Men's Rights or Men's Needs? Anti-Feminism in Australian Men's Health Promotion

In a significant shift over the last ten years, Australian men's rights activists have partnered with academics and health groups to rearticulate notions of injured masculinity via the vocabulary and practice of health promotion. This shift has given rise to a hybrid form of men's rights/health activism (MRHA) in which health statistics and theories of social causation legitimate ongoing attacks on feminism and women's services. This successful strategy has attracted support for misogynist sentiments that, when formulated in explicitly ideological terms, have come to imperil the mainstream acceptability of the men's rights movement. This article discusses the shifts in Australian MRHA discourse and strategy from men's rights to men's needs and suggests reasons for concern about the role of MRHAs in Australian men's health policy.