The title of this immensely scary investigation turned out to refer to the celebrated Hollywood movie The Matrix. Those of its cast who swallowed the scarlet capsule came instantly to understand the machine-bred tyranny that surrounded them. To go for the blue option, on the other hand, was to sink into the torpor of collective delusion.

Here the red pill was the metaphorical resort of a group of men – one or two of them identifiable, the majority anonymous internet crawlers – who believed that the instruments of their oppression were a monstrous regiment of women.

Whoever decided to schedule the first tranche of Jolyon Jenkins’ new series (9 March) on the morning after International Women’s Day is rather a genius in her (and it can only have been a her) way. “As far as the state is concerned, men are sub-human,” one of the activists on display breezily remarked.