A Black, southern house servant with internalized racism, joins her mistress on a visit to another region, where she observes Black people acting with something she abhors: autonomy.

A young woman begins to work for an influencer, Seraphina, who she secretly hates. After vicious gossip about Serphina and the young woman pops up on anonymous message forums, the young woman must decide just how far she'd compromise herself for this job.

A group of patriarchal intellectuals entertain themselves by exploring the politics of World War II-era United States, meanwhile controlling and abusing the women in their lives.

In the 70s, a depressed, overweight, insecure, intellectual teenage girl stays for two weeks with a wealthy family her mother sews clothes for, the members of whom she considers confident and beautiful. She visits the historic house of her favorite novelist and entertains sexual fantasies about the boys. Years later, after becoming an academic, she reflects on the dynamics of gender and power.

A working-class mother has held only one hope for her entire life: that one day, her daughter would marry well and wealthy, and take care of her in her old age. When her daughter reveals that the man she loves is not wealthy, her mother's dreams of rest are dashed and divided.

An unhappily married man is on his way to the wedding of a much happier couple. He no longer finds his wife attractive because of her weight loss, and thus endeavors into an affair with a larger woman, though she may have ulterior motives that he has not considered.

A Black teenager from a wealthy family spends her life being told whom she should talk to and whom she should not. When she starts to see a boy from the wrong side of town, she realizes how wrong her preconceived notions were.

Two narcissistic adult daughters take exception to their wealthy parents' houseguests, a priest mourning his dead lover, and the strange and frumpy American woman Arleen. But Arleen possesses insight into the family that the girls' own parents lack.

In the mid-1900s, an upper class mother observes her two daughters playing with doves they mysteriously find on the lawn. She dwells on her relationship with her daughters, her husband, and her age as a storm brews and tragedy befalls her daughters.

Compiling notes for an English essay, a sixteen-year-old girl recounts her middle-class upbringing, kleptomania, and eventual coercion into prostitution and assisting with drug use. After she suffers violence and abuse, she is eventually rescued — but the experience traumatizes her.