Short answers, pulled from the story.
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. It holds that modern societies are patriarchal and that women are treated unjustly within them. A person who advocates for feminism is known as a feminist.
Feminist movements originated in late 18th-century Europe. Mary Wollstonecraft is seen by many as a founder for her 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The word feminisme first appeared in France in 1871, and the Oxford English Dictionary dates the first English appearance in this meaning to 1895.
The modern western feminist movement is divided into waves. The first wave comprised the women's suffrage movements of the 19th and early-20th centuries. The second wave, the women's liberation movement, began in the 1960s. A third wave was identified in or around 1992, and some argue for a fourth wave beginning around 2012, best known for the Me Too movement.
Liberal, radical, and socialist or Marxist feminism are sometimes called the Big Three schools of feminist thought. Liberal feminism seeks equality through political and legal reform within a liberal democratic framework. Radical feminism calls for a radical reordering of society to eliminate male supremacy, while Marxist feminism argues that capitalism is the root cause of women's oppression.
Feminist campaigns are near-universally credited with achieving women's suffrage, gender-neutral language, reproductive rights including access to contraceptives and abortion, and the right to enter into contracts and own property. New Zealand granted women the vote in 1893, and in the United States the Nineteenth Amendment granted the vote in all states in 1919.
According to a 2014 Ipsos poll covering 15 developed countries, 53 percent of respondents identified as feminists, while 87 percent agreed women should be treated equally to men based on competency. A 2015 poll found 18 percent of Americans used the feminist label, though 85 percent were feminists in practice. A 2016 Survation poll found 7 percent of Britons used the label.