Where we turn the soapbox over to the feminists, themselves.
The mainstream law of equality assumes that society is already fundamentally equal. It gives women legally no more than they already have socially, and little it cannot also give men. Actually doing anything for women under sex equality law is thus stigmatized as special protection or affirmative action rather than simply recognized as nondiscrimination or equality for the first time. So long as sexual equality is limited by sex difference -- whether valued or negated, staked out as ground for feminism or occupied as the terrain of misogyny -- women will be born, degraded, and die. Protection will be a dirty word and equality will be a special privilege.
Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.
To put things into perspective in the media, the term "domestic violence," which sounds rather homey, should be changed to what it actually describes: male violence against women.