Found the Mark Smith piece on archive.org.
'The conversation I had with the campaigner against the government’s reforms was also really interesting. It wasn’t easy – we talked for over two hours about some difficult subjects – but it was respectful and calm and the way she explained her views, based on her experiences, as well as some of the reaction she’d received, made me think that in the past I have dismissed people with her opinions a little too angrily and a little too quickly.'
Hm. It's a start. I don't know who Mark Smith is, but it sounds like a glimmer of realisation has been planted. He has acknowledged that women are capable of thought and entitled to speech.
Whether that will translate to actually properly listening and understanding women's viewpoints is another matter - a lifetime of male socialisation makes it hard, I think, to understand a lifetime of female socialisation.