THERE are few things that sink the heart of an ageing feminist more than seeing youngsters going though the same old discrimination.
 
Girls and young women are keen to try journalism as a career. Good. They’re getting places on college and university courses. Good. Apprenticeships are not available, as they were in my day (Oh, heck, I’m only a few sentences in, and I’ve said ‘in my day.’ I’d hoped to avoid that.) Not so good. But girls see media work as worthwhile and exciting. Very good.
 
But too many women do not stay in the trade. Many are leaving, and there’s insufficient data to tell us why. Some would leap to the conclusion that women take time off from their careers, to make babies. 

Well, yes, in some cases, naturally. That’s not the all-embracing answer, though. There are other reasons; they’re deeper, darker, and we need to understand them.
 
I asked a lot of female journos how they felt about their chosen profession. The responses varied, according to generation, area of work and personal experience.
 
Main comments: some had bad experiences when they’d gone on maternity leave. It hadn’t been easy, returning to work, and some had found their responsibilities — or their place in the pecking order of commissions and bylines — had been lost.
 
Some had suffered sexual harassment, and been through the whole ragbag of emotions and reactions, with many being unaware that this could, or should, be reported.
 
Ageism loomed large. Women with decades in the job spoke of their experience as having less currency than men’s. 

Personally, I’ve lost count of the times it’s been assumed that I’m returning to work after raising a family. The truth, of a child-free 40 years of work, re-learning my trade through every gift and curse of technology, seems to come as a shock.
 
A few young female students at a local university made an interesting point, that they were ignored when challenging male colleagues on news values.