I finished watching an interesting documentary last year made by actress and documentary film maker Cassie Jaye called “The Red Pill”. I stumbled on it, and immediately rolled my eyes thinking that it was a hit piece against the Men’s Rights movement as being a hate group, but after watching the trailer, I immediately decided to pick it up and give it a watch, and I’m glad I did.

The thing about the MRA movement is that I’ve always been torn about what sort of alliance I have, because I’m very much a person who aligns on sensibility, logic, reason, and facts - but I’m also quick to recognize distorted reason utilized to reach goals of obstruction, such as white nationalism, and immediately reject them. One problem with the MRA movement sometimes is the same problem with fourth-wave feminism, and even third-wave feminism: they’re both basked in bias. But the bigger problem with the MRA movement is that they just cannot for one shake the lie that they are a hate group, and two shake the manospherist, Return of Kings-type lunatics that unintentionally cultivate feminist terms such as toxic masculinity. The sort of lunatics that are often not only associated with the men’s rights movement, but also become the poster children of it. The fact is, real MRAs seem to object against those lunatic’s ideologies.

But it all reminds me of what the biggest problem of being accepting of current feminism is. In the same light that if you socially identify as an MRA, they label you as a woman hater who wants to keep women in the kitchen; the fact that I label myself as an egalitarian, is also not good enough for feminists, and furthermore can be labeled as closet woman hater, which is just maniacally incorrect.

For all of the bantering that fourth-wave feminists, and other social justice extremists, go on about how feminism is actually meant to even the playing field for both sexes, the argument has long been that you just don’t see their advocacy for the imbalance against men. Canadian feminist, and noteworthy obnoxious loudmouth, “Big Red” makes an appearance in The Red Pill and speaks about the notion that the things MRAs fight for, are all a result of “Patriarchy”, and thus the feminist movement’s goal of eliminating a patriarchal society includes doing away with the stereotypes that lead into terrible judicial structures that reward women with alimony, assets, child custody, etc. The problem with her argument is that feminism, even “Patriarchy smashing” feminists never seem to bring these issues up in their protests. It’s only ever talk about women not being CEOs, corporate executives, and having positions of power in Congress and other state elected jobs. Big Red, and other feminists like her, don’t realize that it’s the fact that issues regarding child custody, and the arguments that MRAs want to talk about more, are not being spoken about by the feminist movement; it’s essentially up to them to bring those issues up.

It all earns the realization of a foundational problem all together. If there’s an issue of anger targeted toward women, or more realistically the feminist movement, it is the feminist movement itself that is to blame for it. When I say that, I don’t mean its very existence, and certainly there’s no excuse for blatant misogyny either. Let’s be clear that some men do hate women for the reasons that feminists say they do: because they fear they are losing privileged power they’ve enjoyed for centuries, and the rest of the rhetoric. But I’m afraid those arguments don’t hold a lot of water, and really they’re nothing more than baseless conjecture. No, what I mean is that as a movement formed to discuss men’s rights, and issues that are important to them; it was feminism that immediately demonized them, and shrugged them off with vicious name calling and labels that transact to the negative social stigma it means to call yourself one.

The theory I consider is that feminism sort of believes that by addressing men’s issues and struggles, it takes away from their own. It absurdly turns into this tug-of-war rope pulling that MRA’s really did not ask for. The documentary argues the notion that we don’t have movements for straight people, to call on its own absurdity as sort of one argument why the MRA movement is unnecessary, but then immediately compares it to white nationalism. The difference between what MRA’s fight for, and what white nationalism fights for; one is human rights, and the other is egocentrism. White nationalists believe they are superior, while MRA’s don’t advocate for superiority in any facet at all - and this is to clarify that the manosphere types who believe that boys should be playing with trucks and girls should be playing with dolls, are not MRAs, no matter what way you dictate a quantifying algorithm that says they’re one in the same. To do so only admits your own bias and ignorance.

At the end of the day, it all circles back around to what’s most reasonable, and in my opinion that’s egalitarianism. I think it truly is a shame that less women are in positions of executive corporate power, and that Republicans constantly attempt to oppress their reproductive rights. I also think that it’s a shame that men have virtually no say or representation when it comes to child custody, and that their assaults are marginalized socially. I think everyone’s legitimate setbacks deserve recognition, and that we should be progressive enough to stop splitting hairs on “women’s issues” and “men’s issues” and get down to brass tacks about the civil rights of all sexes. And while we do have these two split movements with this gender divide - feminism, and men’s rights - it makes me pose the question: who’s ready to come on board the egalitarian train? Egalitarianism is as progressive as you can get, in my opinion. However, when I consider who is going to be more apt to ride those tracks with me, I have to admit I would be the least bit surprised to find MRA’s most willing to hop on, while finding feminists spitting on me for even posing the question to begin with. When we talk about what’s REALLY wrong with feminism today, it’s by no means the equality they fight for, but rather the equality they show they’re at best willing to ignore, and at worst actively fight against.