Every time a woman leaves the workforce because she can't find or afford childcare, or she can't work out a flexible arrangement with her boss, or she has no paid maternity leave, her family's income falls down a notch. Simultaneously, national productivity numbers decline.

We're all basically made of the same stuff: generosity and selfishness, goodness and greed.

Contradictory as it seems, malnutrition is a key contributor to obesity.

Working moms, and increasingly working dads, don't want a government handout, but they do need a hand up.

What some men don't understand is that by opposing policies to reduce violence, promote equal pay and universal healthcare and voting to limit access to contraception and legal abortion, they are relegating women to another century, a time when men ruled exclusively and women were considered property and had to be guided by a firm masculine hand.

Like art, political action gives shape and expression to the things we fear as well as to those we desire. It is a creative process, drawing on the power to imagine as well as to act.

Political success is often dependent on the ability to be heard above the din of controversy and debate and to set a course with one's own compass.