Elaine Aston begins Feminist Views on the English Stage by pondering why, given the optimism for English feminist theatre at the close of the 1980s, the 1990s saw a diminishing interest in women's voices. She asks, “If ‘masculinity and its discontents’ culturally and theatrically moved centre stage in the 1990s, what happened to women and to feminism?”(5) In order to counteract the prevailing view of the 1990s as a decade dominated by the overarching theme of “masculinity in crisis,” she focuses her book on women playwrights. Aston detects a theatrical backlash against the partial advances made by women playwrights during the 1980s, mirroring a backlash against feminism within popular culture in general. In contrast to the “shock fests” of the reemergent “angry young men,” who have often been charged with nihilism, she argues that the works she examines remain politically engaged. Aston explains that Feminist Views is motivated by her desire to prevent women playwrights from being “written out” of the theatrical record.