By Evangeline Stratton, Survivor Advocate and Attorney.
“Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Bear with me, as I take you with me down the rabbit hole. Not Alice’s exactly, but chillingly similar to the one Morpheus referenced in The Matrix with his offer of a “red pill.”[1]
I started listening to Laura Bates’s audiobook, “Men Who Hate Women,”[2] which explores the rise of extremist communities that despise women. In this book, Bates candidly exposes an online movement that uses hateful and toxic rhetoric to condone violence against women (including rape and murder[3]), and female servitude. The justification for this hatred and violence? These men, many of whom self-describe as involuntary celibates (“incels”) or are members of “men’s rights movement” groups analogize their “awakening” to taking the “red pill,”[4] and realizing that they have been the true victims of a feminist project to dismantle the subjugation of women.
Welcome to the “manosphere.” Where believing that women’s autonomy over their own bodies and women’s economic gains necessarily mean that men are losing power, status, and their “rightful” place in the patriarchy. In the “manosphere,” they believe they have been humiliated by women and girls who say “no” to them, and that their livelihoods have been threatened by women who belong at home in the kitchen. They believe masculinity itself is under attack.
Guess who else has taken the “red pill?” Alt-right nationalist groups, conspiracy theory groups, and white supremacy groups use this term in online discussion forums. These communities espouse views that female liberation and “wokeness” are direct threats to “their manlihood, their livelihood, their country.”[5]
To read more, see PDF below.