Our histories cling to us. We are shaped by where we come from.

The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be, rather than recognising how we are.

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'.

Culture does not make people - people make culture. So if it is in fact true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, we must make it our culture. [...] A feminist is a man or a woman who says, 'yes there is a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it. We must do better.'

He was making her feel small and absurdly petulant and, worse yet, she suspected he was right. She always suspected he was right. For a brief irrational moment, she wished she could walk away from him. Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.

One of the things that struck me when I came to the U.S. was discovering American poverty.

I’m very feminist in the way I look at the world, and that worldview must somehow be part of my work.