Here’s a short essay that I had to write for school.I haven’t written in six months, so I apologize for any errors. I’d love to hear your side of this argument, so please do comment! I had stumbled across a documentary called “The Red Pill” at one in the morning and I started writing my thoughts about it.

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Equality between genders has always been an intriguing topic for me to come across. On one side, you have the feminists who believe that women are oppressed and are only seen as sex objects. On the other, you have men’s rights activists who hold the opinion that women have unfair benefits, such as getting out of court trials and rape allegations . As a sixteen-year-old female growing up and learning about women throughout history, I tend to lean more on the feminist side, because of how women were looked down upon and not seen as an individual. Although we are taught these things, men are just as individualistic as women.

While watching the documentary “The Red Pill”, I’m learning that both sides have their equal share of problems. “What does the term ‘the red pill’ mean?” you may be asking. It’s derived from the movie “The Matrix” where the protagonist has to choose between a red and a blue pill. The red pill represents the unlikable truth while the blue pill represents living a beautiful lie. In our “blue pill” world, we see a patriarchal system where men control the women and make the decisions. While this is true to an extent, with men leading the countries and wars throughout history, men’s activists believe that they are the ones at a disadvantage. Men have been expected to always be on the line, risking their lives and automatically be willing to sacrifice themselves for the women. Ninety-two percent of workplace fatalities were male, only seven percent female. It’s been the “role” that has been set for them.

Something else I’m learning is to keep an open mind and receive information from multiple platforms, so a person can form their own opinion, instead of relying on one source and expecting it to always be true. In this documentary, the opinions of feminists and men’s activists are shared in hopes of luring you on to one side or the other. It’s really quite eye opening how firm the advocates are and how close minded they seem.

I believe things are massively different with the state of equality from a century ago. A century ago, I would’ve wanted to be a man, so I could vote and make it in the business world. Times have changed since then, women have been granted access to voting and offered more opportunities. I think the balances have begun to shift more towards the women’s side.

Court cases are a good example of how women can get the upper hand. In custody cases, the woman has a higher chance of getting the child, even if the man had better qualifications. In rape allegations, the man is always seen as the perpetrator and the woman is always the victim. Sexual harassment and abuse can happen to a man, but yet the media tends to overlook it. This might seem super misogynistic to be saying, but it’s true how it “seems” like woman are always the innocent ones.

In our world today, in these times, we should be uniting together. We need to end gender discrimination, and have open minds to people who have opposing opinions. Collect information from multiple sources. Formulate your own opinion! Don’t be afraid to speak out, but keep it respectful! Hopefully in the future, our “blue pilled” world will see how the gender rules have significantly changed.


Sources:

Workplace Fatalities Statistics
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/equal-pay-day-this-year-was-april-10-the-next-equal-occupational-fatality-day-will-be-on-may-3-2029/

Mens’ Rights Activists Article
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/young-men-should-be-furious-inside-worlds-largest-mens-rights-activism/

The Red Pill
https://youtu.be/DXP705ezCM4