For the young, driven businesswoman concerned with being taken seriously in the market place, perhaps the most unkind blow came as she was investigating the gum competition at a local kiosk.

"I was trying to explain that Hubba Bubba was a gum oriented toward the youth market," she explains. "I said that it was a good product to direct toward the little boys who buy gum and candy.

"'They won't be interested,' the woman behind the counter told me. 'All they want is this gum imported from Spain.'

"'Why?' I asked her.

"'Because it comes with stickers of naked women inside,' she said. And what could I say?"