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Reading a fascinating and diverse number of articles today, mostly involving things like equality, misogyny, androgyny, metaphorical homosexuality, and other gender related relationship oddities, a common theme kept emerging. Women really have a hard time empathizing and understanding men, but men are also really lacking in the empathy for women department. Sheesh!

For the most part, hubby and I escaped this issue. I had a narcissistic mother, so I learned to identify with men very early on. It was the world of women that threw me for a loop. My husband was one of the youngest with nine sisters, so learning about the nature of women was probably a survival skill for him. We came together knowing and empathizing with the opposite gender very well. That was not even an issue. Ha! In fact, we knew each other too well.

RolloTomassi who wrote the “Rational Male,” yet another red pill fan, has a post today called “Managing Expectations” where he ends by declaring “Men will always be the risk takers in all aspects of life.” Tomassi is right about a few things, but many other times he just gets caught up in gender politics and cannot even seem to perceive the world through any eyes but his own.

Many of the things he writes about are what I call normal gender relations, the way things are, the ordinary instinctual dance of marriage. I see no great red pill revelations, no Matrix one must escape, no blue pill reality to reject. These things are healthy, natural, innate, nothing anybody in my world had to ever “learn.” Then I remember so few of these red pills even come from my world. Most of them are fairly well off, successful, and living within their own little world, a sometimes very myopic world.

I don’t mean to attack Tomassi too harshly, in truth he is one of the saner red pills and has a smooth writing style and a refreshing amount of clarity. So I’ll be as gentle as possible. The man wrote a post in which he says he will “provide you with some general observations about what I believe are the foundations of a healthy love relationship.” That’s pretty much the last mention of love you’ll see. An entire post on love with no love in it! In fact, the entire article is aptly named “managing expectations,” as in forgedaboutit, you ain’t ever going to be loved.

Probably not! I mean, it is downright difficult to love men who are self-absorbed, and  operating on this kind of revenge based, defensive stance model, that tends to perceive women as the enemy, while also bemoaning about the inequality and the huge biological sacrifice men must make, only to eventually conclude with, “men will always be the risk takers in all aspects of life.”

Sounds awesome! What man wouldn’t rush forward to sign up for that??!

Here’s the deal. Women can and do love men and frequently. We can and do empathize with them, even. A whole lot of us are aware of the biological inequality that exists when men are put in the position of trying to appeal to women while facing constant rejection, and all women really have to do is show up and be available. Many of us watch boys go from facing repetitive female rejection, to then trying to figure out how to become providers, how to be leaders, how to be men. During this entire process, men face a lot more judgment and condemnation and accountability than women do. Women can actually see these things and many of us empathize greatly.

It is probably correct to state that men are greater risk takers in that they have developed a greater tolerance for risk and are perhaps more inclined to seek it. Women tend to be more risk averse. But to imply that nature, life, the world, complies to the female desire for less risk is downright silly. Women really face huge challenges in the world, starting in the womb. Yeah, we don’t fare so well in sex selection. Seems like everyone wants boys. Then we go through life as a smaller, weaker, specimen, and more sexually desirable to boot! Yeah, that’s always a great deal of fun.

When we finally meet a man we’re dealing with an unknown and we have to try to guess, try to predict not only the man’s character but his future actions, too. There is huge risk in that. We could be robbed of our youth and then tossed aside in favor of someone perceived as more desirable, or we could get abandoned with a pack of kids to support. Not to go too dark on anyone here, but the other day a woman had gasoline tossed on her and was lit on fire. That’s also the kind of risk that women face. The risk of death and dismemberment. One miscalculation in our judgment of a man and we can wind up on the side of the road in a shallow grave somewhere. These things are not figments of women’s imaginations, they are real.

Best case scenario, you’ll only break our hearts, but leave the rest of us intact.

Should things go well, women continue to take risks. We risk you leaving us, dying in war, getting sick. We risk abandonment, we risk childbirth, we risk rejection, isolation, pain, suffering, abuse, loneliness, male disinterest, the list goes on and on. Women actually get piled on in life from all sides, from parents, from the culture at large, from feminism, from churchians, from husbands, children, employers. Being female is awesome, it is wonderful, but I sure wouldn’t call it free of risk. We are flexible and resilient for a reason. We have to be.

Something men may not understand, women have no chance of ever getting it right in life. Ever. We will never be pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough, rich enough, thin enough. Never a good enough mom, wife, person. Never. We live in constant risk of losing our status. Where as men may earn the respect of other men, women live in a culture that relentlessly tells us, nope, not good enough.

So often what men seek, they are also compelled to destroy. Perhaps they resent the vulnerability of attraction, but regardless, they often seek to control the object of their desire. It is a huge risk being the object of men’s desire, let me tell you.

The so called red pills and blue pills, both have a great deal in common. The blue pills are focused only on the needs and wants of men, so much so they cannot even conceive of what women genuinely want. They don’t care, it is all about what they feel entitled to receive in exchange. The red pills however, are simply obsessed with figuring out how to manipulate women into getting what they want, what they feel entitled to. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, there’s very little empathy for women, a bunch of men who don’t even believe in love, and this bizarre idea that men are the only ones who ever make sacrifices. Also, a never ending sense of entitlement.