion to many. Christians not only acknowledge, but embrace, the fact that God created us male and female — right down to every cell in our bodies. We are different by design, not so that one gender can lord over the other, but so that we can work together in harmony for God’s purpose.

Mothers are not fathers. Girls are not boys. As John Gray puts it, Venus is not Mars.

And despite feminist wishes, all women are not liberal.

Sadly, by ignoring conservative women’s experiences and achievements, these textbooks are engaging in the same kind of “conspiracy of silence” they accuse the traditional curriculum of perpetuating.

But it’s not only conservative women that are left out in the cold. So are the facts. According to Stolba, women’s studies textbooks are notorious for presenting students with half-truths — offering up only the data that show women as victims.

Take the oft-repeated myth of the “wage gap.”

Women’s Realities states that “women earn less and have fewer opportunities for choice and advancement than men. In 1890, a woman earned 46 cents for every dollar a man earned. A century later, we still earn only 69 cents.” Thinking About Women echoes, “women college graduates who worked full time earned, on average, 70 percent of what men college graduates earned.” Their conclusion, not surprisingly, is that women earn less than men based on discrimination.

Stolba calls this a “deliberately misleading presentation.”

First, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 guarantees equal pay for equal work. A female engineer and a male engineer performing the same duties, with equal experience, must be paid the same amount, by law.

The fact that women earn, on average, less than men over their lifetimes has more to do with choices they make, especially once they have a family: whether to work, how much to work and what kinds of jobs to take.

Another favorite cry of the textbooks is that women have been ignored in health care.

Thinking About Women claims “several reports published in medical journals . . . documented the exclusion of women from major national studies of heart disease, lung cancer and kidney disease.”

But these claims have been debunked. “As long ago as 1979, over 90 percent of all NIH (National Institutes of Health)-funded clinical trials included women,” Stolba reports. “Currently, women represent over 60 percent of all subjects in NIH-funded clinical trials.”

Thinking About Women continues its assault by going after the funding of Viagra. “Would fewer women be dying from breast cancer if such resources were poured into its study?” the text asks sarcastically.

But breast cancer research is hardly a victim of the health care establishment. Stolba reports that the NIH’s National Cancer Center has spent more money on breast cancer than any other type of cancer research. You’ll seldom see 5K runs, pink ribbons or national sponsors for prostate cancer research.

Further, Stolba asks, “if the authors of Women’s Studies textbooks want to argue that the money invested in drugs such as Viagra is not well directed, shouldn’t they also question the hundreds of millions of dollars spent (by women) every year on things such as plastic surgery and diet pills?”

And the examples go on.

Over and over, these textbooks present their side of the story — that women are under attack and that only liberal women are worthy of respect.

But there is another side and women’s studies textbooks are doing a disservice to young women by deliberately concealing it.

As Stolba points out, “By limiting the scope of intellectual inquiry, by misrepresenting or ignoring their critics, and by ignoring facts in favor of myth, Women’s Studies textbooks encourage students to embrace aggrievement, not knowledge.”

Perhaps the best tact for young women is, ironically, to do just what the feminists claim to support: question the curriculum.

And while you won’t find conservative female role models in women’s-studies textbooks, you will find them on the front page and the front lines. From National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who chooses to serve the president in D.C., to top presidential adviser Karen Hughes, who chooses to serve him from Texas because it’s best for her family. From Elizabeth Dole, who led the Red Cross, to the countless women who serve their communities unheralded. From the First Lady to the first-time moms.

These are all women deserving of respect — respect that women’s studies denies them.

And, of course, there’s always dear Mrs. Thatcher.

And though these conservative women don’t all think alike — nor do they have to — they might agree with Mrs. Thatcher, who said, “Women must be able to choose their own lives for themselves. If we wish to be lawyers, doctors, businesswomen, engineers, scientists, we should have the same opportunities as men — and increasingly we do. . . . But, and may I say fortunately, there are many women who want to devote themselves mainly to raising a family and running a home and they should have that choice too.”

Sounds good to me, Maggie.