Scans_Daily

I agree with you that variety in female leads is also important and that showing different kind of qualities - including traditionally feminine ones - as a source of strength, agency & competence in characters is primordial.

I also think that saying women showing a specific kind of strength & set of qualities which are more traditionally seen as mainly (combat skills, etc.) is writing those women as "more as men" is problematic. It's not as odious as the "men with tits" expression, but there's still a lot of annoying gender essentialising in it.

And I very much disagree in any case that we can see there is no problem with getting female leads to mainstream stories. There are a few examples spread out two or three decades that are brought up again and again to protest criticism of lack of female leads; but they represent a very small proportion of stories compared to those with male leads.