The term feminism did not rise to prominence until recently, however feminist views and opinions have been traced back to the ancient Greeks and Chinese. To better understand these views, we must first have an understanding of the two fundamental views that feminists share: women are at a disadvantage because of their sex; and this disadvantage has the capacity to be fixed. It may appear like an easy theory to support, but the many branches of feminism seem to contradict themselves as well as the needs and wants of the feminist community. When delving into the history of feminism, there is no better place to start than with Christine de Pizan's "The Book of the City of Ladies." Written in 1405, Pisan foreshadows many concepts that modern feminists share, advocating for women's rights to equal education and bringing female influence on politics to a more substantial level. However this was many centuries before any legitimate feminist movement would form, and unfortunately not until Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, did society see ideas of modern feminism. .
Just under a century later, and the women's movement had their first goal set in stone; the campaign for female suffrage. Feminists believed that if women controlled a share of the vote, all forms of sexual inequality would be abolished as a result. Woman around the world tried effortlessly for more than a century to have their opinions heard, when eventually in 1893 women all across New Zealand won the right to vote. The same followed for women across America when in 1920; they achieved female suffrage across the nation. In the years following female suffrage feminism experienced a loss of direction, almost at a loss of what to fight for. With the release of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in 1963, feminism seemed to be rejuvenated with an abundance of purpose. One notable excerpt quotes Friedan trying to identify "the problem with no name ", which can be identified as the social and political limitations that many women across the world experience with the debilitating responsibility of domestic care.
