In 1975, which was the height of the women's movement, I thought I'd write a book on women's history. But in searching for a topic, I realized that there were few places in history where men and women interacted. Finally, it hit me: 'Oh, look at the family. That's the one place.'

There is no denying that we have made great progress toward gender equality.

Feminism insists on women's right to make choices - about whether to marry, whether to have children, whether to combine work and family or to focus on one over the other. It also urges men and women to share the joys and burdens of family life and calls on society to place a higher priority on supporting caregiving work.

Feminism needs a political program because gender inequality has been fostered by political decisions.

I started out as a music teacher; I never planned on becoming an actress.

At 16, I got into local-education archaeology classes - you got to go to summer digs. It allowed me to be both intellectual and a bad girl with a wicked social life every evening!

NASA was going to pick a public school teacher to go into space, observe and make a journal about the space flight, and I am a teacher who always dreamed of going up into space.

I have nothing against employment but it seems that our school system is too focused on training good employees but not good entrepreneurs. There should be a balance. We should learn from the entrepreneurial mindset of the Chinese.