One conceit of the film was that Dr. Cheney had to act out much of her ambition vicariously because of her sex. But she says that she rarely felt limitations as a woman and recalls that her first real encounter with sexism came when she was looking for a job after getting a Ph.D. in 19th-century British literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
“One department head said to me, ‘Now Dr. Cheney, I need to ask: Are you married or are you really interested in a career?’” Such attitudes pushed her toward the flexibility of writing, she says, which she could do at odd hours at the dining table. When she lived in places where libraries were inaccessible, she resorted to writing fiction.