excludes

I've noticed this not only in stories, but, as the OP mentioned, in media as a whole. I've always wondered why, consistently and across the board, in yaoi manga where two guys like each other, there's always a female who's pissed off about it. But this all falls under a greater whole of females generally being depicted as caricatures in most media - at least in my opinion. Females are nearly always depicted as either being a sidekick to a male character (the supportive, sweet wife, the woman behind the man, the nice girlfriend), the love interst/unobtainable sexy woman, the rape victim, or anything else that does not depict the female as a human being with her own independent story to tell, but something stereotypically "female." (Incidentally: this is in no way to trivialize rape, of course; this is to say that there are in fact tragedies that can happen to women that are bad that are not related to their personal space and physical body, or that emphasize their physical vulnerability specifically as females). What bothers me about this is that when it comes to specifically females, you often see their identity reduced to their most base and rudimentary physical form, where the question is "what can or can't be done to her?" - Compared with male characters, where you often see higher traits involved unrelated to their physical body (cognitive function, work ethic, social issues, etc). It had got to the point where I would rather not see females present in a story/show/movie/etc at all, because more often than not they are portrayed in a way that ruins it for womankind. I don't think it's meant in deliberate intent to hurt women; rather, sadly enough, it's what we're exposed to from every direction in the media, so people write women that way without even thinking about it, it's just what comes to them from the exposure and experience they'd had. More often than not, if a woman has strength of character in something that actually isn't directly related to stereotypical "female" traits (love interest, supportive little helper to a male, mother, seductress), the writer also makes her into a sex object at the same time. That is to say, you will be very hard-pressed to find a woman written the way men usually are: no mention of how pretty/sexy/young she is, and purely appreciated for higher virtues like courage, work ethic, intellect, etc. Compare this to male characters you often see in films or stories where there's no emphasis on their physical appearance (they could be old men), but the emphasis is on their power, intellect, profession, etc. Female characters wind up unlikeable because they are often written as merely the sweet love interset/unobtainable love interest/seductress, which leaves them as hollow stereotypes and empty shells, and I think that to be likeable, a character must be fully fleshed out as a real person to whom the reader can relate. Likeable female characters I can think of: Haruhi from host club and Leela from Futurama. Notice of course they made them both at least somewhat 'pretty' (yes, Leela too, despite her one eye - she has the 'sexy' figure and not a belly like Fry has). But I digress, they're likeable because they are fleshed out as human beings with struggles to which the audience can relate. Morgana in Merlin is likeable because she is strong and not portrayed as absolutely evil despite being a hated witch (she had struggled, too, and she knows compassion); in contrast, Gwen of Merlin had been reduced to the sweet wife and love interest, and a pawn of Morgana at times. It's hard to relate to a stereotype like that (again, note also that of course they had to have Morgana be "pretty and sexy" because people just can't make a female character who is appreciated for higher virtues like power and strength without also being 'hot and sexy'). If you're gonna write female characters, be very careful about not depicting them as stereotypes. I think it's this depiction of females that deters a lot of female readers from hetero fiction: the female isn't someone they can like or relate to.