A Time magazine cover story and a week of programming on NBC immediately followed the release of The Shriver Report. This week, California's First Lady will use the findings to engage participants in her annual conference on women. If the continuing activity fails to "ignite a national conversation," it won't...

Consider these four women:

Helen Thomas - 89 years old, a first-wave feminist who broke into the mens' club that was the Washington DC press corps, and has since covered every President since JFK.

Gloria Steinem - 75 years old, a prominent second-wave feminist, co-founded the National...

The Nobel Laureate talks about planting 40 million trees (including one with Barack Obama), her global perspective, and her philosophy of life


Wangari Maathai was born in Kenya and was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn...

On Her New TV Show, Feeling Beautiful, Homophobia, and Her Outlook on Life

Comedian, actress and activist Margaret Cho stars in the new, critically acclaimed series Drop Dead Diva which premiered this past Sunday, July 12th on Lifetime television. ...

The Supreme Court Justice talks about her new interactive web site "Our Courts" and other timely topics

Sandra Day O'Connor may have officially retired from her esteemed 25-year career as Supreme Court Justice in 2006, but she is still "working" for the courts and our government. Motivated by research...

Tips On Getting Kids Excited About Greening Our Planet Earth

This April 22nd marks the annual celebration of Earth Day, a national American and now global expression of public will bringing together environmental activists and the community at large, to foster respect for the planet and help create a sustainable...

Communicating with Jane Fonda

Not content merely to speak to her Broadway audience eight times a week through a critically acclaimed performance, Jane Fonda is blogging daily and twittering nightly. She finds herself hooked on the instant feedback.

In her memoir, My Life...

After 46 years, Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda makes her triumphant return to Broadway in 33 Variations, a brilliant new play which is earning standing ovations nightly at the Eugene O'Neill theater. The play was written and directed by acclaimed playwright Moises Kaufman and...

Her thoughts on Obama, coping with hard times, her hopes for humanity and her new book

Marianne Schnall: What made you decide to write this book, Letter to My Daughter?

Maya Angelou: Well, I had started about 20 years ago making notes about subjects I wanted to talk...

Eve Ensler on Her Upcoming Tour and Campaign to Stop Violence Against Women in the Congo

Women and girls in eastern Congo suffer sexual atrocities that are tactics of war in the region. Playwright Eve Ensler has joined with Dr. Denis Mukwege to ask us to imagine the unimaginable, to...

Exclusive Interview with actress Amy Poehler on her new digital TV series aimed at empowering young girls, "Smart Girls at the Party"

Actress Amy Poehler made us all laugh earlier this year with her comedic impersonations of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live, but off screen she is...

Elizabeth Lesser talks about her work with Omega Institute, her books, and her recent "webinar" with Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle.

Elizabeth Lesser is the co-founder and senior adviser of Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, one of the largest education centers in the...

Featuring exclusive remarks from Isabel Allende, Joan Blades, Eve Ensler, Melissa Etheridge, Gloria Feldt, Kim Gandy, Elizabeth Lesser, Courtney Martin, Kathy Najimy, Amy Richards, Deborah Siegel, Eleanor Smeal, Gloria Steinem, Loung Ung, Alice Walker, Jody Williams, Marie Wilson

Everyone is talking about women and the upcoming election.

As a woman,...

In this exclusive interview from the International AIDS Conference, singer-songwriter Annie Lennox talks about the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the status of women, her SING campaign, staying sane in a world gone mad, and a wake-up call for humanity.

Marianne Schnall: You have spent this past week at the

It's mind-numbing. Four hundred thousand dead and 2.45 million displaced in Darfur; 5.4 million dead in fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998; epidemic levels of violence against women and children. With the constant repetition of such statistics of devastation, what can move us to action?

At an...

In this exclusive interview, Natalie Portman talks about her work for FINCA International, how she balances her activism with her career as an actress, and her advice on making a difference.

(Note: A portion of this interview originally appeared in a piece I wrote for Entertainment Weekly's website, EW.com,

Last year I did an interview with Cameron Diaz who was helping promote Al Gore's Live Earth event for a piece I wrote that ran at Entertainment Weekly's web site, EW.com, "Cameron Diaz on Live Earth".

With Earth Day upcoming on April 22nd, I thought...

Perhaps you've heard the recent controversy over Jane Fonda using the "c- word" on the Today show. But the real story is the one behind the scenes. Knowing I would be interviewing both Jane Fonda and playwright Eve Ensler at an event later that evening, I was watching the...

In 1996, when Eve Ensler premiered The Vagina Monologues at a small performance space in downtown New York, she received the type of response playwrights dream about: critical acclaim, an Obie award, and sold out houses. Featuring her interviews with more than 200 women talking openly and intimately about their...

Consider these two images from recent news events: 20,000 monks marching past Burmese Nobel Laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi's home to protest the democracy leader's 11-year house arrest and the country's military junta. Condoleeza Rice announcing plans for a peace conference at some unnamed future time.

Both these women wield...