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.

Money is there to put food on the table and make sure your family is cared for. Anything beyond that can be argued as extraneous.

Not even Trump's father's wealth, nor his father's faith in his son's destiny, could save Trump from incessant discipline. At the age of 13, he was shipped off to the New York Military Academy, which employed brutal tactics for the remaking of delinquent character, even resorting to violence to assert control over the boys.

It is true that I am a writer, and I was married to a composer, and I have lived in a small village in New England, but my children are not named Heracles and Persephone, and my daughter doesn't disappear underground every six months and emerge in the spring.

A child too, can never grasp the fact that the same mother who cooks so well, is so concerned about his cough, and helps so kindly with his homework, in some circumstance has no more feeling than a wall of his hidden inner world.