Sublime

“Some of the equipment in the shop would be difficult for you to use,” he told her. “And to be honest, Miss Walker, having a girl like you in the classroom would be very distracting to the boys in the class.” He meant it as a compliment, she knew. But she also knew that it wasn’t.

"Woman" in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. As they get older they pass off the stage, somehow, into private ownership mostly, or out of it altogether. But these good ladies were very much on the stage, and yet any one of them might have been a grandmother.