At this exact moment, the top link on MensRights is a highlighted page from a textbook that quotes two people's opinions on social perceptions of rape, the implied point the headline-picture combo makes being that rape is, it turns out, not all that bad. The same frontpage that calls out "bigoted feminists" in the right-side toolbar. Why indeed would people think such a community might not be capable of reasonable discussion and instead are more interested in incendiary attention-grabbing trolling?

Sword cuts both ways in this, as in all cases. It's sort of how r/Atheism gets flack for being a circlejerk of assholes when the 'members' see themselves as level-headed rationalists. The perception within the community is that of being persecuted, and never acknowledging that, hey, newsflash, every community has assholes in it.

For me personally, the problem is how the community/argument positions itself. Yes, without a doubt, certain legislative efforts to equalize institutionalized gender biases have gone too far such that they cause problems potentially as large going the opposite direction. Yes, the income gap is likely overstated or misrepresented by people using it as a political cudgel. Yes, there are numerous unfortunate cases where child custody is given to an unfit mother for no better reason than ovary-ownership. These are all problems that bear addressing, as well as I'm sure others that still exist for women that even the /mr community cannot help but acknowledge, and in a reasonable discussion about gender equality all these are excellent points to bring up.

But these people aren't "Gender Equality" activists. They're "Men's Rights" activists. Forget that the co-opting of terminology used by women to, among other things, earn the right to vote and work is intentionally confrontational and unhelpful. Forget that the implication that, oh woe be the poor man who has been beset upon by the vicissitudes of fate since time immemorial, if only men could achieve some small sliver of political power. Forget everything about the current political context when MensRights is the primary talking point used by the politicians trying to shut down women's health clinics and end women's reproductive rights.

The real problem is the cowardice of it. The MensRights members capable of having a reasonable discussion, the ones actually in favor of Gender Equality, won't call themselves "Gender Equality Advocates," because they're deathly afraid that the MensRights crowd will call them faggots. Adolescent peer pressure, once again, beats out a reasonable discussion. Legitimate progress sacrificed to the altar of ego-stroking.