They only complain when it's a woman who gets the fridge and a man who goes to avenge her. You will, for example, never see anyone whining about how the Bride's fiance in Kill Bill only exists to die at the hands of the villains after appearing in only one scene. Nor will you hear them complaining about how she's not even out to avenge him and frankly never even gave a damn about him, which honestly makes that film duology's use of the trope even worse than how it's typically described. At least in most of those claimed instances, the man CARED about the woman who was killed.

Frankly, this argument has always come across as a massive strawman to me. They make it sound like it's only women who get fridged, but honestly, it happens to men plenty of times too. I've seen heroes go on roaring rampages of revenge against those who killed their fathers, their sons, their brothers, their best friends, their mentors, their students, and so on. Hell, the most common instance I see of this trope actually applies to a whole family, either the hero's spouse and child, or even literally their whole family (as in their siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc.). But we never hear a peep about that. But the truth is, this whole trope where a hero is spurred to vengeance after a loved one is killed, it exists because it works. Death of loved ones is an effective call to adventure, especially in a story where revenge is the driving force. And even if it isn't, it is a circumstance that inevitably shakes up the protagonist's world and gives him/her the motivation to embark on their quest.