I got some really thoughtful mail about my post on how radical feminism has made it acceptable to publicly revile men as inherently inferior to women.

Some of it is anguished, not just at the anti-male vitriol that has become part of feminist etiquette, but also at our collective inability--or unwillingness--to recognize this for what it is and to acknowledge its terribly damaging effects:

The power of mainstream feminism to set agendas, control public discussion, and move legislation (through both their liberal and conservative proxies) has caused untold harm to millions of people in this country. People just don't get it - the concrete consequences I mean. Do they think its cute or just a bunch of dumb broads?

From the sexual harassment industry, to frivolous restraining orders and false accusations as punishment, to the denial of male DV victims, to the gutting of due process and equal protection for men, to affirmative action, to 700+ womens studies programs spewing Msinformation and hate, to VAWA, to the assault on divorced fathers and their children, to the ceaseless torrent of hostility directed at the male children growing up today (much of it rather subtle), feminism is creating a dystopia with greater ramifications than any movement I can think of (other than the really awful examples like nazism). But it rarely makes the news. Anti-white PC is quite often criticized now - Belafonte, and the NJ poet laureate come to mind as recent examples. What about feminism? I think our society is afraid to face it.

Do we need to wait until men just explode with resentment and rage before anything changes? Do we need to raise a generation or two of boys and men who so fear and hate women that bitterness reigns, anti-woman violence spikes and the family disappears? Do we need to wait until boys suicide rate is 10X girls, as if 5X is not enough. Do we need to wait until 80% of colleges freshmen are female? Do we need to wait until males are entirely phased out of medical research? Is anybody awake out there????

The combination of biology, misguided conservative chivalry, and PC liberalism are an unbeatable force. Every other PC sickness in our society has some strong opponent as far as I can see, but not feminism. Men for the most part can not or will not criticize women or fight back. It just ain't natcheral - we want to please women, to woo 'em, win 'em, and you-know-what 'em. And just as importantly, many good women have been silent or bought into feminist myths.

Some of the mail sees a potential silver lining in the increasing hostility of certain strands of feminist screed, observing that building shrillness might be read as both a sign of desperation and a tacit acknowledgement that the movement's moment is past:

Yes, Ms. Greer has finally descended into madness. What is so unfortunate is the fact that she began as a truly promising and brilliant cultural critic, and could potentially have brought feminism to unthought-of heights of intellectual depth and respectability.

My opinion is that this kind of foolishness, which doesn't even manage to get my blood up anymore, is a manifestation of the fact that she and her ilk are becoming irrelevant--and they know it. So accustomed to being lavished with attention every time they throw their plate on the floor and spit their broccoli out, radical feminists are trying to find ever-more absurd means of commanding awe among the infantile and impressionable. That's also what's at the heart of their disrespectful and irresponsible efforts to bring sex--meaning actual, live sex--into the classroom. The more this tack fails (most thinking young women are on to them by now), the louder their little rhetorical death rattle will get. One gets the distinct impression that Greer is trying to recapture the good old days of Valerie Solanas, et al. It's a sad fate, but not altogether unexpected.

The fact is, this stuff is so self-evidently stupid, so completely wrong in nearly every factual assertion it makes, that only the press could find it newsworthy.

There is much truth in both positions. And for me the creepy thing is that even as many of the claims of radical feminism have been widely discredited, and even as more and more women refuse to call themselves feminists because they do not want to be associated with what they perceive as an obsolete hate movement, radical feminism continues to set social, political, and educational agendas. There are the widely circulated false statistics about eating disorders and rape; there are the discriminatory hiring and promoting practices adopted in the name of "gender equity"; there are the absurd studies about how girls are getting short shrift in school; there are the compensatory fellowships and grants designed to make up for this institutionalized sexism. I could go on.

Glenn Reynolds points to three excellent pieces on this subject today, one by Doris Lessing, one an interview with Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers, and one by Glenn Sacks. Also worth a look: Wendy McElroy's current column on feminist urban legends.