I need feminism because...

Whatever the arguments about feminism now, getting rid of the control, shame, social and legal obstacles to womens control of their reproductive system was and is, one of feminism's main objectives and part of the very reason for its existence.

Girls in Ireland in my youth were expected to take responsibility for not getting pregnant in a situation where there was no contraception available and no information about what would and what wouldnt get you pregnant. Without sex education often even from your parents and with no books or television there to educate yourself rumours and stories about how not to get pregnant abounded. Rumours on how not to get pregnant replaced education and sometimes women really had no idea what sex was actually suppose to be like and didnt know what was happening, they were taught to not look at their bodies, to keep their hands away from their bodies and to cover up at all times, there was a huge sense of shame and embarassment about nakedness and the human body.
At the same time girls were expected to attract and hold onto a suitable young man and not to have sex untill they were married or at least had a reliable promise.
My memory is that it was an achievement for a boy to have sex and with as many partners as possible, a boy was expected to try and a girl was expected to stop him. Boys boasted about having sex whether it was true or not. Girls were accused of having sex and there were all kinds of names for girls who were easy and no one would want to marry them.

Within the home gender roles were also quite strong. My father wouldnt have been seen pushing a pram for example and there were no men in town who did. Girls were often expected to wait on their brothers making cups of tea for them, cooking, washing and ironing. Men were considered wonderful if they "helped" with childcare but the responsibility for the care of children was ultimately seen to be that of the housewife and mother no matter how much the man helped. There was little or no childcare outside of the family so if you were thrown out of home or ran away how would you get and hold down a job with a child or children even if you could get one that paid much less than a mans wages.

Society was geared so that men had control of money and with that came an enormous far reaching consequence of social control.

In the early 80s I had just got my first job and went to rent a television in Dublin. Without the signature of my father or my husband I was not allowed to rent that television.
People forget how much control there was of women during previous decades in even petty things and it is an important part of the story as to why so many women handed over their children to be adopted. It was difficult to be an autonomous woman without a child so many women wouldnt even consider keeping a child it unless they had family support in which to raise it.
The social financial control of women is just as important a part of the story as the lack of contraception or church control.
The social control of women was hard fought and hard argued by feminism. Anyone arguing any issue like equal pay, access to education and job opportunities, childcare, contraception, sex education, anti discrimination laws in relation to goods and services as well as social welfare etc was accused of being a feminist. We were feminists we were arguing and working for control of our reproductive abilities, equal access to goods and services, education, job opportunities and equal pay and we did bring about lots of change, so much so that people seem to forget the context that so many things like mother and baby homes happened in.
Those reasons are why I personally needed feminism.

On the 'friend zone'- this is cheering! Daniel Radcliffe on friend zoning

Because the internet. Before I discovered online forums, woman-hating wasn't something I encountered thankfully. However the internet allows all sorts of resentful people to express their hatred for women in general based on just their personal experience, which has consumed them with bitterness. If this occurred in extremist MRA sites, well that goes with the territory (just as you'd need to expect man-hating in extremist radfem corners) but it happens in far more mainstream parts of the net, where both genders are supposedly welcome. And it's loathsome. And it's not "just as bad from women to men" - that is a ridiculous lie that's popular with people who don't want to admit there is a nasty attitude towards women on mainstream forums.