![]() ![]() The first showing was for staff, students, and the public, co-ordinated with Belinda Brown (then with UCL’s Centre for Transport Studies and the sadly missed Gender Equity Network). For this reason, I determined to show it to my colleagues at University College London (UCL), preceded by a short talk about ‘bridging the gender empathy gap’.ĭecember the 8th 2021 is the fifth anniversary of the first showing of The Red Pill at UCL in 2016. (Incidentally, the term ‘red pill’ is borrowed from the film The Matrix, and refers to the idea of choosing to swallow a red pill in order to be able to see reality clearly instead of seeing only an illusory version of reality).Īlthough this film has been written about in the mainstream media in a way that has smeared it in controversy, in my opinion, watching it should be a routine part of the training programmes of clinical psychologists and other therapists, most of whom have little or no realistic training in how do deal specifically with male clients. Unfortunately the field of psychology has been slow to take notice of this issue in relation to men, despite calls for it to do so, and despite the development of possible solutions, such as Martin Seager’s ‘Man Talk’ workshop series, which has received little attention.īut there is potentially a barrier intrinsic to addressing this issue: if the empathy gap is an evolved cognitive distortion shared by all people, is there any realistic way we can overcome it? One possible answer is demonstrated to us in The Red Pill, which is a documentary record, and a powerful real-world demonstration, of how the gender empathy gap can be bridged. In fact this is a very important issue for therapists of all kinds, because empathy for your client is key to developing a good ‘therapeutic alliance’, which in turn has consistently been found to contribute to successful outcomes from therapy. when someone is a victim of violence, their gender is more likely to be highlighted if they are female.Īs can be guessed, the gender empathy gap is a problem that effects everyone, psychologists included. This evolved tendency might also partly explain the cognitive distortion called gamma bias, the tendency to magnify some gender differences while simultaneously minimising other gender differences e.g. Thus feeling less empathy for men could be a psychological defence which evolved to protect people against being overloaded with grief for men’s suffering. This relates to how it is normal for men more than women to risk their lives to protect the community and to perform dangerous work, and thus it is normal that we sense that men more likely than women to be routinely injured or killed. Warren Farrell proposed the notion of ‘ male disposability’. ![]() There are probably evolutionary reasons for the existence of the gender empathy gap. Note that if the group identity is supporting a specific football team or serving in a particular combat unit, men show the ‘in-group favouritism’ typical of other group identities, but men don’t tend to help other men just because they are men. This means both men and women tend to prioritise the needs of women more than men. The difference between the degree of empathy for men and women has become known as the ‘ empathy gap’.Įxperimental research in social psychology since the 1970s has found that people tend to favour other people if they are of the same group identity, but since 2004 we have known that male identity is the exception to this rule. Empathy has become a topic relevant to male psychology, with various commentators highlighting everyday examples of a of men receiving less empathy than women, even when they experience the same type of problem. ![]() At the heart of The Red Pill is an important lesson: it is possible for people to increase their empathy for men.ĭeveloping one’s capacity for empathy is an important part of a person’s social and emotional development, and is linked to helping others and having good relationships. 75% of suicides are male mental health issues due to child access and family court issues) and need help with them. The documentary film The Red Pill follows the psychological development of Cassie Jaye, feminist and Hollywood actress, from being initially sceptical about the good intentions of the men’s rights movement, to someone who begins to see through the myths about men’s rights being about misogyny, until eventually she realises that many men are genuinely facing serious problems (e.g. ![]()
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