It was a whilrwind book launch tour. I traveled to events and book signings around five cities in four states in a matter of ten days: Chicago, St Louis, New Haven, Stamford, and NYC. I signed lots of books, met some fabulous people, was hosted by some beautiful women, had my first Barnes and Noble event where they gave me an incredible boost, did several media interviews including the Brian Lehrer show on NPR (WNYC), and heard from many people -- men and women -- who were deeply grateful that this book has been published. There is a clear need to articulate a moderate voice calling for an end to religious extremism that is hurting women. I'm so pleased to be able to give that stance the power that it needs and deserves. And you would not believe what happened to me on the way home: My plane took off twenty minutes late because an ultra-orthodox man was negotiating with passengers so as not to have to sit next to me on the plane...Is that karma or poetic justice? I was thinking, I just spoke to hundreds of people about all this, and here I am in the midst of this right here and now. Part of me wanted to smile and hand out copies of my book! (Haha, how funny would that have been?) But I sat there silently for a long time, just watching all this happen, witnessing all these men around me talking about me, mostly in Yiddish, but also in Hebrew and English, without looking directly at me. I sat there, torn between my desire not to make a scene and my feeling that someone MUST speak out about this. I thought, it's all about the speaking out, isn't it? If I don't articulate, right here and now, how all this affects women, how this affects me, who will? So finally I spoke out. Right before the man found a replacement to sit next to me, I said, "Can I say something?'' and without looking at me, he said yes. I said, "Imagine if instead of men and women, we were talking about Jews and non-Jews. Imagine how you would feel if a bunch of non-Jews were standing around saying that they can't sit next to you because you're a Jew, that they are willing to sit anywhere but next to you, because their religion won't allow it, because you are impure or different, or whatever. how would you feel? How would you ever get over that insult?' I could feel my voice rising. After all these years of writing about this, after this whole tour where I went around listening to people and sharing ideas about all this, I just could not stay silent in the face of this. I'm not sure whether it mattered. One young man very kindly said to me, "You don't understand, women are holier than men," I said, "That's rubbish and it doesn't excuse the insult," and then I added that...