I knew the writing came from the place that's the closest you can get to truth. But the downside was, I became a character in a public story that res… - Sally Kempton

I am no longer submissive, no longer seductive; perhaps it is for that reason that my husband tells me sometimes that I have become hard, and that my hardness is unattractive. I would like it to be otherwise. I think that will take a long time.

I would like to be cold and clear and selfish, to demand satisfaction for my needs, to compel respect rather than affection. And yet there are moments, and perhaps there always will be, when I fall back upon the old cop-outs. Why should I trouble to win a chess game or a political argument when it is so much easier to lose charmingly? Why should I work when my husband can support me, why should I be a human being when I can get away with being a child?

When men imagine a female uprising, they imagine a world in which women rule men as men have ruled women. Most men can’t really imagine “equality.” All they can imagine is having the existing power structure inverted.