It all goes back, of course, to Adam and Eve - a story which shows among other things, that if you make a woman out of a man, you are bound to get into trouble.

While men represent powerful activity as assertion and aggression, women in contrast portray acts of nurturance as acts of strength.

Both love and democracy depend on voice -- having a voice and also the resonance that makes it possible to speak and be heard.

For a man to be a man, did he have to be a soldier, or at least prepare himself for war? For a woman to be a woman, did she have to be a mother, or at least prepare herself to raise children? Soldiers and mothers were the sacrificial couple, honored by statues in the park, lauded for their willingness to give their lives to others.

In the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of aggression in the failure of connection.

Women have traditionally deferred to the judgment of men although often while intimating a sensibility of their own which is at variance with that judgment.

The hardest times for me were not when people challenged what I said, but when I felt my voice was not heard.