March 7, 2021

Illustration by The New York Times; Texture Fabrik (torn paper)

By Jessica Bennett

"We direct this kind of vitriol and misogyny toward one woman, but it actually reverberates to all women. We're all collateral damage, whether we're the object or not."

— Monica Lewinsky, on what we might learn from the media reappraisals of women like her

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For years now, I have kept a spreadsheet. It contains the names of women from my youth who didn't seem to get a fair shake — not from the media, not from the public and certainly not when we review their stories through a 2021 lens. Often, but not always, these women became "infamous" for one major act. Many times that act had to do with a man.

For a long time, Monica Lewinsky topped my list.

After being excoriated in the press for her affair as an intern with President Bill Clinton, she went on to earn a master's degree in social psychology. But it would take nearly two decades for her to recover her footing: In 2014, Ms. Lewinsky wrote a piece for Vanity Fair in which she declared it was time "to burn the beret and bury the blue dress." A year later, she delivered a TED Talk about public shame.

The list continued from there. It included Paula Broadwell, General David Petraeus's "mistress" (a word for which there is no male equivalent); Tonya Harding, the former Olympic figure skater whose rivalry with Nancy Kerrigan, and its violent climax, was recently recast against a backdrop of childhood abuse; and Lorena Bobbitt, who, we now know, endured years of domestic abuse by her husband before she physically harmed him.

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There was also Whitney Houston, whose marital problems and battle with drug addiction were broadcast to the world in an early 2000s Bravo series. And Janet Jackson, who was blacklisted after the 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" that left her breast exposed, while the man who exposed it, Justin Timberlake, went on to further fame. (The man who ordered VH1 and MTV to stop playing Jackson's songs and music videos was Les Moonves, then the head of CBS, who was fired for sexual harassment in 2018.)

And, of course, there was Britney Spears.

After years of fans fighting to #FreeBritney from the conservatorship controlled by her father, and now with a New York Times documentary on the subject, the rise and fall (and rise again?) of Ms. Spears is being considered with fresh eyes. The reappraisal has prompted a growing conversation — that is, perhaps, timed just right — about how women of that era were treated, who is at fault for their portrayal and what, if anything, we owe them.

This weekend, HBO will air the third in a four-part documentary series about a decades-old sexual abuse allegation by Dylan Farrow against her adoptive father, Woody Allen. (When describing why they chose to delve into such an old case, the filmmakers said, "We realized the full story had never gotten out.")

People are once again talking about Lindsay Lohan — and a 2013 interview with David Letterman in which she was grilled to the point of tears about an upcoming trip to rehab. (Now out of the spotlight, Ms. Lohan is living in Dubai, where for the first time in her life, she has said, she feels safe.)

Conversation has also turned to Paris Hilton, who recently detailed emotional and physical abuse she suffered as a teenager, and whose leaked sex tape, which many credited with making her famous, we now have another term for: "revenge porn."

Then there is Brandy, the singer and "Moesha" star, who has described faking her marriage for fear that being an unwed mother would threaten her career, and Anna Nicole Smith, the troubled actress and model, who was labeled "white trash" while she was alive and "obtrusively voluptuous" when she died.

The list goes on. And on.

Reappraisals have become commonplace over the past several years. In the midst of #MeToo and a reckoning over racial injustice, people have re-examined the people and institutions behind the art, music, monuments, TV and film on which cultural significance has been placed.

But this current wave revolves not around individuals so much as the machine that produced them: the journalists, the photographers and the fans who were reading, watching and buying.

In other words: All of us.

"To me, the question is, what do we do when a whole culture essentially becomes the subjugator?" Ms. Lewinsky said in a recent interview. "How do we unpack that, how do we move on?"

[Keep reading: Speaking of Britney Spears, What About All Those Other Women?]

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Revisiting the Women of Eras Past

Anita Hill, Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson: Here's a look at some of the women whose treatment is being viewed through a fresh lens.

Monica Lewinsky.Damon Winter/The New York Times

"Hi, I'm Monica Lewinsky. Some of you younger people might only know me from some rap lyrics." Monica Lewinsky is back, but this time it's on her terms. [Read the story]
"We were vilified by the media, vilified and that is so sad. It happens to women." You know the Lorena Bobbitt story, but not all of it. [Read the story]
"There was a cost. And I don't spend a lot of time trying to calculate the cost." How history changed Anita Hill. [Read the story]
"For the whole world to be watching it and laughing like it's some sort of entertainment was just traumatizing." Who is Paris Hilton, really? [Read the story]
"Here, world, this is who I am. This is what I've gone through." You remember Jessica Simpson, right? Wrong. [Read the story]
"My teenage self gave Woody Allen a pass." The film "Manhattan" looks a lot different through the lens of the new HBO documentary. [Read the story]

Vital Voices: Joy Buolamwini

Joy Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League.Gayle Kabaker, courtesy of Assouline

"The progress we made for civil rights, women's rights, disability rights — so many people put themselves on the line so that there can be a more equal society, and it's still a work in progress."

[In March, In Her Words is featuring portraits of female leaders from the book "Vital Voices" as we consider the question: What makes a leader?]

In Her Words is edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson.

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