I think to understand why feminism has been hollowed out we have to look at how males maintain their dominance in society. We know that males use their size and strength advantage to dominate females, but they also form coalitions, and agree between themselves what will benefit males as a group. For example, we know men historically agreed among themselves to exchange ‘their’ daughters with each other in marriage, and to exclude women from the workplace, so that women would be forced to be reliant on men for survival. That men also devised the strategy of socialising females from a young age into a submissive role, so that they would not have to use obvious force as often to get what they want.
I think many women forget that men also invented ideologies to justify their actions. For example, religions, so they could claim it wasn’t them oppressing females, and instead insisted a deity had simply allocated a submissive role to females. Later they said ‘nature’ allocated that role to females and claimed science confirmed it. They also created the ideology of sexual libertarianism, and claimed women would not be oppressed if they had more sexual freedom. Then there is neoliberalism which aims to dismantle all collective movements and put the focus on individuals. Postmodernism, queer theory and the genderism that has come from them incorporates all of these ideologies to some extent, and so obviously benefits males as a goup.
Feminists have noted that men develop these ideologies for their own benefit then embed them throughout the institutions they created and control e.g. places of worship, education, law, media etc, which creates the dominant narrative in society. This leads to many women themselves accepting male ideologies, due to being exposed to them, and those ideologies being widely accepted in society. This is why these ideologies have been so easily accepted into institutions, where as actual feminism never was widely accepted in male created institutions and society in general.
Not to mention that women know if they reject male ideologies and instead adopt actual feminist explanations, they will be demonised and ridiculed. For example, historically women were called witches or insane, and burnt or sent to asylums if they stepped out of the role men created for them. Indeed, women are currently ridiculed and demonised if they reject male ideologies such as gender ideology, and sexual libertarianism and adopt alternative feminists explanations, the only difference is T**F, swerf etc, has replaced the word witch. Under these conditions it is not difficult to see why many women themselves adopt male ideologies over feminist explanations.
Moreover, men often use feminist vocabulary when trying to pitch their ideologies to women, so it sounds like feminism on the surface, rather than just another attempt at oppressing women further. For example, they argue that brain sex studies are about addressing how women react differently to drugs etc, rather than trying to prove women are more suited to certain roles/occupations etc. Or that sexual liberation is about women having more agency, rather than men having more sexual access to women. That gender ideology is about breaking down stereotypes, rather than reinforcing them. By using feminist talking points and vocabulary they can more easily convince women that they are not just MRAs.
All of these elements come together and enable men to sell what is ultimately a men’s rights ideology to women, under the guise of feminism. I think this is why they have been successful in selling a fake version of ‘feminism’ to some women, particularly young women, who desperately don’t want to believe men hate women as much as they obviously do. There is also the idea that if women don’t criticise men and say they are for everybody’s liberation then men will get onboard and support women, obviously that will not happen, but many women want to believe it will, so it appeals to them.
The book ‘The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism’ is a very interesting read.
download1512.mediafire.com/z7tkclyrv0wg/iucffid0pwzvbs1/The+Sexual+Liberals+and+the+Attack+on+Feminism.pdf
Gail Dines has also given a great talk about how neoliberalism has defanged feminism.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kDcTt0emXhE