I've been called a "baby killer" and I've been told I should die and that I'm ruining women's lives. Those accusations hurt for sure - and I pause when such labels are applied to me - but because they come from people I don't necessarily respect, I have an easier time moving beyond them.

I'm motivated by injustice, which is embedded and constant and wrong - not by a vernacular soundboard.

Thoughtful, energetic, smart, determined. I tried to own and further those qualities and often mustered them up when they were dormant and something wasn't going my way.

Our world loses out when the leadership doesn't reflect the led - when a minority makes decisions for the majority.

As much as younger women are infused with a greater sense of possibility than most women of preceding generations, as a generation we are generally politically disengaged.

In college, a group of guys labelled me a "righteous little beaver." Again, I was slightly pissed because it seemed offensive and misdirected, but when I learned that beavers swim upstream, I realized that maybe it was fitting after all.

Women have to do all of the catching up. So we are disengaged and overburdened. Sounds like it is time we ditch the complacent fluoride-in-the-tap-water feminism and get reenergized and reinspired.