DESPITE ITS GREAT CONCERN with language, the contemporary wom-

nology. The origins of key terms such as sexism, male chauvinism, and women' liberation have received virtually no attention in either feminist or lexicographical literature. My intention in the present paper is to trace the most important terms in the feminist lexicon to their earliest usages and to chart their subsequent development and ultimate fate. My findings are based on extensive research in primary materials, including radical literature, pertaining to the rise of modern feminism. In a number of instances, I have interviewed the prime actors, the word-coiners themselves, in an attempt to obtain the most authoritative information possible.' WHAT THEY FOUGHT. The central terminological need of the emerging women's movement of the 1960s was to find a label for the oppression it was to fight. The word sexism ultimately filled this need, but its ascendance, once coined, was neither immediate nor without competition. Betty Friedan attempted in 1963 to name one aspect of the problem; the title of her treatise published in that year was also her label for the condition she described. The feminine mystique, however, was a sophisticated and unselfexplanatory phrase, ill-suited to become a slogan that would win converts