Describe the women who most influenced your life in the formation of your character.

Well, one's mother, contributes an awful lot. Sometimes the 'awful' is intended, and sometimes not. And, my mother of course, in positive and negative ways. And a lot in creativity. She's given me a lot of creativity. And I think my real problem with her is that she didn't live up to her- she made the wrong choices, I think. But it has allowed me to realize that I have those choices to make. Nobody else is making those choices for me, and nobody else will. So I won't let that happen. I think that she's probably the first person that showed me that we define ourselves. And it's not by what we say. Let's see, who else? Oh of course, we can go back to Joan Baez. She has influenced me an awful lot from when I was a child. Because she's the one person that stood up and said things which seemed to make sense. But also seemed to have a real deep caring for people, beyond politics, beyond fashion, beyond what was socially acceptable. Just everywhere. It was truth rather than what sounded good. There was a certain resonance from that. I don't know that I ever consciously thought of how that affected me. It just did affect me. That's all.

Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not?

No way (laughing). It's the same answer as before. No, I don't consider myself a feminist. And why don't I? Because I'm looking for equality, I'm looking for equality for everybody. Not equality for women only and certainly not what we've had, which is certainly not an equality for men. I mean men are as traumatized as women are by this society and this culture and most cultures, and certainly most western cultures. So trying to bring women to the same status as men is the wrong direction.

What would you most like to tell your daughter about your hopes for her or for women in the future? How would you advise a young woman to go about finding her own voice?

Let's see, what have I told her? I don't know that we can tell anybody anything. You know, you live by example and you learn by example. How she sees it is a whole different thing, and I know that. It used to be simple. When I didn't have a daughter I thought that was an easy thing. I thought that we all are sort of this blank slate and that you just start writing on it and it becomes something. But it isn't. It's not a blank slate. It's like you're writing on a ball. A child is this already formed thing. And you get to impress upon them certain things and you know, they take or don't take. I'm not answering this question, I don't think. I think that it's probably an example of my frustration with realizing that it's almost impossible to answer that question.

Well, I like the thing that Eleanor Roosevelt saying that failure is the first step to success. You just keep going. You listen to your own voice. You listen to what drives you, and that's what works for me. I think that's the only thing that I can really say, is you're not defined by other people.

How do you define success for yourself? How would you define it for the next generation?

The crux for me is no limitations, or as few limitations as possible. Being able to do what I want to do. You know, I think we all get trapped into that business of 'success is money' and that's a pretty lonely place. I think that success is happiness. If you're happy with it you're successful, whatever it is - even failing. You can be happy with that. That's my feeling.

What made you decide to pursue a non-traditional occupation?

I didn't. (laughs) How did I end up in forty-five nontraditional occupations? Yeah, I realize that this November marks twenty years of it (tugboating). And that's certainly not the first, but it's the biggest. How did I end up doing that? The way I tell the story is that a friend that was a sailor, a high school teacher friend of mine, bought a boat and we sailed to the Galapagos Islands. And from then on, I couldn't imagine working inside. But I'd also spent time working at a mountaineering school every summer for almost a decade. When I think back on it now the tugboats must have - they have this - real romance. And the romance is the scruffy little, tough, unattractive boat, that has its own cuteness, pushing around these big ships. And it's the Little Toot syndrome. And that's very appealing to me, because it's not what people think of as the romance of the sea. The romance of the sea is Windjammers or maybe big passenger ships, or something. But the romance of the sea for me is tugs. They're the little, no nonsense, get things done, cut to the chase, vessels of the harbor. And vessels of the sea - but when I thought of -- for a while was pursuing the idea of becoming a bar pilot, a ship docking pilot, I did that for awhile and realized that before I made any irreversible changes in my life -- that really wasn't what I wanted to be, because I'm a hands on person. I'm probably the epitome of a do-it-yourselfer, in every realm. And so I just couldn't imagine myself being on the bridge of a ship telling people what to do. I have no interest in that. I'd probably be good at it, but I just have no interest at all. I want to go out and do the work. If I can't do the work I'll go do something I can do.

How has gender affected your career choices? How has it affected your choices and how has it affected your career?

How has gender affected my choices? I don't know. You know, I went into an occupation- into a field where there were no women. I couldn't register at the Union Hall. I couldn't get on a tug when I decided to become a tugboater. It's through coincidence and impeccably delightful timing that I made that choice when I made it. If I had made it two years earlier it would have been a very frustrating thing. It was totally unbeknownst to me at the time I was making the decision to look for work in the maritime that a lawsuit was won in San Francisco that opened up the Boatman's Union and I could actually walk in there and register. I think that gender probably made a lot more - let me think, how can I word this - was a bigger factor than I ever realized. I mean recently, I've come to understand that I have worked in non-traditional women's areas because I needed to be - I don't think I could compete with women. And so I was much more comfortable around men.

It just wasn't safe for me. I couldn't compete with women because I wasn't comfortable around women, that much. I've been thoroughly comfortable around men. I've worked in the mountains in a fairly isolated area, isolated situation. Sailed at sea with guys. Then I chose this career where I was the only woman. For a long time I was the only woman. And then, of course, on every vessel in twenty years, I've been just about the only woman. And I just realized recently why that was. And I mean it's this long deep psychological thing, I don't want to go particularly into, but it's an interesting thing. But it was safer and more comfortable.

I was thinking about a person, who is this amazingly masculine woman, who has a husband, and I was trying to understand. A friend said, "What's going on with that person?" What was going on there. And it suddenly occurred to me, wait a minute, there are little similarities here. And I'm sure it has to do with competition with the mother. You often think of women who have a very masculine persona as being lesbians, and that never added up in my book, you know. It didn't add up to me, with me. And then realizing suddenly about what was going on with this person that I'd seen. "Oh, yeah. Wait a minute, it's just not safe to compete with this other - to be a woman. To be the outside personified woman, because of that. It's much easier for me now. It's simple. It's fine that I can do that. But it took me a long time to get where that was safe. And where I could have women friends. You know, like I didn't have really almost any close women friends for a long time.

What woman, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with?

Oh, (laughs) me. I like having dinner by myself. It's a wonderful trip. Now that's a funny question. You know, I'm really bad at this sort of question, because I don't have an identified bunch of heroes that I long to ask questions of. And it's probably because of being fairly dyslexic or something, that I don't read and think ahead. I'm impulsive and intuitive.

Okay. The woman who wrote Female Eunuch, whose name is Germaine Greer. And the reason I'd like to have dinner with her is she was the only female (laughing) Monty Python. She's a saint for that- (more laughing) That was so funny. (laughing) No way! I mean because I love her writing. She is so funny, so humorous anyway. I'll tell you, there's one person I'd like to actually meet who does a radio show on KPFA, and her name is Carolyn Casey. Did you ever hear her? Oh god, what a trip. She's an astrologer. But she's an astrologer the right way. And it's not like these things are defined stuff, it's like as if she invites you, invites you to be a co-conspirator with her- to understand what's going on. I can't explain that. But anyway, that's the one person I'd like to have - two people I'd to have dinner with, probably together.