"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior" - how so?

“Recollect all the institutions respecting the sex, by which our forefathers restrained their profligacy, and subjected them to their husbands; and yet, even with the help of all these restrictions, they can scarcely be kept within bounds. If, then, you suffer them to throw these off one by one, to tear them all asunder, and, at last, to be set on an equal footing with yourselves, can you imagine that they will be any longer tolerable? Suffer them once to arrive at an equality with you, and they will from that moment become your superiors.” - Cato the Elder

This quote reminds me of the much shorter one attributed to Socrates - "Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."

What could Socrates and Cato mean by this? How can female equality lead to women actually becoming superior to men?

Well, in a few ways. If you take away man's natural advantages over women, then he is only left with his natural disadvantages against women. Take a relatively silly example - Imagine that men and women were completely the same except for 2 traits - Ability to organize, and beauty. So in this hypothetical, women are just as strong as men, there is no sex specific pregnancy (both sexes can get pregnant, which doesn't even make any sense haha but bear with me), no personality differences, etc. But men are better able to organize, and this allows them to typically control the goverment, which allows them pass laws. Women, on the other hand, are more beautiful, which makes men desire them moreso than the women desire the men.

In this instance, the beauty of women is her superiority, and the ability of man to organize is his. Man's superiority allows him to control the government and pass laws, which perhaps he uses to favor himself over woman. Perhaps he oppresses her sometimes, perhaps you get a good group of men and he rules justly othertimes, or perhaps he simply evens the playing field between men and women and protects men from simping out to women and being completely taken advantage of by them, because of how beautiful they are. In this hypothetical universe, such protective laws would actually probably be necessary, since without any physical advantages, or really anything at all to aid him, women are just flat out better than men. More valued, more adored, and men would do anything to be with women because of how beautiful they are, including giving all their things to them, serving them in any way, etc. So men collectively realize that they have to pass laws to control society to prevent their total enslavement, or whatever it takes to make society fluorish in this weird universe.

But now take away man's ability to legally organize and enact laws - now all that is left is woman's beauty. Legal equality has now led to woman being completely superior to man, and he would probably be enslaved in this universe, with the reward being contemplation of women's beauty.

Simply apply this principle to the modern day, and now add back in all of the complicated differences between men and women. Many of man's advantages over women are obvious. Some are less so. But if you take away all those advantages (make strength useless, tax men more, subsidize women in the workforce and legislate favorable workplace conditions for women, neuter all capacity for violence, etc), you leave only woman's massive advantage over men, and men's massive weakness - our desire for women, and the fact that women are the gatekeepers of sex.

In effect, you have actually artificially empowered women over men by attempting to make them equal.

If you have the eyes to see this phenomenon, it is everywhere present today. Much of the source of our current society's dysfunction is due to women having greater power than men, and then misusing this power because they are not designed to wield it. For men as a rule generally love and care for women weaker than themselves. Women as a rule do not. See e.g. A Simple Proof That Women Desire Patriarchy