Reconnecting with my Feminine Side

I've had trouble writing female characters for a long time, and often prefer writing male MCs. I've dismissed it as a tendency for my female characters to feel too much like Mary Sues, but I think now that this is either inaccurate or lazy, or both. And it seems like I'm creating fewer and fewer female characters lately. (Not that I need an equal gender ratio, but when my reason for making a character male is because female feels too "flimsy"....) So I'm going to go back to the basics, list some of my favorite female characters and heroes, figure out what I love about them, and then..... match it up against my subconscious objections to writing female characters, I guess?

This may wind up with me on the couch, headshrinking myself, but hopefully I won't have to delve too far into the sociopolitical mire. We shall see. (Oh, and there be spoilers ahead, though I'll try to be careful.)

( We'll see just how feminist a blogpost about women can be. Or can't, maybe. )

I could ramble on about stereotypes, and fallacies and expectations, and books I read as a child, but I'm really tired, and I semi-promised not to get into sociopolitical carp. And I'm really tired.