The Girls of 1960

Those women who are currently 60. An entire generation of women who bear it without self-pity or self-praise. When they were little, they were taught to be polite, patient and orderly. When they grew up, the demands only increased—a young woman had to be beautiful and modern. Even now, our society is quite cruel to these women—as the retirement age recedes, they will have to carry this burden of responsibilities for a long time. Younger and more ambitious people quietly push them aside, often contemptuously calling them Soviet remnants or simply old women. They are my classmates.