midnight
They were not vowed nuns . They were not devoted to any Great Cause . They were just ordinary , normal young women , thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of them . Then , on the other side , Mary looked at the great army of women in the midnight restaurants , in the streets , in their segregated quarters -- women who , however they may be sentimentalized about and however irresponsible they may be for their own condition , are , as a matter of fact , ignorant , stupid , silly , and dirty . Yet on them was squandered the emotional life of millions of young men . On the one side -- intelligent , capable , effective young women , leading lives of emotional sterility . On the other side -- inferior women blasted and withered by their specialization in the emotional life of youth !