I can't imagine anything that would make the world look more different than if women and girls were unequivocally enfranchised.

I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.'

My grandmother, who passed away at the beginning of November, had a core adage in her life that life is not about what happens to you but about what you do with what happens to you. She recently had been cajoling me and challenging me to do more with my life. To lead more of a purposefully public life.

Determination gets you a long way.

That's not what I want my children to hear. That's not representative of the country that I want my children to grow up in. And so that actually I found far more upsetting as a mom, as a woman, as an American, and even as my mother's daughter than anything they said about my mom.

I just hope I will be as good a mom to my child and, hopefully, children as my mom was to me.

I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press. Even though I think you're cute.