← The Brett Cooper Show
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Feminism, Toxic masculinity, Red pill Bros. How on earth are people supposed to find a partner and find love in this insane dating landscape? I've talked about this a lot. We have talked about the Gen Z mental health crisis, which in my opinion is just a loneliness epidemic. We are so lonely, we have literally been dubbed the loneliest generation. I know that we're trying to work on that, obviously, but even though that loneliness has been fostered through social media and Covid and all of these things, I think that the dating divide and the ideological divide played a huge role. Wendy Walsh, who is a psychology professor at California State University, Channel Islands and an Ambassador for Dating Advice.com told Newsweek recently that, quote, in the last few years, males have become increasingly conservative and the most liberal and progressive group in America is young females. The political polarization is already creating problems in the dating scene. People in their 20s are either not dating at all or competing for a very small group of people who match their political views. And. And guys, as I am sure you are well aware, by just being young people and humans in this weird culture, I'm sure you are aware that this divide did not happen overnight. And so we need to look back over the political landscape in the 21st century to see how we got here and most importantly, what solutions we can employ to actually fix the situation. But before we do, make sure that you are following our podcast page and please rate the show if you are enjoying it. It helps us out so much in the algorithm. And if you want to stay up to date on all things Brett Cooper and live events and fun things that we're doing, make sure to head on over to Brett Cooper dot com. That is where we house all of that information. Now back to the show. I think that the easiest place that we can start is with men. And we talk about this all the time. I have been talking about this basically as long as I have been on the Internet. And anyone who follows politics even remotely can see the way and understand the way that our culture has alienated men massively over the last decade to 25 years or so. And most recently, in my opinion, it has been the MeToo movement and the lasting impacts of that, that really unfairly generalized men as predators, which led to massive, massive reput. Reputational damage. Innocent until proven guilty was basically thrown out in the courts of social media, in the actual courts of law. Like that has just not been a thing anymore. There was and still is this attack on toxic masculinity, which stereotyped, you know, normal male traits like stoicism or assertiveness as being inherently harmful. And they even went so far as to say that things like football and hunting and just like normal male hobbies were actually very toxic and were hurting America and were oppressing women. Women would say, f the patriarchy, we want to stamp out the patriar. You literally have women who say, I'm a lesbian because I don't need men. I don't want men. I could literally survive without them. We don't need them as a society. And all of this has been the M.O. for years now. And therefore society has shamed a whole generation of young men into thinking that they are inherently monsters or predators or less than. It has turned them inward. It has made so many men insecure and feel like they don't actually have a place on our culture and our society, when in reality, you men are so important. I say this all the time. You are the backbone of civilization. You are the backbone of families. We literally cannot exist without you. And yet that has not been the message that you have been receiving from pundits from Hollywood, from girls, on college campuses, whatever it may be from podcasters. That is not what you have been hearing. And interestingly, a recent British study revealed that nearly 50% of young men reported feeling that being a man is not a source of pride for them, which is just insane. That is the core part of your being. That should be something that you love about yourself that is so integral to who you are that you should be proud of. And the fact that 50% of young men say that, that is just. That's not even a thing anymore. And this is what some of the participants had to say, quote, there are a lot of negative stories about how men are treated women, which makes people assume that all men are the same, which isn't the case, commented one 20 year old. Another young man said, there is a feeling that men are responsible for patriarchy and you feel a sense of guilt or although things were this way before I was born, and in spite of personal effort for equality, these men are trying. They have, like, heard, they've tried to respond, and yet they still are made to feel so guilty and so out of place. Another one said, social media is damaging to men's mental health. As a society, we have an expectation of what a man should be. This puts pressure on men to live up to this expectation. So in trying to connect this with current events, it's like, yeah, no wonder young men move to the right. No wonder in 2024, young men came out in droves. For Donald Trump and J.D. vance, who, you know, they might not be perfect, but they are men who seem to be proud of being men. They are manlier men who have families and seem like the heads of their households. Young men can look up to them and maybe even see themselves in those two men. It's the reason why UFC has absolutely blown up. It's the reason why the male podcasting space is dominating right now, because they are speaking to multiple generations of men who've been ignored for years. Right now, millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha. That is coming up. That is why the male podcasting space is dominating. We'll dive back in, but first, a quick word from our sponsor. Now, unless you're new here, you know that we have talked a lot about government and media coverups like the Epstein files. We've talked about that a lot recently. But that is really the tip of the iceberg. And it's more difficult than ever to know who to trust and where to look. And Ground News is one of the most powerful tools tackling this every single day. Now, as you guys know, I'm very intentional about who I choose to partner with. So when I talk about Ground News, it is for a reason. Unlike other media platforms, they do not push or suppress information to influence your perception. Their app and website pull it in the world's perspective on today's biggest issue so that you see what facts are being covered, ignored, and what biases are influencing both. And probably the clearest example of this is their blind spot feed that shows you exactly what stories the media and your algorithms might be suppressing in order to make sure that you truly stay informed. Now, I partnered with Ground News to give you full access to the truth for 40% off. That is $5 a month for the same vantage plan that I have been using when you go to groundnews.com Brett or scan the QR code on the screen. This is how we hold the media accountable. So go join today. And it makes sense that a lot of this just so happens to be on the right because, I mean, who are they gonna look up to on the left? Like Tim Walls with his jazz hands? Pete Buttigieg on his, like, little bicycle with his husband? No, like, no. Those are not the role models that these young men are craving. After decades of being told that they are less than, that they should be ashamed and feel guilty for their natural feelings, their natural inclinations as biological men. And unfortunately, when a whole society, when a whole political party turns against and vill as one sex, you are not Just going to move to healthy role models and find some common middle ground. It's not going to work like that. You are going to see the consequences of young men who fell through the cracks, who were left behind, who were villainized to no end, who were made to feel guilty. They are going to have to go somewhere, and often they're going to lash out. Which leads us to the creation of the red pill man, which is a hot topic in 2025. Whenever anybody brings up the red pill bros, if you talk about them, if you tweet at them, I feel like they're going to end up in this comment section. They're going to, like, pop out to, like, talk about their values, whatever. But the red pill man is playing his own role in this very, very complicated and convoluted dating landscape. And these men, in my opinion, view modern feminism as a societal evil whose express goal is to oppress men. They believe that women hold unfair power in today's culture, which is definitely true in our modern culture. And I agree with them on feminism. I agree that modern feminism has gone too far. It's shifted from being about equality and uplifting women to actually dominating men. Like, they vocalize that they do not hide, that that is something that they are proud of, they speak about. So these men are not wrong when it comes to any of those things. But they don't just stop with fighting that they don't just stop by saying, hey, this is wrong. We disagree with that. Instead, they in turn idolize these hyper dominant, quote unquote alpha traits. They have a perverted view of masculinity and femininity and a woman's role in society. They also very often lump women together and see us all as being inherently menac, manipulative, interested only in exploiting men for their resources and their money and their status. And possibly the thing that turns me off the most is that they often assert that their manhood is something that is defined by how many women they can exploit, how many women they can sleep with, how many women they can impregnate, how far they can sow their seeds and how many children they can have, how tight and ill fitting their suits can be, how nice their cars are, like how many cigars they can smoke. It is a caricature of. Of masculinity. It is bitter, and in my opinion, it is incredibly performative. And while I know that I just spent two minutes basically complaining about them and saying what I think is wrong with their ideology, their core grievances, like the reason why the red pill bro was created in the first place. Like, their core grievances are often very legitimate, like liberal women and progressives. You created a space for the red pill man to thrive. You pushed men for years, for decades, so far into a corner that they had no choice but to turn to people like Andrew Tate to create these ideas, ideologies, so that they could feel powerful, so that they could have somebody who would say, hey, it's pretty great to be a man. Even if that version of a man is kind of performative and a caricature, in my opinion. And I'm sorry, but the result of all of that, what this has become, is a major turnoff for women, even women who might share your values or politically agree with you, because, like, you didn't want to date a feminist woman who hated you for your manhood and just hated your basic identity and wanted to take advantage of you through sex. Women also are not going to want to date men who are assholes and hate them for just being women. And I really think that a lot of these men online that we see just generally don't like women. Like, I read their posts, I'm like, have you ever like been friends with a woman? Like, have you ever had any, like, moment of enjoyment with like a female, a person of the opposite sex? Because based on what you're saying, it seems like you just don't like us. And so it is no surprise to me that this is a situation that is occurring more and more frequently in our modern dating culture. This is from the New York Post, a recent article from a couple months ago. According to 19 year old Liza, who's dating someone in his 20s and sat down with the outlet, she said, I'd go on the odd date with someone my age and more often than not it would end up in a straight up argument. When he started saying that. Andrew Tate makes good points. Her boyfriend now this older guy is, quote, super chill, a feminist, and weirdly, so are most of his mates. He missed all of the manosphere stuff and it shows. So now, unfortunately, because of all this red pill bro stuff, women are being pushed even further into the opposite direction, into the welcoming arms of these older, chill feminist bros with their chill, older feminist bro mate. But of course, because we need to be fair, the women in this scenario are also not blameless, literally at all. Like, they might have started this whole thing from the get go. And in talking about this, my mind immediately goes to Alex Cooper and her podcast, Call Her Daddy. But before we keep going, I wanna thank today's sponsor. Now if you've followed me for the past few years, you know that there is a product that I have loved for a long time and that would be my Bon Charge Infrared Sauna Blanket. Guys, this thing is is incredible. It gives you all of the benefits of an infrared sauna, like sweating out toxins, boosting circulation, easing sore muscles and improving sleep, but in the comfort of your own home and without overheating your environment. 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GCU equips you to find your passions and use them to serve others in ways that promote human flourishing and create ripple effects of transformation for generations, generations to come. And by pursuing an education and honoring your career calling, you will inevitably impact your family, your friends and your community. And whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, a master's or a doctoral degree, GCU's online on campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU truly meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours, so let it flourish and find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. It is private, it's Christian and it's affordable. Visit gcu. Edu to learn more today. Now back to Alex Cooper. She and her original co host would often tell women that they needed to have a roster of men lining up waiting for them to date, that they should, quote, unquote, have sex like a man, that they should toy and play games with men as a way of gaining power and confidence like this is literally how they named their podcast. Call Her Daddy. Take a listen.
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B
For people that don't know what Call Her Daddy means, the word daddy is what it's like. You're a boss, you're a badass, you're powerful, dominant. In the bedroom, specifically.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And you're just. You are in control of your life and in control in the bedroom.
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So the entire premise, the entire idea behind this huge culture changing podcast was the idea that women should dominate in life and dominate in the bedroom at the expense of men, that men to them were actually disposable. And this is something she has said.
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This is how we solve all of your problems. He didn't text me back. You have a full roster. Okay? You line them up, he ditches you, you grab the next and the next and the next.
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A
So basically what she's saying there is her rationale for having a roster of men and just dating around. Because if one pisses you off, well, just go find another one. You need to have a bunch lined up that you can sleep with, that you can date. Because if a man pisses you off, don't deal with it, don't handle it, whatever. Just move on and date somebody else. Because you should not have to be beholden to this awful man who was giving you the ick or doing something wrong, because they are just disposable. Like, her ideology was based on the fact that men are pigs, so women should be pigs. Back towards them. Like, we should get back at them. And now, years later. This podcast has been around for over five, six years now. Finally, now that she's older, maybe a bit more mature, she is married, she's talking about having kids, she is finally comfortable saying the quiet part out loud, that yes, in fact, she wanted to punish them. This is a recent clip from her interview on the Armchair Expert podcast. Take a listen. Did you want to punish them?
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B
Kind of, yeah. I think because I have never had a hard time making female friends. That was like the thing that filled me up the most. I always felt so comfortable around women being on soccer teams, filming with my best friends. Like, I'm. I love it. Like, I love female friendships. And then when I finally got to a point where I changed my hair and changed my skin and all of the things when boys were drooling over me and I was just like, oh, I hate you.
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A
I mean, at least she's honest. That is sort of a good thing. But everything that she is saying, everything that she has blabbered about for the last six years on her Podcast. It is awful, it is unkind, and also it is self harming behavior. It is not just unhealthy for men, it impacts them negatively. It's impacting the women negatively who choose to act like this. But she and others like her, especially in Hollywood, they influenced an entire generation of women with these kinds of values, with these ideas that we need to be terrible to men as a way of punishing them, that our empowerment comes from sleeping around and screwing with men and playing games with them because that is what they deserve. That is where this divide started. So taking all of that into consideration, the years of that, it is no wonder that now men are responding by basically doing the same thing to women. Men were villainized by these women for just doing normal man things. Women blew their behaviors out of proportion, called them toxic and manipulative, said that the patriarchy was this awful thing. And now it seems like a whole group of scorned men, understandably scorned, who have been hurt and shamed for years, has had enough and they're going, fine, we'll just become that and we'll do all of these things to get back at you. So it is this endless, endless cycle. And I'm sorry to tell you guys, but two wrongs do not make a right. We are now basically in a washing machine of chaos and bad behavior and just being assholes to each other. But unfortunately, looking at our society and our culture and the trends and the attitudes, it makes sense. But again, that doesn't make it right. Neither of those behaviors from either of these groups, the toxic feminists that just want to sleep around, the red pill bros that hate women, neither of those behaviors or attitudes are right or moral or good or promote goodness. They are only contributing to a greater divide and distrust and a dislike of the opposite sex. That is the undercurrent that runs under all of this is genuinely just disliking people of the opposite gender. And Billy Ray Brandt, who is a great video creator who actually used to make red pill content, she broke down this problem here. She was seeing it firsthand. This was the community that she was in. And I think she put it well. Take a listen.
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C
Let me tell you about my biggest issue with red pill influencers. I used to think they all wanted to defeat feminism, but now I'm just realizing that they used feminism as an excuse to encourage negativity and toxic behavior amongst men. They bitch about women being hoes, but encourage men to be more promiscuous and create more hoes. They nihilistically claim that modern women are completely irredeemable. And rather than encouraging men and women to go change their ways and right the wrongs, they just bitch and moan while collecting a paycheck from the angel, angry, hopeless men that they create. It's all bitching with no solution. And I've spoken highly of these guys in the past and was certainly inspired by many of them to join an important fight. But my patience and admiration is starting to disappear. Feminism is fundamentally evil, and I'm not going to concede to living a life where we allow it to exist with no opposition.
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A
I mean, she did not mince words. And everything that she said about the red pill bros, about this community of guys, these attitudes. You could also say that about feminism. You could say that about Alex Cooper. It's like you allegedly saw men that were dating around that were playing games with you when you were in high school and college. And instead of trying to be better and encourage them to be better and just move away from those guys and try to date somebody who wouldn't treat you like a piece of crap, you decided to just be what you hate, what you were attacking. Like, how does that actually make it better? How does that make society better or change things for your community, for yourself, for the next generation of men and women? It does nothing. Therefore, if we are going to fix things, we have to find a way forward that does not exclusively revolve around pointing fingers and doing things in a reactionary, bitter way. Everybody, like Billy was saying, needs to take accountability for themselves and their actions and probably most importantly, not be an asshole to the opposite sex. It really is that simple. So now the final question, and the most important question is, how do we fix this? Where do we go from here? Well, I have messages for both men and women here. Now, women, you need to know that men are not monsters. Not all men are bad. And if you respect yourself and you hold yourself to a higher standard, an amazing man will come your way. That is kind of like how the world works. If you put it out there, you will receive. So build up and encourage masculinity. Do not mock it. Learn to love and appreciate men for their quirks and their silliness and their interesting senses of humor. Like, encourage the men in your life to be leaders and help hold them to a high standard. Now, for men, I also similarly need to say that women are not the enemy. Not every woman out there is scheming about how she's going to manipulate you and divorce you and take all of your money and screw you over. Like that. That is not every woman out there. I'm sure that there are. There have been horrible stories of those women, but there are a lot of women who just want a good man, and they are good women, and they're out there trying to meet you. So get up the courage to go ask a girl out for coffee. Have the confidence to know that if she says no, it might not have anything to do with you. And like Jordan Peterson says, if you want a princess, be a prince. That means that you have to work on yourself. It means you have to be bold and confident and be a leader and be somebody that she would want to be with, that she would be attracted to. And I'm sorry, I hate to say it, but for a lot of women, that is not being a bitter, angry, red pill bro. And on that subject of red pill attitudes, I don't just want to shame this and not give a solution. So I want to offer some sort of alternative or clarity, because I know it's hard out there. I know it's confusing. I know it's very easy to get bitter when you feel like you are backed up into a corner. And so I want to share something with you that was just so wonderful to hear as a woman. It was something that Alex loved hearing. And this is something that Father Mike Schmidt says. And for the last two years, I have gone back to this one homily from Father Mike because I really think that it hits the nail on the head when it comes to masculinity. So this is from his Father's Day homily back in 2023. And basically, in this homily, Father Mike lays out the problem that our culture is basically just gives men two options. The option of being that chill feminist bro who is just meek and mild and weak and a slacker. Or the other option is someone who is a brute and uses his strength tyrannically, which he says is akin to this whole red pill ideology. That would be the toxically masculine side of things. So just take a listen to what he says here.
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D
Our culture offers young boys two alternatives, two visions of what it is to be a man. One is he called them the slacker dude. The slacker dude is what we might call, like, the weakling. He's the passive person. He's not just kind of a nice guy. He's the person who, like, not only, you know, couldn't hurt a fly or wouldn't hurt a fly, but he couldn't hurt a fly. The opposite vision that our world offers is what Dr. Leonard Sacks calls the brute or the bully. We would say that's the toxic masculine man, right? The person who just like the tyrant, basically. And so these are the two images that our world gives young men. It says, either you can be the weakling or the tyrant. You can either be the slacker dude, or you can be the brute, the bully.
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A
And from there he says, you know, you might think that Jesus would want you to be the meek and gentle man rather than being the tyrannical brute. But really it's neither of these options, because what culture is presenting you with, neither of them are good. What God wants you to be, how you are designed to be, is a man who is strong enough to care and serve others. But that first requires taking responsibility and ownership over your life. It's taking responsibility for who you are as a man. This is what he says.
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D
I now a marker of adulthood is I'm now willing to take responsibility for myself. And that way, I say it like this. I'm willing to develop my strength. I'm willing to develop my own competence. I'm taking responsibility for developing my own competence. I'm taking responsibility for developing my own strength and becoming a man. But there's another level. There's another level of adulthood, another level that's just incredible. It takes responsibility for others. And that's the difference between becoming a man, I take responsibility for myself, and becoming a father, becoming a shepherd, and willing to take responsibility for someone else.
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A
And then from there, he says, you can then serve and take care of others, which we see in pack animals all the time. And I love that this was the analogy that he used to take a.
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D
Listen in subsequent studies, subsequent research have actually studied primates and wolves and other animals in the wild. And the alpha of the pack, the alpha of the group of primates, of gorillas or of any other kind of. They weren't the ones who just dominated. They weren't the ones who just took whatever they wanted. It was almost the opposite. The alpha male of the group was the one who took care of the others, the alpha male. Actually, in the wild, the alpha male was the one who served, the one who made sure everyone had food, the one who made sure everyone had protection, the one who made sure everyone had shelter. In fact, I remember a psychologist describing this and saying that women aren't attracted. This is for the guys, like, who are, like, I want to be alpha. Why? Because I want to be the one who gets the girls. Women aren't attracted to that dominant personality, aren't attracted to the alpha what they're attracted to is what he called competent generosity.
- [24:14]
A
And like I said, I have gone back to this homily for the last two years. I don't even know how many times I have listened to it. It was just one of the most incredible things I have ever heard in a culture that, again, is often very confused and angry and giving men very mixed signals. So if you want to listen to the entire thing, we'll have it linked below. I highly recommend it. I love Father Mike. I'm not even Catholic, and I just, like love listening to him. But basically, the reason why I wanted to share this today is that you don't have to be the strongest or most attractive person in the room. You don't have to be the loudest or the one with the most brute force. But you should be someone who is good, who takes responsibility for not just your life, but for others, who can care for others, who can protect them and treat them with decency. It really just goes back to that. And women on the flip side should be there to accept that and appreciate that. And I promise you, again, women like that are out there. Women like Nara Smith, as I said in the beginning, take a listen to this.
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E
Marriage is a collaboration between two people. That's how I view it. And I think that a lot of people nowadays, it's like, oh, he gave me the ick and I'm just done. Or he didn't do X, Y and Z, so I'm gonna ghost him. And I think at least in marriage, for me, that's not a thing. It was really us learning how to communicate better, how to be there for each other, how to be less stubborn, how to be more loving and compassionate. And I think compassion is an important and vital part of at least our marriage. And I think that's something that we had to kind of learn to have.
- [25:43]
A
And of course, since we also mentioned her at the top of the episode, women like Hannah Nealman, a ballerina farms who openly praises and expresses gratitude for her husband, despite the women online who consistently tell her that she is oppressed and trapped in this marriage. In a recent article, she said, daniel, my husband, is so good at just being a steady rock and just being that constant. For me, he doesn't ever get entangled with the ups and downs of social media. He's just like, no, we're doing our thing. It's not about them, it is about us. And we're going to keep doing what we love and sharing. These are incredible marriages. And I love that they are putting that out in the world. And I'm just letting you know that there are women like that, there are marriages like that. That is not dead in 2025, even though we are dealing with a very obvious and very significant divide between young men and women. And I'm here to tell you that traditional values, settling down, finding somebody that you love, being monogamous, getting married and having children, those values, they are not oppressive. In my experience. They have actually been the most freeing and empowering part of my life. Men and women have their distinct but equal roles in the relationship. It is designed to be this beautiful compatibility that will inevitably require a dance and compromises and empathy that you will learn in real time and you'll probably continue learning for the rest of your life, because you're two human beings that are having to work through things together. And to actually push through this epidemic of loneliness and this divide between men and women to reject the rise of AI companions, you have to be willing to reach across the aisle of the sexes with compassion and again, a genuine interest and decency. And the first step to all of that is just getting your ducks in a row. It's cleaning your own bedroom first. It is getting your life together. It is being a good human being. And then again, I don't know how many times I can say it is having a basic appreciation and interest in the opposite sex. And then do not feed into these caricatures of manhood or womanhood that seek to put us all in boxes and pit us against each other. So put down your phone log off of X, get off of TikTok, go touch grass for the love of Pete, and find somebody that you love being around that you believe you can build a life with. Do not let social media or the world around you make you bitter. There is so much hope. There are so many great people out there who are striving for greatness and goodness. And I promise you, if you take responsibility for yourself, if you build a good life and surround yourself with great people, that person will find you.