At the same time, it's naive to look back on the past as a monolith, where just everyone was racist, sexist, etc. until - what's our cutoff point, the 60s, 70s,

At the same time, it's naive to look back on the past as a monolith, where just everyone was racist, sexist, etc. until - what's our cutoff point, the 60s, 70s, 80s? 90s, even? Borges' best work was arguably done in the 40s, and he was at the peak of his fame probably in the late 70s (thanks in part to promotion by the Videla dictatorship, which he supported). That's a while ago but not classical Athens. There were a lot of people with more progressive views on women around during those years, many of whom Borges considered political enemies.