Fandoms try to actually engage with the women in their media challenge: failed drastically.
Like seriously, when she's not conventionally attractive, they toss her aside and don't care. When she is conventionally attractive, they reduce her to only a sexual object and fill every comment section with variations of saying they want to fuck her. When she is conventionally attractive AND talks about/engages in sexual activity, they say she is a slut who should keep her legs closed. When she is perfect and kind and makes zero mistakes, they say she is boring and pay no attention to her. When she has even an ounce of humanity to her, makes one mistake or selfish decision, they say she is a demon, a horrible person, the worst character ever created (even when there are men in the show who have done the same thing or worse, those men are still just fine, misunderstood, traumatized characters who don't know any better). When she is in a relationship with a man, she is treated as either nothing more than his accessory or cast aside once more in favor of 'yaoi'. When she is single, she is nothing but the above. When she is in a relationship with a woman/enby, both of them are nothing but the above.
When she is a woman, she doesn't matter beyond 1) her attractiveness or 2) her relationship with a male character. Her backstory? Irrelevant(even when she's the main character and/or extremely relevant). Her motivations? Who cares. Her personality? Boiled down to either 1) perfect goody two shoes, bonus points if made into a mother figure, 2) Girlboss strong girl who can't do anything wrong, 3) Devil incarnate, can't do anything right.
Of course it's not /every/ woman, but it's enough that it's a pattern that doesn't change.
Ragatha from TADC? Got called the devil incarnate because she made a couple mean comments.
Korra from TLoK? Also apparently the devil incarnate because she's a hothead who acts like an actual human and made big mistakes.
Katara from ATLA? Just a mother figure to her friend group, or the most annoying person ever bc she never stops talking about her mother and made 1(one) mean comment to Sokka about him not knowing their mom the same.
Camilla Noceda from TOH? For a while, the fandom decided she was the worst mother on the planet because of her decision to send Luz to summer camp, which was, again, just 1(one) negative thing we saw from her and was clearly something she saw as her last chance to help her daughter.
Rose Quartz from SU? Despite the whole point of the show being that nobody is perfect and people who do bad things can change and become better, she is treated as though she purposefully tried to ruin everyone's lives when it is far more complicated than that.
Mabel Pines from GF? Demonized for *checks notes* acting like a 12yo and making immature/selfish decisions that she eventually learns and grows from as well as for being manipulated by The Guy who Manipulates People to cause the apocalypse?
Toriel in DR? Before ch4, treated only as perfect mother who can do no wrong. After ch4, treated as a horrible mother who doesn't care at all about her child.
Kit from GameOverse? The pilot came out 5 days ago and I have yet to see a comment section actually talking about the show and not getting flooded with people sexualizing her for just existing and completely disregarding everything else about her despite her being the main character with a lot of depth.
And all of them are just me riffing off the top of my head about media I've personally watched/played + just grabbing one character from each. There are plenty more I'm sure I am forgetting about right now, but the fact I could name 8 different characters from 8 different medias just by trying to remember the countless pointless bits of discourse off the top of my head says a lot.
The most recent one that has been annoying me is the Kit thing. I cannot believe that I have politely told multiple people "hey you're allowed to think these things but could you maybe not talk about it in an Instagram comment section on a post that's just trying to discuss the show. There are designated internet spaces for you to talk about it, you don't need to bring nsfw conversations into sfw posts" and gotten told I'm stupid bc *of course* people are going to sexualize Kit, have you *seen* her design? Like mf I never said that it wasn't going to happen and nobody should ever think sexually about her, I said talk about it in a space away from people who don't want to hear it and stop drowning out actual discussion about the show!
Moral of the story: can we please start talking about the women(and enbies, I didn't go into them but they also deal with the same shit but Even Worse) in our media with the same nuance and respect that the men get? Or at the very least, could we not overwhelm actual discussion with talking about how much you hate or want to fuck the fictional characters? Please and thank you.