Problem: Questions of authenticity have plagued female writers for centuries, but black women authors were much more likely than white women authors to be accused either of not having written their own work or of not having really experienced what they claim to have experienced. Until the early 1980s, scholars believed Jacobs's narrative was fictional rather than autobiographical. What does this assumption imply, and how have similar assumptions about women's (in)ability to tell the truth carried through to the 21st century?