"But when it comes to women, a single selfish or not-nice act - a stolen kiss, a lie, a brushoff - is somehow enough to see them condemned as whores and bitches forever. We readily excuse our favorite male characters of murder, but if a woman politely turns down a date with someone she has no interest in, she's a timewasting user bimbo and god, what does he even see in her? ... It's not just our cultural obsession with pushing increasingly specific variants of the Madonna/Whore complex onto women, such that audiences are disinclined to extend to female characters the same moral/emotional licenses they extend to men; it's also a failure to create narratives where the women aren't just flawed, but where 'the audience is still encouraged to like them when they are.'" - Foz Meadows
