"Feminism--the belief that women are full human beings capable of participation and leadership in the full range of human activities--intellectual political, social, sexual, spiritual, and economic." -Pearl Cleage, Deals with the devil, p.28. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.)

"Feminism is the political theory and practice that struggles to free _all_ women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, disabled women, lesbians, old women--as well as white, economically privileged, heterosexual women. Anything less than this vision of total freedom is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement." -Barbara Smith (reprinted in Gloria Anzaldua's Making Face, Making Soul, 25.)

"Feminism is an assertion that women as a group have been historically disadvantaged relative to men of their race, class, ethnicity, or sexual identity; and a commitment to changing the structures that systemically privilege men over women." Journal of Women's History

"I define a feminist as a self-empowering woman who wishes the same for her sisters. I do not think the term implies a certain sexual orientation, a certain style of dress, or membership in a certain political party. A feminist is merely a woman who refuses to accept the notion that women's power must come through men." -- Erica Jong, Fear of Fifty, p.286

"I define feminist consciousness as the awareness of women that they belong to a subordinate group; that they have suffered wrongs as a group; that their condition of subordination is not natural, but is societally determined; they they must join with other women to remedy these wrongs; and finally, that they must and can provide an alternate vision of societal organization in which women as well as men will enjoy autonomy and self-determination." -- Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, p. 14