Their complaints flow on Reddit forums, on video game message boards, on private Facebook pages and across Twitter. They argue for everything from male separatism to an end to gender diversity efforts.

Silicon Valley has for years accommodated a fringe element of men who say women are ruining the tech world.

Now, as the nation's technology capital — long identified as one of the more hostile work environments for women — reels from a series of high-profile sexual harassment and discrimination scandals, these conversations are gaining broader traction.

One of those who said there had been a change is James Altizer, an engineer at the chip maker Nvidia. Mr. Altizer, 52, said he had realized a few years ago that feminists in Silicon Valley had formed a cabal whose goal was to subjugate men. At the time, he said, he was one of the few with that view.

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Now Mr. Altizer said he was less alone. "There's quite a few people going through that in Silicon Valley right now," he said. "It's exploding. It's mostly young men, younger than me."

Mr. Altizer said that a gathering he hosts in person and online to discuss men's issues had grown by a few dozen members this year to more than 200, that the private Facebook pages he frequents on men's rights were gaining new members and that a radical subculture calling for total male separatism was emerging.

"It's a witch hunt," he said in a phone interview, contending men are being fired by "dangerous" human resources departments. "I'm sitting in a soundproof booth right now because I'm afraid someone will hear me. When you're discussing gender issues, it's almost religious, the response. It's almost zealotry."

Mr. Altizer is part of a backlash against the women in technology movement. While many in the tech industry had previously dismissed the fringe men's rights arguments, some investors, executives and engineers are now listening. Though studies and surveys show there is no denying the travails women face in the male-dominated industry, some said that the line for what counted as harassment had become too easy to cross and that the push for gender parity was too extreme a goal. Few were willing to talk openly about their thinking, for fear of standing out in largely progressive Silicon Valley.

Even so, "witch hunt" is the new whispered meme. Some in tech have started identifying as "contrarians," to indicate subtly that they do not follow the "diversity dogma." And self-described men's rights activists in Silicon Valley said their numbers at meetings were rising.

Others are playing down the women-in-tech issue. Onstage at a recent event, the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said harassment in Silicon Valley was "rarer than in most other businesses."

Many men now feel like "there's a gun to the head" to be better about gender issues, said Rebecca Lynn, a venture capitalist at Canvas Ventures, and while "there's a high awareness right now, which is positive, at the same time there's a fear."

The backlash follows increasingly vulgar harassment revelations in Silicon Valley. Several female engineers and entrepreneurs this year named the men they accused of harassing them, and suddenly tech's boys' club seemed anything but impervious. Travis Kalanick, Uber's co-founder, resigned as chief executive after the ride-hailing service was embroiled in harassment accusations. Dave McClure, head of the incubator 500 Startups, called himself "a creep" and stepped down. This month, the chief executive of Social Finance, Mike Cagney, also quit amid a harassment scandal.

In the aftermath, many stood up for gender equality in tech. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's founder, asked investors to sign a "decency pledge." Many companies reiterated that they needed to improve work force diversity.

"In just the last 48 hours, I've spoken to a female tech executive who was grabbed by a male C.E.O. at a large event and another female executive who was asked to interview at a venture fund because they 'feel like they need to hire a woman,'" said Dick Costolo, the former chief of Twitter, who now runs the fitness start-up Chorus. "We should worry about whether the women-in-tech movement has gone too far sometime after a couple of these aren't regularly happening anymore."