Purse search was needless, insulting

Last Saturday afternoon, a woman friend and I decided to see the matinee showing of "Mr. Holmes" at a local theater. After purchasing our tickets, the person who ripped them demanded we open our purses so she could peer inside. I was so flabbergasted and insulted, I didn't think to protest.

Obviously, the young woman was looking for weapons, not candy. This matinee about a 90-year-old Sherlock Holmes attracted mainly senior citizens. To quote the sarcastic comment of one white-hared man who accompanied his wife, "I feel so much safer, now that my wife's purse has been checked."

So in its effort to protect its patrons, the theater engaged in a search of senior citizens' purses, a search that treats its patrons unequally. Very few men carry purses to a movie; most women do.

Surely there is no reason to single out and search the purses of older women. No older woman has ever shot a gun in a theater or killed theater patrons or anyone else congregated in a public space. In all of the recent mass shootings, the gunmen have been young males.

Yet a young male in a jacket could easily have walked into this theater that day with two guns stuck in his waistband and hidden beneath his jacket or hoodie. But the theater management in its misguided effort to police the area was forcing senior women to let a young seated woman put her hand on our purses and peer inside.

I am insulted and will not be returning to this theater as long as this policy is in force. Pretending that searching ladies' purses will protect its patrons is insulting and certainly unreasonable.

Eibhlin Glennon

Antioch