Cause it wasn’t “their” daughters. Remember, those same guys would fuck any other man’s daughter and expect it to be okay. They lack the mental skills to understand another person’s perspective.
Tangentially related, it bothers me people say things like “I have a daughter so I get why it’s upsetting” or whatever. It implies they wouldn’t be able to empathize if they didn’t have one. I know that’s not necessarily always the intention, but it just rubs me the wrong way.
Conservatives tend to score lower on empathy and have a more in-group/out-group mentality. So it is common for people to not think about different perspectives until they are personally affected. My favorite example of this is some article I read where a researcher ran small group surveys and asked people’s thoughts on trans people, and some of the responses were super specific like “trans people wear a lot of green,” or “trans people like bread.” And it was due to Jan from accounting or whatever being the only trans person they knew. So a single encounter shifts their whole perception and biases. There are a lot of people who grow up surrounded by people like them and have never had the need to see things from someone else’s perspective who is different from them.