Why are bronies the first to have challenged gender roles on TV shows?

[Dark Qiviut 22,443]

And yet the most vocal members of this fandom still acknowledge gender stereotype by complaining about anything Girly and patting themselves on the back. It's hypocritical and serves only to stroke egos.

Why is the term "girly" bashed so much? Because media and corporations forces us to associate the term "girly" with antifeminist stereotypes.

 

What do I mean?

1. The hourglass figures on canon characters and dolls, "the perfect body." The Princess Ariels, the Princess Jasmines, the Barbies, the revised drawings of Merida, the EQG dolls and concept art.
2. Stereotypical female branding. Again, the hourglass figure. Barbie, G3 MLP, MLP Tales, first-party FIM toyline sans Guardians of Harmony, Bratz, the Disney princess merchandise, associating "pink" and "purple" with girls only. The Pink Aisle. G3.5 Newborn's cost-cutting measurements to suck up money from toddlers' parents.
3. Stereotypical plot devices. EQG is an inherent stereotype of high school society. There are several high school clichés and stereotypes attached to it, including Flash Sentry and villain!Sunset. The tween Disney movies, comedies, and dramas. G3 ponies' quarter-dimensional personalities and lazy conflicts attached to the stories.

It's bad enough that the word "girly" is stereotyped; it's even worse by media and companies enforcing those stereotypes with this word. Criticizing the people who use these stereotypes is one way to combat the problem, but you're targeting the symptom, not the source. If we're going to challenge the stereotypes encircling the word, then we need to call out the stereotype and educate people with more productive associations of "girly." FIM episodes like Suited for Success, The Best Night Ever, and Rarity Takes Manehattan do a good job constructively embracing "girly," and Steven Universe continues to challenge sexist stereotypes in much of their content. But they're not enough. We must push it further and further, and criticizing the source of these stereotypes is one way to do it. British charities like the progressive "Let Toys Be Toys" do a phenomenal job proactively challenging and dissuading the stereotypes.

 

Why don't you challenge gender stereotypes by speaking out for men who are ridiculed by cops for filing domestic abuse cases against their wives or help women in oppressive countries empower themselves?

You're dodging the point of the thread and using the fallacy of relative privation to go with it. Domestic abuse regardless of gender is a prevalent problem, and it's just as big in the LGBT community. What women experience in the oppressive countries is beyond deplorable. But does that diminish the damage of sexist stereotypes in first-world Western media? Absolutely not.

 

There are many ways to challenge sexist stereotypes besides the severe. Publicly panning gender stereotypes and explaining why they're damaging through reviews is an excellent example. Why? Because we're educating people about them and making them think about how to respond to stereotypes whenever they see or think about them next time. When we criticize these stereotypes in episodes and movies, we make them reconsider their objective quality, and then the people who read 'em help spread these criticisms/flaws across the 'Net.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Dark Qiviut