The question is: do you need to have everyone accept your idea of to what extent gender is cultural in order to go about living your life? If it's divisive and doesn't even help, then why bother?

Also, keep in mind that more extreme positions are not always helpful: they galvanize opposition, too. If you haven't done the groundwork to get enough people on your side through argumentation and appeal to humanity, etc., you just lose.

For instance, if you wanted to establish Sharia Law in the United States right now, I can guarantee that no amount of protest and making the powers that be uncomfortable would make it happen. Indeed, quite the opposite.

In the 50s, the louder you were about supporting Communism, the more it was shut down.

You can't just cherry-pick the successes. You also shouldn't neglect the cases where significant gains have been made without a lot of making-people-uncomfortable. For instance, the social safety net we have in the U.S. was not mostly built around making the elite uncomfortable.