16 Takes on a Self-Invented Woman invokes ideas and actions issuing from a specifically feminine consciousness. It fixes on moments of crystallization where feminism contributes to an independent female identity and, in defiance of overridingly masculinist definitions, is able to effect, predict or justify the need for cultural changes.

‘Second-wave’ feminists had already recognised the value of an all-inclusive woman’s self-understanding in ‘consciousness-raising’ groups and the fusion of political and personal, and this text revives or re-presents a few pivotal concerns of that period – difference, rationality, ‘masculine’/ ‘feminine’ still need to be discussed.

The book then interrogates other subjects – marriage, the romantic, passive eroticism, masochism, Freud, masquerade, monotheism, pornography, women’s language, writing and silence, gender roles, the mother, etc. It references both traditional and unorthodox ideas, texts and materials and, in conclusion, describes the tight collaboration of ‘third-wave’ feminism with late twentieth-century philosophical ideas and broader cultural movements.

Though underestimated in its time, third-wave feminism led directly to the freedom, confidence and rapid spread of feminism’s ‘fourth wave’. The fast-evolving community of fourth-wave feminists is characterised by mass movements such as ‘one billion rising’ and by their inclusion of the limitless possibilities of women of all ages, circumstances, cultures and preoccupations.