Gender Stereotyping?

Re-reading my 8/6/11 review of Adam Ross’ “Ladies and Gentlemen,” I see that I used terms such as tough, violent, vigorous, strong, sure, both about the characters and about the author’s writing. I note that these are words traditionally used more often about males and male writing than about females and female writing. I like to think that these words just happened to be appropriate for this particular writer’s stories, and not that I automatically viewed the stories differently because the author is male. And it is true that most of the narrators and main characters in Ross’ stories are male. But they are (mostly) not macho-style stereotypically male, in the way that Hemingway’s characters and writing are, for one of many possible examples. What I am trying to figure out, and get at here, is which comes first, the maleness or the perception of maleness? Do I use words like those listed above because the stories elicit them, or do I go into the stories expecting to find these kinds of stereotypically male characters and characteristics and writing styles? If this book were exactly the same but had been written by a woman, would I perceive it and write about it the same way? But I don't use these kinds of words about all books by male writers. What makes the difference? Of course these are questions that have been asked and explored by many; I don’t claim they are original. But my choice of words when writing about this book for some reason brought these questions to the fore for me. I don’t know the answers to the questions, but it is good for all of us to be aware of possible automatic, unconscious biases that lead us to frame literary work in a certain way.