The Red Pill sentiment is that “men have to prove their value, whereas woman don’t and just wait at the finish line to cherry pick the successful ones.” While humorous, I thought it would be wise to explore how this thought is nuanced.

A man who hasn’t accomplished much can feel like he has failed in a way that isn’t merely about his income or resume. He can feel fundamentally unproven. Like he is not worth attention, praise, or even reproduction.

Men and women both have inherent value, but sex and gender differences result in different cultural expectations where men are socialized to, and experience a far stronger pressure to, establish their social status and utility than women. If he isn’t capable, financially productive, well-connected, physically capable, or socially respected, it’s going to be a tough road. Women are more often permitted to experience their value as something they may inherently possess. 

But I think the point remains for men that women don’t experience nearly as much of the same blunt rhetoric: Nobody is coming to give you your value. You have to build something. It’s a harsh philosophy, but also empowering. It’s not true that if you don’t achieve anything, you have no value. 

This of course is just a pressure not a truth. A man who hasn’t built anything does have intrinsic and inherent value, but the point remains. 

A woman can intellectually understand the male imperative to “succeed,” but that isn’t the same thing necessarily as having spent your life feeling that your social value is contingent upon what you accomplish. We can feel genuine and valid pressure and simultaneously feel like it’s not appreciated.

Likewise, a man can intellectually understand how women face pressure everyday around beauty standards, aging, being perceived as desirable, and motherhood, but that doesn’t mean one is empathizing. 

—Elia Kazan