Writing and giving voice to what I am feeling makes me happy. And supporting people in finding their voice, passion, outrage and resistance. There is nothing better than that.

The fact that women have been moving forward, that a woman was running for president, that we had a black president - I think there was, without a doubt, a whitelash and a complete backlash against the liberation of women, against the power of people of color.

I was a young feminist in the '70s. Feminism saved my life. It gave me a life. But I saw how so much of what people were saying was not matching up with what they were doing. For example, we were talking about sister solidarity, and women were putting each other down. We were talking about standing up for our rights, and women weren't leaving abusive relationships with men. There were just so many disconnects.

Well, the tyranny of masculinity and the tyranny of patriarchy I think has been much more deadly to men than it has to women. It hasn’t killed our hearts. It’s killed men’s hearts. It’s silenced them, it’s cut them off.

I think one of the problems with the capitalist mainstream is this: no matter what you create to respond or resist it they will buy it.

Cancer was the most terrifying, arduous, painful thing, but it was also a profound gift in the sense that I was holding so much in my body for so many years that was dark and terrifying which was preventing my coming back into myself.

There is a global epidemic where one out of three women will be beaten or sexually assaulted in their lifetimes? How are we going to build a future of love and connection? And why would this not be of utmost concern to men?