I've learned to surround myself with women who lift me up and leave me feeling nurtured rather than drained.

Though my parents assured me over and over again that I wasn't stupid or slow, I sensed that my dyslexia was now a stigma on all of us.

I was born in 1968, just eighteen months after my sister Chrisse and just one year after Dad passed the bar exam.

I was in a sushi bar and it dawned on me - how could I discriminate between a cow and a fish?

Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.

I am not naturally that thin, so I had to go through everything from using drugs to diet pills to laxatives to fasting. Those were my main ways of controlling my weight.

While women across the globe have many differences - language, culture, environment - our similarities are undeniable, and the impact of abuse and oppression affects us all.