^Seeing as we're all apparently on the same page, how does that correlate with no man ever speak to a woman just in case?
Which is what's been implied^
I think women are starting to get sick of sexually aggressive men demanding our attention and are speaking out more loudly against it than we used to. The rhetoric of not all men/women must be polite/men are just trying to be nice/it's our responsibility to manage male behaviour is starting to get old. And it's not helping. Women are still being raped and sexually assaulted and catcalled when all we want to do is go about our daily business in peace.
Men really are shooting themselves and other men in the foot with this behaviour. I'd guess around 98% of women would turn away from a man in a coffee shop or on a train because experience tells us the conversation will to turn into a thinly veiled come-on and we worry it will get aggressive if we don't reciprocate.
If they'd never started this nonsense in the first place, we'd be much more open to being 'friends' with them.
But back to the OP, I don't necessarily think there is a larger proportion of apologists on MN than there used to be. I think MN is now a lot bigger, so there are more of them in the wider sense. They're not stuck in an echo chamber in a relatively small, most forward thinking female community any more so we notice them more.
I've also noticed a rise in women standing up to say no more, which will make the apologists shout louder and/or resort to more extreme/bizarre arguments.