History of feminism
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met in 1840 while en route to London where they were shunned as women by the male leadership of the first World's Anti-Slavery Convention. In 1848, Mott and Stanton held a woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, where a declaration of independence for women was drafted. Lucy Stone helped to organize the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, a much larger event at which Sojourner Truth, Abby Kelley Foster, and others spoke sparked Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women's rights. In December 1851, Sojourner Truth contributed to the feminist movement when she spoke at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. She delivered her powerful “Ain’t I a Woman” speech in an effort to promote women’s rights by demonstrating their ability to accomplish tasks that have been traditionally associated with men. Barbara Leigh Smith met with Mott in 1858, strengthening the link between the transatlantic feminist movements.
Feminism in France
A strong feminist movement would only emerge in the aftermath of May 1968, with the creation of the "Mouvement de libération des femmes" (Women's Liberation Movement, MLF), allegedly by Antoinette Fouque, Monique Wittig and Josiane Chanel in 1968. The name itself was given by the press, in reference to the US Women's Lib movement. In the frame of the cultural and social changes that occurred during the Fifth Republic, they advocated the right of autonomy from their husbands, and the rights to contraception and to abortion.