If yall aren’t aware there was a recent interview Chuck Dixon did where they were talking about comics and the guy mentioned pandering to a female audience has been one of the things that have ruined comics. Third wave feminism to be exact. Dixon talked about his girls used to read comics like Archie, Little Lulu, romance comics, etc. He then mentioned that his sisters read Green Lantern because they thought Hal Jordan was cute (I can’t judge because I had every cd and now every album of Fiona Apple downloaded because I thought she was beautiful).
Some people took that to mean “see girls read comics” when he was essentially saying that if you make comics that cater to what girls/women like you can sell to them. Manga has proved this along with countless YA novels. For whatever reason Superhero comics and Sci-Fi don’t appeal to women in large numbers but that doesn’t seem to stop the IPs from sunken costs.
You know why a lot of women watch sports? Hot men in tight athletic clothing.
This is the exact same with superhero comics, they don't give a shit about the story so when you put said women in charge of those stories, they go to shit.
If you want a female audience, go the superficial route of your 50 shades of grey or your romance novels, stop using the few tomboys that genuinely enjoy comics for what they are to justify your subversion of it.
When I was 12/13 my older sister played volleyball in high school. I went to every game because I enjoyed watching 11th and 12th grade girls in spandex shorts. The girls who liked comics liked them how they were. And you are right. I heard so many women say they don’t know a thing about Superman but wanted to see Cavill. Same with Avengers. So makes perfect sense to replace that with manly looking women.
Also in the Star Wars EU community I knew plenty of women who read the books as well. Disney apparently didn’t care about that