Women as Protectors
Science fiction used to decide who got to be the hero. It's been rewriting that decision for decades.
The Creation of Tomorrow
The Creation of Tomorrow, a history of fifty years of magazine science fiction, traces how the genre long cast men as the protectors of women — women who were written to appear like they needed protecting, whether or not the story actually required it.
When the Story Changed
That trope started cracking in movies, books, and society at large — and one name marks the turning point as well as any:
Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley wasn't the woman being protected — she was the one left standing when everyone else, including the men, wasn't. It became a template other stories would follow for the next four decades.
Since then, women as the main actors, leaders, and protectors — of men, of society, of the story itself — has gone from an exception worth noting to something close to ordinary.
The Upgrade Is Already Happening
The upgrade to "Women as Protectors" isn't confined to fiction anymore — it's happening in real institutions, at the head of governments and organizations around the world. See Wikipedia's running list of women leaders of the world for the scope of it.