Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.

My career choice was to be a mother.

In our society, the pre-adolescent girl, the nubile virgin, the sexually active woman, the mother and the grandmother are all expected to look and behave in the same way. The correct body outline for them all is girlish; their voices should remain sweet and low, their manner accommodating. ... Kicking off leg-lengthening high-heeled shoes, wiping the colored grease off your lips, raising your voice, letting the grey come through your hair, ceasing the simper that lifts your cheeks and letting your jowls settle into disapproving shapes is seen as letting yourself go.

That's because people know how they would feel if the woman were her granddaughter, or mother, or her niece.

I have always had tremendous respect for my sister as an artist, as a woman, and now as a mother.

There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn't bother to change while there are women like that around.