CNN || Collins: Letter to young American women

Dear Young American Women,

It's possible that you have been told a time or 10 that you don't appreciate how tough your elders had it. It's true that, if you had been coming of age back in, say, 1960, you would probably be feeling more restricted, if only because you were doomed to spend your days in a skirt, nylon stockings and girdle. (Everybody wore a girdle back then, even Barbie, the individual least in need of a foundation garment in American history.)

Back then, if you wanted a career that involved travel, you'd have to have become a flight attendant. Although good luck with that -- there were 100 applicants for every opening. People paid to go to special schools to learn how to improve their chances of being chosen for that very job that involved appallingly low pay and allowed you to be fired if you gained weight or got married.

Fifty years ago, women couldn't get a credit card or apartment lease unless their father or husband co-signed. And it was perfectly legal for an employer to say that he didn't hire women. (Madeleine Kunin, the future governor of Vermont, applied for an editing job at my own beloved New York Times and was asked if she'd like to consider waitressing in the corporate dining room.)

You may be thinking right now that this actually doesn't sound so bad, that it would be more fun to take to the streets protesting job discrimination than worrying about living in the streets because there aren't any jobs around at all.