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The public got a preview of Oxygen in a commercial that ran, improbably, during last Sunday's Super Bowl (presumably no female viewers saw it because, as the feminist myth goes, they were all being beaten up by their husbands). The scene is a maternity ward, with rows of newborn girls in bassinets. While Helen Reddy sings, "I'm strong, I'm invincible," the babies begin flinging off their hospital-issued pink caps. The commercial ends with a baby's raised fist.

The ad reminded me of that Monty Python sketch from the movie "The Meaning of Life": Just after giving birth a mother asks, "What is it -- a boy or a girl?" and the doctor snaps that it's too early to be imposing gender roles on it.

In the world of Oxygen, there are no gender roles either -- but that's only because they've eliminated the opposite sex. Women are everything, and men are nothing. The Oxygen woman kick-boxes, marches, takes out the garbage herself, works, play, sweats, bears children, shops, makes pottery and most of all, has absolutely no time for men. Who needs them after all? When an Oxygen woman wants company, she turns to her girlfriends (or, more to the point, her girlfriends at the Oxygen television network and Web site). Here she can join in a pajama party. Or go shopping. Or learn how to "celebrate" her no-man status by holding an "anti-Valentine's day party" with decorations of "dead, wilted, dried-out flowers." Not the artful, Martha Stewart kind, mind you, but bouquets with the buds snipped off and left "lying at the base of the vase so guests can see the destruction."

She can click on "The News" to learn why Bill Clinton isn't doing enough for women (he's done quite enough in my opinion, thank you) while an Oxygen teen can click on "Trackers" to bone up on sexual harassment.

All of this is supposed to be empowering. Except that it's not. Oxygen embodies a new type of feminism that I call the "Nyaah Nyaah Sisterhood." It's the modern incarnation of the Rah Rah Sisterhood of the 1970s, except that it's much more jaded and bitter. Its followers no longer even pretend that they want to share in some sort of equal partnership with men. Many of them -- divorcees, single mothers, women who put off marriage for too long, women who put up with duds -- are simply through with men (Oxygen's love advice column is called, appropriately, "Breakup Girl").

They cope with this by sticking their tongues out and "nyaah nyaahing" men at every turn. It's no longer "I am woman hear me roar." It's, "I'm woman hear me hiss."

Their male-bashing is a tidy way of absolving themselves from taking responsibility for their lives and their relationships -- let alone any blame. And while they may do their bashing dressed up as Lycra-suited, Nike-wearing, iron-pumping, herbal-therapy-candle-burning modern women, they end up striking the same bigoted poses and spouting the same bigoted lines as the old, sexist Archie-Bunker types they deplore.

"You will find many women here who profess their love of being a woman expressed through their desire not to be or thanks that they aren't men," writes an Oxygen reader. "I like being a woman because I know it aggravates men," affirms another. And this: "I love being among women because they think logically and have a calmer attitude towards life."

As for real bashing: "Having the ability to throw an elbow to the face, an unexpected right cross, or the famous kick to the groin tremendously reduces my level of uncertainty and fear," admits another reader (italics mine). What would these Oxygen fans say about a man who wrote in to say how punching women in the chest really relieved his stress?

In an interview with "Newsweek," Oprah Winfrey said that Oxygen would be a network "that has the best interests of women at heart." But if these sort of attitudes are deemed to be in our best interests, I'd rather tune into the home-improvement shows over at Lifetime. You don't raise up women by tearing down men.

PS. Two weeks ago I wrote about my problems finding Internet screening software, the kind that keeps your kids from visiting porn sites. "Net Nanny" proved useless, and I had enormous trouble with "CyberPatrol," which destroyed my computer's operating system the moment I downloaded it (it took 10 days, by the way, to get my PC working again). Cyber Patrol's p.r. department has offered to guide me through its set-up again but frankly I don't want to go near it. Have any readers had better luck with another brand? If so, I'd like to hear about it for a future column. You can now e-mail me at dcrittenden@nypost.com. No pornographers please.

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