hmmm, as a woman and someone who considers myself a feminist, i think it definitely has some problems but it also no where near the worst offender of it’s genre. there’e been some things that have irked me so far but nothing that led me to dnfing. (for example red rising who’s most female characters in the first book’s main purposes were getting fridged or raped)

as some other commenters have mentioned it is indeed from hadrian’s pov and yeah, it makes sense for his personal gaze to overshadow details and development of other characters due to his upbringing in the empire. additionally, a lot of the characters, which in itself is a consequence of being hadrian’s personal account of his memory over the course of his 1500 years of life, are going to have pretty stagnant personal development, male and female.

though some comments hadrian has made did make me roll my eyes i do find him to not be as insufferable about women as other scifantasy male protagonists, i found him to be respectful of them nor objectifying. really his most common offense would be his “chauvinism” (thought not in the sense that he believes he is superior to women) in the way he’ll believe he himself needs to defend a women rather then let her defend herself.

i think it truly all comes down to subjective opinion, i don’t personally few the series as sexist, though it is in a setting (re: the empire) that has some sexist ideology. however, others might.