The Young Women Thing.

I was reminded this morning of the young student nurse I encountered during my last short stay in hospital and who was the subject of a glowing eulogy on this blog. The thought expanded into a realisation that’s been taking hold in me for some years now – that of all the age and gender groupings we might apply to people in western culture, it’s the young women who give most cause for confidence in the future.

This is a generalisation I know, but I don’t get the same impression of other groups. The elderly are effectively passengers, the middle aged are still so often rooted in past prejudices, and young men generally lack the searching and open minded qualities needed for change as the tradition of male domination becomes ever more eroded. There are exceptions, of course; there will always be exceptions.

But I have a young woman correspondent who is about to embark on a challenging new phase in her life and I wrote this to her last night:

…and I’ll bet you’re not nervous. It has been my experience – albeit regrettably limited – that women of your generation rarely are.

Maybe that says a lot, or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I’m talking rubbish. I often do.