I've found that if I say what I'm really thinking and feeling, people are more likely to say what they really think and feel. The conversation becomes a real conversation.

The women's movement is taking a different form right now, and it is because it has been so effective and so successful that there's a huge counter movement to try to stop it, to try to divide women from one another, to try to almost foment divisiveness.

Many women have told me they remember where they were when they read the book, and how they felt suddenly that what they really thought or felt about things made sense.

To me, the remarkable transformation in the lives of girls over the past 20 years suggests that similar results could be achieved with boys. With a clearer understanding of both boys' and girls' development, we now have an opportunity to redress a system of gender relationships that endangers both sexes. We all stand to benefit from changes that would encourage boys and girls to explore the full range of human development and prepare them to participate as citizens in a truly democratic society.

I don't see myself as an icon. I was very moved by the response to my book; it brought me into relationship with many people whom I otherwise would not have met. I also discovered that in becoming a public figure, I became a focus for all kinds of projections that had little to do with me.

It all goes back, of course, to Adam and Eve -a story which shows among other things, that if you make a woman out of a man, you are bound to get into trouble