Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.

We are coming down from our pedestal and up from the laundry room.

I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prize fighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy. There are those who say I'm impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash, and overbearing. Whether I'm any of those things, or all of them, you can decide for yourself. But whatever I am -- and this ought to be made very clear -- I am a very serious woman.

I always had a decent sense of outrage.

They used to give us a day-it was called International Women's Day. In 1975 they gave us a year, the Year of the Woman. Then from 1975 to 1985 they gave us a decade, the Decade of the Woman. I said at the time, who knows, if we behave they may let us into the whole thing. Well, we didn't behave and here we are.

Nixon impeached himself. He gave us Ford as his revenge.

I am not elevating women to sainthood, nor am I suggesting that all women share the same views, or that all women are good and all men bad.