[Good stuff]
There's really no problem in that portrayal at all for males, I guess.
I can't talk about all male perspective about Senzaemon asking Soma to save Erina, but from my perspective I find it to be a major problem.
There is absolutely the element of "Soma is great because he got the respect of the Demon Don to save his own granddaughter" in Senzaemon's request, but I hadn't considered the refusal to be meant to prop him up. I always took it that the authors realised that they couldn't proceed with what hey originally planned to happen because it wouldn't make sense for Soma to accept in the first place. Especially with the "It's him ... and all of Erina's classmates who will save her" line that Senzaemon thought of after Soma had refused. But it is certainly possible that the entire thing was meant to have Soma appear better by undercutting Erina's agency, I don't know.
But even if we were to ignore all of these issues, the problem remains that it makes no sense for Senzaemon to go and ask the one guy his granddaughter hates to help her out. I know all the awful things Erina said and did to Soma are handwaved as "she's a tsundere", but we have seen her thoughts, we seen her plans, we saw how much disdain she had towards Soma up until the end of the tournament, until she had to come to terms hat she had the wrong impression. Soma is not Erina's friend, because Erina never thought until the point Azami showed up of Soma as a friend. Just because Soma is acting cordial around her and being friendly doesn't mean Erina likes him.
The way I see it, there is no in story justification for what Senzaemon did other than the fact that the mangaka's trying as much as they can to have Erina remain relevant at this point as "Main Girl who Soma needs to get with in the end", through a mission her grandfather gave him because what else is going to make Soma be intreasted in helping Erina at this point? It explains why he never asked Alice, her cousin, Hisako, her (only) friend, Leonora or her husband, Erina's aunt of uncle, because that would make Soma not involved with Erina directly.
It also answers why Erina wasn't asked about what she wanted to do, or whether she was able to oppose Azami or his plans. It's because Erina's feeling and thoughts have always been disregarded by everyone, either in story or by the readers. To Azami she is a tool, for Senzaemon she is someone to be saved, for Soma she is this really strange girl who always tries to expel him from school so he must prove himself to be better than she says, and to many readers, Erina only is in this story because she needs to end up with Soma. There is nothing else to be done with her or her story, because she is a trophy to be won at the end.
It's unfortunate, but it's not really suprising when looking at how Erina's involvement in the manga evolved. Her role had been gradually ousted by other characters ever since the tournament started. Alice got introduced, so now we have someone of a similar level and looks being involved with Soma, Kurokiba and Akira are around so Soma now has rivals aplenty, one which is at exactly his skill level and the other well above it, Eizan is around so Erina is no longer the one plotting to expel Soma from Tootsuki, then it's time for Soma to challenger the Elite Ten but it's not going to be Erina but Kuga instead.
She lost more and more of her relevancy as the story went along because whatever role she had kept on being taken by someone else, and she was stuck as the ojou who is perceived to eventually be taught about this strange feeling known as love. It didn't matter what she thought of Soma up to then, the only thing latching her on to Soma is that she is the designated "main girl". Let alone that she is now not related to Soma's own newfound goal or what he had been doing, but it's what's left.
What gets me is that the supposed solution to get Erina and Soma to interact more is by taking away everything that made her confident and strong, and making her a mentally crippled girl who needs to hide in her room all the time because daddy might come and find her and hurt her again. Like that was the problem with her instead of her awful attitude towards one student who she didn't like.
