My mother loved opera. When I was a child she took us to see Medea in Central Park. When Medea kills her kids left right and centre. I thought: "Ma, what are you trying to tell us here?"

I survived the abuse I grew up around thanks to my heritage. I come from a line of great Sicilian women, and their mentality is to endure and push through to the other side.

My sister and I used to play at mass. I'd be the faithful parishioner and she was always the priest. She would give me white Necco candy and I'd gratefully receive it. Of course, if they really were serving Necco candy a lot more kids would have gone to communion.

"Free love" was a crock of shit. If you were a woman and you didn't put out you were frigid; if you did put out you were a whore. You didn't really have control over your own sexuality – when you were in the bedroom it was a negotiation.

Men and women are different. I don't think men grow a brain until 26 or even 30. Girls mature a lot quicker.

I wanted "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" to be a feminist anthem. It was written by a guy, but my producer said: "Think about what it could mean." In my head I saw my mother's face, I saw my grandmother's face, and I thought: "OK, I'm going to make an anthem for every woman of every colour to make sure they know they can have a free spirit and a heart that thinks."

Fame doesn't redeem you. It takes a long time to get there, and when you're finally there you realise you still have authority figures telling you what to do.

Bob Dylan told me he didn't like chicks in bands. I think some male rock stars were scared of me at the time; they saw me as this scary, unhinged woman. For that generation, women were just supposed to be in awe of these rock gods.

I never had a rivalry with Madonna. You don't knock another sister, ever. There's room for everybody on this planet; you don't have to be like anyone else. What did Oscar Wilde say? "Feel free to be yourself – everyone else is taken."

You don't put accountants in charge of music. When that happens, you just have shit-ass music that sells but doesn't have soul. Music is not just a fucking graph. It's a phenomenon. I didn't just want to have a hit bubblegum song – I wanted to lift people up with music that had a message. Even when I sang "I Drove All Night", I did that because there weren't any songs about women drivers.

Forty per cent of homeless kids are gay or transgender. They were either thrown out or ran away because of fear of violence or rejection. My friend was abused by his stepdad and his mother threw him out because she would rather deal with that monster than him. That's why I started the True Colors Foundation to raise awareness about homelessness in that community.

Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir (Atria Books, £18.99) is out now. Visit truecolorsfund.org