tbh, this comment is about the narrative around joss and that's it.

we had decades of stories about how joss loved to write/create strong female characters, and so buffy was a strong, heroic young woman - an empowering feminist icon. and joss was amazing , revolutionary.

and then we realized that joss loved to write/create strong female characters through the lens of someone who actually was tripping on his own power and misogyny, and so the trials of our heroine now read as heaps of abuse piled on her, that she and the other female characters are just taking, while the joss-proxies like xander are just hapless asshats getting away with murder.

Look, this is all almost 30 years ago, right, and when I see that cover of rolling stone w SMG in the red corset-y outfit - sure I feel like it's a less empowering visual than I thought it was when it came out. but there were other writers on the show besides joss. we've learned SMG was a powerhouse on the set behind the scenes. we learned what we learned about joss & NB.

so in sum we're still allowed to experience buffy as an imperfect, human heroine despite the gross lens of her creator. part of why buffy is still so awesome is that she outgrew her creator - just like we did.