ABSTRACT
An analysis of contemporary feminism creates its own problems. There is no historical distance to help us analyse its peculiarities and its similarities to former ‘waves’, as we are still living in this wave, or at least in its wake. In addition the multiplicity of events and ideas makes it extremely hard to do justice to this richness. Since we already talk about feminisms in the case of other waves, we should certainly do so in the case of this one. In order to grasp its main ideas we could analyse the writings of important authors such as Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Juliet Mitchell and Adrienne Rich. Or we might concentrate on central topics such as abortion, equal rights or sexual harassment, or on the organizational culture of the women's movement with its non-hierarchical structures and anarchic tendencies. Another possibility would be to focus on theoretical debates about the relationship between feminism and Marxism, the role of psychoanalysis, the concept of patriarchy, the relationship between equality and difference, or the differences between women in relation to sexuality, class and ethnicity.
