In my last semester of university, I found myself sitting at a poetry reading, having an impromptu conversation with two women about something that had risen after my own presentation of poems about myself being confused with men while dating in my early 20s.

What we got into was the rise of Red Pill content online.

We talked about the ways in which men can become involved in this world both knowingly and unknowingly, consuming content they believe is designed to make them more confident, successful and desirable without necessarily recognizing the ideology sitting underneath it.

I think when we talk about Red Pill content, we imagine a very specific man.

Someone who talks about “female nature,” calls himself an alpha, believes women want to marry up, talks about sexual market value and thinks he has figured out the secret formula for understanding and manipulating women.

That man is easy to identify.

But what about the man who would never describe himself that way?

The man watching clips from male-dominated podcasts because he thinks they're giving useful dating advice.

The man who follows fitness influencers who slowly stop talking about fitness and start talking about women.

The man watching videos about becoming “high value” and “commanding respect” because underneath all of that is an insecurity he doesn't know what to do with.

And men, if any of you are reading this, I want to make something clear:

This is not an attack on you.

Men experience insecurity. Women do too. You are not weak for being insecure about dating, and you are not pathetic for being rejected.

There are bad women. There are manipulative women. Women cheat, use people and hurt people.

But an individual experience should not become an entire theory about an entire gender.

And that is what I want to talk about:

What happens when the ideology stops being labelled?

When Red Pill stops looking Red Pill

The term “Red Pill” comes from The Matrix, where taking the pill represents awakening to an uncomfortable reality. Online, the metaphor became associated with manosphere communities that claim to have discovered the “truth” about women, dating and gender.

Researchers Matteo Botto and Lucas Gottzén describe Red Pill ideology as part of the broader manosphere and connect it to male supremacy, rigid ideas about gender and a hierarchical sexual marketplace.

But most men aren't introduced to it by someone saying, Hello, I am about to teach you misogyny.

It can start with:

“Here's how to become more confident.”
“Here's how to stop being a simp.”
“Here's how to become a high-value man.”
“Here's why you should never chase.”
“Here's how to make women respect you.”

None of those subjects are inherently misogynistic.

Wanting confidence isn't misogynistic. Neither is going to the gym, wanting financial stability or learning how to date.

The question is what explanation you're given for why you're struggling.

There is a difference between:

“You're insecure. Let's build your confidence.”

and:

“You're insecure because women have too much power over men.”

One asks you to examine yourself.

The other gives you someone to blame.

Red Pill tries to sell protection. Sometimes what it actually sells is paranoia.

Botto and Gottzén's research examined 30 narratives from young men who had previously identified as Red Pill users. Vulnerability was central to their experiences, including insecurity surrounding sex, their bodies, relationships and masculinity. Some became deeply immersed in the content because it promised them an explanation for those insecurities.

And suddenly, everything has an explanation.

She rejected you? She wants someone with higher status.

She wants you to pay? She's a gold digger.

She makes more money? She'll eventually lose respect for you.

She doesn't want sex? She's using sex as a weapon.

She does want you? You're high-value.

She doesn't? She's chasing someone better.

There is no winning because the theory has already decided what women are.

The provider problem

This is where I think Red Pill culture misses something enormous about men.

The pressure to be a provider did not simply appear because women started demanding it.

Historically, the breadwinner model was built into social and economic systems that separated men into paid work and women into domestic labour. Industrialization and urbanization helped reinforce the expectation that fathers should provide financially while women managed the household. (American Psychological Association)

And while feminism has challenged many of those expectations, the expectations themselves did not disappear.

In fact, men often enforce them on each other.

Think about a man who works minimum wage and cannot afford the lifestyle he thinks he is supposed to provide.

He doesn't just have to worry about what women think. He has to worry about what other men think a man should be.

That's the part I find fascinating.

Red Pill culture tells men women are responsible for making them feel inadequate, when much of the hierarchy is actually being measured man against man.

They ask themselves: who's richer? who's taller? who has the better car? The better apartment? The better job? More followers? More women?

The term “alpha” only works if there is a hierarchy to begin with. Someone has to be above you. Someone has to be below you. And there is never an endpoint.

You can always become richer, more attractive, more dominant and more “high value.”

Research on masculinity backs up how powerful these expectations can be. The APA notes that rigid masculinity norms include dominance, emotional restriction, self-reliance and competition, while describing manhood as a status that can feel difficult to achieve and constantly needing to be proven. (American Psychological Association)

And what happens when the woman becomes the provider?

Research has found that traditional gender identities can make couples more resistant to wives earning more than their husbands, while other research has linked men's provider expectations with feelings of failure or diminished status when they cannot fulfil that role. (ScienceDirect)

That doesn't mean every man becomes insecure when his partner earns more.

But it does show something important:

The system can hurt the men who are trying to live up to it.

So when a man says, “Women only want men who can provide,” I want him to ask:

Who taught you that your worth was measured by what you can provide?

Because if a woman earns more than you, and that makes you feel less like a man, the problem isn't necessarily her.

It might be the standard you've been taught to measure yourself against.

You cannot build intimacy while treating intimacy like a trap

This is also why I struggle with Red Pill advice about vulnerability.

Men are told to not show too much emotion, don't become attached, don't tell her your insecurities. Never let her know how much you care and always be willing to walk away.

I understand the fear underneath that because getting your heart broken sucks.

But the answer to being vulnerable with the wrong person isn't never be vulnerable again.

It's learning how to recognize people who are safe to be vulnerable with.

Because if you actually want a relationship, eventually somebody has to know you.

You.

Your fears. Your embarrassing stories. Your failures. Your bad days.

That is intimacy.

If your dating strategy requires you to hide every part of yourself that could make you vulnerable, you may protect yourself from rejection.

But you also protect yourself from being genuinely known.

So, women: how do you identify a Red Pill man?

This is where that younger woman at the poetry reading asked me:

“How can you say it's easy to tell when a man is Red Pill?”

My answer was:

Simple. Pay attention.

You have to look for patterns.

1. He speaks about women as a species instead of individuals.

“Women always…”
“Women never…”
“Female nature…”
“All women are like that.”

2. Every failed relationship becomes evidence about women.

His ex was crazy. The woman who rejected him was shallow. The woman who confidently disagreed with him was masculine. The woman who wanted something from him was a gold digger. At some point, you have to ask: Does he ever wonder what he did wrong?

3. He treats your boundaries like a negotiation.

Pay attention to what happens when you say no. Does he accept it? Or does he guilt you, withdraw affection, threaten to leave, make you jealous or tell you another woman would give him what he wants?

Research involving former partners of Red Pill-affiliated men documented themes of manipulation, emotional disregard and tactics such as the “Dread Game,” which uses the threat or implication of leaving to influence a partner's behaviour. The study was small and exploratory, so it should not be treated as representative of every Red Pill man.

4. He thinks vulnerability makes men weak.

Does he mock men for being emotional? Call affectionate men “simps”? Treat therapy or emotional openness as feminine? Because eventually you are going to have emotions too.

5. He is obsessed with “value.”

Your body. His body. Your sexual history. Your income. His status. Your age. Your beauty. Everything becomes a transaction.

6. He needs you to prove you're “not like other women.”

It sounds flattering until you disagree. Then suddenly you're exactly like every woman he warned himself about.

And perhaps the biggest one:

7. He has an enormous amount to say about female behaviour and very little curiosity about his own.

A man who thinks every ex was crazy, every woman was manipulative and every rejection was evidence of “female nature” is giving you information.

Not necessarily about women.

But about him.

Men, you don't need this

If you're reading this and recognizing yourself, I'm not telling you you're a monster or what you should feel.

You might have genuinely been hurt. You might have been cheated on. You might have dated someone who used you.

But your pain does not automatically make the explanation you've been given true.

You do not have to become emotionally unavailable to become emotionally intelligent.

You do not have to hate women to protect yourself from bad women.

You do not have to dominate women to be respected.

You do not have to be rich to deserve love.

You do not have to be six feet tall.

You don't need dozens of sexual partners.

You don't need women competing for you.

And you most certainly don't need to spend your life proving to other men that you're masculine enough.

Because if your masculinity requires you to constantly prove that you are not weak, other men are still defining your strength for you.

Maybe the real wake-up call is realizing that you were never supposed to spend your life fighting women.

You were supposed to learn how to live with them.

And if you're dating, the goal shouldn't be:

“How do I make sure she can never hurt me?”

It should be:

“How do I become someone capable of recognizing a healthy person, building something real with them, and surviving it if it ends?”

Because you will get rejected, you will get your heart broken and you will meet people who aren't good for you. That's dating.

The answer isn't becoming so guarded that nobody can reach you.

It's becoming discerning enough to know who deserves access to you.

And that applies to women too.