"If you don't see it, you hate women"
We need to discuss how female characters worth is mostly attached to the ship they belong to. To love those girls you have to love their pairings (only the pairings which associate them with men ofc).
There's actually a lot we can discuss and dissect from the way people react and engage with female characters, particularly female characters that are disliked by a big part, if not the majority of the fandom.
There's this really interesting phenomenon that's been occurring for the past few years, let's say since late 2018, on social media where women in fandoms that are usually male dominated notice this particular distate for a specific female character and they decide to pity stan. Now before I get into what pity stanning does to the perception of the fandom about a female character I must discuss first how the male fans in the fandom interact with said female character that creates the pity stanning in the first place.
To make my point I will use characters like Sakura Haruno and also Shiv Roy from Succession as examples.
Both characters were deemed as unworthy by male fans and considered to be not-in-the-level-of-their-male-counterparts so we start to see a lot of vitriol against them. Most of this vitriol is very much misogynistic, you will see men calling them useless/dumb bitch, sluts, comments on their bodies either body-shaming them (plank/table for Sakura) or objectifying them like they do to Shiv Roy. What's interesting is that male characters that present the same undesirable writing these two women do, don't get near the same amount of hate, sometimes they're even idolized by the fandom. For example, Kakashi who really doesn't do that much in fights either or Shiv's brothers who are as incompetent as her.
The women in the fandom see this and because they're women that misogyny affects them too, y'know. It gets to the point where you can see men in fandoms use an "acceptable target" to unleash their misogyny and distate or hate for all women. So what happens here? Women in fandom try to shield and protect these female characters from the vitriol because it's also a way to protect themselves from it.
But then another interesting phenomenon happens. Women in fandom become "girls' girls". This is a type of pseudo-feminism where women can't do no wrong and we have to support all women or else we're not a girl's girl and that's the worst thing you could be. This of course, kills your ability to engage critically with media as now you see everything the female character does as her girlbossing her way in the plot. You will also start making stuff up to make them seem greater than they are.
In the case of Sakura she's now the strongest kunoichi ever! founder of a hospital or whatever! smartest member of team 7! she mops the floor with all her enemies!
For Shiv Roy it is that she's the best businessperson in the show, all her brothers are stupid and incompetent but not her! she's different! she mops the floor with all the people she negotiates with!
None of this is true, is made up by the same fans that want to protect them from the fandom's misogyny. Sakura is not that great of a ninja compared to Sasuke and Naruto and she has a bad personality. Shiv is not great at business and is just as dumb as her brothers. A character being like this is okay to happen in media unless you're a girl's girl in fandom.
You want to see that girl you chose to stan win. To get what she wants so you can give the middle finger to the men in the fandom that wronged her.
For Shiv Roy is to become CEO of her father's company (who cares that she never actually worked a day in her life there, she deserves it!). For Sakura is to get Sasuke (who cares if this man genuinely dislikes her deeply, she deserves to have him!).
And this is what I call pity stanning, they felt bad for the characters for the treatment they get so now they're making stuff up, believing it and now adopting this attitude of "you're a misogynist if you don't accept my headcanons that I've convinced myself are canon and you're also a misogynist if you don't want to see my girl win".
Now, before I get into the shipping aspect I want to get into Hinata's character. Unlike Sakura, she's a beloved character by male fans but what I find interesting about her is that she's a total blank canvas that people can project whatever they want onto, including the women who stan her.
I've noticed that for them Hinata represents this Cinderella fairytale, the pretty princess that got the prince charming over her ugly step sisters. This very "you belong with me" scenario of the ugly ducking becoming the most beautiful swan that ends up getting the guy over the rest of the girls. I've also noticed that these women talk abt Hinata in a very "not like other girls" way and this is where their distate for Sakura stems from. Hinata isn't loud, obnoxious and brutish like Sakura, she's quiet, and graceful and polite or whatever, that's why she triumphs over Sakura (on what idk). Women in the Naruto fandom have this bizarre beef comparing these two girls, which I initially didn't get because they don't even want the same man, but then it clicked for me. They want them to be respected by male fans.
Hinata although beloved isn't respected by the men in the fandom, everybody knows she's not a good ninja and outside of their infatuation for her looks and her worship for Naruto, they have nothing to say about her. Sakura well, we already know how it goes. Pretty interesting how what starts as some form of gatekeeping of female characters for "feminist" reasons evolves to the point you're making stuff up about them to get the men in the fandom to like them as people.
So now we get to the shipping part.
There's characters, mostly female characters, that were created centered around a man. This is Sakura's and Hinata's case, the very first thing we learn about Sakura is that she likes Sasuke, the very first thing we learn about Hinata is that she likes Naruto. In Hinata's case some NH shippers brag that we learn she likes Naruto before we even learn her name, how pitiful.
You want to be a girl's girl meaning you want to see them win, meaning you want to see them get the boy they want because there's nothing more for them. It's a package deal, you can't like Sakura if you don't ship Sasusaku, you can't like Hinata if you don't ship Naruhina. It's easier for Sasuke and Naruto stans to dislike Sasusaku and Naruhina because these ships aren't integral to their characters.
Of course, we have Sakura and Hinata stans that want to ship them with someone else because they feel that ship dignifies them (think of Itasaku, Inosaku, Sasuhina, Kibahina, etc.), it does so in the sense they don't seem as obsessive male-centered characters when shipped with characters that aren't the obsession and allows you to create a scenario in which they grow out of it. If you observe how these shippers talk about Sasuke and Naruto is always with a lot of resentment, because how dare they not reciprocate those girls' feelings!!! after everything they've done for them!!!
Basically shipping, at least f/m ships, has become some sort of feminist social activism lol
You can also see how intertwined that f/m ship, that female character but also the shippers own identities are. It becomes personal for them. In a way SS and NH shippers have separated Sakura and Hinata characters from the story, Kishimoto's manga and have instead made them part of their own self. Sakura and Hinata not getting what they want is a loss of identity for them, a personal attack.
Finally, I'd like to add that not all female characters hated by men in fandom are actually dumb and incompetent losers and women in fandom are making shit up about them to make them seem better. Some of these female characters are very much hated just because they're women. Mary Jane Watson from Sam Raimi's Spider-man trilogy is the biggest example
An excellent character with development, background, personality and traits of her own that's hated because how dare Sam Raimi make her a woman with a life beyond the main character Peter Parker and someone who doesn't worship the ground he steps on. They wanted a mindless cheerleader not a three-dimensional character!
She's also the reason why I believe that if Kishimoto had written Hinata beyond her crush for Naruto, men wouldn't like her that much...
