I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is.  I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a Doormat... Rebecca West Quote. The following information is NOT printed on this postcard: Rebecca West (1892-1983), was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. She reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Sunday Telegraph, and the New Republic, and she was a correspondent for The Bookman. Time called her, "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. New flash: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has just announced it's word of the year for 2017: Feminism. Some would say, it's about time.