My girlfriend's mother is a feminist. Raised my girlfriend alone until she was about 13 and then got married to a good guy.

She is also really pro feminism (thinks the wage gap is real) and fairly progressive.

I'm neither of those things (obviously) and we had a conversation today about feminism.

She said that women in the US need feminism because of 2 main things; female abuse and reproductive rights.

I told her about abuse stats (about 50% of DV is female on male and 70% of single directional abuse (meaning only one partner is being abused) is from women to men.

I told her about how men have 0 reproductive rights, down to our very genitals. We have no abortion rights, no birth control methods that are untraceable and reversible (like a pill or injection) and of course we can have parts of our genitals cut off at birth for any and all reasons without having a choice in the matter.

She also tried bringing up the wage gap in the conversation, the whole supreme court justice bullshit (though she did support the concept of innocent until guilty, so progress)... she also thought rape culture was real... and then went on to say it covers everything from actual rape to "oh why are you dressed that way" to just being in fear.

Of course I did my best to respectfully disagree and provided pro feminist sources (like the WHO) for evidence on why the wage gap and rape culture are bullshit.

I just don't understand on how that notion gets started... She is a stay at home mom who is on her phone most all of the day. Her husband is an IT guy who works really long hours and frequently is up until 2-3am fixing stuff. She has it way easier than he does. It's not even close. The most she has to do is run errands and do some light household chores (whatever her kids don't do).

It just worries me that people can just buy the whole women = weak man = bad idea... even if their own life doesn't reflect it at all.

Its always "other" women that have these problems with sexism... or the person in question got raped or molested as a child, by other children (something at the time they might have just chalked up to teen/preteen experimentation and curiosity)..

Its the whole desire to be oppressed or a victim, and instant dismissal of anyone else being a victim if they aren't the right skin color/gender that gets to me hard.

Believe (insert group that progressives want to believe) but don't believe menz.