When feminism is working towards equality, towards human rights with an emphasis on feminist issues, it’s working well. But when it’s used as a line-to-divide and keep the divisions, it’s ceases to be empowerment and becomes war.
At present, the new outcropping of so-called “Men’s Rights” might partially be a result of empowerment-gone-too-far, helping create an environment in which the aggressive and misogynistic “men’s rights” has felt free to also go to war.
The prior incarnation of feminism was a little more towards human rights with an emphasis on feminist issues but it’s not just feminism that there has been a shift in society.
It seems to have started somewhere in the late 1990s: an overall polarization. Less “We’re all one humanity – let’s be diplomatic and work on our issues together”, and more “Us good, they bad”, so it’s not feminisms fault for changing.
The change has been global and seen in many arenas.