THE BACKLASH AGAINST FEMINISM in the 1990s is the historical and cultural context in which I now perceive Carolyn’s story. Women who spoke up about workplace inequality or domestic abuse were dismissed as histrionic troublemakers. The new twenty-four-hour tabloid media—which skewered Anita Hill, reduced Marcia Clark to a “lawyerette,” and blamed Monica Lewinsky for her affair with President Clinton—leveled unprecedented vitriol at Carolyn.
