The Red Pill is Just Generic Self Help + Misogyny

TLDR: everything the red pill has to offer falls into one of two categories: generic self help advice that you can easily find elsewhere, or bitter resentful hatred of women that you’re better off without. 

Self improvement is not complicated. If a person is unhappy with their life, or with their romantic prospects specifically, there’s a relatively short list of obvious things they can do. A non-exhaustive list in no particular order would be: socialize more, learn how to flirt, meet new people, invest in existing relationships, develop new interesting hobbies, work on your fitness, upgrade your wardrobe, invest in your education or career, go to therapy, meditate regularly, learn to love yourself and act more confident. 

The Red Pill supports a lot of these ideas. Below are a few experts from the r/theredpill sidebar: 

“If you are unhappy, the only person who can do something about that is YOU.”

“Write down goals in specific detail so you can clearly see what you plan to attain and how to achieve it.”

“Part of making your mission yourself is ensuring you have your personal finances in order.”

“Being fit is itself an attractive quality.”

“Have a few topics in mind… Choose topics that will be of interest to your type of women.”

“Don't be afraid of the occasional awkward silence.” 

This is all good advice. The thing is, it’s not unique to the red pill at all. These are very basic tenants of self improvement that you could find by simply watching a few YouTube videos. So what makes this advice more attractive to some men when it’s coming from red pill sources? The answer is misogyny. 

Misogyny: hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. 

Below are a few more excerpts taken directly from the r/theredpill sidebar: 

“Women are depreciating assets, their major asset and unique selling point is their sexual beauty and fertility.”

“Women are more selfish than men.”

“Women are utterly incapable of loving a man in the way that a man expects to be loved.”

“Men believe that love matters for the sake of it. Women love opportunistically.”

“Remember, women are children: mentally, behaviourally, evolutionarily. They are not like us. They don't think like us, or have the same deep sense of personal responsibility.”

Receiving a big heaping dose of misogyny along with your self help has two potential benefits:

1). It allows to you blame women for your lack of romantic success. This can alleviate feelings of shame over past failures. It also gives you a built in excuse if you continue to fail at getting what you want from women. You now believe that women are simple, childish beings who constantly make irrational decisions. Rejection still stings, but if the person rejecting you is actually a stupid whore who will probably end up being an ugly single mother, it hurts a little less. 

2). It gives you newfound confidence and optimism. Like I said, self improvement is simple. But when something is simple, that can actually be kind of scary because it means the only thing you can do is just do it. Think of it like dieting. If calories eaten < calories burned, you’ll lose weight. Despite the simple reality of weight loss, there is a massive and highly profitable dieting industry. Creating a bunch of extra rules about what you can and cannot eat is mostly superfluous, but it gives people an ideology to latch onto, which can help guide them towards the results they want. The red pill works in the same way. It makes you feel like you have some sort of secret answer, which increases your confidence, which can yield better results. Confidence is attractive, and a man who feels superior to women and thinks he understands everything about them will probably act more confident. 

As a side note, mature women will likely see though a red pill man’s act. Immature and insecure women will be less likely to see the difference between confidence that comes from genuine self love vs. smug faux-superiority. This makes red pill men more likely to attract women who will behave in ways that reinforce their ideology. 

Anyways, the reality is that everything the red pill accuses women of doing can be equally ascribed to men. Men and women both sometimes overvalue superficial qualities in potential partners. Men and women both sometimes overlook red flags in someone they find attractive. Men and women both sometimes engage in casual sex if it’s available to them. Men and women both can experience changes in what they find attractive as they mature. Men and women both can be manipulative people who take advantage of others. All of these behaviors are exhibited by men AND women. 

So now, I return to my thesis. Half of redpill is good, and the other half is bad. The good half is widely available everywhere on the internet. The bad half will harm your ability to connect with women in the long run because it teaches you to see them as selfish automatons unworthy of your respect, rather than human beings who are mostly exactly the same as you. If all you want is casual sex, this might work. But if your goal is to find a long term companion, or to just genuinely connect with the people around you, internalizing an ideology that teaches you really hateful opinions about women is not going to help. You’re better off getting your self help advice elsewhere.