CMV: I believe that the 'Introduction' article on the Red Pill's sidebar has several flaws in logic

I’ve got a bit of confusion about the introduction reading on the sidebar of the Red Pill’s subreddit. If someone could clear up what I’m missing, that’d be great because I don’t seem to understand it.

After the main hello's, they introduce the metaphor of the Red Pill (The one that Neo takes in the Matrix). This is meant to signify enlightenment and open-mindedness, so in the spirit of that, they go on to tell us that everything we know is wrong. There’s also the assumption of people going to church and Sunday school, which is rather adorable considering the large amount of religions in the world.

They make the statement “Our culture has become a feminist culture.” According to Merriam-Webster, feminism is defined as:

: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities : organized activity in support of women's rights and interests

I certainly hope the author is using that term according to the definition, that would mean my work here is done! Men and women have equal rights and opportunities, our culture supports organized activities in support of women’s rights and interests. I tend to disagree, but let’s look at the evidence they use to support their claims before jumping to conclusions:

A president cannot be elected today without succumbing to the feminist narrative and paying them tribute. How many times has Obama given credit for his manhood to his wife? How many times has the debate hinged on women's pay gap - which is a myth that gets lip service because if you don't you're a misogynist!

The first claim is that a president cannot be elected unless they succumb “to the feminist narrative and [pay] them tribute.” Well, they’re right on one point, elections aren’t until 2016. It is true that Obama shows support for equal rights. Michelle Obama has been criticized for not being feminist enough as well. The source explains in-depth why ‘feminism’ is not as restricting as people may think. And finally, it is also true that if you want to ignore the rights of half the voting population, your election may suffer.

However, does this mean a non-feminist has a chance at being elected? Well, take a look at George W. Bush on the issues. He is against abortion, which although some feminists disagree on whether or not abortion is good or not, it is definitely an issue backed by feminist organizations. He is also against affirmative action, which helps all minorities (It does mention women specifically in one issue). I’m not going to get into the details now of whether Bush is right or wrong, but the point is that he is the most current president before Barack Obama and he is opposed to principles that feminist organizations support.

The second claim is that Obama has “given credit to his wife for his manhood.” I’m not sure what the argument is here, open up any book and you’ll see dedications from authors to those who supported them. It’s also common at awards ceremonies. Since women write books and receive awards it is fair to say that they also thank the important people in their lives. If an author dedicates their work to another, does it sully the work? I disagree.

I’m going to assume they’re only talking about the United States’ president, for the sake of brevity.

The third claim is that the pay gap is a myth. Well, this report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that for women who worked full time, the highest ratio for an industry they had was in construction at 92% and the lowest was in financial activities at 71%. And you can look at the graph to see how much of an outlier construction is, the next highest up is Agriculture at 85%. Additionally, these industries do not employ as many women as other groups. However, it would be fallacious for me to say that the existence of a pay gap is set in stone, according to Wikipedia it is still up to debate. This also means that there is not enough evidence to say that the pay gap is a myth.

Additionally, I would not say the debate about whether women have equal rights hinges completely on the pay gap. As mentioned earlier, feminist organizations support other goals such as abortion and affirmative action. Representation in the media and government are also feminist issues. There are feminist organizations outside of the United States that deal with issues that are more or less severe than these as well.

Now the author tells us that he’s not here to parade the concepts of men’s rights. No, he most definitely did not state anything that supported equal rights for men and women. If we recall back to the definition, feminism is concerned with equal rights for men. Men have disadvantages in alimony and child support, and feminists don’t want people to see women as the default caretaker of the home and children. Men don’t want to pay for dates all the time, and women don’t want people to think that if someone pays for a nice dinner, they owe them something in return. Men don’t like the over-masculinized images of men in the media, and women don’t like the over-sexualized images of women in the media.

The author then claims that “the frame around public discourse is a feminist frame.” Again, equal representation of men and women is not a bad thing. We live in a world with both men and women, so we should act like it. The author also claims that men have lost their identity because of it. I don’t believe that if women have a seat at the table of public discourse, men have now lost that seat. They’ve simply added another perspective. When women gained the right to vote, men did not give up their own right to vote. If we assume an equal number of male and female voters, the impact of a man’s vote would then be halved. This seems like something is being taken away, but that’s with the frame of mind that men and women are opposed. We’re really not. There may be issues that attract more male or female constituents, but in general, it’s not the Female Party and the Male Party competing for presidency. You could also go into whether or not you can lose something you’re not supposed to have. If a parent tells one of their children to give their sibling a turn with the remote, they have lost the remote, but is it fair? (Never, according to my younger sibling, but that’s not the takeaway here).

The author claims he supports equal rights for men and women. Well, that’s good, so do I. However, he makes the claim that “[Men] no longer run the show.” I’m not sure what the author means by this seeing as the majority of US Congress is male, the majority of heads of state are male, and the majority of the richest people in the world are male.

The next claim is that feminism is a sexual strategy. First off, feminist organizations do advocate reproductive rights. However, as I said before, not all of them are on the same page about abortion and contraceptives. Second, this assumes that all feminist women want sex. This is false, because not all people want sex. There is even a strong asexual community with MGTOW, and asexuality exists in both genders. It is conceivable that an asexual woman is a feminist.

I would agree that feminism puts women in a good position to choose who they want to date. Before feminism, who women would marry was generally chosen for them, and I am glad that we have advanced to the point in society that we believe that a relationship should involve the enthused consent of all parties involved. I really don’t see a problem with this.

Now, the author starts to outline what the focus of the Red Pill is.

The author talks about seeing on the seduction subreddit that people want to feminize the discussion. The author says that this means this means “making [the discussion] sound politically correct if read by a female.” If by ‘politically correct’ the author means not categorically insulting a demographic, I believe this is a good thing. Most groups have exceptions, and most words and classifications are an abstraction of reality used to symbolize an idea, it cannot always be put precisely into words. I’ve never seen the problem with making things PC, particularly if you’re talking with someone of the demographic involved. For example, making a joke about a race in front of a person of said race is in poor form. Of course, there’s differences in whether a person of a race can make a joke about said race or not, but that’s not the point of the discussion. The point is that I see nothing wrong with trying to be respectful towards others. (Treat people how you’d like your grandmother treated and all that). If you absolutely need to categorically insult a group to make a point, then by all means make that point, just understand the context and all the factors involved. Most of the time, arguments and discussions should be based on logic, it’s tasteless and boring to use non-PC words for shock value.

Now the author says that “game got a bad reputation from girls who demonize manipulation.” This is true, nobody likes being used or manipulated. I recommend that people look into the signs of abuse and manipulation, and the resources available to them should they find themselves in dire straits and cannot get out of the situation.

However, the author then states it’s because “game is an effective strategy against their own sexual strategy.” First off, there’s an adage I learned from one of my math professors about how “If it is raining in the morning, Percival will bring his umbrella to work.” The author is again making the assumption that if Percy brought in his umbrella, it’s raining in the morning. The prediction may very well be for the afternoon, and Percy could simply be thinking ahead. Second, it assumes that people dislike manipulation because it’s effective. I personally dislike manipulation because of the negative effects on a person’s psychological and emotional well-being. I also don’t like lying, just on principle. The author attributes the opposition to unconscious factors in women’s sexual strategy. I’m not quite sure if someone can have a strategy that’s unconscious. To me, that sounds like improvisation, or guessing. These metaphors really need to be more robustly developed.

The author tells us to then read Schedules of Mating, which I might have to, I’m intrigued by what this guy can pull out of the air. He also talks about ‘when men decided’ and ‘the female imperative.’ I must’ve missed the memo on those meetings.

There’s also a bit of logical gymnastics in the next bit. He states “When men think they must define their own sexual strategy in a way that best delivers results to the female sexual strategy, you know your own strategy will suffer!” From this, I can only assume that if a man defines his ‘sexual strategy’ (Is the doublespeak really so necessary? I’m just going to use the phrase “goes a’ courting” from now on, it makes more sense to me) as being the best way to deliver results, hasn’t it succeeded? I don’t really see how you can fail by succeeding, unless you determine that the two pieces of the relationship cannot both succeed. However, I have heard that sex is enjoyable for both men and women (When consensual, obviously), so this cannot be the case.

Also, just a note that although taking out the opponent’s pieces in chess certainly helps, you do not necessarily need to in order to get checkmate. I don’t know where that fits into the author’s metaphor. Additionally, I would say sex is more akin to Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder than chess. You’re killing the dragon together. The dragon in this metaphor would be having sex. If it’s consensual and enthusiastic, everybody wins! Using Dungeons and Dragons as the ‘game’ for when you go a’ courting also makes sense for the unconscious strategy. If it’s anything like the D&D games I’ve seen, planning is very optional, and what seems fun is usually the option taken by the group.

The author defines the strategy about revolving around evolutionary psychology. However, a quick hop over to Wikipedia shows the ethical implications of this philosophy for those interested. The author doesn’t go too in-depth into the facets of evolutionary psychology that the Red Pill tries to embody, so it would be pointless to go off on a tangent and examine evolutionary psychology here and now.

Finally, the author talks about open-mindedness. I certainly hope that the Red Pill version of open-mindedness doesn’t mean discounting the thoughts, opinions, and actions of half the population!

That’s just my takeaway from the ‘Introduction’ reading on the sidebar. I thought I’d give that a look-over, because I assume that what’s in the introduction is the takeaway that the Red Pill wants visitors to the subreddit to see.

If someone's already done this discussion, please give me a link to it so I can see! Thank you!

EDIT: Well, this was clearly a waste of time. There is nothing anyone can say to convince me I'm any less of a person than anyone else on this planet, and apparently there's nothing I can say to convince Red Pill community members of that, either. Few of you have any interest in backing up your claims with evidence, but I appreciate those of you who did use logic and thinking to support your claims, rather than emotions and anecdotal evidence as is so common in RPers.