Female Student's Reaction to a Men's Center | Sarah | Outtakes from "The Red Pill" — Transcript

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1. 0:05[Music]
2. 0:14hi my name is Sarah and how did you hear
3. 0:18about this event I'm an MA student on
4. 0:21campus so I just saw the fliers around
5. 0:23school and why'd you come
6. 0:25I wanted to see what men's issues were
7. 0:28defined us and what have you gathered
8. 0:36while there was no definition of what a
9. 0:38man's issue was there was some
10. 0:40discussion of men's place on campus and
11. 0:47men's place on campuses to to borrow the
12. 0:51words from from the speaker some of the
13. 0:55issues seem to be getting a male center
14. 0:59on every campus as the goal as a defined
15. 1:02goal some of the perspectives brought up
16. 1:05were from
17. 1:08divorced men or men or they were there
18. 1:12were a lot of examples of boys that
19. 1:14committed suicide and there were no
20. 1:16altar
21. 1:18some some examples of custody I thought
22. 1:20custody was brought up a lot
23. 1:24take me there
24. 1:28[Music]
25. 1:34so after hearing a little bit that you
26. 1:37heard because I guess the lecture was
27. 1:40kind of focused on men's groups versus
28. 1:42men's right
29. 1:42yeah so I was a little bit that you
30. 1:45heard about the men's rights movement
31. 1:47how do you feel about it
32. 1:50well they were quite explicit as to not
33. 1:52to find it as men's rights which i think
34. 1:54is a really good
35. 1:57in terms of a PR campaign in its
36. 2:01it's not wise to have events or rights
37. 2:03group in terms of what men's issues were
38. 2:06what I took really big issue with was
39. 2:10all of the examples provided so for
40. 2:14example the issue of of male enrollment
41. 2:17in university or college particularly in
42. 2:19America this is where the examples were
43. 2:21coming from this was framed as entirely
44. 2:24a gender issue when in fact enrollment I
45. 2:28think goes far deeper than gender
46. 2:30enrollment goes to socio economics it
47. 2:34goes to the meritocracy it goes to
48. 2:40affirmative action so there were a lot
49. 2:43of issues that weren't addressed
50. 2:46remotely coming from coming from a
51. 2:51doctor that were really troubling to me
52. 2:55it seems like just bad general social
53. 2:58science bad intellectual practices to
54. 3:04suggest that enrollment is a gender
55. 3:06issue
56. 3:09city things maybe he's like
57. 3:11don't thinking and choosing which facts
58. 3:13to share absolutely and of course as
59. 3:16anyone I suppose would trying to give
60. 3:19trying to promote their perspective he's
61. 3:21trying to promote these centers but the
62. 3:23examples were so incredibly invalid or
63. 3:26insufficient I suppose is a better word
64. 3:28they didn't address anything they used
65. 3:31gender as a tool to to
66. 3:38disproportionately to disproportionately
67. 3:43show how how men are left out
68. 3:46essentially from from issues which were
69. 3:49never defined I'm trying to think of
70. 3:54another example one that really struck
71. 3:56me was that the keynote speaker spoke
72. 4:00about afterwards after this conference
73. 4:03there are going to be gentlemen cleaning
74. 4:06up because mostly those who clean up her
75. 4:09janitors and their and their men and
76. 4:11their young men and I mean that's just a
77. 4:14remarkable because maybe he's
78. 4:18overlooking all of the housekeeping
79. 4:19which is you know across any institution
80. 4:23hospitals any anything in the social
81. 4:26services which is remarkably these
82. 4:27low-wage jobs run a lot by women
83. 4:35there was
84. 4:38there was talk about campus life and
85. 4:41boys on campus life but brief little
86. 4:46snippets of an example of you know a man
87. 4:53working as a custodian for example and
88. 4:55not he not in the least bit considering
89. 4:59the context of minimum wage jobs and
90. 5:02where women stand in relation to that
91. 5:14I'm I'm incredibly disappointed if if
92. 5:18the goal is to get a man Center for the
93. 5:21University first of all you know and and
94. 5:25this was put on by by a group called
95. 5:30men's issues in action or something like
96. 5:33this m.i.a this is the group that was
97. 5:36that got the keynote speaker and they
98. 5:39never once defined what the center would
99. 5:43be for other than providing a space for
100. 5:45men to talk about their issues but I
101. 5:48mean before we get a project to support
102. 5:52this there was no discussion of what the
103. 5:55issues were there was no discussion of
104. 5:59the potential for exclusion there was no
105. 6:03discussion about
106. 6:09where the information is coming from for
107. 6:12these examples there I thought there was
108. 6:15a really big lack due diligence in terms
109. 6:19of the information being shared today
110. 6:22also I did a head count of the
111. 6:27participants tonight there were roughly
112. 6:31a hundred participants a little more a
113. 6:34little less because some people were
114. 6:35walking in and out of which night I
115. 6:39counted 19 female heads that I was able
116. 6:43to identify from a corner you know
117. 6:46walking up and down three of them I know
118. 6:49worked for one of the other institutions
119. 6:53that was Co co-hosting this event and
120. 6:55another was a photographer you know so
121. 7:00that leads 15% and the participants were
122. 7:03women who you know who I would say where
123. 7:12were casted as anti man which I thought
124. 7:16was a really fair unfair
125. 7:17characterization of women in relation to
126. 7:22men's issues given that it's such a
127. 7:24gender event
128. 7:27that's interesting that you did it head
129. 7:29can yeah well it was interesting in
130. 7:32numbers I was surprised I thought I I
131. 7:34was given you know the the head counts
132. 7:38and university is that this professor
133. 7:39provided I a there should be way more
134. 7:42women there should have relatively been
135. 7:48way more in the or at least just
136. 7:54watching do you think kind of feminist
137. 7:57event that it be mainly women and do I
138. 8:01think what a feminist event
139. 8:03wouldn't it be predominantly women I
140. 8:05would imagine I would imagine it man
141. 8:08would feel really unwelcome there
142. 8:14this is an incredibly incredibly being
143. 8:18question it's a really big question I
144. 8:20could talk about this for Oh 20 minutes
145. 8:21but this is a really big question in
146. 8:23society I would say because it really
147. 8:25divides people there's a lot of judgment
148. 8:28associated with this term and I know
149. 8:29there's the media scandals when women
150. 8:33like Beyonce for example refuse to label
151. 8:36themselves a feminist and I've talked to
152. 8:38some of my female friends about this and
153. 8:40I I have chats with my friends and we
154. 8:43talk about you know what feminist means
155. 8:45to you and for a lot of people it means
156. 8:48a judgment label so if you say you're a
157. 8:51feminist you're not doing enough you're
158. 8:53a feminist but you're wearing short
159. 8:54shorts you're a feminist but you're not
160. 8:56burning your bra so I think in terms of
161. 9:03defining myself as a feminist I'm I'm
162. 9:06certainly for female empowerment
163. 9:09but for anyone who's going to impart
164. 9:11judgment on label I would be reluctant
165. 9:17to defend that kind of a feminist label
166. 9:19foot depending on how you define
167. 9:22feminism yeah so what sparked your
168. 9:25interest to come here tonight I well I
169. 9:33was it seemed really absurd because the
170. 9:36poster it advertised was men's issues it
171. 9:46was the group then the group who has
172. 9:48men's issues something like take action
173. 9:50or something and then underneath the
174. 9:52only thing that it's said about the
175. 9:54event was that men's enrollment is down
176. 9:58to 33% it's time to take action or
177. 10:03something like something along these
178. 10:05lines so I thought that was just such an
179. 10:07absurd way to take enrollment that ok
180. 10:10I'm gonna go and see what what the
181. 10:13crisis is in enrollment is from a men's
182. 10:17issues perspective which eating it
183. 10:20really lacked in any elaboration any
184. 10:25kind of enrollment issue are you
185. 10:29familiar with the men's rights movement
186. 10:30online like that
187. 10:32not at all I took I took extensive notes
188. 10:35but I especially I wrote down the
189. 10:37websites so that I could check them out
190. 10:39and see what's going on and and I didn't
191. 11:06come here with the idea to to sort of
192. 11:10label everybody as a male activist
193. 11:14because you know maybe that's not what
194. 11:17people are here for but the sense was
195. 11:20first of all the atmosphere in which it
196. 11:23began there was a third-year student
197. 11:28Dylan who presented and he gave the
198. 11:31House Rules and in so doing completely
199. 11:33entirely condescended any protest action
200. 11:36against this in so promoting free speech
201. 11:40which was absolutely unnerving to me it
202. 11:44was incredible
203. 11:47and you could suggest something like
204. 11:48that yeah and then and then there was a
205. 11:53speaker from the from the cafe team and
206. 11:56that's Center for equality or something
207. 12:01like this I can't I can't remember but
208. 12:03their acronym is CAF de Ville and
209. 12:07Canadian Association for equality that's
210. 12:10what they're called and so then there
211. 12:11was there was a short clip to promote
212. 12:13what they work for and and there was a
213. 12:19man who spoke and he spoke about his
214. 12:22experiences as a divorcee and losing and
215. 12:26suicide of people he knew from similar
216. 12:29experiences and then the the keynote
217. 12:34spoke about basically campus later
218. 12:40campus life for the everyday guy but
219. 12:43campus is an incredibly privileged space
220. 12:49so no
221. 12:51campus life was defined as difficult on
222. 12:55a gendered basis the space the space for
223. 13:02empowerment for men is based on
224. 13:04privileged men on campus according to
225. 13:08this talk there is a space there look
226. 13:11there they're lobbying to get a space
227. 13:14for the average men to talk about issues
228. 13:17when what is the average man the average
229. 13:21kid okay so you're saying there was yeah
230. 13:31and not that there's something wrong
231. 13:33with being able to benefit from a campus
232. 13:36or to have a men's association but I
233. 13:38mean there's just no acknowledgement
234. 13:40whatsoever of any other social sphere
235. 13:44other than gender so we're gonna have a
236. 13:48men's a men's group but how many men are
237. 13:54you marginalizing by by making it a
238. 13:59campus initiative that's not real men's
239. 14:02issues to me this
240. 14:05that's a campus issue I mean I'm not
241. 14:12suggesting that men shouldn't get
242. 14:14together with each other but there's the
243. 14:21issues they're bringing up aren't
244. 14:25necessarily gender issues but they're
245. 14:28making it as such and in that way I
246. 14:30think they're really marginalizing a lot
247. 14:33of social dynamics right major they're
248. 14:45in
249. 14:46life did everything a mom you're right
250. 14:49and I you know what I should have done
251. 14:50is I should have taken account of the
252. 14:54ethnic makeup of the room because that
253. 14:57would be interesting as well
254. 14:58so what the ethnic makeup of the room
255. 15:01that would be an interesting you know
256. 15:07yeah I should though I should should go
257. 15:10check it out yeah I think very noble
258. 15:16interesting your concern logically
259. 15:21statistics an alliance that's great
260. 15:27there are a lot of people who look at
261. 15:31the men's rights movement or even just
262. 15:33an event like this like a hate group and
263. 15:35don't really don't want to hear it would
264. 15:38protest it or just hateful things about
265. 15:42them so I think it's great that you sat
266. 15:45in order they took notes and and no
267. 15:48matter what the outcome is what you have
268. 15:50learned even if you don't agree yeah
269. 15:51yeah yes um there's yeah its if they may
270. 15:59be elaborated on on what their goals are
271. 16:01aside from and because if you're not a
272. 16:05man and you're going to a men's issues
273. 16:07group immediately you're I think you're
274. 16:09on the defense because you're
275. 16:10immediately excluded so it's an
276. 16:16antagonistic way to frame it's an
277. 16:19antagonistic from the get go goal
278. 16:24whether you're coming from it you know
279. 16:26as a female or is a male and you know
280. 16:28men can sense that too if feminism isn't
281. 16:30agonistic because explicitly trying to
282. 16:33reduce to be the power so it's hard not
283. 16:37to get a reaction when you frame
284. 16:39something as men's issues 33 percent
285. 16:43enrollment or 35 percent enrollment
286. 16:45whatever the number was let's take
287. 16:48action
288. 16:49there need to be no men's centers on
289. 16:51campus that's the zero qualification for
290. 16:53what men's issues are this is but anyway
291. 16:57I think it's inherently antagonistic so
292. 17:00the reason security guards are here I
293. 17:02think that's entirely warranted you send
294. 17:06a flyer out and fight people but it's an
295. 17:11antagonistic message and I think if
296. 17:13they're if they're really looking on
297. 17:14equality they should really maybe
298. 17:17consider another approach in terms of
299. 17:22public relations it's not inviting it's
300. 17:26no it doesn't invite sympathy it's a
301. 17:28very antagonistic message
302. 17:34[Music]
303. 17:39you
304. 17:39[Music]