Honestly the US is so antagonistically into ‘individualism’ I’m not sure how you’d even start to build that. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that everyone else is right on the edge of breaking into their houses and raping their entire families; look at the entire idea of arming yourself with firearms to prevent ‘home invasions,’ and then glossing over the stats that you’re magnitudes more likely to be shot by your husband than assaulted by a stranger.

I think the ideal would be a Communal approach, where each neighbourhood works to help the people inside it, and those people reach out to help others nearby, yet I am not sure the average American will trust their neighbours enough to do this. When every branch of your government is full of capitalist fascists, who can you depend on to fix your roads, get you to the hospital, put out the fire in your home? These fascists are going to cut funding to everything the ‘middle class’ and poor rely on, and the worst part is that a lot of those people will not only vote for it, but cheer it on right up until it effects them.

I’d love to be wrong about all of this, but I’ve been watching the US for my entire life, and I was born in the early 80’s, and I just don’t see enough of you guys caring for each other. The speed with which you turn on each other is staggering; how long did it take Democratic candidates to blame ‘woke’ policies or your population who are trans for losing the election? I’ve been told my entire life your second amendment was to protect yourself and your neighbours from the Evil Government. Then Fascists take over your government, and it’s silence. I think we all knew, outside of your country, that the people most fiercely defending it just wanted to protect their hobby, but watching you allow gun violence to become the most common way for children to die broke my heart. And to then watch you not even use those weapons to protect your 2SLGBTQIA+ neighbours, to not rise up and fight back against ICE putting people in concentration camps, has removed any faith I had that just maybe you guys had something there, that maybe I just couldn’t see that you’d use it to help others.

I wish you all the best of luck, yet from here it looks like yet another oligarchy where people talk a big game about fighting for each other, only to immediately back down when it looks like you might have to put your own selves on the line. I love you all and will be quietly sobbing while you defend your actions.

Even if Americans actually stand up to this and General Strike or something, how long will it take anyone who isn’t a white man to believe pretty much anything the American government tells them?

I was skeptical the entire country was going to fall, but now I think it is already happening. Putin won the cold war after we all thought it was over, I guess. And what a world he’s provided for us…

“I’m your… Doge?”

I’m so sad Fascists are stealing yet ANOTHER thing they didn’t come up with.

If this woman knew who Enrique was, she could have very easily (and intentionally) got him arrested for this

Or, and stay with me here, she’s a victim who was attacked by a man who leads a group characterised as: Misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration.

Years later in programming people were slashing zeroes and I was mighty confused. Some greybeard explained it eventually.

As someone who slashes their zeroes, ouch.

You should probably delve that particular line of thought more deeply, tbh.

I know you meant this flippantly but I came out as nonbinary last year; having (especially white) men act like entitled toddlers online was a helpful push into embracing more femininity.

And I fully agree, the way the op posted it with “counter point” already send the discussion in the wrong way.

I think the ‘discussion’ failed the moment someone said “how come men are angry at women doing ‘x’” and the entire fucking thread is full of men talking about men.

Like I’m not surprised, I’m just mildly amused I’m yet again changing accounts for awhile while my inbox fills with angry men shouting messages at me I never read. Every. Single. Time. A thread about an experience a woman has with men being shit in it is always filled with comments from men “nuh uh, whatabout…!” in response.

Every. Time. It’s so fucking embarrassing I wish I could literally just not be my gender for awhile. We’ve been in power for almost the entirety of humanity but oh my God a woman made a comment about how shitty men are to them, so let’s constantly make absolute ironic assholes of ourselves.

Peace out, men, you continue the trend of making us all look like whiny babies who can’t handle not being talked about, and not being The Normal.

Yes, it’s not a counter point but rather an also important parallel discussion. We need to have higher standards for male role models, or we will continue to have incels fill the space.

I feel like it’s awfully interesting though that we have ‘parallel discussions’ whenever someone says “hey this specific thing sucks for women.” The original question posited here was:

Why do males complain about female-led stories or too many female characters when the majority are still dominated by males?

The question is why do men complain about female leads, which they do, when the majority of leads are still male, which they are. The answer to that isn’t “we need better male role models in movies” (though it would obviously help as well) as it’s dodging the original question.

You can’t really compare the two movies,

I’m not exactly, I’m asking why:

A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun

Can be true, but also John Wick can never falter and that be fine. Kinda seems like a double standard to me.

First, I’m confused as to why you’d need to segregate books and film by gender, these all have either a male or non-gendered lead: Captain Underpants, Nate the Great, Hal The 3rd Class Hero, The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, Treasure Island, Danny the Champion of the World, The Outsiders, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Percy Jackson (all 40 billion of the series), The Giving Tree, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Bridge to Terabithia, James and the Giant Peach, Holes (series), Where The Wild Things Are, The Heroes of Olympus (more Percy Jackson I think), Ender’s Game, Winnie The Pooh, Narnia (series), The Wind In The Willows, The Indian in the Cupboard, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Neverending Story, I Am Every Good Thing, Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like it), King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Wild Robot (series), Stuart Little, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Lord of The Flies, Calvin and Hobbes (series), The Dangerous Book for Boys, The American Boys Handy Book.

(You didn’t specify age, so I tried to add our family suggestions for about 4-12. Once he’s older, depending on your thoughts on the language, we also have a lot of suggestions for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn)

I think the issue is that the movies aren’t written well. Rey in the third trilogy never saw a challenge she couldn’t master on the first attempt. A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun

John Wick gets a pass, though?

These problems existed long, long before the modern far-right movement started. It’s partly why it works so well. This male egotism in media existed before, and less resistance to it also used to exist. That change in social atmosphere means that men can be manipulated into further and further misogynistic beliefs. All it takes is dogwhistles and a loud, angry, entitled male gamer, and you can radicalize thousands of people into misogyny. And they will repeat that cycle with more or less any boy or man they know.

I’m sorry you’ve written so much here I want to underscore and shout to the heavens, yet there is so much and I fear I won’t do it justice. Fascism is on the rise, and young men-- just as last time–are carrying it forward. Misogyny has become an assumed character trait in huge swaths of men, to the point you see insane arguments online about how men ‘have it harder’ than the gender held in captivity less than a lifetime ago. It wasn’t until the 1960’s in Vancouver, BC that women could get a loan without a man co-signing (and it was a credit union, not even a large bank.) I grew up and lived as a male, white, for over 40 years, and right now is on par, if not worse in many cases, than it was in the 90’s. Men now rail at the idea they can’t always be ‘the default.’ That the reason for these pronoun-forward changes is because it’s always been man-first, from not even bothering to test drugs on women to ‘room temperature’ being what a bunch of middle aged white men, such as myself, find comfortable. To men being the vast majority of main characters, to the goddamn Bechdel test being oh-so-relevant.

So I wanted to add a quote about just how long this has existed, and the sheer length of fight women have had just to exist unchained. I have not gone through the fight you have, yet I hope you’ll allow me at your side.

"You see, when I was growing up at the time of the Wars of the Medes and Persians and when I went to college just after the Hundred Years War and when I was bringing up my children during the Korean, Cold, and Vietnam Wars, there were no women. Women are a very recent invention. I predate the invention of women by decades. Well, if you insist on pedantic accuracy, women have been invented several times in widely varying localities, but the inventors just didn’t know how to sell the product. Their distribution techniques were rudimentary and their market research was nil, and so of course the concept just didn’t get off the ground. Even with a genius behind it an invention has to find its market, and it seemed like for a long time the idea of women just didn’t make it to the bottom line. Models like the Austen and the Brontë were too complicated, and people just laughed at the Suffragette, and the Woolf was way too far ahead of its time.

So when I was born, there actually were only men. People were men. They all had one pronoun, his pronoun; so that’s who I am. I am the generic he, as in, “If anybody needs an abortion he will have to go to another state,” or “A writer knows which side his bread is buttered on.” That’s me, the writer, him. I am a man." -Ursula K. Le Guin, 1992

I’ve begun to prefer scifi written by women, because then at least I know its not going to be completely cringe.

If you haven’t, check out Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. Absolutely fantastic novel.

I got back into scifi books recently as an adult and was disgusted to find that virtually all of the “great” scifi authors are menwritingwomen trope goldmines.

Asimov is so, so difficult to read through now that I’m older, as the female characters are just… ouch. The ideas are there, but good gods I wish he’d just avoid writing out conversations at all.

I appreciate what you’re saying, however:

Women are, regardless of any other stat, still under-represented. 2000-2009 is depressing.

Nah, because that’s just Antisocial Personality Disorder, which basically boils down to trusting your own judgement over society’s.

I am not here to attack people with Antisocial Personality Disorder, but it’s definitely not just ‘trusting your own judgement over society’s’, it also " is a personality disorder defined by a chronic pattern of behaviour that disregards the rights and well-being of others." The ‘societal judgment’ they’re in conflict with is often the rights and well-being of others. I have an ex with it, and they had an extremely difficult time up until their early 40’s, when they did improve a bit. We’re still not sure if that’s ASPD decreasing over time, or them getting used to dealing with it.

Again though, this isn’t to attack people with it (who will suffer far more at the hands of others than themselves) but to hand-wave it as ‘trusting your own judgment over society’s’ is… not accurate. From your own link:

People with antisocial personality disorder tend to purposely make others angry or upset and manipulate or treat others harshly or with cruel indifference.

Feeling no guilt about harming others.

Doing dangerous things with no regard for the safety of self or others.

I say all of this as someone who lived with someone else with ASPD. The one that caused our breakup was “Aggression toward people and animals.” as they hurt me and attempted to hurt our cat in order to hurt me emotionally. This was a reaction caused by PTSD from their truly traumatic childhood, but I’d appreciate it not boiled down to some sort of Chaotic Good interpretation.