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Out of the Ordinary

Series 4

Episode 1: The Red Pill

Duration: 28 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

Jolyon Jenkins reports on the men fighting a liberation war against what they see as female tyranny, and the separatist "men going their own way" - who've given up on women.

Such men take their principles from the film "The Matrix", in which only those who take the "red pill" see the true nature of reality, while those who take the "blue pill" live in ignorance of the true state of affairs - which, in this case, is that society is organised for the benefit of women, and that men are seen as disposable and worthless. We live, they think, in a "gynocracy", thanks to the remorseless march of feminism.

But the movement is split. Some of them think that there is still time to organise and fight back. They think that the system can be changed, and that relationships between men and women recalibrated. But others are more radical. They believe that male/female relationships are inherently toxic, the system is unbeatable, and that the only sane strategy for a man is to exit from the gynocracy while he still can, even if this means "living as a ghost" within broader society.

Producer/presenter: Jolyon Jenkins. Show less

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