The debate about men being left behind is decades old

dTrump’s success with men—in particular Latino and white youth— caused hand-wringing among Democrats. Some have charged that the party has abandoned male interests or even begun to treat men with disdain, with disastrous consequences. According to John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, these men are not radicals or incels. “They are your sons, or your neighbor’s sons,” he said BBC at the end of October. “Many support equality for women, but also feel that their own concerns are not being heard.”

This criticism is a continuation of a narrative that developed during the campaign. Commentators have stated that men lonelinessdisillusionment, declining educational outcomes, under- and unemploymentand feelings of abandonment Democrats were pushing them toward Trump, the GOP, and almost cartoonishly vision of masculinity embodied by pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan and UFC’s Dana White.

However, while there is evidence to support some of these claims, it is necessary to trace the discussion of marginalized men to its roots: the men’s rights movement. For more than 60 years, its activists have argued that men have gotten the short end of the stick, largely due to what they characterize as feminist movements that claim to fight for gender equality but instead prioritize women in the detriment of men.

Understanding the connections between the men’s rights movement and the current fixation on disillusioned youth is critical because men’s rights activists have used many of these claims to advance a political agenda that seeks to hold back girls and women.

The men’s rights movement began to spread across the country in the early 1960s in response to what activists saw as a “divorce racket” that clothed men and passed out women. Their complaints ignored the reality of divorce at the time: restrictive error based system limited access to divorce and structural inequalities such as unequal wages and pink-collar occupations made it impossible for women to support themselves (and their children) after their marriages ended. However, men’s rights activists complained about the way family courts awarded alimony to women at the expense of their ex-husbands, as well as usually awarding them custody of the children (and with it child support payments ) thanks to a decades-old. presumption that mothers were the more nurturing parents, especially for younger children.

This anger spawned men’s rights groups such as Divorce Racket Busters, founded in 1960 in Sacramento, and the American Society of Divorced Men, carefully using the dollar sign in its name to emphasize perceived financial exploitation of men.

These organizations convened to fight divorce laws and provide emotional support to men, as well as connect them with sympathetic lawyers willing to fight for the “male interest” in court. Like the awareness practice that took place in feminist circles during the same years, the first men’s rights organizations provided social connection and a sense of political purpose to their members.

Through these gatherings a larger argument began to coalesce: men faced systematic and fundamental discrimination in a changing world. This belief allowed wounded men to see themselves as a class and a constituency for the first time.

While some of them longed to turn back the clock, most men’s rights activists wanted to promote a new gender order—one that borrowed selectively from the flourishing second-wave women’s liberation movement. If women wanted true equality, these men believed, including the right to leave their marriages, work in male-dominated industries, and earn equal pay, then they should stand on their own two feet at the end of their marriages.

Some in the men’s rights movement argued that just as women suffered because of caricatured ideas about femininity and sexuality, so too did men mistreat and objectify men because of outdated conceptions of masculinity. For every female “sex object” diminished by stereotypes, there was a male “success object” expected to excel at work, suppress his emotions, and financially support his wife and children. Feminist reforms that prioritized girls and women, such activists argue, ignored the plight of modern men.

Figures like Farrell recognized that there was a power imbalance between men and women and that misogyny had lasting and damaging effects. However, they argued that women discriminated against men as much as men oppressed women – and worse, that this “misandrist” mistreatment was normalized by family courts and the wider culture.

Perhaps surprisingly, in the 1970s these activists became enthusiastic promoters of Equal rights amendment (ERA), which prohibited the denial of “equal rights under the law . . . because of sex.” Second-wave feminists fought hard for the ERA, seeing it as a legal shortcut to achieving women’s equality. Men’s rights activists had similar ideas, except they wanted to level the playing field for what they saw as marginalized men. In their view, the ERA would eliminate alimony and disproportionate child support payments for men.

Perhaps most importantly, men’s rights activists believed something promoted primarily by ERA opponents like Phyllis Schlafly: that the amendment would force women to serve in the army, hypothetical and alarmist position considering that the project had ENDED in 1973. Unlike Schlafly, however, men’s rights activists applauded the possibility. They argued that the all-male draft was an unjust perpetuated outrage on men – one so serious that men’s rights leader Fred Hayward equated it to rape in 1981.

As the feminist movement made gains, men’s rights activists began to claim that the political focus on violence against women was leading to false accusations of workplace sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence—something they hoped the ERA would correct. . They argued that these claims ruined the lives of individual men and defamed masculinity as violent and predatory. They envisioned that passage of the ERA would lead to equal punishment for male and female “wrongdoers” in the workplace. They believed that such wrongdoings should not only account for male sexual harassment and assault, but also punish women for displaying their “sexuality through the application of make-up, dress and exposure of sexually attractive parts of the body”.

Even after the deadline for ratifying the ERA expired in 1982, some men’s rights activists kept hope alive, trying to revive it—along with the efforts of some. feminists.

However, most men’s rights activists turned their attention to state and local laws in the 1980s and 1990s, along with academic understandings of gender-based violence. Increasingly, they have falsely claimed that men, not women, are the primary victims of domestic violence. With the support of sociologists Murray Strauss and Richard Gellesactivists inaccurately proclaim that the politicization of “battered wives” diverted attention from the problem of “domestic violence,” which included a large proportion of male victims.

More broadly, men’s rights activists began to point to a long list of poor outcomes affecting boys and men as evidence that men were the ones being discriminated against. Claims ranged from lower attainment rates in higher education and white-collar professions to higher rates of mental health struggles and “deaths of despair,” including suicides and drug overdoses.

Most of these efforts received little attention, and men’s rights activists achieved relatively little until the 21st century. However, the age of social media and podcasts has expanded their reach in ways their forebears could only have dreamed of. They also latched onto Trump as a champion of men’s rights while cheering the misogynistic taunting of his two female opponents: Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024.

The result is that the central premise of the men’s rights movement—that boys and men are being left behind—has gone mainstream.

The movement’s longer history has largely escaped attention, but it provides crucial context for the burgeoning debate about whether poor results and private struggles are changing youth politics. Men’s rights activists have long made many similar claims—and used them to promote dangerous and radical “solutions” that would harm girls and women in the name of fairness to men.

For example, men’s rights activists have advocated the repeal of the Violence Against Women Act, which they argue discriminates against male victims. They went so far as to sue the state services to help the female victims Minnesota, CaliforniaTomorrow and West Virginiaefforts that drain already overstretched agencies of their limited time and resources. Some men’s rights activists have even pushed for men to have an equal say in cases of abortion and adoption, which would give them control over women’s bodies. Some long-standing fantasies about men’s rights about overturning no-fault divorce— without restoring men’s historic child support obligations — have even made their way into the Tories reform efforts in red states like Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Understanding this history is key to enabling Democrats and the media to address the alienation of young people and their rightward drift without unwittingly empowering this movement—one that seeks to restore “men’s rights” to unearned legal privilege, economic advantage, and educational injustices and, quite literally, to women’s bodies.

Theresa Iker is the Choi-Lam H&S Lecturer in Undergraduate Teaching at Stanford University. Her research examines the intersections of gender, politics, and culture, and her forthcoming book chronicles the history of the American men’s rights movement.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME’s editors.