In the interests of fairness, I should add that the best modern male writers today seem not to have that problem.  Authors such as Alexander McCall Smith and John Marsden tend to write from a female point of view and often in first-person as a female.  Whereas Terry Pratchett has some wonderful female characters as the leads (Death's granddaughter Susan, the witches of Lancre, the chain-smoking and delightfully snarky Adora Belle Dearheart, who can drive her pointed stilleto heel through a man's foot and reach the floor with it!)  

Alison