Sean Cook Photoshoot

Last summer, over चाय for two in a लंडन hotel — because that, readers, is how we rock 'n' roll — we began a conversation about women and men, our differences and similarities, what unites us and what divides us. We talked about फ्रेंड्स and families, about situations at work and at home, and about how fevered and fraught the वाद-विवाद around gender equality has become.

It is, of course, one of the great conversations a woman and a man can have — well, OK, maybe not, but it beats the old do-you-come-here-often? routine — and we've been having it, in one form या another, since we were...