Recently a very interesting scientific study appeared – about how men and women differ in the degree of pleasure they get from revenge. But what was really startling about the published paper was the conclusion pronounced by the study’s lead scientist.

First let me tell you about the study. Scientists monitored the brain activity of thirty two male and female volunteers as they watched someone who had behaved badly to them apparently suffering pain. I say “apparently” because the sufferers were played by four actors. In the experiment, the actors played a financial investment game with the subjects, sometimes playing fair and other times cheating.

Later the subjects watched as the actors - “apparently” again – received mild electric shocks. When the “fair” players got the shock, both men and women brains showed increased activity in the pain-related centers of the brain – in other words, they empathized with the victims. BUT when the actor who had misbehaved in the game got the electrical punishment, the women showed the same neurological empathy while the men showed absolutely none.

Aha, I thought, at last clear evidence that women are more sensitive to suffering and more willing to see the good as well as the bad in a human being. While to my mind, this is cause for optimism about how women, given the chance, deal with power, the lead scientist – a woman no less! – came to a very different conclusion. “This investigation,” wrote Dr.Tania Singer of University College, London, “would seem to indicate that there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment.”

As if understanding justice requires an appreciation of cruelty.

I am much more persuaded by the speculation of another neuroscientist – a man, by the way – Dr. Colin Wilson, who said “It might be that women tend to have more reflective, thoughtful responses and are less likely to make quick, punitive judgments.”

The astute Dr. Wilson also proposes a follow up to the experiment. “What would be really interesting,” he muses, “would be if the same findings were found if the punishment was a social insult or a putdown, rather than physical.”

Traveling the country and meeting women who are inventing the rest of their lives is the best tonic for the front page of most newspapers these days. The headlines all seem to be about greed, duplicity, cravenness, selfishness, meanness and what Big Daddy labeled “mendacity” (in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”).

The women I meet, on the other hand, radiate humor, courage, generosity of spirit and purse, community and optimism. They are forthright and bold.

Recently in Phoenix, over 150 women came to hear me and ended up listening to each other. I learned a lot from them. And one of the things the conversation that evening confirmed for me was that the ideas I am talking about resonate with young women as much as the Second Adulthood women I have written about.

At first I was confused, because, in my experience, the last thing a thirty-something “daughter” wants from her “mother” right now is the story of her life. But I am beginning to get the picture. They aren’t trying to figure out how it is for us, but how it will be for them. And the lessons they are trying to glean from our stories are not about aging but about living.

Now that I think I understand the answers young women are looking for, I want to know more about the specific questions on their minds. I would pose some questions too: What does the future look like? What are you longing to get to when you “have more time”? What can’t you wait to be over with? What are you afraid of? What do you think about the experience we are describing? I hope to hear from you.

As for the news, we just can’t let the toxic societal climate get to us. Feminist leader and Congresswoman Bella Abzug used to say: “The question is whether women will change power or power will change women.” In the thirty years since she made that statement, I have become reassured that women can and will change power – for the better. And as I look at the gloomy moral landscape today, I am sure we can continue to make change. It just doesn’t always look that way. Some cynic once said, “If you see the light at the end of the tunnel, you must be looking in the wrong direction.” As long as we are moving in the right direction, and as long as we can keep laughing, we will make it.