On a quest to restoring manhood: Charting MRAs as an antifeminist and antigender countermovement

Men’s Rights Activism operates as a strategic countercurrent and opposition to feminist and pro-gender equality projects, reshaping public debates by transforming cultural grievances into policy claims. MRAs advance a narrative that contemporary gender policies have created a surplus of protections for women and LGBTQ people while leaving men socially and legally disadvantaged. They mobilize this narrative across concrete issue arenas and spheres, including divorce and custody law, domestic violence policy, criminal justice, employment, and welfare, framing institutional change as evidence of bias against men. In the Scandinavian setting, MRA actors and some right-wing parties appropriate equality rhetoric to argue and normalize positions building on the idea that core aims of first-wave feminism have been achieved and that gender equality has gone too far in society and risks social polarization. These actors often enjoy relative mainstreaming and reduced scrutiny from progressive and gender equality driven institutions and organization. Starting from picturing the networks and increased activity of MRA in Scandinavia, the paper further argues for comparative, mixed-method research that combines discourse analysis, legal and policy tracing, social network mapping, and qualitative fieldwork to track how MRA claims travel, who amplifies them, and how they reconfigure public understandings of gender equality and social justice.