Feminism is the Only Solution to The Red Pill
The case for unapologetic feminism in the face of rising misogyny.
In my early teenage years, I was raised by the internet. Historically speaking, it is a completely novel cultural space, one that moves at the speed of light and is insulated from those not in the know. Internet culture is rapidly evolving, pulling all sorts of social niches into the mainstream and developing a new language alien to our parents and elders. Like every technological advancement in history, there was plenty of caution about the more evident ill effects of social media culture, like social isolation and cyberbullying, but also about others we couldn’t predict, like the phenomenon of incels or fascist echo chambers.
As someone who was indoctrinated into misogyny and the right-wing content pipeline around age 13 to 16, I’m happy to say I’m now a well-adjusted adult with a fully functioning frontal lobe that went through immense political and social discovery and change to get where I am today. For some of my peers and (now former) friends, I can’t say they were as lucky. Hearing similar stories from converted leftists and combining my own experience has allowed me to reflect on casual red pill culture broadly. For myself, getting to where I am has taken a significant amount of unlearning, self-reflection, and growth to reach a place where I can fairly confidently call myself a feminist and a queer ally. If not for this effort, I can’t say for sure what kind of person I would be, but I can say for sure that going from misogynist to not-a-misogynist to feminist is a continuous process, and I still have a lot to learn. I would say the friends I chose were the most pivotal in this change. During this right-wing phase, my politics, which were cultivated from my online content consumption, were reinforced by the bigoted friends I had. Only once I shed these toxic people was I able to find a social circle that was far more comfortable and, uncoincidentally, not bigoted. But I would like to emphasize agency; ultimately, it is a person’s choice to adopt these beliefs and remain with bigoted friends, especially as a person becomes an adult.
On an individual level, I firmly believe that taking the time to develop and learn empathy while optimistically trying to find a supportive social circle is the only real broad solution to young men’s problems. Personal struggles with masculinity cannot be solved by hiding or justifying patriarchal norms, it can only solved by breaking them down.
In the media today, there is a frenzied attempt to figure out this apparently new phenomenon of young men ‘moving right’ politically. It’s particularly a liberal problem that has to do with elections, and on some level is the wrong way to approach it, but data and the eye test at least support it. This extends to a few subsidiary problems as well, which I will cover in more depth in another essay. First, the right has systematically taken over social media and now dominates semi-political discourse, which has an outsized effect on men with the likes of Joe Rogan, the NELK Boys, Barstool Sports, Theo Von, and others. However, I do have a problem with the widely circulated Media Matters graphic, which fails to examine how women receive political priming not through prominent podcasters but through smaller creators on TikTok or Instagram. Second, there is the larger issue of the so-called ‘male loneliness epidemic’ or ‘masculinity crisis’, which, in reality, has always been a problem but has renewed attention in the media discourse.
The common solution for both issues, offered by out-of-touch opinion columnists and know-nothing commentators, has been some form of pandering to men in different ways. Having politicians dress and act ‘more manly,’ stop messaging to queer people, bring back slurs, stop being inclusive, or just straight up tolerate misogyny. All horrible ideas. The other solution from well-meaning liberals or leftists is to try to give better life advice to young men to counter the right. The advice they provide, even if it is better, usually comes off pretty vacuous to a confused and socially terrified teenage boy seeking quick, non-existential fixes to problems of finding meaning, friends, and romantic partners. Even for someone like Hasan Piker, the poster-boy for the ‘Joe Rogan of the Left’ recruiters, he and many men on the left scratch their heads at solutions to these larger social problems afflicting men. Generally, these responses to this issue are simply exhausting to see play out, and I could imagine for the average young man, it’s just easier to go with the cultural current that’s steadily shifting right.
It’s precisely this attitude of singling out young men as a unique victim position that is so irritating. The media, which is particularly liberal in its orientation, is obsessed with this lowest-common-denominator approach that ignores power dynamics in society. Ironically, it ends up just reinforcing the gendered hierarchy, which is the central problem in the first place. It’s just like them, they focus on injured veterans rather than war refugees, the focus on disillusioned Republicans rather than the grassroots left, the focus on socially isolated CEOs rather than the exploited worker, the focus on October 7th over the Gaza Genocide, and the focus on young men’s struggles rather than the women and queer folks that suffer under patriarchy. How can we possibly waste so much ink wallowing in the difficulties of young men’s lives without connecting it to patriarchy? The brutal, unescapable reality is that for every young man who struggled in some way, whether they ended up an incel or worked through their issues, a woman or queer person has struggled just as much or far more. Real solutions align to dismantle patriarchy and capitalism.
This naked fact that women often have it worse is something that can even push men further into the ‘manosphere’ pipeline. Male influencers can indoctrinate impressionable boys into misogyny by making feminism out to be anti-men rather than egalitarian. The notion that men broadly are under attack or are victims of reverse-sexism is a central narrative to modern misogyny, especially as boys’ personal struggles don’t align with a patriarchy that doesn’t seem to reward them as they expect. In other words, “how can there be a patriarchy if I’m not doing so great,” blind to the fact that a woman in their exact position would experience equal difficulties, along with the added pressure of sexism.
To make sure to touch all bases, there is a kernel of truth in the red pill and manosphere. It’s that life is getting worse for men under capitalism. It’s just that it has nothing to do with queer people or women. To some extent, there’s no wonder Gen Z is experiencing this surge in right-wing reaction; Democrats are too preoccupied with suffocating the left, and Republicans seem like the only option. We are the generation that was born into a hopeless ecological crisis, crushing college debt, horrible job prospects, and a housing market that suggests we will rent until we die. The surge of the reactionary right can be explained materially by this hopelessness. Deteriorating economic conditions have always been a central driver toward fascist ideology; to restore the tradition that ‘worked so well in the past.’ This is why aligning feminism with the struggle to overthrow capitalism is so essential to both movements.
The renewed fight for women’s emancipation in 2017, as Donald Trump took the White House and serial rapist Harvey Weinstein was outed, was a critical cultural moment to help erode the most vile of patriarchal evils. At the same time, there was a silent backlash to this, as misogynistic men felt as though an attack on even the most degenerate of men was an attack on them as well. And this is what happens when a privileged person, or someone who is promised privilege, feels that their privilege is slipping or under attack. It feels like a transgression against them to be brought down to the level of everyone else. A quote by Franklin Leonard gets at this: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” This is the key distinction that makes the patriarchal culture not just innocent ignorance but a conscious, reactionary expression of power that seeks domination over the feminine and the non-heteronormative.
At least for boys, their age, incomplete brain development, and limited social experience can partially excuse this behavior; the same cannot be said for men in their 20s. This is precisely my thesis— men know better. Patriarchal misogyny, while exacerbated by declining material conditions, is a man’s conscious choice to refuse emotional growth, empathy, or seeing the world differently.
These men know right from wrong; that’s why they don’t express their opinions to people in public. So many women are caught off guard when dating seemingly nice guys who end up having horrible beliefs or demanding a traditional patriarchal relationship. It’s similar to how racists know it’s social suicide to display their beliefs in public, and that’s why they hide behind frog profile pictures, screen names, irony, and dogwhistles. While men may not have the words to describe it, they know what they believe is an expression of power, even if they lie to themselves, saying it’s harmless. Especially in the past few years, influencers like Fresh & Fit, Andrew Tate, and the Whatever Podcast don’t even wear masks; it’s just hating women for clicks. While it is still systematic misogyny that reproduces itself, that doesn’t mean the people who make up that system don’t have agency.
With that said, the societal treatment of misogynistic men should be no different than any other social transgression. We do not excuse assault, hate crimes, sexual violence, or any other crime of domination because of someone’s alleged naivety. Even the term “red pilled” suggests that something outside of the man’s control is acting on him as if it isn’t a choice to adopt an abhorrent worldview. They aren’t being hypnotized.
So to coddle these men and take their justifications for misogyny seriously is not only a futile act but one that reinforces patriarchy. As well-adjusted people, we should know that those at the top of this established hierarchy should not receive empathetic priority over those at the bottom. Any political solution is not making compromises just because it might offend ‘the good men’ out there; it’s about fighting and winning.