Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Bessie Smith, Janis Joplin -- I can't help but note that most of the women who hold their own with the men seem unhappy and apt to die young. Lazy, popular opinion has it that this is because women are fundamentally unsuited to putting their head over the parapet and competing on the same terms as men. They just can't handle the big-boy stuff. They simply need to stop trying. But when I look at their undoing - despair, self-loathing, low self-esteem, exhaustion, frustration at repeated lack of opportunity, space, understanding, support, or context - to me it seems as if they are all dying of the same thing: being stuck in the wrong century. All these earlier ages are poisonous to women, I begin to think...They are surrounded by men, without a team or a den mother to cheer them on. They are the sole pair of high heels clacking through a room of brogues. They are loaded with all the wearisomeness of being a novelty. ... They are astronauts in the Mir Space Station, or hearts sewn into early transplant patients. They can pioneer, yes, but it's not sustainable. Eventually, the body rejects them. The atmosphere proves to thin. It doesn't work.