I was trying to say "you should not expect that someone who thinks no social, political or moral progress has been made since the 18th century to consider women's rights to be a big step forward" in a way that wasn't insulting to Nate_Gabriel - being casually dismissive of an idea makes "you seem to be ignorant about [idea]" less harsh.

but it feels like that third person is categorizing the idea and dismissing it, instead of dealing with my arguments outright.

This comment could be (but not necessarily is) valid with the meaning of "Your arguments are part of a well-established set of arguments and counter-arguments, so there is no point in going through them once again. Either go meta or produce a novel argument.".