In both the fictional world of the 1999 film The Matrix and the very real one of the men’s rights movement, the red pill represents embracing reality in all its uncomfortable complexity. Proponents tell of their “red pill moment”, the point at which they rejected blissful ignorance for reality. In the context of men’s rights activism, their uncomfortable truth is that men’s lives are of lesser value than women’s (The Matrix itself doesn’t appear to have any particular notions on gender equality).

At Sydney University on Thursday night, a large group of students had either taken their medicine, or were part of groups strenuously resisting it. The Conservative Club and Students For Liberty (for “classical liberals” and libertarians) had organised a screening of The Red Pill, Cassie Jaye’s controversial documentary on men’s rights activism (MRA). Fascist Free USyd and the Socialist Alternative Club had organised a protest against it.

The Red Pill: Melbourne cinema drops men's rights film after feminist backlash Read more

Outside a small auditorium in which the film was to be shown, and under the observation of a small group of police officers, the two groups taunted and filmed and rallied against each other. Rival chants started up – “GOODNIGHT ALT–RIGHT” from those holding banners about the “MRAs’ tears”, and “FREE-DOM, FREE-DOM” from a group that included a man in a shirt that read “FEMINISM IS CANCER” and another in a “Make America Great Again” cap.

Eleanor Morley, of Fascist Free USyd and the Socialist Alternative Club, told Guardian Australia the film was “deeply misogynistic” and gave a platform to men’s rights activists with “outrageous” views about women. She had watched it online the previous night: “I thought it was a bit of a joke, really. It made no impact on me.”

But its argument that men were systematically oppressed by society, she “very strongly” disagreed with. The film was worrying for its “anti-women” stance, which, Morley said, reflected that of the US president: “It’s not just as an isolated group of weirdos who share these views.”

A “ban” on the film Morley referenced in Melbourne last year was a private screening, organised by a men’s rights group, that was cancelled by the cinema after an online petition. Much of the backlash had assumed it was a “curatorial decision”, a representative of Kino cinema had said, which was “potentially damaging” to its credibility.

On campus, the battle was ideological, not commercial. For those in favour, the Red Pill was a proxy for freedom of speech but it represented misogyny for those against it.

Morley said the intent of the protest was not to shut the screening down: “We’re simply here to present a counter, left-wing, pro-women, anti-homophobic message.” According to Conservative Club members, the protesters’ initial plan had been to storm the auditorium halfway through, effectively ending the event.

The odds were seen to be tipped in the protestors’ favour when, a month out from the screening, the University of Sydney Union announced that it had decided to disallow the use of its funds or resources for the screening after receiving a “number of complaints”.

In a statement headed with a content warning for sexism and rape, USU said the film was “discriminatory against women, and has the capacity to intimidate and physically threaten women on campus”.

The Conservative Club reproduced this on posters promoting the event: “See the film that USU tried to stop you from seeing.”

“I put a trigger warning on the tickets because, according to USU, this film is physically threatening to women,” organiser Renee Gorman told the crowd of about 100, perhaps 80% men, gathered inside the auditorium before the screening on Thursday night. “I don’t know about you girls here, but I put on my big girl panties this morning.”

This prompted whoops from the crowd; Gorman herself had been applauded as she’d arrived, flush from the frontline of combat against “those ferals ... the crazies” outside the auditorium. Inside the atmosphere was jubilant, she observed. “I think we’re in a pretty good mood. I think that was just funny.”

When USU defunded the event, Gorman paid $530 for the venue hire and two security guards. It was for two good causes, she said: fighting censorship on campus and prostate cancer. Gorman later told Guardian Australia that the event raised more than $1,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.

“I knew that it got banned in Melbourne, but I had hoped Sydney University would be a place that was more accepting of free speech and alternative ideas,” she said. “All I really wanted to do was have a discussion about legitimate male issues.”

One she was particularly passionate about was domestic violence “not being a single gender issue”.



“That’s something I really want to pioneer: it needs to stop being ‘stop violence against women’,” she said. “It needs to be ‘stop violence’, full stop.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Red Pill screening prompted heated debate at Sydney University. Photograph: Elle Hunt/The Guardian

Support for female victims of domestic violence is described as a “half-a-billion dollar industry” in The Red Pill. Some of the views put forward by Paul Elam of the blog A Voice For Men she said went “a little bit too far” when feminism was not the cause of all men’s issues – but she empathised with the sympathetic stance of the documentary maker, Cassie Jaye.

Gorman defined herself as both a classical liberal and a libertarian and “equity feminist”, pointing to the work of Christina Hoff Sommers, the American author of Who Stole Feminism. It was “easy to feel alienated” by the movement, which she said had exaggerated some problems for women at the expense of “real female issues” such as female genital mutilation and child brides.

But, Gorman added: “Even if I said I wasn’t a feminist, it doesn’t mean I’m a sexist.

“Just as it’s bad to stereotype feminists as all being extreme man haters, it’s bad to stereotype MRAs as being women haters. Silence their views isn’t the right way to be going about this. We should be working together, I think.”

Gorman had invited those who opposed the screening to “come along, watch it all the way through, and then have a debate”. Their response had been to call her and her fellow organisers sexists and bigots, and tear down posters advertising the event.

“This is Sydney University, it’s not Berkeley – we’re not going to let alternative views be silenced just because people are offended,” she said.

“There are a lot of things that I find on campus offensive, like putting up posters of Che Guevara, who murdered thousands of people – but I wouldn’t stop the socialists doing that.”

The two-hour film was more confused than it was hostile, proffering statistics of US military war deaths and the “women and children first” policy anecdotally observed in water disasters as evidence of the expendability of male lives. Individuals’ protracted, specific, and in some cases bizarre, experiences of custody battles and paternity tests were put forward as evidence of the diminution of all men.

The audience watched on mostly passively, perking up only when the documentary depicted protests like the one they could still hear going on outside the auditorium doors. “RACIST, SEXIST, ANTI-GAY – MRA, GO AWAY,” chanted protesters at a men’s rights rally in Toronto in 2013.

“I recognise that!” yelled someone at the back, to much laughter.

The film concluded with Jaye not-quite swallowing the red pill, finding the reality of the men’s rights movement to be “somewhere in the middle” – but renouncing her feminism all the same.

The credits rolled, the lights came up and Gorman opened the floor to questions and comments. One man was quick to respond.

“I think what’s really important is that, when we walk away from this ... we try and find out what’s the truth, what’s real, and we don’t descend to the level of hate and fear that is on that side of the door.”



“It’s just very, very important. If we go back the other way, this just keeps going backwards and forwards, and no one gets anywhere.”