Definition
Feminism is the movement and the body of ideas devoted to achieving political, economic, and social equality between women and men. It holds that women have been systematically disadvantaged by law, custom, and economic structure, and it works to remove those disadvantages.
Feminism is not a single fixed programme but a long tradition that has taken different forms in different eras. Early campaigns focused on basic legal rights — to vote, to own property, to receive an education. Later movements widened the agenda to include equal pay, workplace access, reproductive autonomy, and freedom from violence.
Why it matters
How it works
Feminism advances by naming an inequality that custom has made invisible, then organising to change both law and attitudes. Reformers expose the gap between a society's stated ideals — liberty, equality, fair reward for effort — and the way those ideals are denied to women in practice. By documenting that gap and applying political pressure, feminist movements have steadily removed legal barriers, though changing deeply held social attitudes typically takes far longer than changing statutes.