Feminism is a cultural as well as a political movement. It changes the way women think and feel and affects how women and men live their lives and interpret the world. For this reason it has provoked lively debate and fierce antagonisms that have continued to the present day. Contemporary feminism and its concerns are rooted in a history stretching over at least two centuries.

Feminism explores this history in a range of countries spanning the world. It asks does `feminism' exist? Or are the differences among feminist today so great that we should speak of `feminisms'? The book looks at the challenge made by feminists to prevailing ideas about a `woman's place', the complex relationship between equality and difference, women's solidarity and the relationship between feminism and other social and political reform movements.