This "those times" thing is usually exaggerated. But yeah, there are also people who think "Mad Men" is historically accurate. Fact is, that Lovecraft's misogynism and racism goes far beyond of the average guy of that era. This is a guy who, afterall, was heavily distorted when he found out that his great-great-grandmother was of Celtic not Germanic stock.
I don't quite agree with that. Obviously Lovecraft's xenophobia and racism was beyond the average guy of that era. No arguments there.
But, otherwise, women were basically absent from his work. I don't think that's the same thing as misogynism at all. Lovecraft's marriage failed, for a variety of reasons, but his treatment of Sonia Greene wasn't particularly bad. Heck, it might have even worked out if their finances were better. He worked with a number of female authors throughout his career, Anna Crofts, Winifred Jackson, Zealia Bishop, and Hazel Head. Obviously, you can read into how he viewed his marriage in The Thing on the Doorstep, and you can read things into The Dunwich Horror, although that seems to me to be more about miscegenation, but overall, he seemed more indifferent to women than misogynistic. Heck, compared to the number of posters that seem to think the only good superhero girlfriend is a dead one, he's pretty restrained overall.
It's certainly true that Lovecraft was no crusader for women's rights. But, it certainly doesn't seem like he was any worse than the average man of the period in that respect. And considering his working relationship with several, possibly better. But then, Lovecraft was full of contradictions. He was a xenophobe and thought of himself as patrician upper class, yet he married a Jewish woman who was decidedly middle class and independent. Beyond that, if Lovecraft wasn't including women on Antartic expeditions, one of the reasons was simply because women weren't going on Antartic expeditions at that time.
I think it's a fairly defensible position not to insert an anachronism in a story. Especially considering what happens to most of the expedition. Heck, arguably putting a women into a story where violence is going to occur to her makes a story misogynistic.
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