Until I started writing about feminism, some four years ago, I had never encountered the mysterious world of men’s rights activism. Then, when I did, I considered it entirely compatible with my views. How nice, I thought, that men out there are concerned about gender roles too. Like most feminists, I found the social expectations forced on men troubling: the pressures for men to ignore their emotions, to never cry, to show no weakness, to pursue sport as an interest or risk social suicide, to be sexually driven, to look a certain way seemed just as damaging as those foisted on women.

Because I grew up with a brother of around the same age, I saw the effects of a lot of these expectations first-hand. And it didn’t take long for me to realise what was said if you failed at any of these defining ‘masculine’ pursuits - you were “like a girl”. Being like a girl was the ultimate humiliation – if you were a boy, you certainly didn’t want to throw like one. Even as a girl myself, I didn’t want to be like one. At four years old I declared to my father that I was going to be a boy too, because “girls are stupid and they can’t do anything”.

That’s why, when I stopped being a girl and started being a woman, I thought I might have some common ground with this new breed of gender activists. Surely the men’s rights movement could see how a patriarchal society works. How it casts out all women - and any man - who doesn’t adhere to a very strict set of rules. Surely they were natural allies. Alas, I’m sure you know how this story ends, and it isn’t with a big love-in where we all bake cakes out of rainbows and smiles and share it with our unicorn friends.

Today is International Men’s Day, an opportunity to discuss some of the serious issues that a positive men’s rights movement would be well placed to address: the skyrocketing suicide rate among young men, for example, or the stigma faced by men who admit to being a victim of sexual abuse or domestic violence. But the tenor of debate surrounding this movement is aggressive and offensive at worst, and at best completely blind to the world as it is.

If I could summarise what life in the public eye is like for a female journalist, I would probably do it in two words: rape threats. If that shocks you, imagine how shocked I was when I first got tweeted by a so-called “men’s rights activist” being told that he wanted to rape me to death for having shared my views with the public. Or when my fellow journalist friend was told by a commenter that he wanted to “sew up [her] vagina, then [her] lips, so [she] can never have an opinion again”. Or when a young girl I commissioned to write for my website was told by someone who tracked her down on Facebook that he hoped she was gang-raped “in an Isis sex camp” (which I highly doubt exists, but that’s by the by.)

Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Show all 18 1 /18 Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Feminist Quotes From Leading Men John Legend “All men should be feminists. If men care about women’s rights, the world will be a better place. We are better off when women are empowered — it leads to a better society.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Matt McGorry “I'm embarrassed to admit that I only recently discovered the ACTUAL definition of "feminism". The fact that the term is sometimes clouded with anything other than pure support and positivity in our society is very tragic. I believe in gender equality. Being a feminist is for both women AND men. I AM A FEMINIST. In for equality? Pass it on.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Hugh Jackman “I'm for gender equality because it should’ve never been any other way!” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Seth Meyers “When you work with the sort of really strong women that I work with, the idea that anyone would want to make decisions for them is hard to wrap your head around.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Ezra Miller “I feel that all revolutionary causes should start with addressing misogyny.” Joseph Gordon-Levitt: “I do call myself a feminist. Absolutely! It’s worth paying attention to the roles that are sort of dictated to us and that we don’t have to fit into those roles. We can be anybody we wanna be.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Joss Whedon “[My mother] really was an extraordinary, inspirational, tough, cool, sexy, funny woman. And that’s the kind of woman I’ve always surrounded myself with, my friends and particularly my wife, who is not only smarter than and stronger than I am, but occasionally taller too. I think it also goes back to my father and my stepfather, because they prized wit and resolve in the women they were with above all things and they were among the rare men who understood that recognizing someone else’s power doesn’t diminish your own.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Ryan Gosling “I’m attracted to films that have strong female characters because there are strong female characters in my life.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Eddie Vedder “I’m usually good about my temper, but all these men trying to control women’s bodies are really beginning to piss me off. They’re talking from a bubble. They’re not talking from the street, and they’re not in touch with what’s real.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Mark Ruffalo “My own mother fought to make herself more than a possession; she lived her life as a mother who chose when she would have children, and a wife who could earn a living if she so chose. I want my daughters to enjoy that same choice. I don’t want to turn back the hands of time to when women shuttled across state lines in the thick of night to resolve an unwanted pregnancy, in a cheap hotel room just south of the state line. Where a transaction of $600 cash becomes the worth of a young woman’s life.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Prince Harry “We know that when women are empowered, they immeasurably improve the lives of those around them – their families, their communities and their countries.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Iggy Pop “I’m not ashamed to dress ‘like a woman’ because I don’t think it’s shameful to be a woman.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Daniel Craig “Women are responsible for two-thirds of the work done worldwide, yet earn only 10 percent of the total income and own 1 percent of the property… So, are we equals? Until the answer is yes, we must never stop asking.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Jon Hamm "Men ruled the roost and women played a subservient role [in the Sixties]. Working wives were a rarity, because their place was in the home, bringing up the kids. The women who did work were treated as second-class citizens because it was a male-dominated society. That was a fact of life then. But it wouldn't be tolerated today, and that's quite right in my book... people look back on those days through a thick veil of nostalgia, but life was hard if you were anything other than a rich, powerful, white male." Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Dalai Lama “I call myself a feminist. Isn’t that what you call someone who fights for women’s rights?” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Alan Alda "I think [misogyny] is like a disease that needs to be cured. And if we could eradicate polio, I don't see why we can't eradicate misogyny." Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Andy Samberg "Since there have been men and women, there have been funny women... f***ing idiot-ass men keep saying that women aren't funny. It makes me crazy. I find it disgusting and offensive every time." Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Barack Obama “We stand with women by fighting for economic security, protecting access to health care and supporting women’s leadership across the country.” Getty Feminist Quotes From Leading Men Kurt Cobain “Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth and it happens every few minutes. The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves. What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there.” Getty

I am by no means suggesting that these are majority views or that they are held by all men, but they are misogynistic slurs commonly heard from the ‘men’s rights’ movement.

York University has already been forced to cancel its planned event to mark the day, at which men’s rights in society and the achievements of male role models were to be discussed. Underlying tensions surrounding the event broke to the surface after a male member of the university’s equality and diversity committee released a statement complaining about the lack of male “support staff” at the university. Female students were quick to point out that the reason for that particular statistic might be related to the fact that men were still dominating most of the top-level senior positions at the institution.

A huge row broke out between the two camps, open letters were exchanged, and a handful of men’s rights campaigners joined in the furore online letting off misogynist steam on a keyboard. When the women involved questioned whether a single day was really necessary to bolster the interests and achievements of men, the spat turned into a fight about meanie unfairness that reminds me of the time I asked my parents, aged four, why there’s a Mothers’ Day and a Fathers’ Day, but there isn’t a Children’s Day. “Every day is Children’s Day,” they replied, to which I stamped my foot and duly had a tantrum.

It’s that tantrum that I see reflected in men’s rights activists’ howls of protests now: a tantrum arising out of the inability to see the bigger picture, the reality of other people’s lives and the way in which society works.