The men's rights movement (MRM) is a part of the larger men's movement. It branched off from the men's liberation movement in the early 1970s. The men's rights movement is made up of a variety of groups and individuals who focus on numerous social issues (including family law, parenting, reproduction, domestic violence) and government services (including education, compulsory military service, social safety nets, and health policies), which men's rights advocates say discriminate against men.
Some scholars consider the men's rights movement or parts of the movement to be a backlash to feminism. Men's rights activists contest claims by feminists that men have greater power, privilege or advantage than women and many argue that modern feminism has gone too far and greater attention should be placed on men's rights.
Claims and activities associated with the men's rights movement have been criticized by some scholars, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and commentators. Some sectors of the movement have been described as misogynistic. Others argue that perceived disadvantage is often due to loss of entitlement and privilege.
The term "men's rights" was used at least as early as February 1856 when it appeared in Putnam's Magazine.
Three loosely connected men's rights organizations formed in Austria in the interwar period. The League for Men's Rights was founded in 1926 with the goal of "combatting all excesses of women's emancipation". In 1927, the Justitia League for Family Law Reform and the Aequitas World's League for the Rights of Men split from the League of Men's Rights. The three men's rights groups opposed women's entry into the labor market and what they saw as the corrosive influence of the women's movement on social and legal institutions. They criticized marriage and family laws, especially the requirement to pay spousal and child support to former wives and illegitimate children, and supported the use of blood tests to determine paternity.Justitia and Aequitas issued their own short-lived journals Men's Rightists' [sic?] Newspaper and Self-Defense where they expressed their views that were heavily influenced by the works of Heinrich Schurtz, Otto Weininger, and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels. The organizations ceased to exist before 1939.