Strong women in TV shows

I had an interesting conversation with one of my followers about the portrayal of women in media. She said she thought there weren't enough girls who used non-feminine-coded abilities to succeed in life being portrayed on television, an opinion with which I strongly disagreed. Ultimately, this is what I argued:
You can read the whole conversation here. 

In short, we don't need more or less of a particular kind of female character, we just need the ones we have to be well-written and 3-dimensional, as you pointed out in your post, eyesofmist.

Thought you all might find this poster about representation of women in media interesting as well:




Those are some pretty disturbing numbers. There aren't many female characters, and what female characters there are seem to be little more than a pretty face onto which the male viewer can project his desire most of the time. 

Really nothing to add, except I so agree completely with the original post. I always loved that quotation by George Martin where he says that the reason he writes women well is that he just thinks of them as people. Seems so obvious, doesn't it? And yet, we continue to see the warrior and the sexpot over and over and over again.

Is it really so unique to be strong of mind and spirit but not carry a weapon? Is it so strange to have a vigorous and healthy sexuality that is not on display for everyone to see? It's infuriating, and yes, Katie, I'm so afraid of what is in store for t.v. Sansa in the coming season.

They feel the need to sexualize everything, including Sansa. It's disgusting and it makes me angry. Apparently women have no means to achieve their ends other than behaving in a "masculine" way or by using their bodies.

And yes - it's been shown time and again that armor that conforms to a woman's breasts is in no way useful - real female warriors did not have bodycon armor because it's not a proper means of protection. It's simple as that.

The show doesn't even attempt to discuss Brienne's gender issues. In the books, Brienne is caught between doing what she's good at and being hated for it (i.e. going through life as a warrior - a masculine-coded pursuit) and feeling as though she's missing out on things that highborn ladies normally get to do. In the show, Brienne says to Jaime: "You sound like a bloody woman," rather than "Are you so craven?" They've made her dislike her own gender which is completely out of keeping with canon and misogynistic as it gets.

The discussion of gender roles and different forms of strength in Brienne's narrative arc is invaluable to understanding her specifically and one of the work's overarching themes generally and is my favorite thing about her arc, as explained in this bit of meta (which the show fails to convey at all):

All of you have said very interesting things,the conversation has become so interesting. There is something that bothers me too.Why do female characters have to be strong? Why do they have to be morally flawless unless they are the cartoonish femme fatale or shrewish hag in the story?

Not all male characters are strong, or honourable, there are many flawed characters and also characters with weaknesses and that's OK. A character doesn't need to be a paragon of virtue or an example of moral and/or physical strength to be an interesting character people want to watch. Why should it be different for women, why can't they be flawed and still interesting and valued as characters?

Martin did try to show different types of female characters and they made mistakes, and they were flawed. What happened? They attracted an enourmous amount of irrational hate. Sansa is a child, she makes the mistake to trust the wrong people, a mistake all of us, and I say all because it is true, have made in our lives,and she is hated with an intensity that borders on insanity when it doesn't fall directly into that category. Cat tries to save her girls when her son is not willing to do anything to rescue them, because they are women and therefore not considered as valuable as Jaime, a great warrior and a male. So she makes her bet and perhaps she fails, or perhaps not,because Jaime really wants to keep his word,unlike Tyrion,and give the girls back. She gives the right advice to Rob,he dismisses her opinion and all of them end up dead. And the readers don't forgive her because she doesn't love Jon,when love is not something one can feel on demand,you just feel it or not. Do you think all these people who hate Cat for being mean to Jon would expect a male character to raise, accept and love as his, a boy his wife had from another man when they were already married. What if Rob was fathered by another man while Ned was at war? What would readers say and what would they expect from him?

I'm sorry to say that when I was a teenager I thought mysogyny and unequality between the sexes would be a bad memory of the past by the time we are living now but I was completely wrong. And perhaps I am pessimistic but I think that when there are economic or politica crises,male chauvinism rears its ugly head once again and even strong than in times of abundance and optimism. We want to think it is old fashioned and very sparse but unfortunately it is not uncommon. The problem is that even nice men find it difficult to realise the ugly monster is still there in things like the roles women get in movies or TV shows. You can have a look at society and you will see the same and probably worse. Unfortunately we can't say it is being defeated. I wish I could say that but there are still too many things that need to change.

Yeah, I know katie, but the problem is that some things are going backwards,at least in Europe or this is what I feel and may be different in the US, I don't know. I have two children, a boy and a girl, and I am worried because I see two much violence against women reported on the news and there are threads on Westeros.org,for instance, that are so mysogynistic my jaw goes slack when I see what they are saying. Men like my husband,born in the sixties,are too often less agressive towards women and less mysogynistic than others who are younger and this makes me very sad, because something is going very wrong if this is happening.

Some attitudes are hidden,things like disliking charactes with feminine traits, thinkig women are boring and what is interesting for women is less important. This may seem unimportant but it isn't. Nice men don't even recognise mysogynistic attitudes for what they are when they see them,they don't think they are so important but they are wrong,they are the point of the iceberg. Even the female characters we see in movies are an example of this or the age of the actresses and their looks. There are roles for older not so handsome actors but not for older or less attractive women. And even the roles they can get are usually predictable and not rich or interesting. I am sorry to say my view on this is pessimistic because I don't think this has improved enough in my life. More often than not it is just the opposite.

I really hope you are right,but all the good people will have to join efforts for that,and keep an eye on what is happening,because sometimes we don't realise there is a real problem we still have to fight.