I haven’t seen The Avengers yet, but here’s what I do know: In Iron Man 2, Black Widow was a generic hot action chick. One role in a huge ensemble piece surrounded by charismatic big-name stars later, she suddenly is a strong enough, interesting enough character to carry her own movie. It’s impossible to tell why this happened exactly, but it certainly had nothing to do with writer-director Joss Whedon because — as we all know — he has a terrible track record with female characters.

Take, for example, Buffy Summers, title character of the seven-season phenomenon Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Clearly, she’s nothing more than a male hero shoved into an ill-fitting woman’s body. This explains why the very first episode of the show includes a gag in which she identifies a vampire because his clothes are several decades out of fashion, or why the show includes several storylines that simply wouldn’t make sense if Buffy were a guy.

It also explains why she is raised by a single mother who struggles to deal with her difficult daughter but is never portrayed as anything but a good parent. Buffy is highly reliant on the men in her life for emotional support. Of course, she’s not any more so than she is on the women in her life, and one of the major themes of the show is that having friends to support her makes Buffy stronger, but … sorry, what was I trying to argue? (It should be noted that the spin-off Angel has just as much of a focus on the male protagonist’s need for friends and support.)

Well, what about Buffy’s closest female friend, Willow? Initially, she is very intelligent and kind, if socially awkward. Yet through time and character development, she becomes a powerful witch and one of Buffy’s most valuable allies.

So … I got nothing. Whedon’s female characters are strong, witty, complex … and sexy. Perhaps that’s the problem. Whedon’s characters are sexy and, as we all know, any sexy woman must be some sexist pig’s wet dream. Presumably this only holds true if the creator is male, but then, we don’t tend to automatically assume women writing sexy male characters are sexist. So is that it? Female characters can’t be sexy without their creator being sexist? We can’t do anything men have already done without being the female version of a male character? We can’t do anything that turns anyone on, or we’re only doing it to turn them on?

How is that fair?

Sarah Eisenstein is a freshman English and secondary education major.