First lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at a student financial aid workshop at a high school in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 5. Reuters photo by Larry Downing.

Gender feminist doctrine is a zero sum game. Men must be torn down in order for women to be lifted up. Feminist darling Michelle Obama is exhibit No. 1, especially when it comes to her husband. In fact, she doesn’t just thump her mate, she is downright, well, nasty.

Apparently, the thinking goes that the first lady can connect with average women by finding a common denominator — namely, trashing their spouses. And she certainly has that part down pat.

When presidential candidate Barack Obama needed to court the female vote, Michelle was brought in to get the feminists on board, speaking their male-bashing language. You know, woman to woman, have a nice eye-rolling chat, knowingly winking and commiserating over their husbands’ deficiencies. In a TMI (too much information) interview with Glamour magazine, she confided that her girls wouldn’t cuddle with their dad because he’s “snore-y and stinky,” before revealing other inadequacies in subsequent interviews.

“So let’s not deify him…People have notions of what a wife’s role should be in this process, and it’s been a traditional one of blind adoration. My model is a little different — I think most real marriages are.”

Has she ever heard the old and very wise admonition (especially as regards one’s spouse) to praise in public and discipline in private? I guess not, because her shtick continues to work, so she’s taking the show on the road.

Two hundred supporters in the chichi crowd at the recent Women’s Lunch fundraiser benefiting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid from $500 to $32,400 to be in the first lady’s vaunted company. When she had the crowds fired up, Mrs. Obama went on to elicit guffaws from her mostly female audience by emasculating her husband, portraying him as a helpless tyke in constant need of her guidance.

“But let’s be clear — and I have said this again — Barack cannot do this all alone just sitting by himself in the Oval Office.” (Laughter.) “It’s a sad thought, isn’t it? It’s a sad little thought.” (Laughter.) “And we know this. We know this by now. We’ve seen it time and again. He needs help.”

Then again, she’s really on trend.

I cringe every time a “dumb man” ad comes on — especially the Discover card commercial where the wife derisively tells the service rep, “He went out for milk and came home with a puppy…”

Men (or more specifically, husbands) are shown as incompetent idiots unable to accomplish even the simplest task, especially anything that has to do with food or cleaning — you know, the assumed domain of his domestic goddess wife. This is supposed to make us women sit back and agree — yes, I am superior and that guy wouldn’t last a minute without me!

We rightly have a good chuckle over some of the ridiculously sexist Mad Men ads of the 50s and 60s that depict subservient happy homemakers (although feminists are silent on the disgraceful, humiliating treatment of women in some modern-day ads). Why are males denigrated in contemporary advertising? Maybe the men creating such vehicles assume, given the constant feminist drumbeat, that women want to marry ignorant dufuses who can only function under the direction of a dominant female. Of course, the great irony is that such ads only serve to confirm, rather than challenge, traditional notions of a woman’s work and place.

And it’s not only ads. Television sitcoms depict men, and particularly fathers, as useful idiot foils to showcase the smart woman who controls the house while the man bumbles and stumbles around stupidly in the background, unnecessary, belittled, disparaged, demeaned and put firmly in his place.  Ask yourself, is there a modern TV show that depicts a masculine husband and father in a positive light?

Tearing down males has another excellent purpose for feminists: It lets the gender obsessives savor their victim status. While they ostentatiously wear hair shirts and whine about the “glass ceiling” or latest male transgression, the real victims are the next generation of women being indoctrinated into this warped thinking.

Mrs. Obama will undoubtedly continue to ridicule her husband publicly because she knows it works. But saying that one gender is superior to another is bad for everyone, including the women who live with and love their men.