Sci-fi Rey from Star Wars, and Katniss Everdene. <poss spoiler alert re Star Wars>

Dark Angel is good but I'm not sure if she would be able to view it now

Trillian from HHG is a great character too

Dare I say teenage girls (my own dd included) are attracted to the Hunger Games because of the love triangle in it, with Katniss, Pete and Gale? The male leads in the films are very good-looking and my dd likes both of them.

Prefer Woody Harrison myself but I'm 42

If we're talking reading for non-fans, I found Isaac Asimov's short stories very accessible (in fact I used to read them to DS4, who still remembers them fondly). If you want a strong female lead who kicks ass, Susan Calvin has all the blokes in her workplace terrified whilst she effortlessly sorts out their impossible-sounding problems. Not, of course, that Susan ever needed to kick an ass in her life. She just gave them a Look, and they withered. (Let us not speak of the film I, Robot which contained a character using the name. That was Just Wrong.)

Firefly got a mention above. I know Zoe is a sidekick in that the male Captain is "our hero", but it's an ensemble piece really in that all the characters are equally strong in their own way and are all fully fleshed out, instead of the women being there for decoration. They are just as strong as, often stronger than, any males and no less interesting. Trust the sainted Joss for that. Though to be fair, Firefly is - is indeed supposed to be - cowboys in space, albeit thoughtful and nuanced, and therefore not likely to change your non-fan's view. Asimov is fiction about science, by a scientist, but none the less readable for it, and comes in bite-sized chunks which may appeal to the (uh-oh, stereotype coming up) shorter attention span that some young readers may exhibit.

My current favourite is Starbuck in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. She is unbelievably brilliant as a female character and is a very strong, kick-ass pilot who more than holds her own amongst the men. There are other female pilots too.

Have we mentioned Buffy yet?

I think you can (and lots of people have) included dystopia as a sub genre of scifi. I know Atwood thinks of her fiction as speculative rather than scifi, but for the sake of your dd, we can put it all under a broad scifi umbrella.

If you and her can work out what it is she likes about the Hunger Games/Katniss, then you can look for that in other work.

I think that's what you are trying to do with Star Wars, but there may be other avenues.

And actually that could be a good starting point for the project. Why does your DD like Katniss but not other sci fi? What makes Hunger Games different to other scifi so that it appeals to a wider fan base. Is it, for example, different content or marketed differently to get people to watch it?

Anne McCaffery writes very strong characters but if reading is a problem I'll have a think

Rey is like Jaina Solo from the Star Wars books though. She is Leia's daughter and the Sword of the Jedi. She has to kill her twin brother, Jacen, when he turns to the dark side.

I think Rey is Luke's daughter.

startrek90

Did you know a new series is coming in January 2017..... I need a Star Trek advent calendar for the occasion.

I find it hard to believe anyone dislikes scifi so much that they can't find multiple films, novels etc they enjoy enough to explore further. What about Frankenstein, Wall-E, The Handmaid's Tale?

Could you look at a whole long list of scifi and find other ones your DD likes that you could compare to the Hunger Games?

Is it just film or any sci fi media? If the latter, try some Firefly (Zoe), or Trillian from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio), or to go really out there, the recent BBC radio adaptation of LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness.

It's complicated as so many women are sidekicks

Dana Scully in X files
Zoe from Firefly plus some other strong women
Gwen Cooper in Torchwood
Sarah Connor in Terminator
Samantha Carter - Stargate 1
Trinity in Matrix

Various star Trek series/films have amazing women in them

I'm sure there are tonnes more - Sarah Jane Smith from Dr Who went on to have her own (children's) series

If you google it there are issues with fantasy cross over in my opinion (Buffy, LotR and GoT all came up)

I believe the kiss between uhura and Kirk was filmed twice. The first take they kissed and on the second they almost did (to not offend the racists I guess ) but William Shatner deliberately ruined the second take forcing the producers to use the actual kiss :)

Don't forget Star Trek Voyager... Produced in the 1990's it was the first in the franchise to have a female captain and a female chief engineer :) and they wore the same uniforms as the guys (except 7 of 9).

It really broke through a glass ceiling in terms of female leads.

Uhura also had the first televised interracial kiss. It was with Captain Kirk but it was meant to be with Mr Spock.

There's a useful list of female characters here:

www.afterellen.com/general-news/107375-the-top-40-kick-ass-female-sci-fi-characters

It's a couple of years old so it misses out Teresa from the Maze Runner, Tris, Rey, Furiosa etc.

You can't (imho) talk women in sci-fi without touching on Servalan from Blake 7. Great villain.
Looking at gender and the Borg would be interesting. They're a queen but are all other borgs male or do they keep their original gender like 7of9?

I'm with DrSuesss, you really can't ignore Star Trek - even the original series had Uhura in a command position.

Yes though Tris has a haircut.