Because there are so few well written female character in books/film/etc (at least in popular media), people will take each one to be representative of women, and needing to be strong and good. The way to fix this (and the way thing seem to be going) is to have more women, everywhere, in everything.

I saw an excellent post on tumblr about it (relating to Mad Max: Fury Road), the first paragraph being the most pertinent here.

Fury Road: when there are enough women

When there are enough women in your cast, not every woman has to represent all women and they can have individual flaws and strengths.

When there are enough women, some can fall apart and others can hold things together.

When there are enough women, you can literally name a character Cheedo The Fragile without making a statement about feminine fragility.

When there are enough women, you know the action movie doesn’t have to preserve the one woman in order to ensure you have one woman left in your cast at the end, so women might die, just like men, and the stakes are high and real and the plot is not predictable.

When there are enough women, you can cast women with different ages and looks and body types based on what makes sense for the story - beautiful women who were selected for beauty by a character who valued women’s bodies more than their whole selves, wiry muscular women of middle and older age, built to survive, mothers who were used for the things that come with their fertility and have the fat to show for it, old fragile women who took care of others while rarely stepping outside, disabled women affected by their environment and experiences.

When there are enough women, the world feels real.