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Feminist movements and trajectories have always been manifold and diverse, with crossovers and points of connection as well as divergences and points of contention. "Feminism is not," as Misha Kavka writes, "the object of a singular history, but rather a term under which people have in different times and places invested in a more general struggle for social justice and in doing so have participated in and produced multiple histories" (Kavka 2001, xii). It has become common, however, to narrate "feminist history" as a singular, progressive trajectory that is divided into "waves" or "phases." Consequently, the "potentially enlightening and liberating spaces" produced by various feminisms have morphed into a "great hegemonic model," which systematically misrepresents and curtails the ways in which feminist thought and activisms can be related, conceptualized, and mobilized (Sandoval 2000, 47).

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