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I think, when I was a young lawyer starting out, I was so determined to prove that I was as good as the men and that I could be given the same opportunities as the men, and it wouldn't make any difference at all that I was a woman. But actually, looking back on it now, I did do things that I wouldn't recommend to other women at all.

What I increasingly felt, in marriage and in motherhood, was that to live as a woman and to live as a feminist were two different and possibly irreconcilable things.

When I was in my 20s, I wanted to be tough. I discovered that I didn't want to be the woman I was raised to be - a good, traditional wife. When I went out in the world to find a husband, I found that husbands weren't ready to accept the kind of woman I was going to be.

Women did not have as many options as men, and I need to reflect that reality in my mysteries.

Having one's traditional role questioned is not a very comfortable experience, perhaps especially for women, who have been able to remain children, and to benefit from work they did not and could not do.

We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home; that a woman should not aspire to achieve more than her male counterparts and, particularly, not more than her husband.

I was really raised in a gender-neutral household. I always knew I was a girl, but it never occurred to me that there was a limitation.

I think women have long been defined by their roles as procreators and wives, and we're expected to serve, take care of, say 'Yes,' and not ruffle any feathers. Women, in particular, are sometimes not allowed to consider who they are outside of the roles that they play.

I can't be a wife. I'm not that sort of person. Wives have to compromise all the time.