Still, the central media obsession with “You Oughta Know” was antiquated: Who was the man she was talking about? The unnamed womanizer at the song’s center became the most compelling blind item since Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” It epitomized the long-standing complaint that a male artist’s experience is seen as universal while any female experience is inexorably viewed as personal—instead of becoming a song about breakups, it became a song about this specific breakup. Morissette was asked about this anonymous man constantly and always declined to say whom the story was about. When a
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