Threads and plaits or an unfinished project? feminism(s) through the twentieth century

This article defines feminism's enduring aim as one of abolishing discrimination or exclusion on the basis of gender. From this perspective any reflection on the twentieth century must note its many successes in winning real gains for women. Yet developments within feminism itself problematize the way its history can now be recounted. The article considers two possible approaches. One presents feminism as an unfinished emancipatory project, an aspect of a more general process of modernization and amenable to a grand narrative history. The other suggests that women's struggles were always contingent and diverse, matching political strategies to the exigencies of their context. The article ends by re-presenting a century of British feminisms from this latter, more genealogical, perspective