How has feminist thought evolved down the ages? Beginning in the fifteenth century with Christine de Pizan, who imagined a City of Ladies that would serve as a refuge from the harassment of men, historian of ideas Hannah Dawson has magnificently drawn together six hundred years of feminist thinking from all over the world in her latest book The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing.  Alongside traditional feminist icons such as Mary Wollstonecraft, who stated that she did ‘not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves,’ we find lesser known women such as Qiu Jin who movingly plead ‘Why should women lag behind?’ From the words written down by these women, Dawson will help us make sense of women’s long struggle(s) against patriarchy, as well as the historical omissions that have left out voices, particularly those of Black women and other minorities, from the feminist narrative.

In September 2023 Dawson came to Intelligence Squared, where she was in conversation with literary critic Merve Emre to unravel feminism’s knotty history, giving a historically-grounded sense of what its future might look like.