I love being a woman and I was not one of these women who rose through professional life by wearing men's clothes or looking masculine. I loved wearing bright colors and being who I am.

I didn't want to set up a women's studies program. I thought women should learn to operate in a coeducational atmosphere, because, especially in national security and international affairs, it's male-dominated.

I did go to Wellesley, a women's college. And I am of a kind of strange generation which is transitional in terms of women who wanted to go out and get jobs.

Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven't exactly been non-aggressive - including me.

In 1918, Germany suffered the ghastly consequences of defeat; France suffered those of victory, the price of which was to divide and embitter French politics and culture and lead to its defeat in 1940.

The experience of learning how to get straight to the core of a problem proved to be of immense value later when I had a long succession of responsibilities in large, complex government departments.

In 2005, I founded the Democratic Pacific Union, an international organization of 28 democratic countries to promote democracy, peace and prosperity in the Pacific region.

I think that political marriages are subject to more strain than most precisely because of the nature of politics.