If we value what we've inherited for free - from other women - surely it's right morally and ethically for us to wake up and say, 'I'm a feminist. '
— Annie Lennox
We all fight over what the label 'feminism' means but for me it's about empowerment. It's not about being more powerful than men - it's about having equal rights with protection, support, justice. It's about very basic things. It's not a badge like a fashion item.
I also started writing songs because I had this burning activity in my heart and had to express myself.
I'm appalled the word feminism has been denigrated to a place of almost ridicule and I very passionately believe the word needs to be revalued and reintroduced with power and understanding that this is a global picture.
The word feminism needs to be taken back. It needs to be reclaimed in a way that is inclusive of men.
I'm not intensely private - I talk a great deal about my life and my work - I just don't play the game to excess.
I love to be individual, to step beyond gender.
As a creative person, you just put something out into the consciousness of the society you live in.
Life expectancy in many parts of Africa can be something around the age of thirty five to thirty eight. I mean you're very fortunate if you live to that age. In fact when I went to Uganda for the first time one of the things that occurred to me was that I saw very few elderly people.
Churches, depending on their policy, can do fantastic work with people in the community.
I think my daughters have a pretty healthy self-awareness but I can't speak on their behalf.
I want people to understand me as a person with views, not just performing songs.
I'm from a working-class background, and I've experienced that worry of not having a job next week because the unions are going on strike.
When I look at the majority of my own songs they really came from my own sense of personal confusion or need to express some pain or beauty - they were coming from a universal and personal place.
Feminism is a word that I identify with. The term has become synonymous with vitriolic man-hating but it needs to come back to a place where both men and women can embrace it. It is particularly important for women in developing countries.
I have different hats; I'm a mother, I'm a woman, I'm a human being, I'm an artist and hopefully I'm an advocate. All of those plates are things I spin all the time.
I love to make music and stay grounded.
I have a lot to be grateful for.
I like where I live here, in London.
For me, pointing and clicking my phone is absolutely fine. People say that isn't the art of photography but I don't agree.
I don't think feminism is about the exclusion of men but their inclusion... we must face and address those issues, especially to include younger men and boys.
As a mother, you have that impulse to wish that no child should ever be hurt, or abused, or go hungry, or not have opportunities in life.
There is a big difference between what I do onstage and what I do in my private life. I don't put my living room on magazine pages.
I understand what it is for a woman to want to protect their children and give them the best they can.
I will go out of my way to avoid the shopping crowds and the extreme consumerism - I hate all that.
I don't have any interest to go to Israel. I don't think I'd ever have a cause to go.
Charity is a fine thing if it's meeting a gap where needs must be met and there are no other resources. But in the long term we need to support people into helping themselves.
I would like to see the gay population get on board with feminism. It's a beautiful organisation and they've done so much. It seems to me a no-brainer.
I don't want to be owned by a corporation and obliged to make a certain type of album. I want to be free.
I've never experienced chronic poverty, but I know what it's like to live on £3 a week.
I think people in Great Britain are a bit jaded sometimes.
Money is a good thing and it's obviously useful, but to work only for money or fame would never interest me.
I wouldn't say that I've mellowed. I'm less mellow, perhaps.
I'm not particularly attention-seeking.
I've thought about what is an alternative word to feminism. There isn't one. It's a perfectly good word. And it can't be changed.
I am fascinated by history and particularly the Victorian era.
I have always been a very visual person and a keen observer.
Men need to understand, and women too, what feminism is really about.
Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody.
It's hard to tell how far women's individuality has come in the past twenty years.
The inner world is very potent for me - I don't ascribe to any God or Jesus or Buddha - I just have a sense of it and revere it along with the natural world and human consciousness.
Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement.
I've always tried to keep my integrity and keep my autonomy.
The general population still thinks HIV is something that came in the 80s and went away, or that it only affects the gay population or intravenous drug users.
I'm a female but I have a masculine side and I'm not going to negate that part of myself.
I've never been a social person.
I think music is the most phenomenal platform for intellectual thought.
Women's issues have always been a part of my life.
I only want to make music because I have a passion for it.
One wouldn't want to have the same dilemmas at 50 as one had at 15. And indeed I don't. I have a very different take on life.
