Feminism has been an on-going battle of late and considering the condition of women in contemporary times too, it can be safely concluded that the feminist movement shall flow unabated. Women have been undauntedly making stupendous efforts, intellectually, culturally, sociologically and politically, to make their concerns heard but the quintessential emancipation from the patriarchal, chauvinistic yoke is yet to be realized. With the passage of time, women have succeeded in carving a niche for themselves in the male-dominated set up, but oppression and injustice towards them is still rampant in different walks of life. The present paper is an endeavour to have an overview of the feminist ideological germination as it began and flowered in Europe and America so as to gain insight into the western feminist movement that created a theoretical (and subsequent actual) prototype of female liberation for the world to look up to, to evaluate, understand and follow.