ABSTRACT
This chapter argues and demonstrates the philosophical character and practice of feminism, or, more accurately, feminisms, are linked to philosophies of politics, ethics and rights. First-wave feminism was based upon a philosophy of equality and human rights and from a philosophical point of view was connected to and emerged out of the philosophies of libertarianism and utilitarianism espoused initially by Jeremy Bentham and activated and promoted by John Stuart Mill. The second wave of feminist theory and practice initially created considerable social upheaval both in terms of the main tenets of radical philosophical thought that it proposed and in terms of its activist approach to gender politics. In the third wave of feminist theory and practice, the stability and uniformity of the wave metaphor become more and more troubled as the flows and currents of postmodern thinking twist and turn in multiple directions and the vagaries of tide flows become less and less predictable.
