When women come up to me like, 'I am a freaking senator,' or, 'I'm a doctor,' it's like, 'Damn, y'all like me? I look up to y'all!'

I think women do have that fatal streak to them that's partly because it's been romanticized, the martyr complex - 'Look what you did to me!'

Look, a lot of women would be turned off with hearing me say how hot I think Brad Pitt is! Know what I mean? So I probably don't help my cause.

I want to warn potential victims. Many of them are women, and many of them are battered women. It's a cause for me. When I look back, though, so many of the books I've written are about wives who just couldn't get away.

My child has changed things for me. Lately, I really wish there were greater roles for women. I think I see it in a different way now. I look at my little girl and I don't want her to think that all she has to be is pretty and quiet.

We women continue to swallow this line that it's unladylike or even proof of being a lesbian if you wear flat shoes like Doc Martens. I'm prepared to put up with that accusation, because at least my feet aren't killing me and I don't look like a bandy ostrich.

I started watching so many different types of women, saw all the complexities of them, all the ways and the look and shapes they could be, and I felt it was missing for me in American film. I didn't see anybody I was watching in movies that felt like me. I felt rather tortured and lonely about it.

I think for women, especially women of colour, hair has so much to do with our identity and our confidence levels. I've made a conscious choice after growing up and feeling insecure and trying to achieve this look that actually wasn't me, where I've finally stopped relaxing my hair and went back to my natural texture.

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