In the last few years, the media and Hollywood elites have made a big deal over movies like Wonder Woman and Oceans 8 having broken glass ceilings or set standards for women in film. A lot of focus was given to the new Star Wars films that featured an incredibly powerful female who had no explanation, until the third movie, on why she was so powerful. Not only that, but Rey never really suffered a loss in battle after being taken captive by Kylo Ren in the 2nd act of The Force Awakens. Anyone that questioned her power was labeled a sexist.

Whenever a female-led movie fails at the box office, people blame males for not wanting to see the films, yet over 50% of the population is female and no one kept them from seeing Charlie’s Angels or 2016’s Ghostbusters. Is it really a male’s fault they don’t want to see certain movies? Is there a large amount of sexism keeping movies like Birds of Prey from being wildly successful? Has society forgotten the real trailblazers and ceiling breakers? It’s almost as if there are some people seeking retribution instead of equal opportunity.

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Males, most of them at least, are not afraid of strong female characters. They just don’t like that power to come at the expense of the male characters and prefer there to be some explanation as to how any character gets their abilities. It’s settled in the 1st Act of Star Wars: A New Hope that Luke’s father was a strong Jedi and great pilot, immediately setting Luke up to be as skilled as he was. Plenty of female-led movies, TV shows, and comics have been loved by males and supported by them for decades.

Personally, I don’t want to spend time and money being berated or made fun of for my gender’s past mistakes. You don’t gain anything but contempt when you put others down to raise someone else up. Those are the two things we’ll see in this article: strong female characters from the past and current ones that don’t demean or belittle men in the process of being the hero.

The Classics:

So who did come before the year 2016? What happened before the history of now? Well, we all know the strong female character of the Alien series, Ellen Ripley. She was smart and capable as a crew member of the Nostromo starship but showed true strength fighting and outsmarting the horrific Xenomorph. We know how Sarah Connor went from the damsel in distress in the first Terminator to the badass Terminator hunter in T2: Judgement Day. Many can consider Princess Leia’s sass and leadership position to be positive for females to see growing up, but she does need rescuing in two of the three films. Males love all three of those franchises. Males don’t question any of those women’s resolve, abilities, motivations, or anything at all. However, that’s not it… there’s more!

The TV Starlettes

Let’s take a look at TV. Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer both had powerful women leading, and  their shows dealt with LGBT issues and relationships before The CW was a thing. Buffy managed to show not only the story of a girl becoming a woman but a woman maintaining her femininity while slaying the f*** out of some evil. Then there’s Dark Angel which was produced by James Cameron and starred Jessica Alba. That show balanced the secret agent, mysterious past, owning one’s sexuality, and being a badass all in one major female character. There was also J.J. Abrams’ Alias starring Jennifer Garner. That had a lot in common with Dark Angel’s themes. Veronica Mars Anybody? Not enough to prove there were great female idols before Gal Gadot and the girls on the Charmed reboot? Oh yeah, that’s right, Charmed is a reboot, although I don’t think that one ever carried a largely male audience, it did manage a strong female following without belittling men on a weekly basis.

There were some outcries when the reboot of Battlestar Galactica gender-switched Starbuck and Boomer, but once the show got going and proved itself to be something completely different than the original, it garnered many male fans that had no problem with the female Starbuck or Boomer. I loved the series and consider it the second or third best reboot ever. Sorry, but Ducktales is the absolutely greatest reboot ever!

Comic Book Heroines

Comic books are a bit more tricky. While there are tons of female-led comics that have done well, there’s always someone complaining about the sexism in the way women are drawn in comics. While it’s true that women are a fast-growing demographic in comic readers, they’re not reading the same titles as males and to be fair, the male physiques shown in comics are just as unobtainable as the women’s and to think that women do not objectify men sexually is foolish. Both sexes are sexually motivated just some are more open about it than others.

There are some truly liberating books out there from independent publishers. Non-capes as I call them like Rat Queens which has a high-fantasy vibe meshing with Deadpool style humor. There’s also Sex Criminals (Look the book up before judging the title) from Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky that shows women taking control of their bodies and sexuality without demeaning the male characters. There’s also Saga which covers everything an SJW loves but in a way that doesn’t grate on your common sense nerve.

Supporting Roles

Even in supporting roles, women have been in front of our faces for decades. The modern take on Doctor Who has given us several strong female companions including Rose, Martha Jones, Donna, and Clara. Oh yeah, and the girl that beat the Doctor and captured him, Amy Pond. As an engineer (I am an Army Engineer with 17 years of experience in construction engineering) I understand how important “support” is. Some people may glance over the supporting characters, but without them, the leads fall flat. Where would Tony Stark be without Pepper Potts in the MCU? May I remind you that Pepper pushed the button that killed Warmonger in Iron Man and she delivered the killing blow to Killian in Iron Man 3.

While I’ll agree it’s taken too long for Black Widow to get her own film, the character has always been more than eye-candy. As a matter of fact, the MCU has done a great job of balancing the sex appeal of its characters with their strengths and character development. same with their male characters… there is a reason Captain American and Thor have been shown shirtless multiple times. Yes, women are turned on by the male body and Hollywood takes advantage of that. Swimsuit issues of sports magazines are bad, but firemen with puppies calendars are fine. See the hypocrisy?

Gaming

There are great video game heroines too! Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn has the lead character come from a matriarchal society exploring a world filled with patriarchal counter-groups. Aloy proves herself capable as an outsider and as a female all without demeaning the men she encounters. The Resident Evil series has always had great heroines in Claire Redfield and Jill Valentine. The Resident Evil 2: Remake improved on Claire’s character design and story and Jill looks to be getting the same treatment in the RE3 Nemesis: Remake.

I don’t recall a huge outcry of machismo when it was revealed Samus Aran was a woman in Metroid and that series is one of Nintendo’s most beloved franchises. I could go on with The Queen of Blades herself from StarCraft, Sarah Kerrigan. Or the self-sacrifice of Karen S’jet in the Homeworld series. Women are no strangers to being lead characters in games, and males love playing them.

Conclusion

There are so many more strong female characters throughout geek and pop-culture… Witchblade, LT. Uhura, She-Ra, Red Sonja, every female Power Ranger, The Bride from Kill Bill, Jackie Brown, and even Janine Melnitz from the original Ghostbusters took no s#!$. She had “quit better jobs” than working for the Ghostbusters and was willing to let them know when she was upset. The original Wonder Woman and Bionic Woman TV series’ were both beloved and successful. Diana Troy, Seven of Nine, and Captain Janeway are all well-loved Star Trek characters too. You can go on and on with characters that are strong, leading, supporting, powerful, and loved all without the need to demonize men or go for a tit for tat type thing of making content.

The point is that geek and pop culture has been filled with women forever. Yes, there have been some rough points in time, there are toxic fans, and there are still grounds to gain. However, the worlds of geekdom, sci-fi, fantasy, comics, and games are not as barren as some would have you believe. The current generation of parents will not keep their female children from geeky things. The toxic fans may be loud, but they are small in numbers and we can fight the toxicity of the other side of the equation too by reminding them of all of the great characters and stories. We don’t rest on our accomplishments, but we don’t negate them either.

Did I miss a great classic heroine? Do you disagree that past heroines are being forgotten? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Our very own Kyle Malone and his family are in need of a reliable car after losing both of theirs in the last four months. He is an Army Soldier being medically released and has a son with special needs. The family has many medical appointments every week. Please consider helping them with a donation or at least sharing their CAMPAIGN

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