This doesn't seem to be about feminism specifically (although your classification of an equality movement as an infection would certainly demand extraordinary evidence).

It seems to be more about gender, and gender roles. There's a really big question here that I find interesting as a hacker: how much of what we call gender is biologically constructed, and how much is socially constructed? Obviously, say, having a penis is a direct function of biology, but what about something like girls' supposed preference for pink? This is almost certainly a social construct, and one that only arose in the early twentieth century [0]. And yet dressing little girls in pink has certainly influenced generations of us - do you know many guys who would be comfortable using a pink wallet?

The big question becomes important when we look at an issue like girls being the minority in engineering/technology/business leadership/etc: how much of this is due to some inherent biology, and how much is due to a lack of role models or social expectation for young girls to show interest in these areas?

[0]: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2831/was-pink-origi...