“What would be considered”. Sorry
I help out with the youth group at church and one of the students is in the 10th grade and he is pretty retro (loves movies and tv shows from the 80s and 90s). He used to be a big Star Wars fan and lost interest due to "disney making it a princess product" as he puts it. He was asking me the other day how did all this happen or when did it start, and I couldn't pinpoint an exact person who started this but had some ideas.
What did start it all? I know Ghostbusters 2016 seems to be the first movie to actively be made to piss off fans (when the original director was trying to do Ghostbusters 3 and they screwed him over). With Star Wars, if they wanted to appeal to actual women who were fans they could've used Jaina Solo or Mara Jade.
Was it in gaming? I remember when gaming magazines seemed to have constant articles about women in gaming or about the "abuse" they received online as if they have never heard the language you hear where guys get together and hang out.
Comic books? I mean they literally made comics of women sitting around the table discussing feelings and as Eric July said "modern comics are made for 14 year old girls on tumblr who don't read comics"
So honestly who is patient zero or who is to blame?
Education was patient zero. When schools were comixed together and no longer segregated between men and women. This marked the beginning of the downfall.
In modern times, gaming + STEM/tech was patient zero though. I feel like as soon as gaming was breached, everything else was child's play given how male-only gaming was seen as by everyone.
What annoys me is the nauseating ads and constant push for women in STEM. By all means if they qualify then fine but this is why every scientist or engineer is a woman on tv, or at least it seems like it. They can’t accept that some fields attract more men. You don’t see any push to get men into being pre-school or kindergarten teachers