I think when you experience actual sexism you see the gradations in society better. I was told as a girl that I was limited in what I could achieve because of my sex by elders. That attitude within the religion/cult is the type of deeply misogynistic culture some call out.
I am a tomboy, always have been, I love being physical, I love video games, I even love women being bisexual. In my experience there are realms men and women gravitate toward. I played Halo with my guy friends, I went shopping with my girl friends. Most of my guy friends are like guys on here, nerds. I say that with affection because I'm a nerd of sorts too. Nerds are often very passionate and protective of their game/show/movie/etc. These are people who obsess over details and semantics, they challenge each others fandom on how esoteric they can appreciate a given work.
We live in an era where the nerd IPs won, in essence. The big movies are Star Wars and Marvel (sci-fi/fantasy and super hero) so this means the dynamics of those fandoms have changed. I do think more women are gravitating to these spheres, but they are often still male centric. You can't force equality when it comes to interests of a fictional world. When you try to address the shifting demographics have to remember how important these worlds and characters are to us nerdy fans.
Let's take Star Wars for example. I am a fan of the original movies and loved the characters. When I saw they were making a new one (Force Awakens) with the old characters coming back and new ones I was really excited. I saw the casting and the main character roughly equivalent to Luke was a woman. I confess, I was a bit excited by the possibility of seeing a female Jedi. I loved Luke and thought Rey could be a great successor. After I watched the Last Jedi I felt doubly disappointed. Not only did they make Luke lesser, they did nothing to make me like Rey. It was clear that rather than seeing a character, Rey is a marketing tool to be carefully protected from negative elements. She has to be stronger and better with everything coming easy because they are afraid if she was like Luke they'd get blowback about her weaknesses and frailties being sexist.
The issue is nerds rarely make these movies. Average people do, and more these days average people consume it. They don't care about lore, it's about selling as much as possible to as many people as possible. Have a niche you need to fill? Cast someone of that in a role and promote them. It's not wrong to have diverse casts, I actually like it, but to do so cynically (cast some Chinese actors to get Chinese people to watch it) it is off putting.
Nerds or hardcore fans are not hateful, but they are protective of these imagined realities. They need an explanation as to why a character is changed (see Sulu Star Trek discussion in this thread). If you don't care and think "Wouldn't it be fun if we rebooted this beloved IP with the genders swapped" you don't love it the way the fans see fully formed characters, not census labels.
We want the world to be fair and equal when it is not. There are more of some people than others, fandoms are made up more of one group. Economics dictate over representation of majorities in media. It is hard to make new IP as opposed to latching on to old ones. There are many factors that can keep traditionally minority groups in media fighting an uphill battle. It stinks if most of media is not made for you, but that's life. Find what you do love and support it all you can.
