Switching between Voyager & TOS rewatches, I find myself struck by how far gender discourse hadn't come in 30 years. *So* much reductive thinking: about women, about relationships, about masculinity.
But it's the writers, not the generation. (TNG & DS9 were between them, & much better!)
Every generation has had people who see us all as people... and people who can't imagine drama outside crude stereotypes.
Who was the first writer you remember really *getting* a different human point of view?
Some examples for me:
I loved Ian McEwan's depiction of 13-year-old Briony Tallis in Atonement, and David Mitchell's 15-year-old Holly Sykes in The Bone Clocks.
William Faulkner's pregnant Lena Grove in Light in August.
Iris Murdoch's Charles Arrowby in The Sea, The Sea.
Elspeth Huxley's depiction of four generations of Kikuyu tribesmen in Red Strangers.
There's certainly no reason we can't write different subject-positions well! It just takes a genuine interest in other people's humanity.