Inspiring to see women speak against sexual abuse

As the foremother of feminist legal theory and author of The Sexual Harassment of Working Women, what do you think about the #MeToo campaign?

It is inspiring that women are speaking out about sexual abuse.

Has the women's movement been able to harness the world wide web to influence change in the way women's equality is perceived?

Women have been changing our own inequality all along, but the ability to connect has been facilitated by social media.

You view pornography and prostitution as violation of women's civil rights. Some call this a "helper's high" perspective. Do you feel it should be about a woman's agency over her body?

Apparently the "some" you refer to are not familiar with this work. Do you or they regard the reported responses of some women who felt they had to acquiesce to Harvey Weinstein as examples of the cliche you call women's agency over her body? Make that into the only interaction and you have the sex industry. Exited and exiting women created the analysis of pornography and prostitution that I have helped develop and articulate for over 30 years. I represent them at their request. That said, the politics of that work affect all women. I am one, in case you hadn't noticed.

How much harm has Donald Trump, who openly bragged about his vulgar sexual objectification, as US president done to the women's movement?

It has done a lot of damage to women but no damage to the women's movement. If anything it has strengthened it.

Intersectionalities with caste present a big challenge when it comes to sexual harassment and assault in India. Are there any takeaways for India from the American women's movement where race presents a similar challenge?

Caste is also fundamental to prostitution and sex trafficking in India, that is akin, to serial rape. The structural vulnerabilities based on caste function in distinctive, but analogous ways to the way racism functions in rape, including when organised as prostitution, in the US. Am I to understand that sex forced by survival is "women's agency over her body" when organised as prostitution, but a form of abuse when practiced as sexual harassment? That the disproportionate use of lower caste and racially disadvantaged women in prostitution somehow reflects their greater freedom?

Through the 1960s and 70s India, the women's movement kept looking at the West to adopt and adapt. This has since changed and many in the movement now want to think of issues in the local context and paradigm. Do you think this is the way forward?

Yes. It is the way the women's movement has always been. The observation of western influence was largely a slander to keep women subordinate.

What would you advise millennials unwilling to seriously contemplate the social constructive aspect of gender in relationships?

Keep your eyes open and listen to others, including millennials, who see something you might be missing.

There are some who baulk at the idea of how political correctness about gender has made us overthink every word or gesture.They claim it erodes humour from daily life and language.

Humour often relies on misogyny for the kick of its pleasure. It is often at the expense of those with less power. Funny the same people who deploy it don't laugh at our jokes.

In the decade since your book Are Women Human?, have we made any progress from feminism as a radical notion that women are human?

Women and men with vision have always seen women's humanity. As more women resist being treated as subhuman, equality is seen as less radical and more simply accurate and obvious.