Feminism is defined as a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression, not as a movement to make women equal to men or to be anti-male. This definition locates the enemy in an ideology and system rather than in a biological group, which means women can perpetuate sexist thinking and men can be allies against it.
Sexism does not operate as an isolated system but is interlocked with racism, class exploitation, and imperialism, so attacking one axis while ignoring the others reproduces domination elsewhere. Any feminism that centers only gender ends up serving the interests of privileged women while leaving the broader structure of domination intact.
Because sexist thinking is taught to everyone from birth, women are socialized to accept and police patriarchal values just as men are, meaning the movement had to begin with internal transformation before confronting men. Consciousness-raising was necessary first to root out the sexism women carried within themselves.
As feminist thought moved into universities, it developed specialized academic language that ordinary people, including the women it claimed to serve, could not access, turning a mass political movement into a professional discipline. Without popular accessible texts, feminism forfeits its ability to reach and change everyday life.
A reformist focus on equal access to existing jobs and power let class-privileged, mostly white women gain social and economic standing within the current system, while revolutionary aims of transforming that system were abandoned. This shift meant poorer women and women of color saw their material conditions largely unchanged even as feminism claimed victories.
Genuine love requires mutual care, respect, and the absence of coercion, so relationships structured by male dominance and female subordination cannot be loving in any full sense. Reframing love as incompatible with domination makes ending patriarchy a precondition for intimacy rather than a threat to it.