As I peeled the layers back to reveal the true flavor of her life, I came to feel she was a vibrant soul who ran into many of the roadblocks that women face if they step outside the lines of feminine expectation. In a sense, Carolyn’s experience was a larger-than-life version of many of the impossible standards that women face. You must be chaste, but you cannot be frigid or prudish. You must be beautiful, but you cannot care about being such. You must never be angry, even if people (or in Carolyn’s case, the tabloids) spread lies about you.
