I say it and I'm people. But me, being me, I suppose I should modify my stance based on what other people think...you know, the way I always do?

They are not doing that, because that would never satisfy them. Although frankly, I don't see how there is any substantial difference between the two alternative worlds you describe. Why is it objectively better that girls like superheroes and football? Why should ANY kid want to grow up to be like a person with absolutely impossible abilities? They're supposed to ditch those fantasies as part of the maturation process.

If CBS is going to cancel perfectly good shows like Person of Interest & Intelligence, they had better replace them with better shows. Instead, we're getting this nonsense. The superhero thing has produced a lot of really fun movies, and a couple of TV shows that on rare occasions veer into being Not Totally Stupid. And they're going to ruin all that with this absurd pandering to people who will never ever be satisfied, because even radical militant feminists cannot agree on an appropriate portrayal. You might say "have her behave in a relatively reasonable way," but what was is that? According to social mores that feminists contend are all about holding women back and down? The feminists know what they are doing politically, even if they could not produce successful popular entertainment to save their lives. And because they know what they are doing, they are death on appeasement and accommodation. And they are going to pitch a fit if the character behaves "in a reasonable way" and accommodates her love interest, the way all reasonable people do, because "What kind of message does THAT send to little girls? Be a DOORMAT for some MAN?" And when the show avoids doing that, and every reasonable person rolls their eyes and turns it off, it's more sexism and more stupid actresses making whiny speeches at the United Nations. A show with a male hero can have the woman be annoying in the background, like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, because people are watching for the male hero. If there is nothing BUT the shrilly unreasonable woman, who wants to watch that? And then CBS is going to no longer have shows with hot brunettes who wear pants and know karate and shoot people, like Intelligence and Person of Interest, only a failure of a show with vapid blonde who flies in a skirt and wins because she's playing on god mode.

And I really hate stupid metaphors that don't work, and I hate even more, stupid writers smugly congratulating themselves and each other because they are too stupid to see their metaphors don't work. "Fern Gully" is not an argument against deforestation, because there are no fairy communities endangered by bulldozers in the real world. And Supergirl is not a message of female empowerment, as it stands. If you want to make a show about that, you need a different IP, or smarter writers than Greg Berlanti.