Jenny McCarthy has used her celebrity and sex appeal to attract attention to autism. And while no one questions McCarthy's determination and passion, many scientists have debunked her anti-vaccine message and her claims that a gluten-free diet can provide a cure.

Nell Scovell

Diet Car Art

If necessity is the mother of invention, urgency is the uncle of change. Without it, progress slows and then stops and then reverses.

Nell Scovell

Change Without Wit

Sometimes, not knowing what you're doing allows you to do things you never knew you could do.

Nell Scovell

Time You Wing

Male writers don't want to be judged in the room. They want to be able to scarf an entire bag of potato chips while cracking fart jokes and making lewd comments without fear of feminine disapproval. But we're your co-workers, not your wives.

Nell Scovell

Work Men Fear

In her darkest hours, Diana, Princess of Wales, could have used a friend like Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The two lived similar lives, a century apart.

Nell Scovell

Art Wales Used

Constant exercise can keep the body trim and taut, but the face is another thing.

Nell Scovell

Trim Thing Thin

I've worked on over twenty TV staffs, and nine out of ten male colleagues are wonderful, inclusive, and professional. Still, there's usually one guy - the Tenth Man - who turns a fun job into a dental appointment.

Nell Scovell

Work Men Worked

Once, after a long week, I felt so insecure that I decided to make a list of people who thought I was funny even if I didn't think I was. At the top of the list, I wrote, 'Garry Shandling.' His early praise protected me like a comedy-writer version of Harry Potter's scar.

Nell Scovell

Funny Car Wrote

I loved working on 'Murphy Brown,' and I loved working on 'Monk.'

Nell Scovell

Work Love Working

Sensitivity training is a fine idea but isn't taken seriously by those who need it most.

Nell Scovell

Who Us Training

In March 2010, I attended an art opening for Kimberly Brooks's show 'The Stylist Project' in Los Angeles. It was a starry celebration hosted by Dior and 'Vanity Fair' to benefit P.S. Arts. But even as fun-to-gape-at actresses like Christina Hendricks arrived, I couldn't take my eyes off the oil portraits.

Nell Scovell

Art Yes Vanity

I'm such an admirer of Wendy Davis.

Nell Scovell

End Davis Admirer

Broad City's first season is full of moments that are insane... and yet make total sense.

Nell Scovell

Mom Men Total

For me, TV had always been a medium for entertainment.

Nell Scovell

Men Ways Way

One of the greatest benefits to come out of 'Lean In' was convincing women to help and support other women - not out of this sense of duty and that you'd be condemned to hell forever if you didn't, but because it will make all your lives better.

Nell Scovell

Women Men Great

One of the most rebellious things a woman can do is allow people to think she's mean.

Nell Scovell

Woman Us Think

There have been many great newspapermen, but to my mind, only two have achieved immortality: Pulitzer for his endowment and William Randolph Hearst for his castle.

Nell Scovell

Men Great William

I learned not to get too happy about good news or too distraught about bad.

Nell Scovell

Good Too T

You don't have to let a bad experience stop you from doing what you want to do.

Nell Scovell

Experience You Want

When I write, I feel like an optometrist, constantly flipping between lenses and asking, 'Is this better? Is this?' Slowly, the work comes into focus.

Nell Scovell

Work Write Us

Early on in my career, I was often the only woman in the room, writing for shows like 'Late Night with David Letterman,' 'The Simpsons,' 'Newhart,' and 'Coach,' and sometimes I'd feel like I didn't belong.

Nell Scovell

Time Car Art

Feminists cried, 'Sexism!' when New York Senator Hillary Clinton was judged not by the content of her character but by the color of her pantsuits.

Nell Scovell

There have always been women who were successful against the odds. Now we need to change the odds so more women can be successful.

Nell Scovell

I think it's an uphill battle in every field. You hear late-night comedy is hard on women. And then you hear investment banking is hard on women. And tech is hard on women. And then you start digging, and you learn philosophy departments are hard on women!

Nell Scovell

My criticisms of late-night TV blew up some old friendships and sparked some new ones.

Nell Scovell

When blue-eyed Donald Trump married hazel-eyed Ivana Zelnickova, he probably figured his broad-shouldered DNA would dominate her girly alleles. But genetics played a cruel trick on Trump: Of the couple's three children, only the youngest, Eric, wound up with his father's fishy blue eyes.

Nell Scovell

I think I'm funnier in my writing than in person.

Nell Scovell

Like leggings, comedies created by women came into vogue in the late 1980s, exploded in the early '90s, went mainstream in the mid-'90s, and were shoved into the back of the closet around 1997.

Nell Scovell

I have a husband who didn't just resign himself to staying home but was happy to be the primary parent.

Nell Scovell

I realize that 'hire qualified women!' is the sort of outraged demand that's often met with a sigh. No one disagrees, and yet gender inequality in high-paying positions extends into all professions.

Nell Scovell

I was ahead of the gender curve, but I wasn't ahead of the intersectionality curve, and I get it now. It's important to me.

Nell Scovell

I fantasize about the networks making a rule that each show's writing staff needs to reflect the gender and racial makeup of its audience.

Nell Scovell

The vocabulary of my cynical world doesn't allow me to explain the success of 'Lean In.'

Nell Scovell

Arts are a luxury, proof that a civilization has risen above 'politics and war.'

Nell Scovell

When you start a memoir, you think, 'I'm going to blast all the people who were mean to me.' And then you start writing, and you go, actually, it's so much more fun to say nice things about people who were kind and generous to you.

Nell Scovell

I'm both an insider and an outsider.

Nell Scovell

I've been speaking out about harassment and gender disparity for years.

Nell Scovell

Hated 'The Imitation Game.' Totally inaccurate. A gay man with a messy room? Don't buy it.

Nell Scovell

The more successful you are as a man, the more you're liked. And the more successful you are as a woman, the more you're disliked.

Nell Scovell

Blondness is a core Trump-family value: Both Donald Jr. and Eric got the memo and married blondes.

Nell Scovell

I basically lived like a guy for, certainly, the first decade of my career, and I just wanted to blend in.

Nell Scovell

People say, 'Dress for the job you want,' and since I wanted a job that guys had, I dressed like a guy.

Nell Scovell

Trump Tower is no ordinary property: It is the jewel in Donald Trump's brass crown.

Nell Scovell

We have so many great memoirs from women in front of the camera, from Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler, and Amy Schumer.

Nell Scovell

I traveled to Israel in a small party assembled by Marty Peretz, the editor-in-chief of 'The New Republic.' Other guests included Senator Al Gore and his wife, Tipper. Like every tourist group, we climbed Masada, floated in the Dead Sea, and visited a kibbutz.

Nell Scovell

For thirty years, I've been hearing that it's getting better for women. And until I see statistical proof over enough years that that's true, I won't believe it.

Nell Scovell

I was the second female writer ever hired at 'Late Night.' When I applied for the job in 1988, I had no way of knowing how much the odds were stacked against me.

Nell Scovell

An ocean of ink - real and virtual - has been spilled critiquing the appearance of female politicians.

Nell Scovell

The creative process is often wrapped up in bottomless anxiety, and when the world applauds the product of that process, it soothes the anxiety. Briefly. Then the anxiety returns and even intensifies.

Nell Scovell

In Hollywood, you kind of trick yourself into feeling like you have impact.

Nell Scovell

I'm on the board of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, which is run by Dr. Stacy Smith - she conceived of the inclusion rider. What I love about the inclusion rider is it uses the fact that Hollywood is based on hierarchies, and it knows that these key players have persuasive power.

Nell Scovell