OP, I hear you. My theory, which I'm still struggling to articulate, is that as we've tried to bring in more equality and changes in society, somehow, the outcome has been warped.
The example I think about a lot is the way I was brought up. I grew up in the 80s, in South Africa. So I think you can understand that it was largely quite a conservative "traditional" upbringing. Lots of my friends' mums DID work, but the dads were the main breadwinners and tended to have more traditional 9-5 type jobs while the women worked part time, around school hours etc. The mums absolutely did all the mental load around children and household stuff etc.
So far, so traditional and "bad".
Except, the expectations for Dads were still actually very high. No, they didn't do the cooking and the cleaning and they weren't there after school to collect us and they didn't volunteer for the PTA. That's all 100% true. But they DID do things like:
-- Hand over money and cash in the form of pocket money, allowances, household expenditures. My dad and other dads I knew well were far less likely to have "nice" stuff as their wives and children were the priority (except cars. haha. They always had the nice car!).
-- Do ALL the dirty/difficult/dangerous jobs. They took out bins. They schlepped things to the skip, they set up tents and moved mattresses for sleepovers, they did the late night pick ups from parties or the emergency late night shopping trip, they managed the garden and the pool (a bigger job in South Africa than any garden I've had here, obviously). They might not have done the shopping, but they absolutely were the ones carrying it in from the car and doing the unloading. They supported their children's sports teams as assistant coaches, providing lifts etc. They did the school run in the morning on their way to work. They were home every night after work and helped with homework, bedtime and story time. Dads were the ones who took us to the park and taught us to ride our bikes on Saturday afternoons. They taught us to swim. They taught us to braai 
. They took us camping, and did all the work of setting up those campsites. They were just AROUND all the time and actively involved, if not in the same way that our mothers were. And this was true for ALL of my friends. I knew ALL of their dads becuase they were just THERE. They were the ones keeping an eye on us in the pool when we were younger while my friend's mums were making snacks in the kitchen. They had their roster for late-night party pick ups and we knew that Mary's dad would let us put the roof down but Dave's dad had the best sound system. My dad taught half of my friends to drive. My friend "Kate"'s dad talked to me about books I'd never heard of and encouraged me to read them.
My point is that they were 100% around and doing their bit. And certainly, for things like mothers days and birthdays, there were absolutely expected to step it up - whether that was spending money on thoughtful gifts or helping the children to celebrate.
It was like a source of pride for a m an to have a healthy, happy wife and family - if he provided and treated them right, that made him look GOOD in the community.
And yet somehow, in our fight for equality, somehow, we've gone backwards. It's like women have taken on MORE to be more equal, to have more say, but men have taken on LESS.
exBIL was a classic example. He did a brilliant job of convincing PIL that SIL was the problem. And they would often bemoan that she didn't make enough effort eg cooking him meals or whatever. But it didn't seem to occur to them that while they were upset she wasn't doing the "Traditional" things for him, he wasn't doing them for her either.
And it's infuriating. It's like expectations for men have gone downhill, as expectations for women have gone up.