Just as Susan Faludi posited in her seminal text, Backlash, you can judge the success of feminism by the force with which it is opposed. Indeed, despite being 25 years old, Backlash's main thesis is every bit as relevant today - to wit, that the structures of patriarchal power that feminism seeks to dismantle will always find new and more determined ways to push back against whatever threatens it.

Typically, this backlash manifests in a few different ways. There is outright hostility from certain elements of the public, a practice that can be traced back to those opposing the suffragettes and that currently presents itself overwhelmingly in the abuse and verbal threats found in online spaces. There is the insistence that feminism and ensuing liberation for women, although perhaps once necessary, has now achieved its goals and exists instead as a means for those same women to assert their dominance. And there is the application of doomsday theory - the suggestion that all this liberation is actually fundamentally harming society and the noble masculinity that's always been charged with protecting it.

It was this final example of the backlash that was on display at the Channel Seven studios this weekend, when a segment pondering the utterly absurd question of whether or not feminism in Australia had turned men into "second-class citizens" was aired on Sunday morning's Weekend Sunrise.

Those sensible enough to avoid tuning in need not be alarmed at having missed an essential moment of water cooler entertainment - the segment itself consisted largely of a frothing Mark Latham ranting once again about those 'inner city feminists' who seem to inexplicably keep him awake at night, while a simpering Miranda Devine joined in occasionally to reassure her predominantly homophobic, misogynist, racist male fan base that she values her career too much to ever threaten their fragile masculinity. Guardian columnist Van Badham was beamed in via remote studio and valiantly attempted to focus on inconvenient things known as 'facts', but she was unable to translate many of her points in the face of Latham's relentless insults and toxic paranoia. For a man convinced that feminists have taken away men's power, he sure does talk a lot over the top of them.