Sunrise hosts have come under fire for pushing an argument that the #MeToo movement has gone too far.

Sam Armytage and Natalie Barr copped criticism for leading a one-sided discussion with sex therapist and author Bettina Arndt on the program yesterday.

Armytage said she knew men who were scared in the wake of the women’s empowerment movement around sexual harassment.

Ms Arndt was on the morning show to talk about her new book #MenToo, arguing men’s lives were being destroyed by the women’s movement and that feminism had gone off the rails.

The hosts did not challenge Arndt or interject, with viewers on social media saying they expected tougher questioning.

“The #MeToo movement was meant originally to empower women and give some women the confidence to call out sexism. Has it been derailed a little?” Armytage asked the guest.

Armytage went on to say: “I know a lot of the men I know and love are quite scared at the moment.”

Viewers took to social media to say “shame on you” to Sunrise for the one-sided discussion.

“I can’t even watch the rest of this,” said one woman.

“Women aren’t destroying men, and not over nothing. Sexual innuendos are not acceptable, how hard is it to understand? Women will continue calling it out full stop.”

Another male viewer wrote: “So, Bettina Arndt getting airtime on @sunriseon7 to promote her #MenToo book on a platform of a ‘fake #rape crisis’ in #Australia just went unchallenged.”

However, many agreed with the discussion and the question Sunrise posed on Twitter: “Do you agree that we now live in a male bashing society?”

I have a lot of respect for the body of work Bettina has done for men and women over the years,

However the positive reception she just got seemed remarkable and I wonder if a man had written the same book would it have been recieved so well or would they have said stop whinging — Vince Andrews (@vincezzzZ) December 3, 2018

“Totally agree. We hear all about the violence against women, but rarely about the violence against men. I am not condoning violence of any kind, but it goes both ways,” wrote one man on Facebook.

Another wrote thank you and, “The movement definitely is important but people have taken things too far. All men are automatically perceived as bad and untrustworthy. Kind (of) hurts us genuinely nice men. Equality for ALL.”

Arndt argues the #MeToo movement has given women licence to destroy men on the basis of the most trivial accusations.

She gave one example of a Canadian politician who was offended when, while standing next to two male colleagues for a photo, one of them said, “This wasn’t the sort of threesome I had in mind.”

“This is just madness, this stuff,” Arndt said.

“What started off as a really important issue has absolutely been derailed and given women the right to behave extremely badly and destroy men who have done something to upset them at any point.

“It’s gone far too far. Most people would agree with that.”

Arndt said feminism had gone off the rails.

“Feminism started off about equality, about promoting men and women having an equal playing field — now it’s all about rules and regulations to advantage women at the expense of men,” she said.

The psychologist said there was now constant male bashing and false accusations.

“There are endless rules in our society now which are about demonising men,” she said.

“Women have been given so much unfair power to destroy them.”

Arndt is speaking on university campuses across Australia about what she calls the country’s “fake rape crisis”.

“There is no evidence our universities are crawling with rapists,” she said.

Arndt recently came under fire for a sympathetic interview she conducted with convicted sex offender, Nicolaas Bester.

Bester was sentenced to two years and six months jail in 2011 for repeatedly molesting his 15-year-old student.

In 2015, Bester reoffended by making child exploitation material. In an online forum he published graphic and lurid descriptions of the offences he committed against Jane Doe. He also bragged that the sexual abuse was “awesome”.

“Judging from the emails and tweets I have received, the majority of men in Australia envy me. I was 59. She was 15 going on 25” he wrote at the time. “It was awesome.”

Arndt, who laughed about these comments, said in the interview: “You did something else pretty stupid. I can imagine how easily this happens.”

Arndt defended the video interview by saying the sex offender has been “systematically hounded” since leaving jail and that segments of the 17-minute interview, where she laughed, had been “carefully selected (by media) to damage my reputation.”