A mother with street smarts and a daughter with a college education go head to head in a comic battle that is still as provocative and amusing as when it scandalized the world in 1894. Shaw, a master of wit and ideas, creates an unflinching portrait of working women and the men who seek to love or control them. At first impressed with her mother's grit and entrepreneurial zeal, proper young Vivie must confront the truth about her mother's profession (the world's oldest) as she seeks to claim her own independence.