Well, the "so what" is everything: Unwanted Attention is Unwanted because it embraces some sort of threat or menace or unreasonable expectation or social tension or unease. To say that we should stop giving women this sort of unwanted attention is not whining or rationalizing, nor is it fanatical egalitarianism. It's just demanding a culture where we men know that it's dangerous to control, frightening to objectify, and despicable to rape. The problem is that we accidentally think of these things as "you know, just a thing we do." We just casually say "I totally owned you at TF2" or "he used to be my boss but then I was promoted and I made him my bitch" -- and if you were asked about the slavery and rape metaphors there you just say "Lighten up, I wasn't being literal about it."
Power doesn't have to pervade the society, and it's a bit bizarre how it does. Only last year I joined up with an Ultimate club in Delft, after a childhood in the US. I hated sports in the US because it was cutthroat and antisocial. In the Netherlands there is a big difference, "what sport do you play?" is actually, like, an everyday question. You're expected to have one. And I liked Ultimate here, at least, because people were immediately giving me tips on how to throw cleaner, how to run better, how to stop faster, how to jump higher. It isn't about someone being Team Captain and you wondering whether you'll get Picked Last. I don't know where we learned that as children, but it was part of this bizarre Culture of Power.
And it's the same Power Culture which Joel Spolsky warns entrepreneurs about: don't try to dictate what your artists do; instead try to facilitate, let them express themselves as artists.
Power Culture might have "subtle advantages" as you say. It probably means that we can hire fewer teachers for larger classrooms, because kids are scared that they might be sent to The Principal's Office. But the social repercussions are pretty amazing. In a couple centuries I wonder whether this sort of culture will seem as foreign to them as owning slaves seems to us.