Cassie J. is a documentary director, writer, and activist. She s been in the public eye for over a decade, and in that time, she s become a voice for the voiceless and voiceless. In this episode, Cassie talks about her journey from being a Marxist feminist to a liberal feminist, and how she s found her way into politics.
00:00:00.000Have you ever honestly questioned and challenged your own belief?
00:00:05.040Even when it was uncomfortable, even when you knew it was going to shake the foundations of your life and your relationships, are you willing to go there and question?
00:00:14.200If you've done it, you have one thing in common with all the others who have done it.
00:02:41.160That's why there's so much miscommunication.
00:02:43.700So liberal to me means wanting to do what's best for the whole and consider those that are most disadvantaged in the system.
00:02:56.460And this is where I start to lose my footing a little bit, which is, are we all born with a hierarchy based on our race and gender and things like that?
00:03:10.720And you would have five years ago said yes.
00:04:10.040And that was a few years before it was legalized across the nation, same sex marriage.
00:04:15.060And, you know, I think what's consistent is I look at who the underdog is and I want to stand up for them and give them a voice.
00:04:25.480And so I do, I am proud of the work I did 10 years ago and five years ago.
00:04:31.420But I think today it is a different world.
00:04:33.940So what is, I'm trying to understand, you would think, because this is the way people are now, that things are different than they were 10 years ago.
00:05:06.680And, and I don't know if we'll agree on this or if you'll see my point of view on this, because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
00:05:14.160So I really am in a bubble of, you know, liberal thinking for everything.
00:05:19.660And in the Bay Area, I feel like my views are conservative, although I still proudly say I'm a liberal.
00:05:26.360But I think there, there's so much of one side and one opinion and so much silencing of anything that critiques that mainstream view.
00:05:39.320And I think, you know, the tribalism has gotten so out of control that you're not able to raise your hand and say, hey, maybe we're not doing this right with our own tribe.
00:05:53.660That doesn't really follow with what we're saying we're about.
00:05:56.420But, but I've found that you're not allowed to criticize your own tribe or you'll be kicked out and labeled with all the other people they see as their enemy.
00:06:10.640I think that's happening on both sides.
00:06:12.020Yes. I mean, I think if you, you know, it's, I hear a lot of train talk lately.
00:06:17.120You're either on the train or you're off the train.
00:06:19.140Well, you know, where's the train going?
00:07:09.760I think they were eager to finally get to able, to be able to speak their views and have a journalist share their views with the world, whether, whether or not it was positive or negative.
00:07:23.180They were just happy to be getting the call for, for the press.
00:07:29.980And actually, I think, you know, in the beginning, in the early days of making the red pill, feminists were really fascinated by what I was doing.
00:07:38.240And I actually got offered funding by a major feminist organization.
00:07:44.400And I turned it down because I didn't want to be answering to anyone.
00:07:48.800I didn't want to lose creative control over the project.
00:08:48.700I mean, they're, to give a bad analogy to it, it's like a pitcher with, with someone up to bat.
00:08:57.060You know, if you're on the same team, you want to give a good pitch so that they hit it out of the ballpark for training.
00:09:02.460But if you're on the opposite team, you want them to miss, strike out.
00:09:06.240And I, I do think that the, well, I, and see, I, I hate to, to make a blanket statement about all liberal, you know, press that, but it is mostly the, the far left press that has, has embellished and falsified my information.
00:09:27.780Cause it's, it, it has been for you and it has been for me, but I've also seen it.
00:09:32.720I've also seen it on, on, you know, disreputable websites, et cetera, et cetera, on the, on the right.
00:09:39.720But, uh, that it is, it is, um, it's those who believe they are right and will do anything.
00:09:51.620I think that's the problem is we become certain of our point of view.
00:09:56.340And so when I walk into an interview, like you walked in with them, if you were certain that you were right and they were wrong, you didn't have to listen to them.
00:10:07.200You just need them to get you to say the things that you know they're going to say, and then you'll edit that.
00:10:13.200And if they don't say those things, well, you're certain that that's who they are anyway.
00:10:52.260And I spent two, two hours up to eight hours interviewing each individual person.
00:10:58.820And it was not the, the truth of the matter was not what I set out to, to make a film about, but I had over a hundred hours of footage.
00:11:09.360And I do believe that I went on probably the most beneficial life-changing experience of my life today.
00:11:16.280I'm 32, but it changed my life for the better hearing their perspective and learning about these issues and how it influenced my own relationship with now my husband of almost three months.
00:11:28.200Um, so I knew that there was a story here and if only I benefited from going on this journey, so be it.
00:11:37.240But I wanted it, I wanted it to become a documentary because I wanted to share with everyone else what I learned.
00:11:42.840Thinking at the time, your side would say, oh, wow, interesting.
00:11:49.160I actually did think that my feminist colleagues would appreciate the film I made because it is about gender equality.
00:12:26.200So I realized I wasn't, I wasn't going to have automatic support from the feminist community.
00:12:33.880Um, but I ended up having support from people who support free speech when they realized that I, in a way, indirectly, I was being silenced because I, I had media silence from the left, like a gag order to not talk about this film.
00:12:51.240Don't make eye contact with this filmmaker.
00:12:53.260Um, so in, indirectly, you know, it is, is a form of censorship.
00:12:59.140If you can't get your story out there through the press.
00:13:22.340First, because in, in watching, you did a great service.
00:13:29.620You kept a video diary and, um, you can see the struggle in you as you're, as some of your worldview is, is starting to crumble a little bit.
00:13:43.500Um, and, and, and I can't help but think, cause I, I, I, I know people think this about me and I think this about people.
00:13:55.900I just did an interview with somebody last week and I started the interview with, I don't know if I can trust you, you know, um, how did you, how did you beat back the doubt of I'm being duped?
00:14:13.220I, I mean, are these guys, I, I mean, are these guys, are they real?
00:14:20.720And then sometimes I think the MRAs are just duping me and giving such a strong pitch about what they believe in to convince me of something that's actually just some out there theory that men are discriminated against and women are, have the advantage.
00:14:42.100My journey in making the red pill was much more, uh, these very high and very low spikes.
00:14:53.480And in the film, I show some of that, my struggle going through trying to listen to men's rights activists and process with my own feminist mindset, how, how to make sense of this.
00:15:02.920Where does this fit into my eye, my ideology and how I look at the world.
00:15:06.760I think I agree with everything you said, but there's, there's still some kind of unsettling doubt and I don't know where that's coming from.
00:15:16.140So I went through a lot of upside downs and, and often the downs were feeling duped, feeling like from both sides, you know, so, um, feeling duped by the men's rights activists thinking, oh, they're just, they're good salesmen or they're, they're good putting on an,
00:15:36.740act in a show and putting on their best face for the interview.
00:15:40.000And, and when I leave, then, then they're the misogynists that I believe that they were.
00:15:45.480Um, and then the other lows that I had was feeling duped by feminists because I started digging into the gender wage cap more wanting to find the source of the, the actual study that they're using to say that women make 77 cents on a man's dollar.
00:16:01.220And it was a huge letdown to realize that it wasn't the way it was being presented by the mainstream media that women are being discriminated against just based on their gender.
00:16:13.740I mean, we, we have the equal pay act from many decades ago.
00:16:16.480It's not legal to pay someone less just based on their gender, but there is a, a gap in earnings.
00:16:23.280And so the more I dug into it, realizing that, okay, women make different choices and motherhood and all that.
00:16:29.700And they're not less, that's not less, that's not less of a choice.
00:16:33.240That's not a, none of these things are bad.
00:16:37.280And, and if, you know, feminists were wanting women to earn just as much as men, it's not necessarily a lifestyle that a lot of women would want to live.
00:16:45.820I mean, I like home work-life balance and, uh, you know, I like my leisure time.
00:16:52.520I like to read, I like to work out, you know, it's, I don't want to work 70 hours a week.
00:16:57.780And, um, so I realized that when I, when I started to see all, all these publications I used to trust and public figures that I used to trust,
00:17:06.860talking about the wage gap and, and letting people assume that all women are being paid less than men, um, it made me realize that's, that's abusive to women, to their mind.
00:17:22.220Because I, I've seen teenage girls break down in tears saying that they want to become a doctor, but they, they don't want to do it if they're going to be paid 77 cents to a man's dollar.
00:17:33.440They want to become a female filmmaker, but, but they'll never be able to be as good as a male director because they're always going to be paid less and not given the same opportunities.
00:17:43.520And it's so sad to me because I really do care about women and especially young girls feeling empowered that they can do and be anything they want to do and be.
00:17:52.860And so I started to see all these lies and these myths as actually being abusive to women and girls.
00:17:59.680And, and, and I wanted to, I wanted to help women by saying, actually, you can do anything you want to in the world.
00:18:09.220It just takes hard work and dealing with rejection because we all deal with rejection.
00:18:14.060And, um, but I see so many young women, especially today with fourth wave feminism, reveling in this victimhood mentality and letting it define everything that they do and preventing them from succeeding in life because they believe everywhere they go, they're going to be a victim.
00:18:34.980And there are many people that have horrible things happen to them and it wasn't their fault and it shouldn't have happened to them, but your responsibility is how you react and picking yourself up from that.
00:18:51.240And right now I think we're teaching, feminism is teaching young women to be angry and give up because the world is against them, patriarchy is against them.
00:19:07.060And, and, and, and, and in the Bay area, especially, I see this brewing.
00:19:13.400I mean, the, the anger is just palpable and, and I, I see so many women who have a lot of potential not living up to it because they believe they were born a victim.
00:19:46.680Why would they victimize women and keep them down to what end?
00:19:51.360I think any movement needs a common enemy.
00:20:00.100And I think modern feminism has identified men as the enemy.
00:20:06.520And when they say they're the movement for gender equality, that if you believe in gender equality, you should be a feminist.
00:20:13.640I don't believe they're truly for both the genders having equal treatment and justice and, and being treated fairly and with respect, uh, because they are willing to step on men and their issues in the process.
00:20:32.040And just brush over all of them or blame men as the problem of those issues, which the red pill movie talks about the common feminist reaction to hearing about men's issues is that, well, it's the fault of the patriarchy.
00:20:46.100And if there are things going on with men, it's men's fault because men have all the power.
00:20:52.020So it's their responsibility to take care of their own if they really do have issues, which a lot of feminists don't believe men have issues, um, but they blame it on them.
00:21:03.860So therefore it's not our problem to deal with.
00:21:05.840So in that way, I don't see feminism as the one and only movement for gender equality.
00:21:12.900If you're demonizing one half of the population saying that they're the fault of their own problems and this other half, it's not our problem to deal with.
00:21:22.740But then when you do try to deal with it, like the red pill movie tries to educate people on what are men's issues.
00:21:29.560A lot of people can't even list off the laundry list of them.
00:21:32.500They can think of a few women's issues off the top of their head because they've been repeated it so much in the media.
00:21:38.540And one of those first issues that most people would say is the wage gap, which I found out was a myth.
00:21:44.360So there's an information gap on what are men's issues.
00:21:49.220And, and, and I do see silencing taking place and deplatforming and trying to keep this other half of the narrative just erased from history or, or current day politics.
00:24:05.740I really don't know because it took me so long with so much research and the willingness to, if, if I do find out I'm wrong, to accept that.
00:24:23.080Because that, that was the hard part was you could do research, but still you're, you're looking at it with, with blinders on wanting to find what supports your current day views.
00:24:32.060But if, if you're going in really doing research with being willing to have your mind changed, if you find evidence, facts that contradict your current beliefs.
00:25:48.500It's, you know, I liken it to a very messy closet that you've just pushed, you know, everything in that you don't want to see out and about because it stresses you out of this mess.
00:25:58.580So you just put it in a closet, shut the door, and then say 10 years later, you're moving or something and you got to go through this stuff.
00:26:06.040You don't necessarily want to have people watching you look through your past and, and look through all the stuff that you haven't wanted to look at on a daily basis because you, you can't get by.
00:26:20.480That's the problem with what I went through in this three and a half year long journey of making the red pill was, you know, I am a hermit.
00:26:38.800And so I was able to do that deep work and explain to my mom or my boyfriend at the time who became my husband that I was challenging my views.
00:26:48.280And that was really scary because I didn't know if they were going to accept me for changing.
00:26:53.440And I think a lot of people don't change because they don't want to lose their network or their place in life, their job, their family support.
00:27:05.420And, uh, I think that's why the car crash is necessary.
00:27:09.840I had somebody write to me this week who had a car crash and said, I understand what you're trying to do and what you're trying to say, but I don't think any of this will work until everybody hits their own bottom.
00:27:27.100And if the bottom is getting so scary now, I mean, what is our bottom as a nation?
00:29:15.740What role did the church play in pushing you that direction, if any?
00:29:21.620Um, well, it was actually, cause the, when I left the church and when I became a feminist, what I was really researching was sexual politics.
00:29:34.180And so I think growing up in the church and having that be a taboo topic that you can't talk about.
00:29:40.740And, and it's, um, you know, I, I was very modest growing up and, and, uh, still am, but that didn't really change.
00:30:16.960And so also during that time, as I moved to LA at 18, so that really was a shock to the system because, um, you know, it was LA and, and I was a struggling actress.
00:30:27.840And so I saw some of the worst parts of the film industry.
00:30:30.700Um, and I think that's what made me a feminist.
00:30:35.360I think, I think LA, especially for young women does breed feminists because you do have a chip on your shoulder and you, you are treated in a way that's very uncomfortable and not what you want.
00:30:48.740How do you, as a feminist, how do they reconcile that Hollywood is as left as they come and yet it is a cesspool of dirtbags?
00:31:38.800I mean, men's power really is in, in success in their industry and, and wealth and, uh, connections that they have or praise and respect that they get and say like a musician, he may not be wealthy, he's struggling, but he, he gets the recognition and praise for his talents.
00:31:56.980So women, uh, seek to marry up, which is called hypergamy.
00:32:04.520And that usually means into wealth and status and men really do value and appreciate women's beauty.
00:32:13.360And so what I learned from the red pill and men's rights activists.
00:33:21.140And yes, you could say, well, uh, you know, men are taller, stronger, more fit, and therefore they should do that.
00:33:27.320But there are plenty of guys who aren't as tall or strong as, as women, but they still go out of their way to open the door and, you know, do things for them.
00:33:45.020And that's what I learned from the red pill, because I, I think in a way, when I was a feminist, I really did hope for an, an androgynous society.
00:33:59.840And I think especially young women, they go through this phase because they get unwanted sexual tension.
00:34:06.140And when you go through that, there are a lot of things women are dealing with.
00:34:10.340One is the unwanted sexual tension, especially if you're a woman who develops early or, um, are, are in an industry that's male dominated, then you can feel on edge and like you always have a thread around.
00:34:22.400And so a lot of women become feminists through that or, or have, you know, horrible experiences that happen to them.
00:34:28.220That's why a lot of people become activists is they have something personal happen to them.
00:34:31.820Um, but I, another way that I think women, I'm sorry if this is, uh, off limits to talk about, but, um, women are reminded, at least of childbearing age, women are reminded on a monthly basis, how much they hate being a woman.
00:34:54.380Um, and you know, I think a lot of, I think men are reminded on a monthly basis, how great it is to be a man.
00:35:04.460But, uh, you know, I think there are women, um, whenever they experience something that they know the average guy doesn't have to deal with immediately, it's reaffirming why they're a feminist and why we live in a patriarchy.
00:35:18.500And that women are kept down and men have all the privilege, but women don't see what men go through, you know?
00:35:26.180And so learning about men's issues, when I found out how many men lose their children in a custody battle, I think any mother would think that's the ultimate price to pay that, that is unjust.
00:35:39.580We don't have a chance if you lost, we don't have a chance, we do not have a chance, I'm a divorced man, and when I got sober, um, uh, my wife and I divorced and I wanted the children, not a prayer, unless I was willing to go and just drag her through court and just destroy, and in her case, lie.
00:36:06.720I mean, I mean, I, it was just given, you know, no, no, because a mother is a mother.
00:36:15.780And that, and feminist groups do lobby to keep it that way, that women have the advantage in custody battles.
00:36:46.460I mean, of course, I wish I had parents that stayed together the whole lives.
00:36:49.820And I think it's wonderful when people do have parents that stay together forever.
00:36:53.680Um, I do think that family, and this is since the Red Pill's release, so I don't talk about, I don't talk about this in the Red Pill.
00:37:01.220But since making the film, I, I do feel like I've become a family and marriage advocate.
00:37:08.540Um, I recently got married and I, I do think that, uh, right now, at least what I'm seeing in the far left circles is wanting to break down the family, the unit.
00:37:22.220And, and, and a lot of research that I've seen and, and heard from men's rights activists talks about the danger of children raised by single mothers and not having a present father figure.
00:37:37.920And, you know, feminists love to say, look at all the ills in the world.
00:37:42.780We have mass shooters and we have, you know, all the prisons are full of men.
00:37:49.100And to get the exact numbers, Warren Farrell gives great data on this, but it's something like 90% of inmates, of male inmates didn't have a present father.
00:38:00.620And the mass shooters, almost all of them didn't have a present father.
00:38:41.560So we're all in this together is what I'm saying is that we all have to look at our role and what we provide to society and make sure we're doing our best.
00:38:53.800I don't think I've ever really shared all of this before.
00:39:06.720I do a lot of work for women's shelters because my, because of my sisters.
00:39:15.300And, um, I, I talk about growing up in an abusive family, but it wasn't my dad.
00:39:25.900My dad was an abused man and my mother, um, not to me, uh, somehow I escaped this, but to my sisters was, she was, she grew up in the, you know, she came to her prime in twenties in the 1960s and early seventies.
00:39:47.760And it was a confusing time and she was at home as a, and that wasn't really her.
00:39:53.320And it was just, and I think she took it out on my sisters, um, uh, because she saw in them what she couldn't be.
00:40:04.260And, um, um, she took it out on my, on my father.
00:40:09.860I don't know why, but people don't ever think of that, you know, and it's shameful.
00:40:19.500It's shameful for a man to be abused by a woman somehow or another.
00:40:26.560And they're weak and they're pathetic and they're not.
00:40:29.760Um, my father was abused by his father, his father, by his father.
00:40:37.280And my father said, I'm going to break the chain.
00:42:42.240And if all of the liberals, and generally speaking, the liberals are the creative, the art, the beauty of the world, and the conservatives are the bean counters.
00:45:38.360But there's been studies that have been done that our max of how many people we can really have in our life is about a hundred.
00:45:50.180A hundred people that you can really know as your family, your friends, your loved ones, but also acquaintances and business, you know, colleagues.
00:46:15.240So now we have the internet, the digital age.
00:46:20.780And I probably interact with more people online or they hear from me or I hear from them online than people that came to my wedding that are my hundred closest people in my life.
00:46:36.660But I have all of this out here on the internet that I'm, videos I'm watching and news feeds and everything.
00:46:43.020I think maybe what's happening is the only way to keep track of, of those thousands, hundreds of thousands of, of people that are talking into your ears throughout the day is to label them.
00:47:01.840So, you have to compartmentalize groups in order to deal with all this chatter that's going online.
00:47:11.520So I see this often in comment forums where someone may write one or two sentences and then the next comment is saying, oh, so you're a communist or oh, so you're whatever.
00:47:22.840However, we're wanting to compartmentalize all these people.
00:47:28.660And I think that's where we're losing the humanity right now, at least, you know, AI maybe later.
00:47:36.100But right now, I think we're losing this human interaction and the camaraderie that we're all in this together, that we're assuming the best in each other before, if you're ever proved otherwise.
00:47:53.900So I think the labeling and throwing out epithets at people to humanize or dehumanize them, I mean, I've been called horrible things, which none of them are true.
00:48:11.340I don't even want to repeat them because I want it to just, but I, you know, it's the tribalism.
00:48:20.320Identifying your enemy and then strengthening your group if you have a common enemy.
00:48:28.080And I don't see that as the place we should move towards.
00:48:50.320So I think that people who come from my point of view, we believe in the Constitution, we believe in the Bill of Rights, we believe the Bill of Rights is inspired.
00:51:34.380And how do we, should we be afraid of people who are either in hiding and wearing the cloak of some charitable, some, you know, wonderful thing?
00:51:47.520Or just out and out open, saying, yeah, I want to, can we get along with those people?