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What is interesting to me is looking at how male and female writers depict men who, come in behind to fill those domestic duties, deal with personal and cultural lack of respect for doing what is lingeringly perceived as 'women's work.'

Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.

The bottom line is that female writers aren't being given enough opportunities by male producers.

Men are very competent in their workplace - and this is going to sound sexist - women are better at running households and juggling lots of things, kids and scheduling and that kind of thing.

I do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law, politics, or trade - or that modesty and virtue are more becoming to women than to men, but wish we had more of it everywhere.

I'm not an especially male novelist, but I think men are better at writing about men, and the same is true for women. Reading Saul Bellow is a revelation, but he can't write women. There are exceptions, like Marilynne Robinson's 'Gilead,' but generally, I think it's true.

I love writing about men. To get by in the world you have to know how men think. Not that all guys think alike, but women tend to think about more things at the same time, an overgeneralization, but I find it easier to make my male characters focus than I do my female characters.

As a male writer, women are always what men pursue, and their world is always a mystery. So I always tried to present as many views as possible on women's worlds.

I think any time you have a workplace that's heavily weighted to men just by the nature of what it is, the same way you can say PR or fashion is heavily occupied by women, there's always going to be a little bit of that sexism.