Half truths? Get your head out of the wardrobe and learn some history. Women couldn't have a credit cared or a home loan in their own name until 50 years ago. Men could legally rape their wives until well into the 1970s and there are still places that allow this under certain circumstances.

Rape Is Legal, As Long As She’s Your Wife

Wife beating became formally illegal in 1920 but those laws were never prosecuted or upheld until the 1970s.

I was a child when a lot of this stuff was still the norm. It's not ancient history and it's completely relevant. Yes, now women have a much better chance of being able to support themselves so they don't have to marry just to survive, and they don't have to stay with abusive men because they have no where else to go and no way to support themselves - and we now have no fault divorce. Longing for a time when that wasn't the case is the height of privilege - but also lunacy.

Technology is great - much of it invented and developed by women although that's never talked about or ever in the history books that programming was invented by a woman, as was the precursor to Bluetooth and WiFi and that "computers" used to refer to the women who did all programming until some guy realized it actually took brains and not just clerical skills to do that. But I don't begin to know what you're talking about when you say the technology is responsible for female empowerment. Demanding better, marching, fighting in the courts, fighting in the halls of politics, decades of education and advocacy - that's what has given women the marginal levels of improvement that we have - level which are far from actual equality or a truly empowered status.

Fifty years ago women were second class citizens by law - there were literally 300+ laws that applied to women that didn't apply to men. Being resentful that this is no longer the case legally, but still is culturally to a large extent is just petty and clueless. Women “needed” men because they were essentially indentured servants who didn’t have a lot of other options or legal rights.

The idea of a male provider (and a female homemaker) really only existed from about 1950 until the end of the 70s. Again, learn some history. Prior to that time, except for the very rich, large extended families lived and worked together, including children. Marriage was envisioned not as something done for love, but essentially who would be a good business partner in your farm, bakery, or cobbler shop. Even in the 1950s, only about 60% of families had a mother who didn't work. You are nostalgic for something that never really existed and never worked all that well in the rare instances that it did exist. Again, learn some actual history.

The 1950s Spawned the Women’s Movement of the 60s and 70s

For 97% of human history we were hunter-gatherers. Aside from the fact that hunting is only sporadically successful and so gathering provided the bulk of the daily calories — just as it still does today in most H/G cultures — women were also hunters as well. Forcing women indoors and severely limiting how much they contributed to food production is a function of plowed agriculture. It’s really recent history.

Is It Emasculating That Women Also Hunted?

The Trope of The Farmer’s Daughter

Not having equal legal rights, any way to support yourself, etc., is not some idealized world where “men and women needed each other.” It was indentured servitude. There’s a world-wide movement for women away from marriage and away from having children — because it’s largely not a good deal for women and they finally have the ability to not have to go there just to survive. The way to shift that is for the world to become more equitable, cooperative, and collaborative.

I’ve been happily married for 32 years so it can be done — but not by embracing a 1950s mentality.