Don't give up. It's really important to trust your impulses as an artist no matter what anybody else says.

Remember our heritage is our power; we can know ourselves and our capacities by seeing that other women have been strong.

I think what's important is to give space to the range of human experience.

You shouldn't have to justify your work.

It's not enough to have a few women's studies courses. Why is it more important to study Paul Revere's midnight ride than it is Susan B. Anthony's 50-year effort to transform the face of America for women? When you're in school, most of the events you study are about men. Men's activities lauded and repeated over and over. What about us? What about commemorating the decades-long struggle for suffrage? Why don't we hear those stories over and over and over again. It's almost inconceivable for men to understand what it would be like to live without that constant valorization.

Because men have a history, it is difficult for them to imagine what it is like to grow up without one, or the sense of personal expansion that comes from discovering that we women have a worthy heritage. Along with pride often comes rage – rage that one has been deprived of such a significant knowledge.

Don't give up. It's really important to trust your impulses as an artist no matter what anybody else says.