[1][2] First published in 1993 in New Delhi by Kali for Women after a Norwegian organisation's grant of Rs 1.4 lakh, and later published by Zubaan (an imprint of Kali) and Verso, the illustrated book is "a brief interpretative history of women's movements in India from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the present day", as the first line of the introduction concisely conveys.

[5][7] Tulsi Patel, from the Department of Sociology in Jamia Milia Islamia, notes how the book surveys "campaigns, organizations and personalities in the light of the issues that become prominent in different contexts.

[10] Landmark instances are elaborated such as that of Rakhmabai and her legal case of her marriage as a child bride; wherein she refused to obey the appeal courts decision against her in 1884, preferred paying the hefty fine and went on to become a doctor from England; after which she came back to India and continued practicing medicine.

The 1970s saw various women's movements like those against the sale of alcohol at village level and larger campaigns against sati, dowry deaths and rape.

[7] Upasana Mahanta writes in the EPW that Radha Kumar's book "records the ways in which ordinary women rework traditional practices to their advantage negotiating "concessions" from husbands, families, communities and so on that were otherwise not accessible to them.