Women's rights campaigners have reacted with fury over plans to remove a section on feminism from the politics A-level syllabus.

The proposed changes would remove all mentions of feminism, sex and gender, with only one female political thinker mentioned by name.

The suffragette movement is squeezed into a section on pressure groups.

The proposed syllabus replaces an in-depth study of feminism with a module on pressure groups. Pictured: Suffragettes display a wall hanging to commemorate the founding of the struggle for women's rights in 1903

Yesterday there were calls for the Department for Education to reverse the ‘insulting and misguided’ move.

A petition to ensure women are not ‘erased out of history’ has attracted thousands of signatures.

Management consultant Jacquelyn Guderley, who co-founded Stemettes which aims to inspire girls into science and engineering careers, warned that women’s voices were being silenced.

She wrote on her website: ‘We are going through a huge feminist revival. Even if we weren’t, our daughters and granddaughters, sons and grandsons, nieces, nephews and families need to know about the movements and key female figures that got women to where they are today.’

Under the old syllabus, a whole module was dedicated to ‘knowledge of the core ideas, doctrines and theories of feminist thought, of tensions within feminism and of competing feminist traditions’. In the proposed new syllabus, the feminism section has been removed and instead there is a section on pressure groups.

In the liberalism section, 18th century figure Mary Wollstonecraft – regarded as a founder of the feminist movement – is the only female key thinker mentioned compared to six men.

Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality party, told the BuzzFeed website: ‘The plan to shoe-horn feminism, one of the most important and ongoing political forces in modern history, under the banner of ‘‘pressure groups’’ is both insulting and misguided.’

Former Liberal Democrat equalities minister Jo Swinson wrote on Twitter: ‘Is removing feminism from the A Level Politics syllabus a good idea?’

Campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez noted the new syllabus also contained just one female thinker. Pictured: Equal pay petitions go to the House of Commons in 1954

Patrick McGhee, Assistant Vice Chancellor at University of Bolton, wrote: ‘Don't like sound of this at all > Government To Remove “Feminism” From Politics A-Level Syllabus.’

Campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez said: ‘New politics A level includes only one female thinker & has got rid of feminism as area of study. Sign the petition.’

A government consultation on the move closes on December 15. The Department for Education insisted it was for exam boards to set the detailed content of qualifications and schools were free to decide which figures they teach about.

A spokesman said: ‘We want schools to highlight the issues faced by women from all walks of life and ages in history, including the work of key female political thinkers within the ideologies covered and in UK and global politics.’