Sometimes my computer BIOS glitches and thinks the date is 2003, which leads to confusion with things like security certificates.

And sometimes I get the feeling that people think the date is 1940, which leads to confusion with things like gender politics. My parents grew up with attitudes like this, Goddess help them, but it's the 21st Century now, at least it is where I'm living.

Since this question was, I gather, raised in a class on Victorian literature, I'm... intrigued?... that you apparently phrased your reply as if these gender roles were universal and eternal. If you'd begun by saying "When these books were written, gender roles were like this, and people believed this about the natural relationship of men and women," then it would have made a good deal of sense, but as a statement about gender politics in the absolute...! Did you illustrate your comments with quotations from John Norman?