Whoo, here comes a mega comment.

"Women are usually more family oriented, and nurturing, while men are usually less sensitive and work oriented."

Oh hello, biological determinism. Attitudes like that are EXACTLY why women are making 76 cents to the dollar. Just be being a woman, we're viewed as a liability because maybe, JUST MAYBE, we'll have children someday and leave the job. Women can't stop being the ones to bear children, that's our lot, unfortunately. And even the ones that DON'T have children still suffer from being passed over for raises, ect. If your cousin wants equality as he claims, he has to understand that it's the workplace that needs to change, not women. There was a big study recently that actually controlled for the very factors your cousin refers to: women in the VERY SAME JOB being paid significantly less. I'm searching frantically for it, I'll post it here as soon as I find it. (Can someone help me out? I probably saw it here or at Feministe) I did find this interesting article that suggests the only way women will make nearly the same pay is when women reach the upper ranks.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/08/15/wage_gap/

Has it occurred to your cousin that perhaps traits like "nurturing" and "sensitive" could be more of a result of social factors than biological? That these traits are reinforced in us by society constantly? I mean, does he think women are just BORN wanting to wear pink and skirts?

"She'll usually have short hair, regular pants, a regular shirt, and an unbathed look; she'll look very much like a stereotypical guy."

"How bold, to go around and look like a stereotypical guy as opposed to a stereotypical girl. Who cares?" (You do, apparently)

"If you really want to make a point, surgically remove your breasts" (?!)

Oh, okay. Stereotypes aside, he's being horribly inconsistent. Not dressing like your gender is cliche, but getting surgery to look more like a man is a REAL statement? Please. Feminists are not trying to be men. Wanting to be treated equally and enjoy the same privileges as another gender does not mean they want to BE that gender. Some feminists dress more like the stereotypical man because they want to challenge the idea of what a woman is. With the visual identifiers gone, what makes that woman a woman? Blurring the gender lines is a first step to seeing women as more than their sex. They're people first, women second.

I really want to take apart your cousin's argument point by point, but since he's already convinced feminists don't bathe, among other things, I think the first thing he needs is to understand what it is that he's attacking.

Ask him to define feminism.

Now define fascism.

Move from there. Forcing him to clarify his position will make it easier for you to show him what feminism really is and how he's been misled.

He's obviously just regurgitating things that he's heard around. It's just like when people shout political things that they hear on Crossfire (dems and reps both, no one's immune).

Tell him to, uh, read or something.

His logic is also very inconsistent. I took a basic logic class and I could still pick it apart.

Ok, so the most obvious one. Women blame men for their problems, because we are fascist and we need to find the "other" to blame, yet we (feminists) want to be like them? That don't make no sense!

The Nazis didn't blame the Jews for their problems and then go around dressed like Woody Allen and eating latkes. The minute men don't sit at the Arizona border eating tacos and listening to cumbia. Your cousin is either mentally challenged (not to insult your gene pool) or not paying attention to his own argument.

I think that just gave me an ulcer

This, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls everywhere, is why stupid ought to be painful.

I think kam meant "Behind the Pay Gap," a research report released by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in 2007. Here is a summary of the findings:

The report found that "just one year out of college, women working full time already earn less than their male colleagues, EVEN WHEN THEY WORK IN THE SAME FIELD..... one year after college graduation, women earn only 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning only 69 percent of what men earn. EVEN AFTER CONTROLLING FOR HOURS, OCCUPATION, PARENTHOOD, AND OTHER FACTORS KNOWN TO AFFECT EARNINGS, THE RESEARCH INDICATES THAT ONE-QUARTER OF THE PAY GAP REMAINS AND IS LIKELY DUE TO SEX DISCRIMINATION. OVER TIME, THE UNEXPLAINED PORTION OF THE PAY GAP GROWS.
The research also shows that ten years after graduation, college-educated men working full time have more authority in the workplace than do their female counterparts. Men are more likely to be involved in hiring and firing, supervising others, and setting pay.

"By looking at earnings just one year out of college, you have as level a playing field as possible," said AAUW Director of Research Catherine Hill. "These employees don’t have a lot of experience and, for the most part, don’t have care-giving obligations, so you’d expect there to be very little difference in the wages of men and women. But surprisingly, and unfortunately, we find that women already earn less — EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE THE SAME MAJOR AND OCCUPATION AS THEIR MALE COUNTERPARTS."

The AAUW research also shows that this pay gap exists despite the fact that women outperform men in school – earning slightly higher GPAs than men in every college major, including science and mathematics.

"The persistence of the pay gap among young, college-educated, full-time workers suggests that educational achievement alone will not close the pay gap," Hill said. "WE NEED TO MAKE WORKPLACES MORE FAMILY-FRIENDLY, REDUCE SEX SEGREGATION IN EDUCATION AND IN THE WORKPLACE, AND COMBAT DISCRIMINATION THAT CONTINUES TO HOLD WOMEN BACK IN THE WORKPLACE."

http://www.aauw.org/about/newsroom//pressreleases/042307_PayGap.cfm
http://www.aauw.org/research/behindPayGap.cfm

(I added the caps for emphasis)

I hate that argument that because women are in porno that means its not degrading that doesn't make any sense. And I think you are blase about the effects of pornography, it eroticizes domination and sadism, its not just that the pleasure is male-centric its that the woman is utterly dehumanized. ATM - Anus to Mouth [when the penis is taken directly from the woman's anus and inserted into her mouth uncleaned] - not only is this degrading but its a health-risk, and pornography also increases rape and other sadistic sexual crimes. And no offense but your cousin sounds like an asshole.

I had a friend like that. He kept calling me a sexist since I kept referring back to sexism. He was a big double talker too. I used the term pig for describing some dude and I was a sexist, but he could say Judge Judy is a hag and that's perfectly acceptable. I don't talk to him any more.

You said he's about "your age." Is your age around twelve, and you're just extraordinarily mature? He's using malformed regurgitated logic, designed to get cookies from older boys or MRAs.

This kind of reasoning is common and and somewhat forgivable in children and early adolescents, since they are still forming opinions and often have yet to be fully exposed to counterpoints. Unfortunately, culture as whole teaches little boys to dismiss female role models as just being too "other," and to look up to and emulate only the men around them. Especially when they're doing that "male bonding" thing that seems to put an inordinate amount of importance on putting women down and reveling in perceived male superiority.

Often as people age and continue their education, they are more exposed to counterpoints, learn to question their basic assumptions, and develop the ability to take multiple sources of information to reach more informed opinions. This is especially true as hetero boys reach sexual maturity, since suddenly they are much more interested in getting girls to like them (thus they have to, at least occasionally, listen to what a girl has to say).

However, if you guys are much older than that, I'm afraid he may have either been too thoroughly brainwashed, or may simply not be that bright (again, not to insult your gene pool).

The logic is flawed, and the points are detestable.

@Zoray - Your second paragraph gives a pretty good basis for this kind of thing. But there may be more to it than that. When I first ran into gender equality issues, I was angry that I was part of the problem simply because of my biology. Nativity combined with lack of knowledge, as well as the louder arguments of some of my female classmates, made me feel like the patsy that someone was pinning a crime on. I got pretty defensive pretty fast, although not to this level.

A few more years and a lot more knowledge did the truck.

@Amnesiac,
I agree, there's much more to it than that. As this is a comment on a blog, not a thesis, I was making a pretty simplified point.
However, I would say that you "perceived" that you were seen as part of the problem based "simply on your biology." Most men are part of of the problem, at least until they do start to question their basic assumptions about women and feminism, based on their societal indoctrination and unquestioned male privilege, not their biology.