I think when she wrote Tombs, she was bringing female protagonists intentionally into an all male world, and she did it in a way which made sense at the time. Years later, she looked back at her own strange attempts at gender politics and was appalled, and that comes out in Tehanu. So yes, it's weird for the reader reading in one go.

It's strange for me, because she became much more of a gender feminist than I am. But reading the books as the development of a writer is fascinating to me. As opposed to when I was little and was just thrilled to have Tenar at all (in those pre-Tamora Peirce pre-Robin McKinley days, when Tenar was the best we got).