Hello! I am a British student (or, LAD, as is we are usually referred to) and I am currently studying for my GCSEs, including one in recent History.
We have been learning about the Suffragettes, and it has been really interesting and horrible in equal parts to hear how Women were oppressed in Victorian society, and how the Men and Women of the Suffragists and -gettes fought for the Woman's vote, and equal standing in parliament.
So, I started thinking; did any movement of this type exist before the 19th/20th century? Were there, like, Tudor or Medieval feminists? Or did the concept only begin during the later years?
Thanks very much for your answers, and have a good 2015. :)
The Levellers in the 1640s (Civil war) challenged for universal suffrage and for many of them this extended to women; the wives of the two leaders (John Lilburne and Richard Overton) were also quite significant. I would recommend researching into them and other civil war radical groups as progressive movements in early modern Britain.
Medievalists name Christine de Pizan the first feminist at times. I do not think she qualifies as a modern feminist, but certainly as an intelligent women who wanted to improve the status and lives of her fellow women.
Christine did not start a real movement, but there was a scholarly discourse named "Querelle des Femmes" which would run for centuries. Joan Kelly has written a fairly good introductory article which can be viewed online. You can get it here: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3173479?sid=21104947967611 It's not the lastest on the topic though. In fact there is a lot of research being published on Christine and the Querelle.
Christine de Pizan is well covered on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan
[EDIT] typo
Though later than the others mentioned, Mary Wollstonecraft published "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" in 1792, after having witnessed the political and social upheaval of the French Revolution. She is probably the earliest iteration of first wave feminism (gaining rights of women by law [de jure]).