Summary

In Chapter 1, the narrator, Jean McClellan, indicates that if someone had told her she could bring down the president, the Pure Movement, and Morgan LeBron in one week that she would not have believed them.

Jean describes a world in which all women wear counters to ensure that they do not speak more than 100 words per day. In school, Sonia, Jean’s daughter, learns only home economics, physical fitness, and simple accounting.

In Chapter 2, even before women had to wear the counters, their passports were invalidated so they could not leave the country.

In Chapter 3, Jean remembers watching Jackie Juarez on television warning the women of America that men were trying to shut them up. Jackie’s book featured a rag doll wearing a ball gag on the cover. Jean and Jackie were roommates in college. Jackie had always warned Jean that she...