The concept – Patriarchal binary thought and the cultural construction of gender – Precursors: Mary Wollstonecraft, J.S. Mill, Virginia Woolf – Pioneers: Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir – French feminists: Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva – Women and the canon formation – Feminist critique of intellectual traditions – Feminist methodology – Third World feminisms – Class consciousness in feminist thought – Household, family and mothering – Body and sexuality – Race, ethnicity and gender – Women and nation building – Gender, science and technology – Globalization – Men in feminism- Ecofeminism