To his credit he did let us decide which faction to support, but it was kind of exhausting getting a constant stream of “no, absolute male hereditary rule is good and normal”.

I think there’s a very traditionalist patriarchal angle you can play on a game like this that boils down to the consequences of a shifting social dynamic resulting in upheaval you don’t want/can’t afford. An Elizabethan/Victorian Era might result in other women thinking they also shouldn’t be second-class citizens relative to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Consequently, you get a First Wave Feminist movement, complete with street protests, labor strikes, vandalism, and the occasional act of violence aimed at a leading patriarchal figure. Alternatively, you end up with a reactionary fascist movement, as traditionalists launch capital strikes, threaten secession, or author fascist military coups. Maybe you get both.

Sometimes sticking with the old bad system is preferable (for your elite group of insiders) because you value social stability over progress. Especially true if the threat of a domestic insurgency is paired with some broader economic strife or external crisis.

I think its easy to believe “oh well, everyone is just awful and that’s why nothing changes”. But a cleverly written story can put you in the real position of making hard choices. You might find yourself playing the John Adams, explaining to your outspoken feminist wife Abigail why women aren’t being enfranchised in the new national constitution, because we’ve already had a Shays’ Rebellion, a Whiskey Rebellion, a Fries’s Rebellion, and a nascent State of Muskogee to deal with, and you can’t afford to splinter public opinion any more than the current compromise constitution already has.

Or you might find power in progress and decide normalizing political power between the genders yields an untapped surplus of loyalty and economic cohesion.