feminish

I remembered yesterday that I still didn’t know when the word ‘feminist’ was invented.

And then, to my surprise, I noticed that in fact the whole point of living an improbably simple life (who says you need toilets?) in these four no-longer square walls (the floor and I fell an inch last week), with books lovingly lugged 700 miles in a rucksack, where I endure an internet dial-up as sporadic yet indispensable as the local baker, and take refuge in a warm river and friendly tomato plants - the whole point is so I have the time and clarity to find out; to fill in and figure out my feminist blanks.

So this morning I paid heed to Lucien Febvre - “It is never a waste of time to study the history of a word” - and got clicking and reading, mostly Karen Offen’s landmark essay for Signs, twenty years ago, Defining Feminism.

To the simple question, When was the word feminist first used? I can now answer:
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