I rarely felt or noticed any real divide between girls and boys when I was growing up. Maybe it was because I was so involved in sports and competed with the boys. Maybe it was my mom and dad, who constantly instilled confidence in me and never made me feel as though there were boy activities and girl activities.

I don't really have many regrets. I did miss a lot of the events in the days leading up to my sister's wedding because I was at a U17 camp. There were moments like that growing up when I felt like I focused too much on soccer. But that's probably the reason I am where I am today.

I was the biggest tomboy growing up. Now I love playing with a full face of makeup.

I could be a model for one night. But I'm also a professional soccer player, and I like to be taken seriously on the field.

We really need to move to a bit of a post-partisan world where we actually start solving problems and stop kind of living in a country where the political leaders act like half the country is entirely wrong about everything they believe and increasingly try to pit American against American.

All these boundaries - Africa, Asia, Malaysia, America - are set by men. But you don't have to look at boundaries when you are looking at a man - at the character of a man. The question is: What do you stand for? Are you a follower, or are you a leader?

I don't pretend there aren't biological differences, but I don't believe the desire for leadership is hardwired biology, not the desire to win or excel. I believe that it's socialization, that we're socializing our daughters to nurture and our boys to lead.

As more government functions are privatized, we find political leaders defunding the public school system, shifting government funds to the private, for-profit school industry.