No, we don't. It would pain me and I am sure it would pain Sam to know that his girfriend/wife was belittled by a man. We understand the ploy by the man to belittle for the sake of thinking it will make the woman, assuming she has low self-esteem, to submit to his "superiority," which I know is absurd, but it seems to work.
As a man, who would never do this to a woman, I am single, mainly, I believe, because I am not out strutting my stuff, like a cock, dick, and I say this because just look at Trump, look at any Capitalist, look at McConnell, in the Senate, knowing full-well that these men are disgusting. But, it is the way of the world to be patronizing, etc. They seem to get what and who they want.
Sam is listening and he understands the problem intimately. It breaks his heart. And it further breaks his heart that she does not assume that it bothers him.
And so the interchange communicates volumes to Sam as well. He feels that he is not important enough for Sally to even think that he cares, after all they are dating, in a relationship, and that he isn't listening, which he is. It's like all she had to say was that someone was patronizing his girlfriend and he could visualize the event like it was happening before him. He felt alone and disconnected as well.
Sam offers a solution because it seems the situation at work is somewhere, where he cannot go and protect her.
And as you said, much is being asked of men, but they are rising to the challenge. They deeply love their wives and girlfriends.
They hear that women are frightened to go out when it gets dark and walk alone. Men can't imagine that. I go running at 2AM. I walk anywhere I want. That admission by women stuns me, but I understand it because I know how men are. Some patronize women. Some rape women, but we don't know who is raping women just by walking down the street or even of the men we know. Rapists don't tell other people about who they are raping. Because if they did, we would be shutting them down in perhaps the most violent way possible.
Like Gottman said, "No single thing in a man's life will be as important as how he understands and responds..."
All men, I am going to be presumptuous here, have this scenario running through their heads of being with the woman they love and along will come a gang of men, who are threatening to rape her. He has to envision what he will do, and as will most likely be the case, he will sacrifice himself, and she will be raped anyway. We cannot help but throw ourselves into this situation knowing we gave it our all.
I once answered this scenario with the assertion of running to find the police, which of course is also the wrong answer.
Or pushing her in another direction, telling her to run and find safety, while I stand up to the gang knowing I am going to go down and they will probably catch up to her anyway.
This scenario is our greatest fear. The one about the patronizing man is of a lesser weight than this scenario and so when you say that a man is not listening, he has been thinking about this and other like scenarios all his life.
When a man might glance at his phone or somehow seem to be neglecting her, he is actually envisioning the event and knows this is the time, he must deal with it. It's the same kind of consternation that a man experiences when he is asked a question by the hypothetical Nazi Concentration Camp officers: "Which child are you willing to sacrifice?"
I have heard of the shared story with intent for the woman to hear herself think, and I have brainstormed with women.
Dad wanted to solve the problem of the playground drama because he cannot imagine his dearest daughter was affected negatively. He imagines that the problem will continue and merely talking about something may not protect her from what he feels will repeat.
