To mark Virago's 40th birthday, the publisher has produced this collection of personal responses to the question, 'What is feminism and what does it mean to you?' The 50-plus brief accounts, from successful and often celebrated women – selected to be multi-cultural, varied in class, age and sexual orientation (albeit mainly London-based) – all address the question with that familiar feminist mantra, 'The personal is the political'. They draw powerful lessons from exploitation and marginalisation, as well as violence towards women in families, workplaces and the public realms of law and politics, not to mention the spheres of theatre, fiction and pornography.