Madonna is that forbidden thing, the Nietzschean creative woman. Her preoccupation with a high level of work doesn't allow her to follow the usual script that powerful women are expected to follow - 'don't hate me for my success, don't hate me for my power.'

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints.

The other thing I knew I had was a high level of competitiveness.

To do anything to a high level, it has to be total obsession.

There's a high level of frustration with the two-party system out there.

The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle.