Toril Moi’s (1987) distinctions of feminine, female and feminist:

• Feminist = a political position
• Female = a matter of biology
• Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

The issue of women’s inequality has a history that pre-dates the 1960’s.

“Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female.”(Michelene Wandor 1981:13)

1st wave of feminism:

• 1848 to 1920’s
• Suffragette and Suffragists movements.
• women campaigned for basic rights such as an education.
• Virginia Woolf touches upon the fact that women have less rights to such things as education, art and literature. she challenges this and asks what if men had the same restriction? Society would have missed out on people like Shakespeare. And was he really talented? or did he just have a good education?