I think there's just barely enough of an age difference between us that that, while I never really had the problem of finding things with female characters in them, it was sometimes easier to find things without that addressed the rest of my fictional needs. As I said earlier this week at my LJ, I lucked out in the my first fantasy(and really, first non-children's) book featured a strong female character...and them I read the rest of the series and learned that she was secondary to stupid farmboys. And not the kind who go off and become The Dread Pirate Roberts. I'd say they're closer to the Eragon variety, but, well...honestly, that would be mean to them. They don't deserve that.