To me, it boils down to how much of a role you believe gender roles are accepted and pushed and methods of combatting them.
The gender role you provided for men is that they:
are expected to act as providers and protectors of women and to modify their behavior for the comfort of women.
If that is the gender role for men, then the gender role for women is that they need to be provided for and protected.
To me, providing incentives and praising the actions of women isn't infantilisation, it is encouraging and empowering women to break free of their gender role. I'm not arguing that the tactics used are right or fair towards men. To see this point of view you need to accept that:
The implication of needing to be provided for is that women are incapable of providing for themselves. To go against the gender role would be to have women working careers therefore being capable of providing for themselves. Policies that prevent people from hiring discrimination based on gender are to combat those who genuinely believe that women are incapable and won't give women the chance. To those who hold the belief that while a woman MAY be capable, men ARE more capable (expected to provide for women), an incentive, or even a quota, will give the women more appeal to be hired. I don't think that incentives are proof that women ARE less capable than men, but trying to get those who hold the belief to let women have an opportunity to show that they are capable. Providing incentives that go directly to women are to encourage and welcome them to enter fields they would not have otherwise considered for themselves, because it is not usually expected of women. An example is the Canadian initiative to have women entering the skilled trades in construction.
Praising the actions of women help to encourage and empower women who have accepted the gender role in their minds, or are having the gender role pushed on them. The gender role has men having careers to provide for women, while women need to be provided for. If this is the dominant narrative, praising women for their accomplishments is a sign of surprise that women are succeeding outside of their gender role. Men aren't getting the same praise because it is expected of them. If it is desired that other women also pursue careers, then call attention to what the successful woman did to encourage them that they can do it too. The idea is that they had a disadvantage, but overcame it, which warrants praise.
The downside to incentives and praise is that their continuation is indicative that the gender role for women is still active, or believed to be active. They're not meant to perpetuate the gender role and infantilisation of women, but empower women to overcome them until them until people and themselves can see and accept that they are not true.
Also, those feminists you pointed out are trying to enforce their own ideas on a group of people. This isn't exclusive to them by any means. Women are chastised for breastfeeding in public because it supposedly makes people uncomfortable. I don't view this as trying to infantilise women, just people trying to make others stop doing things they don't like and assuming others feel the same.
Side points:
Can you please clarify what you mean by,
This can also be seen in the way many feminists talk about women. They downplay women's accountability in their own problems and those they contribute to for others.
And a quick google search of, "why do women act dumb" shows mainly results about how those women do it because they believe it is attractive to men. If your assertion that they are infantilising themselves is true, it begs the question how and why they believe men are attracted to infantilised women?