The struggle for gender equality necessarily involved an examination of the precise nature of inequality, of the limits, laws, and assumptions that defined unequal gender roles. Some thinkers, like Simone de Beauvoir and Mary Wollstonecraft (see boxed feature on page 609), focused on the implications of female dependence. Was their there something essential to women's natures that made them dependent? What did women get in return for the acceptance of dependence? How did dependence limit their potential development? Others, like Annie Besant, concentrated on the legal impediments to women taking control of their own lives. She fit her arguments about the dissemination of information about birth control into a larger argument, aimed at both men and women, about the importance of free speech in a just society.

Keep this in mind as you review the boxed features on page 794 (Annie Besant Argues for the Right of Free Discussion) and page 994 (Female Freedom and the Future of Gender Relations) of your textbook. When you're finished reviewing, take a look at more detailed materials about Annie Besant on the Victorian Web. Then find out more about Simone de Beauvoir [DEAD LINK] at "The Cry," a web site devoted to a discussion of existentialism. When you're done, consider the questions below.

1. Who was the audience for Besant's arguments about free speech? What strategies did she use to convince them of the importance of free discussion of birth control?

2. What kind of future did de Beauvoir imagine for gender roles and relationships? Looking at the changes that have taken place in this context over the last several decades, have her predictions been fulfilled? To what degree?