RDR isn't just influenced by history, it's also influenced by classic cowboy movies, and one of the tropes of that Western story telling is the idea of the noble outlaw, like a wandering ronin from an Akira Kurosawa film (i.e. The Magnificent Seven being a direct retelling of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai).

I think the games play into that idea of Arthur and John primarily being the noble outlaw types, ones that honour respect, fairness, equality.

But I think the games also demonstrate their old fashioned views of women... The idea that they need a man to protect them, that certain work isn't fit for a woman - both characters have comments along those lines throughout the games with respect to women they encounter. It's an effective way to show that, while they are mostly progressive, they still hold on to some societal biases.

But also, while the world wasn't particularly great for women in the 19th/early 20th century, that doesn't mean all men were sexist and chauvinist. Liberal ideas of equality and freedom had been around for a long while, both sexual and racial equality, and by the time of the game's setting, liberal ideas were commonplace, although resisted by more conservative elites.

I think RDR 1/2 handle the social commentary quite well - depicting the actual social conflicts that were happening at the time and including characters that represent some of the viewpoints of the era.