You made some very good points, (I couldn’t even get through the first book of the Wheel of Time series, because I wanted to reach through the pages and either throttle or Gibbs-Smack ALL the characters…) however, one critique I would give is that there are actually a lot of fantasy books out there which DON’T treat women like eye/mind candy. Just off the top of my head, most of the Anne McCaffery books do a wonderful job of representing women well, even in societies where they aren’t considered “equal”. (I’m especially thinking of the Pern series here, but her Powers books also do a marvelous job.) Also, most of the books I’ve read by Mercades Lackey go out of their way to make a point about how women can and do just as good of a job (and in many instances, a better one) than men. And there’s also the Green Rider books by Kristen Britain. Not only is the main character female, but she has all the flaws and growth as a real person, and so do pretty much any of the supporting characters I’ve noticed. So essentially, what I’m saying, is that yes, a LOT of books out there do a horrendous job of representing women, or even giving them decent character development. (David Eddings is a bit of a culprit there too. Pretty much all of his female characters are made from the same mold.) But there are a lot out there too that are doing a fantastic job of it, and have been doing so for quite a while. I started out reading sci-fi and fantasy with Anne McCaffery’s Pern series, and I’m very grateful I had those as a jumping-off point. There’s still a LOT of room for improvement in the genre as a whole, but please don’t discredit those who are trying to make changes by making it seem as though they aren’t there.