chapotraphouse

It's shaped like itself. Feminisms that developed in the west - British Feminism, Intersectional Feminism, 1st/2nd/3rd/4th wave, and then Feminisms that developed in the Islamic world which I know far less about. There isn't one feminism, it's a whole constellation of related ideologies and philosophies that share some features but are strongly opposed on others. And it's not just Islam and NATOstan, there's a lot of others, both contemporary and in the past. Presumably the future too.

But looking in to Feminism in Iran is a good start for sort of getting a look at it. There's a couple of different strains of Iranian feminism in Iran that are sometimes in dialogue and sometimes in Conflict with western Feminism. Also a good look about how The West uses Feminism in bad faith as a weapon against global south nations or whatever we're calling Not!Natostan right now. NATOstan doesn't recognize non-western forms of Feminism as valid, or just ignores them so it can misuse western Feminist concepts to attack enemy nations and cultures. Feminist Imperialism as a counterpart to Rainbow Imperialism. We saw it a lot in Afghanistan where America used a veneer of Feminism to justify it's invasion and occupation. There was no actual interest in Feminism or serious attempt to improve the conditions of women, but it gave the warlords in washington a way to white wash (femme wash?) their project with their populations. Like, they hold Malala Yousafzai up as evidence that their enemies are evil and NATO is actually good and doing good Feminism, then drop her like a live hand grenade when they find out she's a communist (Hi Malala go on Chapo but unironically!) (I don't know if she posts here she probably doesn't)

Another example of Feminist (and again not "real" feminism, just NATO's bad faith version of it) is weaponized against Muslims living in NATOstan, with France and other European countries making it a crime to cover your hair in the name of women's rights or whatever bullshit they claim, when it's really flagrantly obvious seething race hatred.

It's a term used as much by genuine progressives as it is by reactionaries IMO (for instance in critiques of white feminism, imperialist feminism and western pinkwashing, etc). There is a genuine larger world of feminists (and other progressives) out there who have serious bones to pick with the western portrayal of itself as the end-goal and arbiter of progress..

There's Islamic feminism, indigenous feminism, black feminism, communist feminism, etc. Even western feminism (and "feminism") has its serious divisions and many outright wreckers/appropriaters tbh.