Yes, things have changed hugely. Roles have shifted enormously, in terms of economic power for one thing. I can quite see that if you're not keen on irony as a form of expression, the book might get on your nerves. It was initially written to make people laugh. If it raises some issues that strike a nerve, so much the better.
Novels are there to reflect the truth in what they see, as well as to entertain.
There are so many male comic heroes. We've got to be able to have comic heroines without being so terribly anxious about what it says. Maybe it's to do with confidence, since being able to laugh at yourself is a mark of it. The only thing I sometimes pinch off my mum is her turn of phrase. A Novel Based on True Events by Ursula Mandel tells the heart-stopping story of a woman's desperate attempt to rescue her niece from Berlin, just as the 'iron curtain' falls across Europe.