Understanding Feminism provides an authoritative guide to one of the most important and contested movements in progressive modern thought. Presenting feminism as a dynamic, multifaceted and adaptive movement that has evolved in response to the changing practical and theoretical problems faced by women, the authors take a problem-oriented approach that maps the complex strands of feminist thinking in relation to women's struggles for equal recognition and rights, and freedom from oppressive constraints of sex, self-expression and autonomy.