People who have come of age from the '80s on have experienced a form of activism that's very sterile and annoying. It's not that much fun to be an activist. That's partly by design. They are sterile protests and anonymous e-mail activism - not the kind of thing where people fall in love, form friendships for life, and see the change they make right in front of them. I've seen that, when people start to experience doing these things together and the power that it has.

From 1970 onwards, our culture told both sexes that individual expression was paramount. And for women, that was defined as the right to choose an interesting a career, a high-status mate, the desirable handbag or vacation, the perfect family size, and a definitionally fruitless quest for 'perfection.'

After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it.

Since Madonna is positioned as always "cooler than thou", we all are primed for schadenfreude if something in her fabulous life goes amiss.

When women are subordinate by their culture, in being able to anticipate or think about pleasurable sex, it boosts dopamine, which is about confidence and assertiveness and motivation and drive and focus. So that to me, explained why for 5,000 years female sexuality has been targeted.

In drawing attention to the physical characteristics of women leaders, they can be dismissed as either too pretty or too ugly. The net effect is to prevent women's identification with the issues. If the public women is stigmatized as too 'pretty,' she's a threat, a rival--or simply not serious; if derided as too 'ugly,' one risks tarring oneself with the same brush by identifying oneself with her agenda.

The symbolic value of having an African-American president has certainly eased some racial tensions in America, but they're not gone.