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Coming late to the party, but I think your misinterpreting a few things here:
The situations where people complain about being "argumentative" or "combative" are in my experience not intellectual contests, but practical social disagreements. A stereotypical argumentative woman would e.g. have an argument over whether the toilet is so dirty it needs to be cleaned already, and think "He just doesnt see Im right because hes too dumb.".
The bloviating thing definitely happens. People dont care that they actually know very little; they like to make sense of things, and they like to do it in groups. Ideally, the way this works is a kind of shared narrative building: people do add to each others accounts, and they do correct each other, but these produce an overall picture that everyone is, in the end, happier with than how it started. I emphasise this happiness, because it is so different from the idea of rigorous debate we have here. Its not purely about preconceived notions and flattery - people may also be happy to belief certain kinds of arguments, or to have different authoritative lines agree, or be persuaded about what would be convenient for them. But still, if the the people involved have too different of an approach, it doesnt usually go well, and they will blame the other for this. This, I think, is why they get angry at your "polite, calm, well-evidenced counterarguments" - they thought they were consulting in the tribe, and you swoop in to tell them theyre actually at war, right now, come at me.
And yes, they are happy to keep talking at you even if you dont participate very much. This means that they think you are, or want you to be, "in a group" - be it a romantic doublet or otherwise. Its also fine to participate, so long as youre on topic and "fit in with the group" as per above. If you feel the problems of the above happen mostly with men, it might be because you are just more in tune with women.
Actual intellectual contests, in my experience, most commonly look like this: Disagreement over some bit of trivia comes up, noone can really convince the other, optionally a bet of 10 bucks, followed by googling it. There are other forms it takes, and cases that focus more on reasons and not just being right, but this example shows the typical social feelings people have in the context of intentional intellectual contests. If they react differently then you think they would in that example, theres propably something else going on. Correcting someone political opinions is approximately never an intellectual contest.
This one Im confused by. I think I do this and see others do it. My father, who is most definitely not a feminist, does it. Maybe this is some kind of different definition.
Wish I could meet your father, he sounds like a cool guy.
Indeed he is, though I wouldnt have considered that part remarkable.
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