I've always had gender confusion. I had two older brothers, and I've been predominantly male influenced. I really always looked up to my dad, really always looked up to my brothers... I had a lot of male friends growing up. It didn't help that in my town, where I lived, there were no female musicians.
There was a time when we had a nice little run: Eve, Lil' Kim, Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill, Remy Ma, Da Brat - it goes on. But what I noticed is that a lot of talented females in hip-hop came out of a male camp.
In my town, I had only one adult American male role model: my father. I grew up taking it for granted that missionaries were what American boys grew up to be.
No woman in Afghanistan is in business without support from either her husband or her father or her uncle, someone.
If I'm working in the city, then as soon as I'm home, I try to lock in on my son for a few hours. Every day. I see how important it is that he's starting to come into my world now. It's just an effort to give him that male mode of being.
One of the things about being a boy, especially growing up without a father, is you really don't have that role model to teach you how to do things.
A woman's biography - with about eight famous historical exceptions - so often turns out to be the story of a man and the woman who helped his career.
I never really had male influences in my life. Steady, male influences. And that's what I wanna be for my family. As a musician, I definitely will attain everything that I set out to. I work very hard. But more important to me is that my family is taken care of.
I train mainly with guys, and they help to push me.
[Steven Sebring] presence was also nice for my children, who, having just lost their father, quite naturally craved warm male attention. They gravitated to him right away.
We all played sports, my brothers, my daddy, my uncles. That's all we had.
A son ain't what a woman say. A son is what a man do.
As Vivacity is the Gift of Women, Gravity is that of Men.
A loving family matters. So do male role models.
I love it when women come up to me and tell me I'm a positive influence on their lives and the lives of their young daughters. That's a great feeling.
I'm so tired of reading all the negativity about black fathers running away and no black men as role models in society. I had a great father. Most of the guys I knew had great fathers.
My mum left my dad when I was six months old, so I don't know him at all. I had no male figures in my life, really. I had my godfather, but he's more like a grandfather, so I was quite sheltered. I've never tried to find my father.
There weren't really any visible men in my family when I was growing up, but of course there have been men in my life, wonderful men.
The powerful men in my life have always believed in me: my husband, my son.
I have three kids, the oldest is 18 and her friends are going to see it The Aristocrats because they told her they're going to see it, especially her guy friends.
If I have an antipathy for any class of people, it is for fine ladies. I almost match my Husband's detestation of partridge-shooting gentlemen.
The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy to man.
I have to say, without sounding like a total tosser, that everything I've learned in life, and that has taken me out of my natural interior life, has been with men. They exposed me to things that I wasn't aware of. I learned from all the guys.
I grew up around lots of men - my father, my brothers, my uncles - so I wasn't intimidated by them.
A father is always going to be a hero to his son.
