Governments would be well-served to subsidise childcare as it is in their long-term interest that both parents remain in the workforce.
People who work, on the whole, provide useful services that we all appreciate. They can fend for themselves in retirement. They need minimal assistance with housing. With their taxes, workers add valuable funds used to help others in vulnerable situations, as well as contributing to the costs of everyday services they use.
The fact that your DP referred to 'when women started entering the workforce' shows his ignorance of history, or perhaps a class bubble. Women have always worked. There was a blip around the 50s where the rose-tinted image of a stay-at-home housewife was promoted, which served the government's economic plans of the day. But before and after this, women have always contributed by doing work from home, menial labour in factories, the caring professions, in science, as domestic labour, as tutors etc... unless they were so wealthy, neither they nor their partner had a need to earn their own keep.
How, pray tell, should feminism have laid down some ground rules? It spans millions of women, in thousands of places over hundreds of years. Who is this one feminist leader you'd like to conveniently blame?
I would suggest your DP read up on the waves of feminism and how they all had differing motives and goals which were fought for. The vote, the right for marital rape to be seen as a violent act, the fight for contraceptives, the right to continue in education, the right to have an abortion - major aims of feminism, but hardly a major contributory factor to house prices.
Maybe you should take issue with the government's reluctance to replace diminished housing stock, with people who overstretched themselves and flipped houses, with second home owners who distort local market prices.