Pop culture full of false representations of women, feminism 

Good article. I do have a quibble with what was said about Buffy (I know it was a very brief mention, but it's view of Buffy is relevant to my feel for the article as a whole, and the book it was talking about). It calls the female characters more reliant on men as both love interests and father figures. The male characters were always at least as (I would say noticeably more) reliant on the women. I saw no problem with her mentor being male. She wasn't subservient to him, and could cope fine without him. In fact I feel his place was partly for equality in the group, which would otherwise have lacked any capable male presence. The love interests always relied on her as much (well, more) than she relied on them, and really she never actually relied on them. She was beyond capable without them, and even killed one for the greater good. I can't understand how she was perceived to rely on male love interests. Was it merely her having a male love interest they disliked?
My problem with both of those points (and this is how it played into my view of the article as a whole) is it feels like a writer can't win. If there's no capable male presence they can be accused of only making the women seem strong by putting down or avoiding men, if there is a capable man helping his presence is a sign that the woman can't cope without men. If there's no male romantic interest they're sending the message the woman's strength came at the expense of another part of her life, If there is a male love interest they're showing the woman falls into the sexist trap of needing a man.
It's an issue I've had with more than one explanation of why certain characters who are considered good feminists are not really. I'm never against people disagreeing with a character's image as a feminist (I've read more than one excellent opinion as to why Buffy was not a good feminist for example, even if I personally disagreed) I just feel like in some circles there's no type of female character who can have a realistic social circle and faults yet also be seen as feminist.
Er, that ended up being a really long comment. I did enjoy the article and thought it brought up some great points too.