To be fair, when I did research, nobody ever cared about the gender of the authors...they would be addressed only by their surname anyway, their gender didn't really matter
However, this man did an obvious faux-pas, because exactly due to the above, authors are always addressed in a gender neutral way
Please, author, don't let the dad die just like the parents in Beware of the Brothers and The Garden of Red Flowers, don't take our MC's source of comfort and happiness away.