CS, there’s very much truth to that point you raise that modern secular society (which rubs off into the thought process of even some Jews) disrespects men. i.e. Just listen to the ads on the radio or in the newspapers on how they portray the wife/girlfriend as the know-it-all correcting her incompetent/stupid/klutz of a husband/boyfriend. That is very much a recurring and prevalent theme in ads and in popular American culture today. And some Jewish people are falling into non-Torah feminist attitudes like the one you mention, among many others.
That said, I’m not sure how much this point interacts with this discussion. Here what I think is more at play is that certain halachos (toeiva, gender, kaporos are some examples) embarrass some Jews who bought into popular culture, since the attitude of secular society has turned against many of these rituals or laws or practices, and these Jews don’t like seeming so far out of step with modern values that secular society deems the new moral, even if the Torah says the opposite.