With its focus on equal rights and opportunities for women, modern feminism has challenged the most ancient and perhaps deeply rooted of human inequalities—that of patriarchy or the dominance of men over women. Beginning in Western Europe and the United States during the nineteenth century, it was born in the context of democratic gains for men from which women were excluded. Like science, industrialism, socialism, and electoral democracy, feminism was a Western cultural innovation that acquired a global reach during the most recent century.

In doing so, feminism has found expression in many voices, giving rise to much controversy and many questions within feminist circles. How relevant has mainstream Western feminism been to women of color in the West and in the developing countries? What is it precisely that oppresses women—the family, capitalism, cultural assumptions about male superiority, women’s acquiescence to patriarchy? To what extent do all women share common interests? In what ways do differences of class, race, nation, religion, sexual orientation, and economic condition generate quite distinct feminist agendas? How important is sexual freedom to the feminist cause? What tactics are most effective in realizing the varying goals of feminists? The documents that follow provide a sample of the divergent voices in which global feminism has been articulated during the past century.