I feel that the thing about film and particularly about TV, actually, is it's being created now. We're living in the best time so far because there are many more women writing and women directing, women producing, and people are finally catching on to the fact that women want to go and buy tickets to see female characters and more than one in a film. So I actually think it's a very fertile time to be a woman over 40.
Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.
I've always loved independent women, outspoken women, eccentric women, funny women, flawed women. When someone says about a woman, 'I'm sorry, that's just wrong,' I tend to think she must be doing something right.
There were a lot of different things [in The Women's Room ]. I don't really want to summarize it in this way. It's about a woman's awakening, a woman who came of age in the '50s and is a teenager - actually, she's a little bit older - in the '60s and part of the women's movement and how she ends up there.
One of the favorite things I've learned about Michigan State is that they set up a 'Women's course' in 1896. It sounds like the first gender studies department! But when I looked into it, they taught women home economics, liberal arts, and science. So the women's course was actually a useful degree! It actually teaches something productive!
Before, I was a little bit skeptical about women coaching, because I don't know if maybe they are different, and not every woman can be strict to take the best out of you. I was worried about this, but so far I see that some women can be much stronger than men, actually.
I used to worry about the lack of roles for women over 40. But suddenly, everyone has realised it's interesting to have a drama with a woman at the centre of it.
I'm convinced women actually think they can read minds. Like when a woman goes, "I can tell you don't want to hang out with me today." And you're like, "What are you talking about? I actually do!"
I am a feminist. I reject wholeheartedly the way we are taught to perceive women. The beauty of women, how a woman should act or behave. Women are strong and fragile. Women are beautiful and ugly. We are soft-spoken and loud, all at once. There is something mind-controlling about the way we're taught to view women.
The whole cast and creative team were definitely aware of the 'This is the death of Broadway!' kind of thing about 'SpongeBob,' but we've been really ready to change people's minds. I'm really proud of being part of something that took the most creative route to a commercial entity.
I made physical objects because I know how to do something on the computer. That struck a chord with me: Most women of my generation have grown up with technology but lack the handmade creative skills of former generations. This is a big opportunity to fill that gap.
Women can also be creative in total isolation. I know excellent women artists who do original work without any response to speak of. Maybe they are used to lack of feedback. Maybe they are tougher.
Sixty-four percent of managers in the U.S. are afraid to be alone in a room with a woman. Mentoring is all about being alone in a room with someone. Let's start talking about this honestly. The lack of equal access is the silent killer for women and no one wants to talk about it.
Feminism is something I think about more when I watch the film, Christine, rather than when I was actually doing it, to be honest with you. But I do think it functions as a sort of interesting feministic critique, because you are seeing a woman who's resolutely incapable of behaving like the kind of woman that's acceptable at the time. She doesn't know how to play the game by everyone else's rules, and it makes you realize that actually there were rules that were functioning for a woman to be a careerist.
Museums and galleries do recruit art historians, but they are overwhelmingly white and middle class, or else from abroad. They understandably fret about the lack of diversity in their curating departments, but is it any wonder?
Hillary Clinton knows, as I did know, as my women members know - that a woman being elected to a position, it's not about what it means to that woman. It's not about what it means to Hillary to be the first president. It's about what it means to all of the women in America, that a woman has broken the ultimate marble ceiling and that anything is possible for them and their daughters - and their sons. It's about sons, too.