I've been pondering all the ways girls and women are seeing female protagonists they can relate to: strong, capable and accepting their call to adventure, and how often boys and men are treated as set-pieces in those stories.

I get that this is correcting an imbalance. I celebrate stories that are giving women glimmers of their potential.

But if women know the cost of hollow, cardboard-cut-out representation, are they really comfortable with boys and men being treated this way?

Where are the stories of men which complicate simplistic narratives, which dig into extrinsically-imposed expectations, limitations and obligations, and which deeply challenge social/societal masculine stereotypes?

I mean, why are we so comfortable with masculine gender essentialism, after feminine gender essentialism has been so successfully deconstructed?

I believe that for men to flourish as complex humans, we need to stop telling them they're simple.