His characters were always divorced ( and possibly misogynist ) , lousy fathers and frankly, assholes. I think that's the charm - the character could say what's on his mind. Embittered, more or less tired of life. Somebody who'd paid the price for all that violence and hubris. This was pretty outrageous at the time.
I also think his movies were a lot for people who had ...daddy issues.
But the guy had a basket of riffs ( and usually hooks from the writers ) to make that work. Those movies play weekly on infinite repeat.
I think Teh Movies would have made movies where women did what John Wayne did but that would have landed flat at the time. He had ...some movies with the great Woody Strode, where Woody played the better man ( especially "Liberty Vallance" ) so it's harder to say he was strictly racist.
Also - see "Rustler's Rhapsody" which is a deconstruction of the contradictory tropes in Westerns.
They do identify the moment - when "Midnight Cowboy" won the Oscar - when my parents' generation disconnected from movies.