My fridge

Many people walk up to me, point their finger in my face and ask: "Why do you hate men so much?"

It totally dumbfounds me because some of my songs, including 'Why did you leave me you bastard?', 'Only think of your cock' and 'Sleep with her and you will be castrated' are actually about love, forgiveness and responsibility.

When I was growing up, I realised that women lived in a man's world. In Ottawa during the 1980s, the government forbid women from becoming doctors, soldiers or teachers, they forced women into marriage as teenagers and women suffered a celibacy tax unless they bore a child by the age of 20.

People abandoned their daughters in dumpsters at birth and women, such as me, were banned from singing in public unless we chose songs that praised the gift of motherhood and the pleasures of cooking. It is no wonder I had a subliminal urge to self-destruct myself and take the whole damn sex of men with me.

So when my first album came out, it was really weird, because people actually went to the music store, bought the record and listened to it. When I met them on the street, they told me how great I was and I thought, wow, I'm not the only woman who feels like this.

But soon, despite the fact that all men are genetically educated from birth to dominate, betray and beat up women, I found that I still actually liked them. Men are really important. Largely because, without men, we wouldn't know whether we were women or not.

In the title track on my new latest album 'Love is a fridge', I use the metaphor of a refrigerator packed with food to show how an oppositely-sexed couple of two people, a man and a woman, share their love for one another, despite their differences in gender.

It's about how my boyfriend and I are like a fridge. When we are together, there is a real buzz. We always like to open up and look inside each other to see what we have and then, when we have decided which parts of ourselves go well together, like preparing the ingredients for a meal, we really get cooking!

I've got eggs, but no bacon
I've got fish, but no ham
I've got duck, but no orange
I've got cream, but no spam

For when I'm without you,
My heart begins to freeze
It's like ten thousand yoghurts,
When all you need is some cheese

Isn't it biotic, don't you think?

As we try to create a better world for women in countries that have suffered so much prejudice against the fairer – how I hate that adverb! – sex, I see myself, like today's women, as a pilgrim on the road to a church of equality, riding upon a beautiful horse that has leapt the hurdles of discrimination. But how do I get there? I need a man of course . . . because maps just make my head spin!

From AK13... My...