This was originally a comment by /u/strawberryspringg on another thread. I've copied it here because it is one of the most powerfully presented explanations of the breach between feminism and men's rights that I've seen.

I used to be a feminist. I was what Karen Straughan calls a "coffee shop feminist". It's basically someone who believes in gender equality and assumes (wrongly) that feminism is a movement devoted to that end.

Coffee shop feminists haven't taken the time to study the literature and history of the feminist movement. You will often hear them say things like "women were denied the right to vote" without realizing that most men couldn't vote either until very recently. Indeed half of the men who were forced to fight and die in WWI couldn't vote. Middle and lower class men had to earn their voting rights with blood.

I started to question feminism when my cousin was treated horribly by the family courts. His ex is a certifiable psycho but got full custody while he had to move back in with his mother to support her lavish lifestyle. She made false accusations against him. He was alienated from his daughter.

I later learned that feminists have repeatedly fought against shared custody bills. This despite the fact that dozens of studies have shown shared custody to be in the bests interests of the child (and even the mother!).

Not only have feminists fought against shared custody, they have fought against actual gender equality every step of the way. This goes all the way back to first wave feminism.

Check out this link, it summarizes the history very well. If something is seen to place equal responsibilities on women or even just help men and boys they oppose it. They view everything as a zero sum game. That is not "equality". In fact it more closely resembles a supremacist movement. Their behavior suddenly makes sense when you consider that feminists view men as their "class enemies" and "oppressors." Why would you want to help your oppressors? The whole idea is silly of course, because as Warren Farrell noted you can't harm one gender without harming the other. After 100 years of feminism women are unhappier than ever.

The issue of rape is a perfect example of this. Three separate studies in Canada revealed that the majority of male rapists were sexually abused by women as children. A holistic approach to gender equality would recognize the role that women (especially mothers) play in creating violent men (and women). Instead, feminists portray male behavior as occurring in a vacuum without reference to the opposite sex.

The hypocrisy is endless. Studies show that men are treated much more harshly by the criminal justice system. They receive on average 60 percent longer sentences. However instead of attempting to redress this injustice, feminists successfully fought in the UK to have women treated even more leniently. Some feminists want to eliminate female prisons entirely! I'm not saying the answer is to treat women more harshly in every case -- perhaps it's to treat men with more compassion -- or maybe it's somewhere inbetween. But it's clear that feminists have no interest in equality on this or any other matter.

The statistics are alarming. While feminists whine about "princess and the pea" problems like "manspreading" and "mansplaining" they ignore or downplay male genital mutilation (hundreds of baby boys die from the practice every year), boys suffering more violence at the hands of their parents, boys falling behind in school due to gynocentric education models, male victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence, lack of male reproductive rights, false accusations which can and do ruin men's lives, men and boys being forced to fight and die in wars, men not having voting rights without signing up for selective service, the male suicide epidemic, the gender sentencing gap, the homelessness gap, the workplace death gap, men receiving less state funding and health care even though they pay more taxes, men working longer hours, men dying younger etc. etc.

It is abundantly clear at this point that feminists got it all wrong. Men don't want to oppress women, they want to protect women, and yes this has sometimes caused paternalistic sexism and even "oppression", but the average man has never had it better than the average woman.

When feminists talk about men's problems they say "patriarchy hurts men too." However it is a sick joke to claim that we're living in a "patriarchy" that privileges men. If what feminists claimed were true then the men's rights movement would receive lavish support by the state. Instead it's the feminists themselves that make all the rules.

One of the biggest problems with feminism is that it fundamentally misunderstands how men operate. Men in power do not try to privilege their class enemies and sexual competitors. To the extent that there is some degree of compassion toward the middle and lower classes it is reserved mostly for females. Hence the countless state initiatives to help women but not men. This is because men have out-group bias toward women, while the same is not true in reverse.

Today feminism has been revealed to be a supremacist movement. It is and always been rooted in resentment and hatred toward males, not a desire for equality. They are also authoritarians through and through. They fight to censor people, reverse due process rights, criminalize normal sexual behavior ("affirmative consent" is just bizarre), eliminate meritocracy, etc.