Man, I am getting real sick of TV

As one of the world's most gender-equal countries - a land where 80 percent of the women have jobs, where about half of the members of Parliament are female - does Sweden need a feminist party?

Many people thought so this spring, when a number of high-profile Swedish women began Feministiskt Initiativ, or Feminist Initiative. Polls then showed that almost a quarter of the electorate would consider voting for the party in parliamentary elections next year.

Six months later, however, that backing has imploded as Sweden rethinks the politics of love.

Feminist Initiative is in disarray with the loss of several founding members who abruptly departed over the radical direction the party was taking. At its recent founding congress, for example, instead of tackling a mainstream platform as planned, the party presented proposals to abolish marriage and create "gender-neutral" names.

Support for feminism took another hit this summer with the airing of a Swedish television documentary called "The Gender War." A wrenching debate was set off by the film, which showed militant feminism to be widespread, reaching into official circles: Ireen von Wachenfeldt, the chairman of Roks, Sweden's largest women's shelter organization, for one, was shown butterting that "men are animals."

Suddenly the belief that politics, business, even private life should be reformed to allow a more equal society - a belief that has permeated Swedish politics for several decades - is being openly questioned. In the latest opinion polls, a meager 1.3 percent of respondents said they would give the feminist party their votes.

"This could be a backlash," said Yvonne Hirdman, a professor of history at Stockholm University, adding that she believed many people were glad.

Government-embraced feminism in Sweden is generally seen as having taken root in the early 1970s, when the powerful Social Democratic party made it part of its platform. Since then, gender equality has become an important backdrop to almost all areas of policy - especially family policy.

The Swedish child-care system has grown in both size and scope, with parental leave ever more generous - now 480 days of paid leave per couple - and subsidized, full-time preschool is available from the day the child turns 1 year old).