Feminism: A Very Short Introduction provides an historical account of feminism, exploring its earliest roots as well as key issues including voting rights, the liberation of the sixties, and its relevance today. How much have women's lives really changed? In the West women still come up against the ‘glass ceiling’ at work, most earning considerably less than their male counterparts. What are we to make of the now commonplace insistence that feminism deprives men of their rights and dignities? And how does one tackle the issue of female emancipation in different cultural and economic environments — in, for example, the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent, and Africa?