(though having a young female scavenger main character rather takes the steam out of my own prequel rewrite)
That just means your rewrite will rhyme with with ST.
I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.
This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.
…
My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.
Yep. Star Wars toys featuring females you could get at Target before TFA? Pretty much only the Black Series Leia (which was the slave outfit version, of course).
Now there are books about her and toys and Legos and everything. It’s cool. And I’m not a person who’s down with shoehorning female characters into things because it’s a good way to pander to a certain audience (because I feel like the mentality of “just shove a girl in because it’ll sell well with feminists!” further undermines the credibility of female characters: more female characters doesn’t matter when they’re poorly done), which is honestly what I expected when I walked into the theater.
Fact of the matter is that Rey was developed well, written well, and is a genuinely cool character who stands on her own as an equal among her male counterparts in the film, much like Leia did in '77. I left the theater pleasantly surprised and excited to see where she goes in Episode VIII.