What a difference a few decades make!
When I was a child I was told I was good at science and asked if I wanted to be a nurse. I responded that if I decided I wanted to take care of sick people, I would rather be a doctor. When my own son was little (he’s 18 now) I overheard someone asking him if he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. He replied, “I can’t be a doctor. Only girls can be doctors!”
I hadn’t realized until then that every doctor he’d met at that point was a woman. Of course I told him he could be anything he wanted.
When the current state of the world gets too depressing, I try to remember the progress that we have made, thanks to recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and others like her who fought for a world in which children could grow up to be whatever they wanted, regardless of sex. We are not there yet, but because of their work, we are a lot closer than we were.
