The world today is the place where it is hard to define whether a man or a woman has more rights and possibilities. Historically there were more patriarchal communities and states which gave men certain advantages as compared to women.

Traditionally a woman is associated with family, children and home (Kirche, Kuche, Kinder in German variant) and were not supposed to be involved in any of men’s activities. No studying, no voting, no rights and stable life for single women, no possibility to earn decent money for living.

Double standards were a norm: a tendency to consider men “angry”, “upset”, while women “irrational”, “hormonal” – not taking a woman seriously; using male experience as the standard; considering a sexually active female a “slut”, “whore”, or immoral, but a male in the same situation to be praised (it al actually remains - listen to a song “Can’t Hold Us Down” by Christina Aguilera); a custom to attribute a woman, or a girl's, success to external factors while that of a man or a boy's to his own doing.

This in the long run forced women to fight for their rights; an organized movement in the 19th century as people increasingly came to believe that women were being treated unfairly. But there were single attempts to improve life of women before the 19th century

 - in 789 Emperor Carl The Great gave an order to build a school in every town so that children of both sexes could receive primary education; before that convent was the only place for a girl to study;

 - in 1405 Christina Pizanskaya became a success in book editing; her “Women Town” and “Visions Of Christine” became the first books where female emotions and senses were described in detail;

- in 1509 a German physician and philosopher Anri Kornelius claims in public that women are higher biologically than men (most of them don’t grow bold and that protects head in general and brains in particular);

 - Condorse writes in 1786 “An Essay On Constitution” that blending of sexes is morally well-taken, so boys and girls should study together;

 - in 1789 revolutionary female Parisians in amount of 4000 people demand bread by the building of National Government;

 - the book by George Sand titled “Indiana” describes marriage like a hateful institution; the novel is considered a symbol of women’s awakening in the 19th century.

In 1837 the utopian socialist Charles Fourier used the word feminism in 1837; earlier, in 1808, he had argued that the extension of women's rights was the general principle of all social progress. The organized movement was dated from the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. In 1869, John Stuart Mill published The Subjection of Women to demonstrate that “the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong... and it is one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.”

Many countries began to grant women the vote in the early years of the 20th century, especially in the final years of the First World War and the first years hence. The reasons varied, but they included a desire to recognize the contributions of women during the war, and were also influenced by rhetoric used by both sides at the time to justify their war efforts. For example, since Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points recognized self determination as vital to society, the hypocrisy of denying half the population of modern nations the vote became difficult for men to ignore.

Attention was paid to the women's childbearing role and special maternity laws were introduced banning long hours and night work and establishing paid leave at childbirth, family allowances, maternity homes and child-care centers. Abortion was legalized in 1920, divorce was simplified and civil registration of marriage was introduced. The concept of illegitimate children was also abolished. It all can be included into the worldwide processes of establishing laws and traditions of civilized life in general and into women’s movements in particular.

 Today feminism is a diverse, competing, and often opposing blending of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, mostly motivated by or concerning the experiences of women. Feminist political activists commonly campaign on issues such as reproductive rights (including but not limited to the right to choose a safe, legal abortion, access to contraception, and the availability of quality prenatal care), violence within a domestic partnership, maternity leave, equal pay, sexual harassment, street harassment, discrimination, and rape.

Themes explored in feminism include patriarchy, stereotyping, objectification, sexual objectification, and oppression. It should also be noted that although many leaders of feminism have been women, not all feminists are women. There are a number of exclusively male groups (!!!) which are sympathetic to feminist understandings of society and believe the dominant model of manhood or masculinity is oppressive to women, as well as limiting for men themselves.

As in any movement, there are extreme trends in feminism: they include some radical feminists such as Mary Daly who argues that human society would be better off with dramatically fewer men, which goes against the call for equality the movement has sought to achieve. There are also dissidents, such as Christina Hoff Sommers or Camille Paglia, who identify themselves as feminist but who accuse the movement of anti-male prejudice. However, the former in particular has drawn criticism for what many feminists term being an apologist for male privilege at the expense of women. On the other hand, many feminists consider the movement to be the view that “women are people.” Views that separate the sexes rather than unite them are considered by these people to be sexist rather than feminist.

Feminists are sometimes wary of the transgender movement because it challenges the distinctions between men and women. Transgender and transsexual individuals who identify as female are excluded from some “women-only” gatherings and events and are rejected by some feminists, who say that no one born male can fully understand the oppression that women face. This exclusion is criticized as “transphobic” by transgender people, who assert their political and social struggles are closely linked to many feminist efforts, and that discrimination against gender-variant people is another face of the so-called patriarchy. Now for the language.

Reconsideration of vocabulary and syntax in many languages is also one of significant outcomes of women fighting for their rights. A bunch of new linguistic schools studying gender in discourse and correct speech appeared. English-speaking feminists are often proponents of what they consider to be non-sexist language, for example, using of the term “herstory” instead of “history” or using gender-inclusive language, such as “humanity” instead of “mankind”. Feminists in most cases advance their desired use of language either to promote what they claim is an equal and respectful treatment of women or to affect the tone of political discourse.

This can be seen as a move to change language which has been viewed by some feminists as imbued with sexism, providing for example the case in the English language in which the word for the general pronoun is “he” or “his” (The child should have his paper and pencils), which is the same as the masculine pronoun (The boy and his truck). These feminists argue that language then directly affects perception of reality; however, many languages other than English may not have such a gendered pronoun instance and thus changing language may not be as important to some feminists as others.

 Yet, English is becoming more and more universal, and the issue of language may be seen to be of growing importance. A different tendency can be seen in French. Gender, as a grammatical concept, is much more pervasive in French than in English, and as a result, it has been virtually impossible to create inclusive language. Instead, nouns that originally had only a masculine form have had feminine counterparts created for them. “Professeur” (“teacher”), once always masculine regardless of the teacher's sex, now has a parallel feminine form “Professeuse”. In cases where separate masculine and feminine forms have always existed, it was once standard practice for a group containing both men and women to be referred to using the masculine plural.

Nowadays, forms such as “Tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes” (“all the male Canadians and female Canadians”) are becoming more common. Such phrasing is common in Canada, and in France, “Françaises et Français" (French women and French men) is being daily used in political speeches, but practically unknown in other French-speaking countries. It is a complicated phenomenon. A struggle for women emancipation and gender equality is actually a struggle for human emancipation, a struggle of all humanity for all humanity, a struggle for human rights.

Women, in pursuing their own emancipation fight, at the same time against all systems and institutions that create and sustain any form of oppression and exploitation. Women's achievement is that they now occupy front ranks in politics, business and science. Women today are allowed and introduced in almost all spheres of life; they become politicians, scientists, heads of world enterprises.