A biography is never a biography of one person, of course, but the individual life of your protagonist will never conform. It will always bang up against history.

One of the key things about the entitlement and power of patriarchy, but also within feminism, is not that it's wilful nastiness. But you can't ask for permission. You can negotiate and you can bring people on board and you can build a base but you can't expect for it to be given.

The fight against unfair scheduling is like the fight for a regulated work day - it's people fighting for reasonable conditions at work and to have a life, so you can have some leisure.

The trade unions in the UK are campaigning around zero-hours contracts, which isn't about feminism, but it's a feminist issue. Women are affected by zero-hours contracts, and the recession has and is affecting women more than men.

When you're writing, you're making decisions about compression and the shape of a life, which are very similar to how we experience our inner consciousness.

Many of us have had that experience of being in love with someone and then they end up being your enemy and there's a stranger in your bed.

Men want to destroy the women: you've become bigger than me, people love you more, you have a public platform, that's my space you're taking up. I can't just divorce you, I have to destroy you.