Great comment, thank you @seablue.

I haven't experienced the same negativity to the "forcefulness of the male character" that you're describing, so I'm not really sure what you mean there. I think the experiences we have online are directly related to the communities we join. If your community is different than mine, you'll have a different experience than I do.

I completely agree regarding the concerns about external validation and expectations. I've written about this a couple times here and here.