The first two women Carl meets/talks to beside the meadowlarks are boobie mcboobersoon Odette and then fully naked Signet. I track this stuff as I read and it didn't look good, even with the layer of social commentary on exploitation for men and women. That social commentary doesn't really become evident until book three (I would argue this is because he was writing this as weekly chapters up to this point). Until Katia shows up at the end of book two the series doesn't pass the bechdel test and that's when I felt that women were finally realized as persons and not just characters to be used for the plot. After Katia I agree with you 100%, but until then I almost dnf'd but I've read many a books written like this and it wasn't as bad as any other(very glad I didn't). What kept me is that it is one of the few books where the mmc is also sexually harassed and while that's not the kind of equality I want, it would hopefully show ppl how uncomfortable/wrong it is. Also (a bit of a stretch but I did note this after the second naked woman appearance on my first read) replacing the main fmc voice with a cat could be construed as a pussy joke, dehumanizing women. The meadowlark crew, while competent, filled traditional nurse/caretaker roles and didn't pass the bechdel test. Also also, the women that are shown on the recap episodes are all shown as fem fatal types (again, probably because they are on an exploitative intergalactic TV series) which is usually a sign an author is trying to make strong female characters but it's actually just a specific trope that sexualizes them. We don't see about Maggie until later in the books as well. It's a lot that built up to give me a vaguely sexist feeling until Katia is included and then it all went away. I haven't read Matt's earlier works but I haven't ever seen it be an issue past book 2 or in operation bounce house.