Part of this is that I think that men feel they are walking on egg shells. The kinds of male assertiveness that my wife found attractive when she met me also can leave women who aren't into this assertiveness feeling harassed.
I feel that we need to be clear more about what is "desirable" masculinity it "desirable assertiveness" vs its toxic counterparts. Failure to do this will essentially neuter men over the long term - and it will lead to "men clamming up" or worse, a significant surge in the number of men who "go their own way" be it in the job or at home in their personal life.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/29/men-wom...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/men-are-afraid-to-mentor-f...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2019/01/09/dear-sir-do...
https://kelainetaylor.medium.com/to-the-men-whose-response-t...
Sadly if you're concerned with these overreaction, and voice those concerns, you will be labelled as being against the chance. You quickly learn to shut up and just wait it out.
This is a smart move for any kind of group/mob move/reaction, by the way. In much more extreme cases you'd be the smart, polite, but dead guy in the crowd, otherwise.
Crowds as a whole are rash and emotional, you can't reason with them. There's a reason Animal Farm had 10 word slogans, at most ;-)