Gender impersonation still happens, but not always in ways the Guardian would approve of. There's a core of male writers using female pseudonyms to publish romantic fiction, because no one is going to buy it if it's published under a male name.
J K Rowling was - apparently - persuaded not to be Joanne by her publisher. But having a female name didn't keep Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and many other women from having very successful careers.
The argument at the time was that Harry Potter is a children’s book with a male protagonist and that boys would not want to read it if it was obviously written by a woman. It makes some sense, as boys are under tremendous pressure to demonstrate masculinity at school.
Because they lived some 150 years after Eliot and the Brontes. The point is restoring respect to women who, at the time they were alive, were expected to use male pseudonyms.
The romantic literature is outlier in this way - having female name is advantage.
Using her real name goes some way to restoring the respect to woman writers that wasn't there at the time. Ie there's a justice element to it too.