Children under five are the poorest age group in America and one in four infants toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.

I basically get stereotyped a lot in terms of being a girl and writing 'chick' music for teenage girls or something. I think if anything the press kind of because of my gender and my age tends to kind of relegate my work to this sort of special-interest group. It's part of the cultural dynamic I guess.

I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.