Tl:dr: I argue that the notion of male historical dominance over women only makes sense if you hold an historicist perspective. That's basically to say that the value of an individual is proportional to how an important "role" they play in history. If you refuse this notion, as I think we should, it becomes clear that men's and women's issues are mirror images of each other.

I personally see the notion of male oppression of women as the biggest obstacle for an open and fruitful discussion around gender issues. Right now, as soon as the topic is touched, it immediately regresses into a matter of blame and guilt, either individual or collective. This is linked to the idea that, historically, women have been oppressed by men, and therefore these issues must be seen as a gender's struggle against the other. That's a notion which makes sense only inside of an historicist framework.

I'm using the term "historicism" in the sense Karl Popper does in "The Open Society and its Enemies". The notion is the following: human endeavours are part of a natural progression of History towards a certain goal. This goal depends on whichever ideology is dominant in a specific place/time. It might be imperialism, religion, marxism, techno-utopias...all these ideologies have in common the notion that History is a forward motion towards an optimal state of affairs.

Therefore, the people who have an active role in society, acting as characters on History's stage and driving its progression, are to be considered the most important and valuable. This is an underlying notion feeding nationalism, militarism and all sort of extremisms: if you live a private life, if you don't get yourself involved in something, you are not useful and you are not helping humanity accomplishing its purpose.

Women have been systematically excluded from having such an active position in historically significant roles. There's been exceptions of course, but normally the role of "history-makers" was reserved to men. Here is where the notion of male domination emerges: if the most desirable outcome for a person's life is to "contribute to History", of course to prevent someone from doing so must be seen as oppression. Feminism's original impulse is aimed at showing that women can make History too. And this totally makes sense inside an historicist framework.

So, what's wrong with that?

What's wrong is that the historicist point of view is not a complete and accurate description of the human condition. We are not characters moving forward a plot. The only "direction" of the world is towards the increase of entropy. There's no final outcome to the human project. There's no protagonists, no antagonists and no finale. It is an essentially open-ended effort.

The notion that being an history-maker is a desirable way of life is at odds with common sense. I would argue thet being forced to play a role in the stage of History will most likely lead you to the opposite of a free and happy life. Leaving aside the past, think about how many guys today are driven to depression and suicide by the feeling of not being useful. That shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a feature hardcoded in our historicist perspective: men have always been taught that their value depends on how "useful" they are to any ephemeral Cause society deems important in their time.

My point is not that we should abandon all goals and purposes and embrace nihilism. I'm only saying that we should take History for what it is: a narrative we impose upon the past. Like all stories, it has characters and goals. But these properties of History should not be taken as properties of the real world.

To cut it short: to say that men have been the primary "agents" of human history can be argued as true. Personally I would agree with it. But that doesn't really say anything about their status as oppressed or privileged, about their agency, and most importantly about the general "wellness" of their lives. If you step out of the historicist mindset, it becomes clear that men's current issues are a mirror image of women's issues. Both men and women were (and still are) oppressed by the impersonal and implicit imperative to adhere to gender roles. Which are part of the "script" we impose over ourselves, indicating the character traits we must impersonate in order to move History forward.