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Ilona Baliūnaitė

Men Share What Was The Moment That Made Them Drop The Red Pill Mindset

Toxic masculinity may have been around for decades, but it has only been identified and labeled in recent years. These days, such behavior is also referred to as being in the “manosphere” or embodying the “red pill” mindset, which gives being male a bad name.

Of course, people evolve, and many, fortunately, rid themselves of their poisoned beliefs about women. Some of them even opened up in comment sections of various social media platforms, candidly sharing their eye-opening experiences.

Many see this as a step in the right direction and a breath of fresh air. Hopefully, this gives you the same sense of optimism.

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Honestly, it was rough breaking free of redpill. Was raised Evangical Christian all my life with my father, uncle, and grandfather all being pastors. I was taught hatred and control from a young age, among other things later unpacked in therapy. The point that started to have me turn was when I was at a very low point of my life in my early 20s. I recieved more humanity from trans people than I ever had from the types I grew up with. It wasn't an overnight transformation. It was years of therapy and deprogramming. But I have changed. I can't undo the terrible things I've done, but I can try to prevent it from happening to others, and try to create spaces for others to feel safe.

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It was an eye-opening convo for my spouse when I dropped the stats that (at that time the estimate was) 1/4 women had experienced grape, false reports are under 2%, and fully 2/3 of men in a survey said they would grape someone if they knew they could get away with it. The fact that most women when asked what they would do with no Men in the world for 24 hours respond that they would walk alone at night without fear. Men truly don't know what a huge menace men's violence is in our lives until confronted with some of the numbers and ways it affects our lives. And they don't always get that it isn't akin to theft, it's violent. Those conversations are so important.

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Watching my mother clean a kitchen at 10pm on a weekday after my dads friends had been over.

superoobleck:

you're already good from the beginning for realizing that. because my brother already sees my mum works by herself all his life, cleans, cooks and did childcare while my dad is unemployed and right now he's very angry that his gf wants to be a SAHM bcs she birthed triplets

Henrique Príncipe:
So true… Realising that our mothers had to work and also take care of the house

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Hot take. But the whole "not every man" rhetoric. I decided to shift from a "no, not me" mindset to a "ill make sure its not me" mindset. I realised I can't make it ok, I can't make the whole population change their experiences, their perspective. But maybe i could give a reason to a few of them. if I can change 5 minds... 5 men. Then maybe i could help.

?:
This is a really healthy mindset and I wish more men could think of it like this and see it this way. Every man I know who isn’t toxic and treats women properly funnily enough, also thinks this way too.

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I can thankfully say I never went full red pill, (this was before the manosphere effectively existed, but I never once believed women's purpose on earth was to serve men and have babies or whatever), but there was a time I was super pro-life and didn't believe in, well, BELIEVING women. But I was also pretty hardcore conservative and over the years have slowly been deconstructing a LOT of those beliefs and becoming more progressive, and part of that was realizing A.) Conversations about toxic masculinity is not an "attack" on toxic masculinity. No one is saying masculinity IS toxic. TOXIC masculinity is something entirely different. B.) Women are more likely to be put in handcuffs for "falsely reporting" men than to see their perpetrator behind bars. That's not hyperbole, that's statistics, and believing women doesn't mean that men don't still at least get due process. And C.) While men do have issues in society, mental health being the biggest one, women are not the cause of them. Mens' issues are literally caused by other men. Toxic masculinity and the patriarchy hurts men too, and maybe if more men realized that something would ACTUALLY be done about it

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my sister's bullying me out of it

cosmic:

I had to do this with my brother. He started talking badly about women, not caring about his personal hygiene and was being a total jerk. I went off on him, telling him that's no way to live his life and if he wanted any kind of friendship or romantic relationship with a woman he needed to knock that nonsense off and shave is neckbeard.

Casper:
Im not sure how old you are but this is something a lot of women feel they need to do for their younger or even older male siblings sometimes. I noticed this pattern recently where women feel the need to correct men's wrong behaviours, to show them what they can't see yet, but it's kind of sad when you think about it. they shouldn't have to feel like that's their job. I'm happy you're starting to see the error in your ways and I hope you become an advocate for all the women in your life. protect them and make them know you are a safe space, that you see them as a person too.

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I'm 9 years Red Pill free, can't actually remember the exact thing that made me snap out of it, but I just remember getting to a point when I looked back and cringed at some of the things I used to say and think