'The history of women's struggles is so broad and rich that I have found t difficult to select. I have chosen to deal with the struggles as they reach their peaks. On a mountain peak one gets a much clearer general view...' Ranging from 1640 from the present day, this book looks at the long struggle for women's liberation- and particularly the different movements which have soight to achieve women's liberation iver the past 100 years, for these have explained women's opretion in very different ways and have persued strategies quite opposed to one another. Under capitalism, argues Tony Cliff, the production of necessities of life is a social process while, reproduction- the rearing of children- is a private process, taking place largely in the enclosed family. The oppression of women is rooted in this dichotomy. But oppression in itself does not lead to a struggle for liberation. The oppression of wome, by dividing them and imprisoning them in the four walls of the home, leads most often to powerlessness and submission. Only women, as workers, have collective power in their workplaces and unions, do they gain confidence to fight. For this reason Tony Cliff looks particularly at the struggles of the working class women. 'Our argument is that women's liberation cannot be achieved without victory of socialism and that socialism is impossible without women's liberation.'