Key Feminist Thinkers

This lesson examines five key feminist thinkers: Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, bell hooks, and Germaine Greer. Each represents a different strand or period of feminist thought, and understanding their ideas is essential for the A-Level exam.

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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)

Strand: Liberal feminism / Enlightenment feminism

Key Work: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)

Key Ideas

• Women are rational beings and therefore entitled to the same rights as men.
• Women's apparent inferiority is caused by lack of education, not by nature.
• The "cult of sensibility" — the idea that women should be valued for beauty and obedience rather than reason — is a form of slavery.
• Women should be companions to their husbands, not dependants.
• Equal education is the key to women's emancipation.

Significance

• Founder of liberal feminism.
• Applied Enlightenment principles (reason, natural rights) to the condition of women.
• Anticipated the demands of the suffrage movement and later feminist campaigns for equal education and opportunity.

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Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)

Strand: Existentialist / Second-wave feminism

Key Work: The Second Sex (1949)

Key Ideas