Do women have more of a stake in fighting against war? What do women need to live in a safe environment? Each is a contentious question that has divided women's opinion and caused rifts in the women's movement.

At the outbreak of the First World War divergent attitudes to it and violence surfaced in the women's suffrage campaign. Emmeline Pankhurst pledged her support to military recruitment campaigns, and encouraged suffragettes to support the war effort. For other feminists the War was the ultimate destructive expression of masculinity and stood in opposition to women's nurturing nature.

How can women feel personally safe? Rape. Domestic violence. Abuse: these are issues that until very recently were swept under the carpet. In 1971 Erin Pizzey opened Chiswick Women's Aid, the first refuge for women escaping violent relationships. Its presence revealed that for some women the most intimate relationships were scarred by fear and that home was far from a haven.

Breaking the silence, unmasking the violence suffered by women at the hands of men, and protesting the rights of victims were important achievements of second wave feminism. But the campaigns raised difficult issues about the nature of male violence. Could any man rape?