When I was a baby feminist, leading feminist thinkers were insisting that if women ran the world, there would be no sadism or war.

When women are pessimistic about their political strength and feel hopeless about changing the conditions of their lives, it is almost as if they do not believe that democracy means the country belongs to them. But it's true.

The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25 and 40 percent of the gross national product.

It is never smart, even in a strong democracy, to declare some debate off limits. In a weakening democracy it is catastrophic.

The First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right.

I would like to trust and believe that the American spirit of resistance will win the day, but I keep having to be this downer Cassandra person in saying that without dismantling this horrific legislative apparatus that has basically given George W. Bush dictatorial power, the spirit of America is not enough. We have to have that spirit, but we have to have tactics and strategies and a movement and a victory.

There is this giant void in the culture about women in that age group as heroines, as romantic beings, as sexual beings and as creative beings, and there's not that void for men. Women don't stop being all those things as their lives continue into those decades.