“What exactly is this, and what’s it trying to accomplish?”

To the best of my knowledge, feminism exists so one day feminism doesn't have to answer this question at all. Or to even have an answer to this question.

Feminism exists so that one day women (and everybody, really) can simply exist in the absence of all the ways in which women cannot currently exist.

I'm being open-ended on purpose. The open end is itself the point.