Western countries have been de-emphasizing the role of men as protectors in favor of emphasizing women as equals for the past six decades or so.

After all that, it's not a very good test to see whether men in the U.K. are still acting as protectors anyway. It would be much better to look seventy years ago or so--or to specifically contrast a case where there was at least a strong injunction to protect women with a case where there was no such injunction.

Otherwise, the argument could just be: well if protectiveness isn't happening, we need to have a culture that stresses it more.