I am a man. I remember, decades ago when I was more politically active than I have been for a while, and women's groups started barring men from their meetings (not sure what 'wave' this was), I thought, well, women surely have a veto over who they let in. I think the same about being a feminist, or calling myself a feminist, now. Some women don't want men to be included, and they have a veto.
I have had good women friends, and I actually believe women are the main hope for humanity.
As for my 'journey', well, my mother taught me some stuff as a child. She was one of nine children -- one of those big working class families of the time. (Some of the children died, of course, always seemed to happen a lot back then before penicillin and vaccines and the NHS.) Anyway, although naturally a SAHM, married to a lovely man my father who of course did not a stroke of housework or cooking, nevertheless my mum had always resented having to wait hand-and-foot on her brothers (she had some horrendous tales to tell about this), and so taught her sons how to cook and do chores and also generally to treat women half-way decently. And to be moral . She was a smart woman, my mother.
So, well, look around the world. Women are treated like shit. That is wrong.
I read Female Eunuch when it first came out. Convinced. Always liked Germaine. (Nice story there, but outing ...) Other stuff too. (Never much liked po-mo or po-struct, or Hélène Cixous & co: for françaises stick with de Beauvoir. I know; I am far too narrow ...) I worked with some women in national and local politics, enjoyed the company of left-wing women. Professionally, too.
When I was young, I surely treated some women less well than they deserved. I was sort of a man's man -- rugby, football, drink, usual hedonism of a mid-twentieth-century young man. But still, egalitarian child I was, equality for women, I could see, was morally imperative even amongst the hedonism.
I have been more or less monogamous for a good while now -- well over fifty years come to think of it. It suits me. Children are a joy, grandchildren too.
But let me say it again. Look around. Women are treated like shit. In some ways things have gone backwards. (But then not just for women, perhaps. Not many of you will remember 1963 when Baron Home of the Hirsel , 14th Earl, 'emerged' as Tory leader and Prime Minister from the grouse moors and the House of Lords. The country laughed and laughed: did they not know that Eton shit was over? Over! Anyway, next election, Harold Wilson and ... well, here we are again, over fifty years down the line, one Etonian shit fucked us out of the EU and now another Etonian shit is just fucking us. And people vote for this! Oh, well.)
Sorry, not really about feminism that last bit. My 'journey', though, I guess. Things for women, anyway, are not getting any better in this country while it is still run by the Etonians. And there you have a really good example of how progress can never be taken for granted. We cannot relax. (Yes, I accept some blame for relaxing. It worries me we took our eye off the ball after the war, we lucky survivors. If only ... But that is a different game.)
Still I have hope in my own offspring, women and men, girls and boys. And in you women of Mumsnet. Keep up the good fight. I know it must seem a burden sometimes, being the hope of humanity. But you are women. You are strong. Do it for our children.
As for getting your brother and other men on-board, OP, well, some men, ime, just will not. But any half-decent bloke; point out how, around the world, and even here at home, women are treated so badly. Feminism, like all egalitarian movements, is above all about morality: it is plain wrong the way women so often get the short end of so many sticks. If a man cannot see that when it is pointed out, he is not worth your time.
I know, you may have to do it for yourselves. I really hope you can, even though I guess I will not be around to see it.