insideMAN

The Red Pill Movie: who is the victor in this tale of heroes and villains? 

by 55 Comments

This week I watched the Red Pill movie, the new documentary in which a 29-year-old, feminist filmmaker, Cassie Jaye, explores the world of Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) in North America writes Glen Poole.

It was an interesting experience as I have met and have shared platforms with at least five of the people interviewed in the film including Warren Farrell, author of The Myth of Male Power, who wrote in 1993:

“Feminism articulated the shadow side of men and the light side of women, but neglected the shadow side of women and the light side of men”.

By contrast, it can be argued that MRAs highlight only the light side of anti-feminism and the dark side of feminism. Cathy Young, whose 1999 book, Ceasefire, called for men and women to join forces to achieve true equality, has already made this point in her review of Red Pill, saying:

“MRA critiques of [feminism] are well-deserved: With few exceptions, feminism has not only ignored male disadvantages but openly opposed attempts to rectify biases in such areas as child custody and domestic violence.”

Young goes on to argue that anti-feminism (in the form or Men’s Rights Activism), also has a dark side. “One valid criticism of The Red Pill,” she says “is that it soft-pedals or evades the extreme, even genuinely misogynist rhetoric spouted by some of its subjects”.

Who’s promoting real diversity?  

Here at insideMAN, we receive many comments from MRAs around the world that point to this dark side, such as the following comment on an article written by a pro-feminist who had changed his mind about marking International Men’s Day:

“Feminists have made their filthy, sticky, flea-ridden bed and this time they are going to have to lie in it. Lucky for them, lying is what they do best. It boils down to this, Feminism now has 2 simple options: 1) Get out of our way OR 2) Be utterly destroyed. Choose!”

On the same article, we saw the lighter side of MRAs in this comment from Peter Wright, who works alongside some of the key characters in The Red Pill movie:

“It’s true that feminists are the strongest promoters of diversity on the planet,” said Wright “yet ironically display the most ignorance of real diversity among those supporting men’s issues — which most all feminists lump into the one category of “men’s rights activists” before dismissing that variety of voices and even censoring them. In that notorious ‘feminist’ move a great range of diversity is lost.”

If you want to make sense of where The Red Pill sits in the messy world of gender politics, then you need a map to guide you. A map, as they say, is not the territory but it contains enough truth to help you make sense of the terrain you are navigating.

http://heatst.com/culture-wars/new-film-the-red-pill-asks-whether-mens-rights-activist-have-a-point/

A map of gender politics 

So there are two things to keep in mind when watching The Red Pill.

Firstly, there are a whole load of binary pairings at play: men/women; feminism/anti-feminism; men’s issues/women’s issues; men’s rights/women’s rights. Each component has a light side and a shadow side. If you want the whole picture, you need to see all sides—and if you want to know where someone is standing, simply observe which sides they highlight or exaggerate and which sides they ignore or deny.

Secondly, there is a whole world of conflation at play, both in the male corner (between men’s issues/men’s rights/men’s rights activists/anti-feminism) and in the female corner (between women’s issues/women’s rights/feminism/gender equality).

As the comment by Peter Wright suggests, there is a broad church of people who are concerned about and committed to addressing men’s issues and most of us are not MRAs or anti-feminists.

I wrote recently in The Telegraph about the First National Conference for Men and Boys in 2011, which saw nearly 100 organisations sign a joint letter to the Government, calling for more focus on the specific needs of men and boys and how to address them. Reading the list of signatories provides a useful snapshot of the diversity of people committed to making a difference for men and boys in the UK, most of whom do not identify as either feminist or anti-feminist/MRA.

What about the non-feminist majority? 

A recent poll by the Fawcett Society, for example, found that while the majority of people “believe in equality for women and men”, only 7% of people identify as feminist and 4% as anti-feminists. This means that around 93% of people in the UK are not feminist, we are non-feminist. Further more, the overwhelming majority of all non-feminists do NOT identify as being anti-feminist.

As the libertarian conservative blogger, Anthony Masters, has observed: “It is worth remembering that public debates between a self-described feminist and anti-feminist will only represent about 11% of the adult population.”

So while MRAs and others point out, quite rightly, that feminism is not the same thing as gender equality, by the same token, anti-feminism and men’s rights activism, is not the same thing as men’s issues, as I discuss in the article: Is International Men’s Day About Men’s Rights or Men’s Issues?

It’s not about men’s issues

If you want a map to navigate your way through The Red Pill or know what to expect, here’s what you need to know:

a) It’s not about men’s issues. Yes it highlights some of the key men’s issues that continue to be overlooked, but it doesn’t explore any of those issues in depth. Take suicide as just one example, the movie will give you the American statistics on male suicide but provides no understanding of why the rates are so high or how we can stop it.

b) It’s not about the MRA movement. If you want a 360 degree understanding of MRAs then this isn’t the film for you. In making this film, Cassie Jaye will help you see the lighter side of anti-feminist, men’s rights activism and the darker side of feminism. She does so fairly and without recourse to exaggeration or denial, but she also ignores the darker side of men’s rights activism and the lighter side of feminism.

I offer these observations as way-markers rather than criticism, for anyone who is interested in the whole map of gender issues and wants to know what territory The Red Pill does and doesn’t explore.

Belinda Brown: The Red Pill is a film that could finish off feminism

What is this film actually about? 

So if it isn’t about men’s issues or men’s rights activists, what or who is the film about?

The answer lies in identifying the “hero” in the piece, which is an easy job for anyone who knows anything about the theory of scriptwriting or ise familiar with Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With A Thousand Faces”.

The “hero” of the film is Cassie Jaye. It is she who takes the archetypal “hero’s journey” that has dominated human storytelling for millennia and returns to where she started, a changed woman who knows that things will never be the same again.

“The truth is somewhere in the middle,” she says. “There are so many perspectives on gender and I believe they are all worth listening to, however, the conversation is being silenced. I don’t know where I’m headed, but I know what I left behind. I no longer call myself a feminist.”

The Red Pill is ultimately a biopic documentary that charts how a woman who identified as feminist (like 7% of the UK population) spent time with some people who identify as anti-feminists (like 4% of the UK population) and ended neither feminist nor anti-feminist (like nearly 90% of the UK population).

Building a better future 

Personally, I ended the film in the same place that I started, convinced that the most effective way to address men’s issues in the UK and beyond is to engage and mobilize more of the 90% (the non-feminists) in tackling the problems that men and boys face and understanding the different ways that the noisiest (and at times most powerful) 10% or so, can both help and hinder our progress.

It is sometimes said that minds are like parachutes, they work best when they are open.What The Red Pill reveals is that the world needs more open-minded people, like Cassie Jaye, who are prepared to think about gender issues in a way that considers both the light and dark sides of feminism and anti-feminism; rather than the censorious feminists who have tried to stop the film being shown in Australia or the anti-feminist who stood up to make this comment at the end of a screening in London:

“Feminism cannot be negotiated with, it’s a female supremacy movement driven by the hatred of men and to me the idea that you can negotiate with feminists or that feminists will cede power to men and boys…it’s as fanastic as Jews in the Second World War thinking the Nazis would help them.”

It’s an entirely false victim-narrative that infantilizes men and suggests we have no agency or personal power to address the issues that men and boys face, unless feminists “get out of our way or be utterly destroyed”.

Can feminism be a barrier to addressing men’s issues? Yes it can, as sure as gravity can be barrier to human flight! Is destroying feminism the answer to the problems men and boys face. Of course not. That’s not the way to stop suicide or improve boys’ education or end workplace deaths or tackle homelessness or improve men’s experiences (and rights) as fathers. Those kinds of complex human problems need men and women to apply the same kind of world-changing thought and action to gender issues, that the Wright brothers applied in their successful battle to overcome and work with gravity, to reach for the sky.

Belinda Brown has argued in her review of The Red Pill on the Conservative Woman blog that the answer to gender issues cannot come from feminism as long as “it is a movement that is based on the assumption that women are victims and men are bad”. What is missing from her argument, is an equal and opposite acknowledgment that the answer to gender issues cannot come from an anti-feminist movement that is based on the assumption that men are victims and feminists are bad.

So while as many as 10% of the population seem to think that the answer to all gender issues is to either dismantle patriarchy or destroy feminism, the vast majority of us, like Cassie Jaye, think “the truth is somewhere in the middle” and want to build a better future.

Glen Poole has recently published his latest book, You Can Stop Male Suicide, which is available to buy online from www.StopMaleSuicide.com.

  • Taca

    You seem to be viewing feminism and antifeminism/men’s rights activism as simply two sides of the same coin Glen. To me this is akin to viewing racism/anti-racism as simply two sides of the same coin. As having some kind of equivalence. I do not see MRAs anywhere trying to shut down feminist debates, setting off fire alarms, using violence and intimidation to try and stop people from attending. I do not see MRAs proposing that boys, and only boys, should be protected from ritual genital cutting. Or trying to stop feminist films being aired. I don’t see MRAs claiming that only men can be victims of DV, and that only men should be catered for. We do not have MRA chiefs of police establishing misandry as a hate crime, ignoring misogyny. We do not have an MRA chief public prosecutor pursuing a vendetta against women, setting targets for the prosecution of females. I do not see MRAs writing in mainstream news outlets, pieces headlined “why I hate women” or “why it’s ok to hate women” or “all women should be put in concentration camps” or “why women should be reduced to one tenth of the population”. I do not see MRA student welfare officers tweeting #killallwomen or #killallwhitewomen. I do not see MRAs calling for men to be simply ‘believed’ when they make arbitrary accusations against women, undoing hundreds of years of evidence-based jusrisprudence. In fact I have never seen or heard MRAs campaigning for anything other than equal protection under, and equal accountability before, the law, and equal social provision for their needs regarding health, education and housing etc. If you can show me this ‘shadow’ side of men’s rights advocacy I am, of course, prepared to update my world-view.

    • http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

      MRAs sure do produce a great deal of vitriol toward feminists (some of it deserved, of course, as the film shows), and it is seldom possible to accomplish much constructive in the midst of hostilities.

      There are some genuine misogynists among MRAs (as a moderator of a high-profile MRA web site, I’ve seen some of it). They are by no means the majority, but there is no point in denying that they exist. By any reasonable measure, that’d be a ‘shadow side’.

      • Mike Buchanan

        David, far from misogynists being ‘by no means the majority’ (of MRAs) they are in fact a tiny minority, and I know of no influential men in the men’s rights movement who I’d consider misogynists. Such men are not made welcome in the MRM, to put it mildly.

        It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how badly / cruelly women treat individual men – false rape accusations etc. – very few men become misogynists. On the other hand, many women become misandrists for little reason, or none.

        Women have a wildly exaggerated fear of men as a class, which naturally leads to misandry. That fear is whipped up cynically (and cruelly) by feminists with lying domestic violence narratives, lying rape culture narratives etc. for personal gain – usually continuity of employment in one of the taxpayer-funded feminist industries, including academia.

      • Taca

        Yes David, I have come across genuine misogyny occasionally too, although very little within MRA communities – probably less than within feminist groups ironically, where derogatory portrayals of women as eternally infantile and pathetic sometimes emerge. Misandry however is indistinguishable from feminism today. The core narratives and concepts of feminism are essentially misandrist, as are their actions and campaign goals. There is certainly a debate to be had about what is strategically the best approach when trying to convince the ‘undecideds’, as you discuss in your post below ie what attitude we display publicly. But I’m afraid I do see hegemonic feminist ideology as THE major obstacle to promoting compassion for men and boys, and any campaign to give boys and men equality in law and social provision will inevitably come up against this feminist-constructed brick wall. We can dismantle it politely, or rudely, but dismantle it we must.

      • Mike Buchanan

        David, far from misogynists being ‘by no means the majority’ in the MRM, they are a tiny proportion. The MRM is not a welcoming place for misogynists, with good reason.

        I never cease to marvel at how men can be treated viciously by women – domestic violence, false rape allegations, financial ruin through divorce, other manifestations – yet not become misogynists as a result.

        In stark contrast, many women and most feminists are misandrous – the more radical in their feminism, the more misandrous they are. Feminists stoke misandry by increasing women’s fear of men as a class, which leads women to hate men as a class. It’s cynical and cruel, and the true purpose is to keep otherwise unemployable professional feminists in employment in grievance-mongering industries, including academia and the media.

      • Lawrence Newman

        I’ve never ever met a misogynist. Sure you know what it means?

  • AJ

    There article seems to posit a false equivalance between feminism and mens rights activism.

    Although few people in Britain identify as feminists. It is the philosphy of the establishment including the media, politics and academia. It dominates and excludes other viewpoints in any discussion related in any way to gender or women. Money is being spent to maintain the life expectancy difference between men and women, to increase the disparity between men and womens educational achievements. Laws and sentencing guidleines explicitly favour women, disadvantage men and the public debate is not about redressing the balance but further advantaging women. Violence against men and boys is much more common than aganst women and girls yet there is a government policy to address violence against women and girls and nothing for men and boys. Professional bodies have programs to encourage women and girls into teh profession when they are male dominated but none of the female dominate dprofessions have programs ot encourage men.

    I am sure that statements can be found on the internet from MRAs which are nakedly bigotted and mysogynistic but these are the minority, unrepresentative and not expressed by main stream publications or instituitions. Misandric comments, some very extreme, are common place and frequently expressed by mainstream ‘respectable’ organisations.

    Feminisim is the dominant gender ideaology. It is predominantly sexist and discriminatory in theory and practice. MRA is a fringe concern with next to no influence and at least at the moment a predominantly agalitarian ethos. Equating the two downplays and minimises the harm caused by feminism and damages by association with feminism.

  • Mike Buchanan

    Glen, thanks for including that video clip. I proudly identify myself as the anti-feminist to whom you refer.

    Mike Buchanan

    JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS
    (and the women who love them)

    http://j4mb.org.uk

  • Karen Mac Fly

    Are you seriously comparing feminism: a political ideology to gravity: a natural phenomenon?

    You claim that MRA’s have a victimhood attitude: While there are men claiming to be part of the movement while using it to justify their problems with women (not misogyny though as you claim) I have come to the conclusion, after long consideration, that the mrm does not lend itself to fostering such attitudes. However, you considering a politcal ideology as perpetual and impossible to question as a natural phenomenon that is the position of ultimate victimhood. You have basically surrendered to the status quo.

    It does not matter whether 7% or 0.1% of the population identify as feminist. What matters is that all agencies dealing with interpersonal crime – such as domestic violence and sexual assault – operate on the basis of the faulty – by academic research and personal experience of people working in the field proven – feminist Duluth model. As long as abused men are thrown into prison in place of their (female) abuser and actually violent men are put through Behaviour change and Anger Management group programmes where they learn to be ashamed of themselves instead of being offered psychotherapy as violent women are, so that they can explore what caused their anger in the first place and make peace with themselves I will speak out against the basis of all feminism, the claim that human history is one of men oppressing women. A claim that makes it impossible to extend the same empathy to men that we extend to women.

    • Groan

      Thank you so much better put than I. Some years ago I was in at the start of White Ribbon. Having had some family experience of DV. Taking feminists at their word, that men should organise their own help for each other rather than take resources from women, I joined with a small group doing just that. Of course what actually happened was a whole host of dirty tricks and “briefing” of funders and donors. It became clear that even operating a tiny “service” brought “all hell” down. I was probably naïve but I was profoundly shocked at the behaviour of people I’d have thought of as “colleagues”. I suppose it was my “red pill”.
      Sadly I see few signs much has moved on. Even worse I have seen the ideology distort the response to older people where husbands and wives struggle with caring for their ill partner, but now husbands get labelled abusers. And in the fraught lives of young people where again young women receive “education” or “counselling” and young men incarceration of various forms and “registers”.

      • insideMAN

        Groan

        I have the deepest compassion for what you’ve shared and it mirrors my personal experience. I think we also need to acknowledge where progress has been made (The ManKind Initiative and Abused Men In Scotland) AND the growth in numbers of male victims who have come forward and got prosecutions.

        The situation is far from perfect and to say we’ve made no progress disempowers us and does a great disservice to those who have made progress in extremely difficult circumstances.

        We need, in my view, dedicated, credible, non-feminist services for male victims with the skill to combine support work and advocacy work, in every town, city and region in the country.

        Campaigning is pointless if it isn’t anchored in service provision, because what happens is that if you make enough noise, some funding will be allocated and it will be given to existing women’s services to deliver support for men which will be ineffective or the first thing to be cut when funding dries up.

        Of course the Catch 22 is it is fiercely difficult to set up services (as you and I both know from experience) and it isn’t impossible.

        Great services + Brilliant advocacy = change

        We need both and we need both working in harmony when what we’re finding in practice is that service providers for male victims find themselves the target of hostility from anti-feminists (for nor being anti-feminist enough).

        Thanks for commenting, I hear what you are saying and recognize the depth of your personal experience.

        Best Wishes

        Glen

        • http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

          if you make enough noise, some funding will be allocated and it will be given to existing women’s services to deliver support for men which will be ineffective or the first thing to be cut when funding dries up

          This is precisely what has happened in NSW, Australia, so that case may be worth watching as a test case for how (not) to do government funding for DV services for male victims.

          http://relatingtomen.com/gender-politics/domestic-violence/fox-now-guards-hen-house-bettina-arndt/

          In part, this is because there are no non-feminist DV charities or services in Australia, largely because of Government mandate. I can even point you to official state guidance on the presumption of guilt in male “victims” if you want.

        • Groan

          I certainly agree there is far too much to do for hostilities rather than disagreement. Certainly in the interviews I’ve seen Cassie Jaye’s “point” is simply that she discovered feminism wasn’t an answer and wants to contribute to dialogue. Not so different from your quest to find a “new” way of understanding “gender”, or maybe placing it in better context.

    • Taca

      ” . . . you considering a politcal ideology as perpetual and impossible
      to question as a natural phenomenon that is the position of ultimate
      victimhood. You have basically surrendered to the status quo”. Very astute Karen, as always. I completely missed that point when I read it, but you are absolutely right. The analogy is quite defeatist.

    • insideMAN

      Hi Karen

      It’s a learning metaphor, for those who want to make a difference in men’s lives today.

      The idea that the only way to solve men’s issues is to change the whole system and that any other approach is to “surrender to the status quo” does not honour the great work that many men and women do every day to help men and boys at risk of suicide, in violent relationships, struggling to navigate the family court system and so on.

      Change happens at an individual, cultural and systemic level and those who understand which aspects of change they have the power to control and influence today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, over the next decade etc……are the most effective at making change happen.

      If you tell a separated his situation is hopeless until the system changes, then you leave him in a hopeless state and THAT is surrendering to the status quo.

      At the same time, if you tell a separated dad “the system is fine” you disempower him, because there’s a good chance he’ll find out it isn’t and it’ll be too late for him to do anything about it.

      However, if you tell a separated dad that the system is imperfect and then show him how to change his approach in order to navigate that system and get the outcome he wants, then that can be transformative.

      Never put your faith in anyone who tells you the only to improve men and boys lives is to change the system, because it only reveals that they have little experience of how to make change happen and that they have surrendered to the status quo by relating to men as helpless victims who need the system to be changed in order for them to thrive.

      Does the system need to change. Yes. Does making change happen within the current system right now mean you have surrendered to the status quo? Of course not. It means you are so committed to making change happen that you’re not going to sit around hoping that the system changes before you get around to improving men’s lives.

      I speak from my own experience of working alongside separated dads and taking them from having no contact with their kids to sharing custody.

      Is this possible in all cases? No. Does the system need to be reformed? Yes. Is making change happen today a form of surrender? Absolutely not.

      The people who inspire me are those who are making a difference in men’s lives today, not those who say the only way to change men’s lives for the better is to change the system and anything else is surrender. That is a victim narrative and it doesn’t honour the inherent greatness and potential in all men and boys.

      Best Wishes

      Glen

    • Carl Garnham

      I
      see he mentions Gravity, but he misses completely the really big G.
      Lord knows im not talking about Glen either. Holy Mother of God..the G’enie in the bottle, not spoke about here or
      there….its InsideMan, you know, Gynocentrism, the core operating
      system for those who havent swallowed the red pill, some need a
      suppository, some need it firing at them with a howitzer, for some theres no
      hope.

      he
      talks of the percentages a lot….7%, 4%….90% etc…and appears to be liberally shoehorning
      himself into the middle of the road, 90% im not a feminist im not an anti-feminist brigade. but the reality here is the middle of the road is a lie, traffic both sides going different places. He’ll get knocked over if he moves either way. Great entertainment for passing traffic though. Frogger. Ronald Mcdonald comes to mind. The im asleep brigade look at me dreaming im awake behind the wheel lets wave at Glen doing a good job entertaining the masses.
      The ones…who dont read his column. Oh the irony. Trying to make
      freinds with and influence feminsts, or at least not upset them. He cant
      stand the crying. It drives him nuts. Anything for sweety. He should try stand up, he seems a stand up sort of a guy. Abandon ship, Glen and Children first!

      “Personally, I ended the film in the same place that I started.”

      Personally
      i think that is impossible due to the very rigid constraints of flow
      related to time and space which are also at work in the internal
      landscapes of subjects exposed to external forces and stimuli. In other
      words, he’s talking crap.

      If he hadnt blocked me, i would block him. He’s not coming on my spaceship.

      Carl. aka G. as in Goink. ?

  • Groan

    I’m disappointed in this. In her various interviews Cassie Jaye is clear that her film is indeed her journey and makes no greater claim. Your comments appear rather haughty about this as if it diminishes what one could gain simply because the “story” is a familiar vehicle. It is disingenuous so point out the small percentages of people identifying as feminist or otherwise. As part of the point is a battle of ideas, after all few are members of political parties too.
    However few may identify as feminists it is clearly one of the orthodoxies of the age, particularly in public institutions. Consequently anyone at all interested in even getting issues affecting males discussed will at some point find that this orthodoxy will be invoked to prevent it. This was certainly the case some years ago in health, wherein the incontrovertible differences in outcomes were suppressed less they “distract” from women’s health. Slowly that shifted but not without confrontations. And still in psychology and mental health it is a live battle.
    This is mirrored in the response to education data where LEAs advance the view that boys under achievement and higher rates of exclusions are of no concern because there are more male MPs (I know this because I advanced the data in three local LEAs to get just such a response).
    One could go on. However what is clear is that feminism (however few card carrying members) is a hegemonic ideological construct within most public policy. Simply advancing the data that questions its assertions brings opprobrium. Now of course the anti-feminists by definition don’t really have a counter ideology, and certainly are not part of an establishment orthodoxy thus have no power that I can detect in public policy. There may indeed be differences of ideas of tactics or of style.
    But there is no doubt that this particular story is about Cassie’s “discovery” of a David fighting Goliath.

  • They Live

    _”So while as many as 10% of the population seem to think that the answer to all gender issues is to either dismantle patriarchy or destroy feminism”_
    –
    Would you mind pointing to some influential MRA’s please who claim that we merely need to destroy feminism and then that’ll solve all gender issues?
    Like, what are you talking about?

  • http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

    I agree with the general sentiment behind this piece, save for two main philosophical objections:

    Each component has a light side and a shadow side. If you want the whole picture, you need to see all sides—and if you want to know where someone is standing, simply observe which sides they highlight or exaggerate and which sides they ignore or deny.

    1. That’s true as far as it goes, but it rather depends on what view of the ‘shadow side’ you take. Perhaps observed emphasis tells you something about an individual, but it doesn’t say much of use about the whole group, and it says almost nothing at all about the issues themselves.

    Neither the extremists nor the shadow side of a whole movement (either feminism or the MRM) detract from the good that moderates of the movement do, and neither movement has a monopoly on the path to equality — so I don’t really agree that taking a balanced view requires examination of the worst of each movement, or even that doing so would be helpful. Nobody is wholly right or wholly wrong about everything, so it’s to be expected that some attitudes are unhelpfully and overly reductionist.

    In that regard,

    It’s an entirely false victim-narrative that infantilizes men and suggests we have no agency or personal power to address the issues that men and boys face, unless feminists “get out of our way or be utterly destroyed”.

    It’s reasonable to try to dismantle obstructions to equality, wherever they lie so it is perfectly reasonable to address ourselves to feminism to the extent that it demonstrably obstruct equality between men and women (c.f. opposition to IMD, no-platforming of speakers) and mutatis mutandis (because feminists get no-platformed when they shouldn’t, as well).

    At this point in time, most of those obstructions seem to lie on the feminist side of the fence because feminists, collectively, hold a great deal more power than do MRAs. But where MRAs obstruct the path to equality (and that is inevitable, sooner or later), they should also be addressed.

    Where overly reductionist rhetoric does no harm, it’s probably best ignored (again, on both sides of the fence).

    (Emphasis mine):

    Personally, I ended the film in the same place that I started, convinced that the most effective way to address men’s issues in the UK and beyond is to engage and mobilize more of the 90% (the non-feminists) in tackling the problems that men and boys face and understanding the different ways that the noisiest (and at times most powerful) 10% or so, can both help and hinder our progress.

    2. Again, that’s good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t account for the fact that much of the 90% are relatively apathetic towards gender equality and either a) don’t hold a view, b) don’t hold a view strongly enough to want to do anything about it or c) or are disincentivised (whether owing to safety, social or time pressures) from expression of their view — or they’d already be within the 10% who take a side one way or the other (± human fickleness).

    You can even see this dynamic reflected in the OP’s own words: the bolded passage indicates that s/he went into the film with a perspective and, merits aside, did not feel compelled to reconsider his or her position.

    If, of the audience likely to take action, most have already made up their minds one way or the other, mobilising the rest who aren’t likely to take action is going to be a very steep hill to climb. Most people, after all, are just trying to survive and navigate their way through this life, and won’t expend their energy on something unless given good reason to, in which case they’re likely to do so on their own initiative.

    None of this, of course, is any reason not to take a moderate approach as do IM and M&BC but, strategically speaking, I think it’s important to recognise where the opportunities do and don’t lie.

    You tell me: how would you answer the question likely to be asked by the 90%, “why should I care about any of this subject?”

    • insideMAN

      Thanks David

      I respect and value the open-minded way you seek to engage with others who think differently and thank you for this acknowledgment:

      “MRAs sure do produce a great deal of vitriol toward feminists (some of it deserved, of course, as the film shows), and it is seldom possible to accomplish much constructive in the midst of hostilities.”

      There are two basic ways to bring about social change on matters like gender equality for women and men’s issues like male suicide, boys’ education, violence against men and boys, fatherhood, workplace deaths, male homelessness and so on.

      There are closed, exclusive approach, which basically argues there is one way to solve the problem and so the way to bring about social change is to apply time, money and energy to that one way (and resist any opposition to that one way)……..that’s not unique to gender issues by the way, there are plenty of social issues where a closed, “one way” approach is applied.

      And there are open, inclusive approaches, which seek to harness as many potential allies as possible, in pursuit of a specific goal…..e.g. to improve the outcomes of separated dads or to reduce male suicides.

      For those of us identify more closely with the 90% of the population who are neither feminist or anti-feminist—and are committed and taking action to improve the lives of a men and boys—it is important (as I way in the article) to understand the different ways that the noisiest (and at times most powerful) 10% or so, can both help and hinder our progress.

      My experience is that across the whole 100% spectrum of any population you will find people who are committed to closed and exclusive approachers; people who are committed to open and inclusive approaches; people who could swing either way and people who are not (and may never be) engaged.

      Where a field is dominated by one, predominantly closed and exclusive group, those who don’t subscribe to that approach have choices:

      *Try to persuade the dominant group to change
      *Try to persuade others that the dominant group’s approach doesn’t work
      *Try and destroy and remove that group
      *Create your own spaces away from the dominant group and operate there
      *Build a bigger, better, open and inclusive approach that renders the old closed, exclusive approach obsolete

      I subscribe to the Buckminster Fuller philosophy:

      “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

      In terms of addressing men’s issues, using the open and inclusive approach, in my view there are three priorities in this order:

      1. Create your own spaces away from the dominant group and operate there
      2. Build a bigger, better, open and inclusive approach that renders the old closed, exclusive approach obsolete
      3. Disrupt the status quo by persuading others that the dominant group’s approach doesn’t work (or is at least, less effective that your approach which you have established and developed)

      That’s one way to approach the open and inclusive approach.

      All the commentators on this article can point to examples where feminism takes a closed and exclusive approach to social issues (e.g. DV) which is problematic, but are less willing or able to acknowledge how anti-feminism tends to mirror feminism in taking an equally closed approach.

      Now if you follow my writing, you’ll see I critique the closed approach of feminism far more than I critique the closed, exclusive approach of anti-feminism, as feminism has more power in areas where that closed approach is a barrier to those of us seeking the make a difference for men and boys.

      However, let us be in no doubt, that anti-feminism generally manifests as a closed, exclusive approach, which as you rightly acknowledge, produces “a great deal of vitriol”, not just towards feminists but also to non-feminists and (as you rightly say) “it is seldom possible to accomplish much constructive in the midst of hostilities.”

      My view on men’s issues is that open and inclusive approaches that are NOT hostile and vitriolic are the most constructive way forward. Those who oppose that approach most powerfully and noisily are generally the feminist and anti-feminists…..though feminists tend to make less noise and oppose inclusivity more powerfully (as they have more power), while anti-feminists tend to oppose inclusivity more noisily (as they have less power).

      There are also plenty of people who would love to work with others more openly, inclusively and collaboratively but are terrified of being caught in the shit fight between feminists and anti-feminists for fear they’ll end up covered in metaphorical shit…….so they either do nothing or create their own little closed world where they do their bit to address gender issues and hope that no-one notices.

      That’s not necessarily because they are naturally inclined to take a closed approach, it’s just that they find it safer or more productive to keep themselves to themselves.

      So the most important distinction for me is not between who’s feminist and who’s anti-feminist, but between who takes a closed, exclusive approach and who takes an open and inclusive approach.

      I thank you again, David, for being open and inclusive in your approach…….that doesn’t require us to agree, but it does create a space where dialogue can take place.

      Best Wishes

      Glen Poole

      • Mike Buchanan

        Hilarious. The one person who shows sympathy with your thesis is ‘open-minded’, everyone else ‘close-minded’. Why can you not just come out and declare yourself what everyone knows you to be, a feminist? And why won’t Ally Fogg do so? You both undermine your credibility by lying about your clear ideological leanings.

      • http://www.avoiceformen.com/ David King

        So the most important distinction for me is not between who’s feminist and who’s anti-feminist, but between who takes a closed, exclusive approach and who takes an open and inclusive approach.

        Right. When I first read your OP, I got the impression that you were arguing that there was no place at all for anti-feminism but, based on your comments and especially the above quoted passage, I now don’t believe that’s what you meant (only that you yourself don’t favour the anti-feminist stance).

        If that is the case, then I don’t there is anything of consequence upon which we disagree. If there is any disagreement, it concerns the approach to exclusivists.

        My perspective is that the good they do should be acknowledged, the unhelpful but harmless they do ignored, and the harmful addressed — and that includes my own organisation. Most of the time, the phrases “reasonable minds may differ” and “we agree to disagree” can be put to good use, and instead energy focused on common ground will do much more good than internecine scrapping over differences. I do believe that this is one of those cases where one can take the good and leave the bad.

        Anti-feminism doesn’t, of necessity, entail exclusivity of approach, although I admit you’re right, that there is a fair degree of correlation. But then, many feminists take an exclusive approach also. That, I think, is what leads to others being “terrified of being caught in the sh!t fight between feminists and anti-feminists for fear they’ll end up covered in metaphorical sh!t”.

        I’m sufficiently well established in the MRM that I can more or less say what I like (at least, in my personal capacity), but I’m sure you’re also right about the apprehension of others who aren’t so battle-hardened. Gender politics is, without doubt, the dirtiest subject I have ever gotten myself embroiled in.

        • insideMAN

          David

          Thank you for listening…….seriously, I’m a bit tearful writing this……because you’ve listened and heard and understood and now we can connect as human beings….rather than simply interact through a clash of ideas.

          Firstly let me apologize for the fact that our first (to my knowledge) conversation came about because we deleted one or more of your comments in a recent cull of comments on another thread.

          You could have reacted badly but the way you responded opened the door to this conversation…THANK YOU!

          We created insideMAN as platform to for men’s voices (and voices about men’s issues) and we were clear that for that to exist, listening and hearing is just as important as talking.

          In the past year we’ve put our energy elsewhere (International Men’s Day and The Coalition mostly) and the same principles apply—-but we haven’t had the time and energy to cultivate this platform so much.

          The reason we delete a whole load of comments recently was that the conversation just wasn’t in the spirit of insideMAN……and it wasn’t because of the gender politics expressed, but because there was lots of talking and very little listening and that noise was not productive and didn’t represent or honour what we stand for.

          So thanks for listening because you hear me right (nearly) when you say this:

          “Right. When I first read your OP, I got the impression that you were arguing that there was no place at all for anti-feminism but, based on your comments and especially the above quoted passage, I now don’t believe that’s what you meant (only that you yourself don’t favour the anti-feminist stance).”

          I would change one word “favour”…..because it’s not even about favouring, it’s about being.

          I AM A NON FEMINIST (if you want to be precise I’m an integral masculist but that’s for another day)……let’s stick with the three category approach to understand gender politics.

          I AM A NON FEMINIST

          Being a non-feminist does not mean I am an anti-feminist.
          Being a non-feminist does not mean I am a feminist.
          Being a non-feminist does not make me ANTI-anti-feminist.

          IT MEANS I AM A NON-FEMINIST

    • Susan Morris

      Quoting David: “Again, that’s good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t account for the
      fact that much of the 90% are relatively apathetic towards gender
      equality and either a) don’t hold a view, b) don’t hold a view strongly
      enough to want to do anything about it or c) or are disincentivised
      (whether owing to safety, social or time pressures) from expression of
      their view — or they’d already be within the 10% who take a side one way
      or the other (± human fickleness).”

      Most times I agree with you, David but, on this, sorry but I take issue. To say that someone is apathetic is to say that they show no feeling, interest, enthusiasm or concern. I ask, how can people have any sort of view on something which they know nothing about?

      A few years ago, I was in that position, going about my life, not stopping to examine the whys and wherefores how the things which affect people’s lives had come about but simply giving my time and energy to having to deal with how they affected me.

      It wasn’t until I began to learn, through my partner, how the small pieces of the jigsaw puzzle slotted together to make the bigger picture that I was able to form an opinion. Whether or not I chose to do anything about it was then up to me.

      The important word in all of that is ‘learn’. People cannot know about things, no matter what, unless they have been educated. To attract the attention of the 90% who are neither feminists nor men’s rights campaigners, we must find ways of teaching, educating, showing what is happening, but without preaching, without blame.

      Showing that this is where we are, highlighting the areas which need to change, hopefully proposing some ideas of how to make that happen.

      And we must engage with people without using the sort of language or gender terms which would be a turn off to many people.

      And we must encourage those people who think that they can’t possibly make a difference to the status quo. Lone voices crying in the wilderness have a hard time being heard but many voices calling out together have a much better chance.

  • Tom B

    I saw the red pill in London and I think Erin Pizzey hit the nail on the head ‘follow the money’ Feminism is a business now and the ideology is just used to recruit new ‘customers ‘ that’s why the keep redefining and lowering the standards across the board to keep the cash rolling in , I think Erin said the DV budget for the UK was nearly £300M . I don’t think the MRA movement is after the money but to just address the in balance of what’s right and fair and just .

  • eualadindeal

    and another man-hating article
    sorry but no!

    your days of preaching are over, men and women must see more and more points of view, even if they are not comfortable

    get back to your gender politics and lick the boot of the dying feminism
    so far it did nothing for women, vilified men and ruined families

    the time has come for men to rise up and claim their fair share
    true equality begins when men will have full abortion rights just as women
    full parental rights
    no longer pay for women’s alimony, only child support and only in a dual joint account where the women puts equal share!
    no longer drafter as the only meat grinder gender!
    equal healthcare, no longer the second gender when it comes to healthcare research and funds

    and a fair share from taxes
    they work 25% more, they pay taxes 25% more!
    then 25% more of the taxes should get sent to men and boy’s issues!

    until then, we have a long LONG road to go
    and MRAs will grow

    in only 3 years they grow from virtually 0 to 4%
    feminism had 60 years to reach 7%

    see you after another 3 years!

  • eualadindeal

    and here is one for all of you

    whenever someone say “feminism HAS GONE TOO FAR” they are quick to defend “there are radical feminists… not all of us are radical”

    use the same narrative!
    whenever someone say “MRAs are using bad language”….
    well… “the correct term is radical MRAs, and they do not represent all of us, and also they may have objectionable methods but, JUST AS RADICAL FEMINISTS, they are well intended”

    got it?
    flip the coin… and use the same narrative until they drop the narrative or swallow the pill

    good luck

  • Carl Garnham

    Glen, why no Gynocentrism? Why you no say? Awww. Coooeeee! If the pills dont work, suppositories are another option.

  • Carl Garnham

    InsideMan. The Big G. x

    It werent me mum, i dint tell em.

  • Lawrence Newman

    Nothing feminism says is true. How can you defend it? They are pathological liars. They call Trump a misogynist, for example. That’s utter nonsense.

  • Tim Patten

    Sure, can we all just get along…somewhere in the in the middle? But, the misandry generated by feminism and especially radical feminism might make some people believe we should dismantle feminism and forget about the theory of patriarchy. Instead we might understand our current oligarchy, and how to survive it.

    Today, existence is not about patriarchal males who control the levers of domination and control; rather, the culprits are the wealthy oligarchy, of no particular gender or race. This group of one-percenters employs the vast resources at their disposal to further enrich themselves and exert their will through ownership of whatever matters, relentless political influence and their ability to corrupt the system by spreading money around.

    Each of us, all snowflakes all, should learn to navigate the oligarchy waters and share the wealth, privilege and power that money provides. Otherwise we all are victims.

  • paul parmenter

    One day, a small group of mathematicians do some original thinking, and come to the conclusion that two plus two equals five. This of course flies against all convention. But the group are convinced they are correct; and they are very determined and persistent in promulgating their view. They find all manner of arguments to justify and sustain their new way of thinking, and they refuse to give up their beliefs regardless of any opposition. They find some very seductive arguments: for example, what if somebody gave you £2 and another person also gave you £2. You may want to believe that you now have £4; but wouldn’t it be so much better if you actually had £5? Everyone can see that £5 is far preferable. So that is a much better answer to get to, is it not?

    Amazingly, people begin to accept these kind of arguments. And the group start to attract adherents, many of whom are even more vociferous and determined than the earlier thinkers. Over the course of several years, the new mathematical idea gains more traction and more supporters. They set about having their view accepted as the correct one, in place of the old belief. They cleverly aim their campaign at politicians, academics and the media, knowing that these are the most powerful and influential people in the country. Believers in the old way of thinking are ruthlessly attacked, vilified, shouted down and in some cases literally driven out of their jobs and run out of town.

    Before the rest of the country can wake up, the new thinking has been adopted by the establishment and has taken over. Up and down the country, schoolchildren are being taught that two plus two equals five. Any child who cannot handle this idea is diagnosed as having a hitherto unrecognised mental condition that needs to be corrected by the use of drugs, or by removal from school altogether. Parents are browbeaten by experts into accepting this treatment. Across the nation, everything from building construction to aeroplane design is re-figured on the basis that two plus two equals five. The fact that buildings start to fall down and planes start inexplicably crashing, or have difficulty even getting off the ground, does not deter the promoters of the new thinking. They just blame saboteurs or designers that have failed to embrace the correct methods. There can be no going back to the bad old days; progress must be maintained. That two plus two equals five is now so self-evidently true, that nobody in their right mind could possibly question it. It becomes the new orthodoxy, and is rigorously enforced everywhere that the long hand of government and all its agencies can reach; supported by an enthusiastic media and a host of other organisations with the common characteristic of relying on government funding for their continuing existence.

    But eventually. another group of mathematicians do start to question what is now the established orthodoxy. They insist that the old geniuses of the past, who have long since been discredited, actually had it right all along, and two plus two does in fact equal four and not five.

    At first, they are ignored. But they too prove to be infuriatingly persistent. And over time they also attract supporters, particularly from those people whose children have been drugged, who lived in buildings that fell down or whose relatives were killed in inexplicable plane crashes. Some of these people are very angry at what has happened to them, so they become particularly vehement. The establishment tries to dismiss them all, but the movement continues to grow and to become rather loud. Every new collapsed building or plane crash increases their numbers. So the establishment goes on the attack. It does everything it can to destroy this new challenge; but nothing works. After a few years, the challengers became strong enough to start to overturn some of the establishment orthodoxy, and to design their own buildings that actually stand up, and their own planes that actually fly.

    At this point, somebody decides to take an opinion poll, to find out just how pervasive the two conflicting points of view really are. The results of the poll are that 7% of the people say they are such firm believers that two plus two equals five, that they would fight to ensure that their belief is applied everywhere. 4% of the people say that they are such firm believers that two plus two equals four, that they would fight to ensure that their belief is applied everywhere. And the remaining 89% say that they do not have any strong view either way, or that they are not mathematicians so cannot be really sure, or that they don’t care who is right because they are fed up with all the arguing that never seems to end.

    In the light of this poll, what do you think should be your response?

    I am sure of one thing. The correct response is not, emphatically not, just to say “there is right and wrong on both sides, and nobody has a monopoly of the truth. So let’s go with the 89%, they must represent the safe, common sense middle ground. We must conclude that two plus two does not equal either four or five. The answer must be something else. So let’s get clean away from four and five altogether, and find a nice consensus, a happy compromise where we can all agree and move forward together. That way we will ensure all our children are well educated, our buildings stay up and our planes fly. It’s the only way.”

    • CitymanMichael

      Loved this!!!

    • Taca

      Yup, that’s the way I see it too. Colourfully explained.

    • disqus_QL05BqU79X

      Well said. The mass of unaffiliated moderates in the “gender” debate are very much of the ‘2 + 2 = 4.5’ mould. I find a great deal of that in the standard perception of the political spectrum, where centrism, middle ground and happy mediums are thought to be a positive solution to problems caused by enforced ideology, rather than utter rejection of the damned lies.

  • Pingback: “The Red Pill Movie: who is the victor in this tale of heroes and villains?” | inversionsuicide()

  • CitymanMichael

    Unfortunately, the 90% when daring to ask that there be balance in the treatment of both men and women and write to government say that they want no misogynists but don’t mention the word misandrists – not real balance.
    I wonder why some advocates for men’s and boy’s issues get so angry?
    As feminism demands have become more perverse and trivial, the counterbalance has gained – expect more.
    Written by a pro-woman and anti-feminist.

    • insideMAN

      To be fair Michael (and I know you are an eminently fair man) if you took time to ask each member of the Men and Boys Coalition what their gender politics are you’d get representatives from across the full 100% (i.e. feminists, non-feminists and anti-feminists)

      This diversity makes the Coalition very different from feminist (or indeed anti-feminist) alliances because finding the language and wording that all parties can agree on is no easy task as I’m sure you can imagine.

      The sentence you are pointing identifies any form of bigotry and discrimination (which includes misandry even it doesn’t say the word).

      Personally, my preferred approached is to highlight what you’re for which in my case is advocating for all males irrespective of age, race, social background, marital status, sexuality, gender identity etc……rather than what you are against (sexism, racism etc).

      And in coalition you don’t always get your own way, this is the nature of the beast…….however I think you’re highlighting a perceived “weakness” without the balance of acknowledging what is strong about the Coalition.

      And there is a lot of strength in the Coalition.

      Best Wishes

      Glen

      • CitymanMichael

        I do understand the need for compromise in a large group and acceptable wording, & I did note that “any form of bigotry or discrimination” would in theory cover misandry – my point is that even the word ‘misandry’ is toxic to the PC 90% as well as feminists.
        The good news is that the pendulum is swinging away from feminism towards anti-feminism and when the 90% start accepting that misogyny and misandry are equally damaging we will be in a much better place.
        In the meantime, Glen, please keep up the good work.

        • insideMAN

          Thanks Michael

          I will keep up the good work.

          I don’t agree that the 90% represent a PC majority or even that the idea of misandry is toxic………I think more accurately it’s invisible……people can’t see it.

          I was really excited to see a few years ago that there was a discussion between a man and a woman at the South Banks Women of the World festival call Misogyny v Misandry………what a great discussion that could be I thought.

          Then I realized it was a love-in between a male feminist and a female feminists that basically said “Misandry isn’t a thing, now let’s talk about Misogyny for an hour”.

          Is Misandry a thing? Sure.

          Has anyone yet discovered a way to talk about it that is effective and communicates the idea to others en masse? No!

          If we are to learn from the successes of the women’s movement—and I think we should—then the women’s movement didn’t start by talking about misogyny, it started talking about voting rights, rights to education, rights to participate in certain professions and so on.

          It started with the issues that could be seen by most reasonable people.

          I would argue that the two most successful men’s campaigns in the past 10-20 years —- in terms of mainstream reach —- have been the Fathers 4 Justice campaign on the issues facing separated dads (2003-2005 period) and International Men’s Day (and its focus on male suicide) (2015 and 2016).

          It may just be coincidence that I took a lead role in both, maybe I got lucky twice, or maybe I’m doing something that works?

          These are issues that most reasonable people can see, which is why they have gained traction (with mixed results) in the public imagination and forced their way onto the political agenda.

          If I had time, resource and energy I would love to be involved in an effective campaign against misandry, though I would probably call use more everyday language and talk about “sexism against men”…..if misandry is “toxic” it is because it is too closely associated with closed and exclusive, anti-feminist thinking…….if we want to make any specific men’s issue relevant, we need (in my view) to make these issues relevant across the gender political spectrum and to do that rapidly we need people from different perspectives, but who embrace and open and inclusive approach, to work together.

          Whethere we like it or not, some issues are much easier for people to understand and have compassion for. It doesn’t mean they have more value or worth but in practical terms, you can gain more traction with some issue than othrers more quickly.

          Male suicide is a prime example…….but then if we want to be effective at preventing male suicide then we actually have to deal with a whole host of men’s isues that people aren’t so keen to talk about……so getting the public and politicians concerned about male suicide is just a first step on a long journey, not an end point.

          You see, what I am ultimately saying in the article above is that when men’s issues are collapsed with anti-feminism, we can’t make progress. That’s why feminists who are opposed to men’s issues being addressed paint anyone who is an advocate for men as “anti-feminist” because they know it works in keeping men’s issues on the margins.

          The key to making men’s issues mainstream is not to make anti-feminism mainstream………it is to maek men’s issues mainstream, to make men’s issues a concern for people across the gender political spectrum.

          That’s my view, not everyone agrees, such is the nature of politics/gender politics.

          Thanks for taking time to share your views, it’s always good to hear from you Michael.

          Best Wishes

          Glen

  • crydiego

    >>”What is this film actually about?”<<
    The film is about Freedom of Speech/Censorship and the story has continued beyond it’s creation and release.

  • Lawrence Newman

    I smell mangina.

  • PlainOldTruth

    The word “diversity” is like the term “texture” and “scale.” There is nothing good or bad about these attributes. Is intellectual diversity meant? Is artificial bureaucratic profiling meant. It objective identification of merit meant? This “diversity” word floating freely without qualifying explication is non-meaning masquerading as meaning, or, worse, it is a bait-and-switch language gimmick that that been swallowed whole by gullible consumers.

  • PlainOldTruth

    RE: “an anti-feminist movement that is based on the assumption that men are victims and feminists are bad.” —- This projection might be the result a false, uninformed, equation. To be anti- a particular ideology that is based on the dogmas of the “class struggle” model does not logoically lead to a flipping of oppressor/oppressed role. It can just as easily be a rejection of the model altogether. The position that rejects this orthodox “dialectical materialism” model can quite justly be seen as not at all “in the middle” between two poles but rather as opposing both, as opposing the dogmas of “environmental determinism” or “post-modernist” groupthink claims and all the rest of the recently gussied up positions of the old “progressive” mindset (using interventionist bureaucracy to fundamentally change nature).

  • Venom52

    Here’s an idea, why not just give Cassie the benefit of the doubt – that she came to these issues with an open mind, and was persuaded that MRAs, preferred term, MHRAs, are not necessarily the extremists they are often depicted as by the MSM.

    Why is feminism an obstacle for true equality? Probably because establishment feminism represents most of the orthodoxies regarding gender expectations and priorities in modern Britain.

    We could carry on as usual, or we could say that these orthodoxies need to be taken on and challenged. If one truly believes that feminism is not an impediment to this aim, just look at the way that Phillips and Corbyn arrogantly thumbed their noses at Davies reasonable aims and arguments for discussing international men’s day. Just look at the way that rows of feminist MPs cheered the minister when he proclaimed that the government was proud of the regime which involves men in prison having to wear uniforms whilst women do not. Just look at the women’s sector for domestic violence expressing consternation that some resources might also need to be offered to battered men.

    So mainstream establishment feminism is not the enemy of true equality? Nice idea, and if it were true things would be a lot easier that way, but honestly dream on.

  • Belinda Brown

    I would say feminism is bad, not feminists.

    • http://herbertpurdy.com Herbert Purdy

      With the greatest of personal and very genuine respect for you Belinda, oh come on! Those who say they are feminists, yet fail to take responsibility for what feminism is doing, are being morally and ethically dishonest.

      Feminism is seeking to socially reengineer society: destroying marriage, the family, fatherhood, and our children’s lives in the process. It seeks unwarranted advantage and social power for women, and the eventual domination of men.

      The evidence is before our very eyes, and those who claim to be feminists cannot absolve themselves of the collective responsibility for feminism.

      I offer a discussion of the issue here – http://herbertpurdy.com/?p=1148 – and I discuss it in greater depth in my book Their Angry Creed, available on Amazon, or from my website.

      I believe we all must wake up to the reality of what feminism has done to our lives. We need to name the elephant in the room (which Glen’s article signally fails to do IMO), and we need to realise that there is no negotiation with this totalitarianism in our midst.

      Neither will trying to finesse it help. Feminism – and anyone who calls themselves a feminist- needs to be confronted head on and implacably challenged before it is too late.

      • Belinda Brown

        There are a lot of women who call themselves feminists and they are not bad people. They haven’t thought things through, they may be stupid, they may be gullible, ignorant but not necessarily bad . Those who make the policies and spread misinformation are bad but not all the women who call themselves feminist. Really not.

        • http://herbertpurdy.com Herbert Purdy

          Hi Belinda. I agree with you wholeheartedly. However, I don’t think it is a matter of being a good or a bad person. Certainly, that is not what I am saying. (Who of any of us can say someone is good or bad?)

          What I am talking about is people taking responsibility for the social outcomes of their beliefs and actions, however ill-informed those beliefs, etc. might be. It is about that fundamental legal principle of joint and several responsibility, and its concomitant idea of joint enterprise.

          It is also about the need for people to be on their guard against being duped, which feminism undoubtedly does to women (and to far too many men, sadly). The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and it is also paved with ignorance, laziness, lack of reasonable criticality of what is going on in the world around one in the face of glaring injustice to men, and, above all, a selfish disregard of that injustice.

          Furthermore, I think it is a duty incumbent on all of us to challenge those who declare feminism as their creed – as a sort of religious dogma, without thought – on the grounds that the only thing that matters is truth.

          I’m reminded of Steven Weinberg’s famous saying: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion.” For religion, of course, read feminism, which for most amounts to the same thing.

          • Belinda Brown

            Well Herbert you as you can imagine I do challenge feminism at every opportunity. I even create opportunities to challenge feminism. I think it has been one of the most pervasive, destructive ideologies of the the 20th Century. I lived in Poland for five years shortly after the collapse of communism and I don’t believe communism succeeded in destroying the warp and weft of society as feminism has destroyed ours.

          • http://herbertpurdy.com Herbert Purdy

            Hi Belinda. You do indeed challenge feminism robustly at every opportunity. In fact, your lead is one from which many of us who are concerned at the effects its corrosion is wreaking on our lives could – and should – follow.

            I guess none of our personal opinions matter much in the great scheme of things, but for what it is worth, mine is that you are, as much as some of us are and many of us should be, being valiant for truth, if I might borrow from Chaucer.

            I agree with your comments about communism in Poland. Feminism is communism, of course. I remember, when I was in the Czech Republic a few years ago having lunch in Prague with friends, one of whom was the daughter of one of Alexander Dubcek’s cabinet colleagues when the Prague Spring was crushed by the USSR. He had seen it coming and had packed her off to England as an au pair for the duration. She and he survived, but the tales she recounted of the threats to her family if she didn’t return where horrifying. She also commented that feminism was at work in those days in Czechoslovakia, and was synonymous with the totalitarianism that the Czechs and the Slavs finally overturned.

            And you are right. Feminism has already destroyed our society, as I pointed out in my speech to the ICMI in July this year, after which your generous comments greatly encouraged me. We are obviously on the same page, but sadly, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that a significant number of those who, perhaps well meaningly, are dealing with the outcomes of the damage feminism continues to do to us all, seem unable or unwilling to grasp the nettle and name the elephant in the room. We cannot cure the disease only by dealing with its symptoms (if you’ll excuse my mixing of metaphors wildly!)

  • Venom52

    Actually on reflection I do regret a little using the phrase ‘dream on’, as it is a bit dismissive, and it’s clear that your intentions are good, Glen. Also, unlike many writers on the left, you don’t make a habit of mocking and denigrating men in between writing more sympathetically.

    I just think it’s a bit Neville Chamberlain really. You’ve got a political movement which has a long track record of behaving in a certain way, and because individual members of that movement can very occasionally tone it down a bit, it doesn’t mean that the movement in general is not fundamentally corrupt.

    Belinda’s approach of condemning feminism but not individual feminists sounds good – I suppose essentially, ‘hate the sin but not the sinner’, but to believe the ideology can be transformed overnight into a force for good to work alongside men’s equality is rather naive.

    As I note Ms Brown has written the other day: “do not expect the Minister for Men to submit to feminist mistresses. That will mean more of the same, not change.” In my opinion, very well said.

  • disqus_QL05BqU79X

    Until you have learned that Feminism has NOTHING whatsoever to do with women’s rights, you cannot move on in this area of political study. Feminism is a doctrine that was codified by a hive-minded cabal of European men with the sole aim of advancing the causes of hardline Socialism, in which women are merely used as tokens and weapons in eroding the loving family as society’s socioeconomic base unit. If you are still of the mindset that Feminism has “won battles” or “advanced women’s rights,” you have not learned any real history. They do not teach it in schools and it’s beyond naive to think that state educators could. Truth is a cold, narrow, lightly-trodden path and I suggest you might start padding along it a little, chaps.

    Men are biologically servile and protective toward women. We actually have a neurotransmitter in the brain that deter us from abusing women. Women do not have this. A small number of men do not either, though they are aberrant and thankfully rare. This imbalance in pair-bonding partner-control is precisely why the male of the species has slowly developed to be so much larger; id est, defence. It is why, by nature, domestic control, manipulation and abuse is an almost wholly female-perpetrated phenomenon and this was always known and understood until the booming Feminist industry fully sold their “big lie” (© Adolf Hitler). That people can fall for the mirror opposite of fact in this regard is easy to explain: women are gynocentric (in self-protection) and men are gynocentric (in self-sacrifice) and big lies that simply invert truth sell better than any other.

    Taking advantage of men’s better nature using the power of legislation and its violent enforcement is not just a bit mean or cruel, it’s utterly catastrophic. If you devolve the rights of the underprivileged and extend those of the biologically privileged, you get social collapse. That is purely what Feminism is designed to do, for the benefit of the ruling state. It’s why our economy is tanked and we have food banks indicative of growing starvation. Do learn from history. Though this is not happening as quickly as it did in agrarian Russia or China under Stalin and Mao respectively does not make it a different phenomenon at its core.

    Very few men have an intrinsic problem with women. Misogyny is not a natural or common phenomenon at all and the word itself is something of a neologism, much newer than the word “misandry.” Some individual men, broken by the actions of some individual women, may vent their ire at all women, via understandable misdirection – but the state is ultimately at fault for abrogating the Rule of Law in favour of political paradigms that really only serve its own need to cull and control the public it is paid to serve.

    Feminism is, in truth, democide. It kills mostly men, but women are dying from it by proxy. How could anyone in good mind and faith even dance with such a lethally poisonous cult? Ignorance, I suppose. There IS a cure for that.

  • crydiego

    The Red Pill movie is about free speech, censorship, and control of the gender politcal narrative and that story didn’t end with the release of the movie. The story has now moved to theaters, reviews, comment sections, and opinion articles. It continues as a fight to control opinion and spin reason. Your article is now a part of the Red Pill movie and I give it’s performance as a balanced piece a “Fail.”