Mindfire
Istar
Yes and no. Once upon a time I was a little girl. While I tolerated stories with male protagonists, it was more because I had no choice. The men got to do all the cool things in these stories and the female, when they even appeared, usually were dull or sounded fake.
It happened in games also. One of the games that "redeemed" this industry to me was Kyrandia II: The Hand of Fate, because I got to play a female. When I first played it I had a strong feeling of "At last!".
Because I tolerated those stories, it doesn't mean I was happy about it. I must admit I never got over it, even if the times are changing now.
I won't force you in a personal crusade to portray cool kickass females and ethnic diversity. However, I am selfish. I want to show the women I never got to see in my childhood, the MCs who do not have blond, straight hair and blue eyes. I don't care if some average male reader don't identify himself with the protagonist, he got a plenty of other stories - and they're good! - to read.
The other thing I want to do is to draw characters who wears more than one set of clothes (c'mon, their eternal clothes always bothered me!).
I can relate to that, being a minority. But did you ever watch Kim Possible? That show was quite aggressively "girl power!", to the point where all the male characters were evil, complete doofuses, or both. Except for Wade and the Twins, they were cool. That's the flaw with so many shows that try to be feminist. They don't make the male and female characters equal, they just make the females super-competent and make the males idiots.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not slamming shows with a pro-girl message. My intent was to:
1. Suggest to Nihal a great show with a female protagonist that she might enjoy if she hadn't seen it already.
2. As an aside, mention an aspect of that show that kinda annoyed me and illustrate the dangers of overcompensating.
And as long as I'm editing this post, I'm also going to shamelessly shill for another satisfying show. (Yay alliteration!) Avatar: The Last Airbender and it's sequel Avatar: The Legend of Korra are both excellent shows with awesome male and female protagonists- and of color no less! Legend of Korra even took the jump and decided to have a female main character, and it worked! I cannot recommend these shows enough. (And as another aside, they make their female characters awesome without making the male characters into idiots.)
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