Yops - I don't think anyone here would deny those victories. And they are all things that have happened in the last 150 years or so. Even in a relatively short historical timescale, say "the modern era", women have only had the most basic rights for a blink of an eye (and all too many experience the flouting of those rights on a daily basis, e.g. domestic violence and rape). But we all know that there is still a long way to go - the stats I posted earlier about a gender pay gap, and gendered differences in housework/childcare being just two areas out of hundreds where women are still systematically disadvantaged.
I think that it's important to remember that the problems are structural. With a few exceptions, this is not about men being evil or men being good in their intentions. It's about the way that we live in societies that are riven through with oppressive and exploitative relationships, many of which work along an axis of gender, and some of which are veiled in some way as 'natural' or 'normal' so we simply don't 'see' them. While awareness-raising is an important first step, to achieve equality we need something beyond a change of attitude amongst men as autonomous, liberal individuals - we need to put in place social, cultural and economic systems that allow women to achieve on a equal basis with men and to be rewarded equally for it. As the inheritors of a series of sedimented historical relations from which they benefit, I think men can be valuable allies in pursuing these changes, or they can be obstacles to the progress of equality by denying that there is continuing injustice and unfairness.
And just to clarify something about contributions: 'mansplaining' isn't something that we accuse all men of when speaking to women. it is a particular variety of patronising behaviour, in which a man who knows less about a subject than a woman explains it to her in a deeply condescending way, one that assumes that she cannot have valuable knowledge or expertise about it. The term was coined following an essay by Rebecca Solnit called 'Men Explain Things To Me'. It describes her experience of going to a party hosted by a very wealthy, arrogant man. Late in the evening, he demanded that she and her friend stayed so that he could talk to her, then opened a conversation by saying that he'd heard she'd written a book. She replied that she'd written several, the latest being on Edward Muybridge. And he proceeded to tell her that there had been a VERY IMPORTANT book out about Muybridge recently, and to hold forth on it at some length on the basis that he'd read a review of it in the New York Times. All the while, her friend tried to interject "You're telling her ABOUT HER OWN BOOK!" Apparently it took three or four repetitions of this before it sunk in.
So, you see, mansplaining isn't an objection to men speaking or having an opinion - it's an objection to them talking down to women about subject that the women know far, far more about. It's an assumption of knowledge and authority that is baseless and arrogant and patronising - it takes up discursive space in a giving forth rather than assuming that the women who are present are discursive equals who deserve to be heard. And it is therefore oppressive in its assumptions and in its results.
Here's the essay: www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/