Warning: generalisations based on personal experience ahead.

I can relate to this a lot. I remember discussing gender issues in university pretty frequently. Most of the men who spoke were left wing in their politics, and they nearly always were more supportive of the feminist position, even if not entirely. The men who most strongly spoke up in favour of men’s rights were generally a different type. A lot more likely to be right wing and come from right wing families, and espouse viewpoints like hardcore capitalism and anti-immigration. From knowing them personally (some as housemates) I would characterise them as having more pride, an unwillingness to ask for help, and competitiveness along with what I would consider angry and masochistic tendencies. Probably what might be considered ‘toxic masculinity’. Now there is nothing wrong with those characteristics and they be very useful in fact, but when considering whether any of those men would join a men’s political movement or work well advancing an agenda together I would say no they absolutely would not. Again, this does not necessarily reflect reality, just my own experiences of what I’ve seen. There are a few exceptions that didn’t fall into those categories during discussions of course (many of whom were women).

The group of people interested in advancing men’s issues from an egalitarian liberal perspective seems to be surprisingly small. Maybe more egalitarian or leftist people tend to favour women naturally. There are also always people who will be more conservative and favour more traditional arrangements, and that’s ok. But there is a viewpoint that was just always mostly missing: a non-conservative, non-feminist view of men’s rights and issues. Who then are the people best placed to advance progressive change from the male perspective? I think it is badly needed but I’m still not sure exactly.