With some people I just toss it up to "well, that's what pop culture and even some historians teach us," but someone like John Ringo? I'm going to go with "it reinforces their idea that the 'natural way' is violent and lets them feel complacent and smug that even giving women the slightest bit of equality makes them better than 95% of humanity through history." So yes, in his case, I'll go with both of your answers!

It's a pretty good indicator of someone who's not as clever and well-read as they think they are, too.