As women continue to fight for gender equality, gender-flipping helps to even out the excess of male-dominated roles from the past. This also gives women the opportunity to tackle roles, such as playing badass heroes and villains that were typically written for men.
But can't we make new characters for women to play instead of deleting men out of said character? The Equalizer is an old man, retired from the CIA helping the less fortunate. The character is the character, established since the 80's and in Denzel Washington's movies.
I've seen women play extremely strong characters that can be badass and kick butt. I don't think the goal should be woman playing these strong roles or that when they do, we all stand up and cheer saying that it is about time. The goal should be that when a woman plays a strong character we see it as normal.
Hollywood needs to come up with new and strong characters for woman to play. Characters that can stand the test of time and be fondly remembered like the male characters that are being gender-flipped. This is only setting up the female actors for unfair comparisons.