on the night of saturday, sept. 10, between the hours of about 8 and 11, six women, each of them walking in midtown manhattan, were approached by a group of young men who sought to light them on fire. although the attacks were mercifully unsuccessful <u+2014> no one was injured <u+2014> one woman, standing at the intersection of fifth avenue and east 54th street had her skirt set aflame, while another, walking past a valentino store, the police reported, felt something warm on her left arm, only to realize that her blouse was on fire. six days later, a 14-year old boy was taken into custody, and charged with attempted assault and harassment. given that everyone targeted for conflagration was female, the police have considered these hate crimes. that four of the encounters occurred on a stretch of fifth avenue just outside trump tower may bear no actual relationship to our current political misfortunes, but their symbolic freight is hard to overlook. for whatever it has done and failed to do, the presidential candidacy of donald j. trump has revived a national discussion of misogyny, which, as a word, an idea and worldview had long ago fallen out of favor, lost to the 1970s and obscured instead by the cheerfully appointed goal posts of contemporary feminism. if you are concerned about misogyny, you are worried less about how we can create a better world for women who want to share whole-grain breakfasts with their children and still make it to teterboro on time for the flight to the board meeting in sun valley, and more about the cultural damage inflicted by collective male rage. you take to heart margaret atwood<u+2019>s famous saying that men are worried that women will laugh at them while women are worried that men will kill them. you are a generalist, really, and you see that the problem goes beyond whatever hindrance men might pose to your making partner or getting the dishwasher emptied. one kind of feminism imagines men as an existential threat, another merely as an inconvenience. the former, of course, is a dark and not consistently rational way to think. that is why many women <u+2014> particularly educated, affluent women who live in cities where crime rates are at historical lows and the presence of physical danger and extreme prejudice seem distant <u+2014> don<u+2019>t easily imagine that they could be set on fire on their way to dinner. three years ago, during the sensational trial of gilberto valle, the former new york city police officer who was called the <u+201c>cannibal cop<u+201d> by tabloids and charged with conspiracy to kidnap women and illegally retrieve government data, it seemed as if the terrifying online world he inhabited would awaken mainstream interest in the raw virulence directed at women. the case put on view an internet subculture that attracted men who fantasized about tying women up, slashing their throats, raping them, roasting them and eating them. the trial unfolded in march 2013, at precisely the same moment the publishing world delivered sheryl sandberg<u+2019>s <u+201c>lean in,<u+201d> which colonized the gender conversation for a long time with its analysis of how women held themselves back professionally. <u+201c>what would you do if you weren<u+2019>t afraid?<u+201d> the book asks, by which ms. sandberg does not seem to mean, <u+201c>what would you do if you weren<u+2019>t afraid that the real estate mogul you<u+2019>re supposed to meet with is either going to grope you or call you a basset hound?<u+201d> fear in the vernacular of corporate feminism is always synonymous with self-doubt. four years ago, the southern poverty law center, which monitors hate groups across the united states, began paying formal attention to those groups that existed to express violent animosity toward women. <u+201c>i was completely astounded,<u+201d> mark potok, the editor of the organization<u+2019>s semiannual intelligence report, told me. <u+201c>i had no idea that there was this dark world of woman hatred. a whole universe of these people was quite shocking,<u+201d> he said, noting that within the radical right in recent years, misogyny had become an increasingly common means of articulating broader discontent. the center has produced close to a dozen articles about what is now known as the <u+201c>manosphere,<u+201d> identifying blogs and other online forums that denigrate and condemn women as liars, cheaters, whores and social cancers. on one, called boycott american women, researchers found posters advocating the exportation of american women to foreign countries. (<u+201c>have you noticed how fat these sluts get at an early age,<u+201d> one said, <u+201c>if you were allowed to beat your wife we wouldn<u+2019>t be dealing with this.<u+201d>) another, called register-her.com , one of the reports states, names women who have supposedly made false rape allegations and asks why they aren<u+2019>t imprisoned. it<u+2019>s a short throughline from here to the chants of <u+201c>lock her up<u+201d> that distinguish trump rallies. last year, one of the center<u+2019>s reports took note of a forum called philosophy of rape, which promoted the <u+201c>corrective<u+201d> rape of women deemed unruly. has the proliferation of sites like these led to more violence against women? those connections are largely impossible to prove. in new york city, we do know that the number of stranger rapes was on the rise last year , but dipped again this year. still, over the summer, within a spate of a few days, a jogger was raped and murdered in spring creek park in queens and a young woman was raped in the bedroom of her apartment in bushwick, brooklyn, when an intruder broke in as she slept. if mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign has accomplished anything, it is reminding women that there is still plenty to be frightened of. email: bigcity@nytimes.com a version of this article appears in print on october 16, 2016, on page mb1 of the new york edition with the headline: misogyny,  reanimated. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
misogyny is back. did it ever go away?
ginia bellafante