The antidote to the idea that being a woman is all about submitting to desire. There are many more shades than that and here are fifty women to explore them.

Daughters and Dames, poets and politicians, composer and psychoanalyst, academics and activists, broadcasters and barristers, mothers and sisters, novelists and impresarios, journalists and comedians, doctor and playwright, cultural commentators and artists, wives and writers. Here are fifty shades and more, of women who think, who act, who inspire - in technicolour. .

Naomi Alderman
Tahmima Anam
Lisa Appignanesi
Margaret Atwood
Joan Bakewell
Camila Batmanghelidjh
Alison Bechdel
Bidisha
Lydia Cacho
Shami Chakrabarti
Jane Czyzselska
Sayantani DasGupta
Laura Dockrill
Lynne Featherstone
Carlene Firmin
Lennie Goodings
Linda Grant
Nathalie Handal
Natalie Haynes
Sharon Haywood
Lindsey Hilsum
Isabel Hilton
Rachel Holmes
Siri Hustvedt
Jude Kelly
Liz Kelly
Helena Kennedy
Kathy Lette
Kate Mosse
Susie Orbach
Laurie Penny
Lisa Power
Nina Power
Alissa Quart
Diana Quick
Josie Rourke
Bee Rowlatt
Elif Shafak
Muneeza Shamsie
Hanan Al-Shaykh
Elaine Showalter
Posy Simmonds
Gillian Slovo
Ahdaf Soueif
Martha Spurrier
Juliet Stevenson
Alice Stride
Meera Syal
Shirley Thompson
Sandi Toksvig
Natasha Walter
Marilyn Waring
Timberlake Wertenbaker
Jeanette Winterson
Xinrán
Pussy Riot

Fifty years after the publication of The Feminine Mystique, have women really exchanged purity and maternity to become desiring machines inspired only by variations of sex, shopping and masochism - all coloured a brilliant neuro-pink?

In this volume, fifty women young and old - writers, politicians, actors, scientists, mothers - reflect on the shades that inspired them and what being woman means to them today.

Contributors include: Tahmima Anam, Joan Bakewell, Bidisha, Lydia Cacho, Shami Chakrabarti, Lennie Goodings, Linda Grant, Natalie Haynes, Siri Hustvedt, Jude Kelly, Kathy Lette, Kate Mosse, Bee Rowlatt, Elif Shafak, Ahdaf Soueif, Shirley Thompson, Natasha Walter, Jeanette Winterson - alongside the three editors.