It's a movement that has gone radical. They had one strong point to their whole campaign, and that was the objectification of women. The portrayal of women being viewed as objects is unfortunately true, but irreversible.
There are three discrete movements of feminism commonly called waves.
As I understand it, broadly, the first wave was allegedly about equality under the law, the second wave was about a cultural shift against stay at home mothers, and the third wave has mostly been about equality of outcome ("socialism with panties").
However nothing is as it seems in these movements.
First wave feminism which is the only wave worthy of consideration in my opinion, is often cited as the reason women are able to vote. However what isn't common knowledge is that many women did not want the vote. This is because voting and conscription are seen as mutual obligations -- if you vote then you can be sent to war.
Equality under the law is a long held doctrine in the Western legal tradition, so it seems strange that approximately half the population would not be equal under the law. It is often cited by feminists that women had no rights to own property or their own bank accounts, etc. until the rise of feminism. This is incorrect. MARRIED women joined their rights to property with their husband to form a single legal personality -- unmarried women 'feme soles' enjoyed the same individual property rights as men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture A woman who did not want to marry under law would be free to continue owning property in her own name. The restrictions were upon the legal status of 'a marriage' not on the rights of individuals.
In western legal systems (although incorrectly) the right to own property gives rise to legal obligations associated with property (mainly taxes) just as the right to vote supposedly gives rise to obligations with respect to war. What the feminist movement would like to keep secret is that women actually enjoyed additional protections under the law -- that when they chose to marry they no longer had to concern themselves with the ownership of property because this was delegated completely to the husband upon marriage (they joined their legal personalities into a single person under the law), and that they did not have to concern themselves with war because they were not eligible to be sent to war.
