I do think there's a lot of bad writing, and I worry about that in philosophy. I worry about it even more in literary studies, but I wouldn't blame it on any one methodology.

When I came to Harvard, there were no tenured women except one, who was in a chair reserved for a woman. It's still an uphill battle, and I encountered great sexism in parts of my career, but I have to say that things are a lot better than they used to be. There are many women today doing wonderful work all over the academy.

TV has a lot of problems, but I think the Internet and social media have a lot more. Under the cover of anonymity people say the most vicious things.

Property rights can improve a woman's ability to stand up to violence in the home. You might think education and employment are important because they give women exit options, but property is as well. Give women equal property rights to inherited land, then they have an asset they can take out of the marriage. This gives husbands strong incentives to not beat them.

I think that's what we really need in America, for people to hear each other. And I think philosophy could do a little bit better on that.

We really have to think about aging because women are living longer than men. More of the people who need care are women. A lot of them are living alone, with no one to care for them, or they're shunted into institutions. I would like to see a sensible aging policy more like what the Nordic countries have. They're cutting back those programs, but there you can still have in-home nursing care. You don't have to rely on your children. I personally don't want to be a burden on my daughter.

People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.