Why does fandom so often expect female characters to be perfectly written in order to be liked or popular? Male characters—and really, most popular characters—also have messy, inconsistent, or flawed in their writing, yet people still embrace them, reinterpret them, and build on what’s there to make them more compelling. But when it comes to women, fandom tends to hold them to an impossible standard, where any writing flaw becomes a reason to dismiss the character entirely. The truth is, there’s nothing wrong with loving a character whose writing has mistakes; fandom does this with male characters all the time. So why can’t we treat female characters the same way, and allow ourselves to love them even when the text doesn’t do them justice?
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