It’s the 21st century, but some movies haven’t noticed. Here are just a few sexist tropes, character archetypes, and plot devices that should have been retired a long time ago.

The “gender-balanced” band

Look, most third graders can tell you that one fifth does not fifty percent make. So let’s stop pretending that having one woman in a main cast of many men is doing any miracles for gender representation, especially when she inevitably only comes in two flavors: the hyper-sexualized or the hyper-emotional. If she’s not wearing revealing clothes in lieu of having character traits, she’s giving heartwarming monologues about the power of friendship and love to the men around her (who are apparently so emotionally stunted as to need a designated peer on-hand in all distressing moments to explain these foreign concepts).

If there must be only one woman in a group of men, at least make her a complex character. But more often than not, there is no law of the universe preventing the addition of more women to it. (And if there is such a law, male creators, you should think very carefully about why you wrote it that way.)

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl

In one word? She’s quirky. So quirky that she teaches a downtrodden male lead to embrace life’s zanier aspects. Of course, despite being a walking list of unusual habits and spirited opinions, she’s a relatively flat character. Her every habit is romanticized; if she has any flaws, the male main character interprets them as further evidence of her passion for life and—you guessed it—her quirkiness.

After all, she’s only there to facilitate his development as a person. She needn’t be developed herself.

The Catty Ex

This character exists for only one reason: to make the female protagonist look better. If she isn’t currently dating said protagonist’s love interest, she was until recently. Instead of being a normal human woman whose relationship failed (or is failing) for normal human reasons, she’s cruel or crazy, with no other character traits. Either way, she is fully to blame for the breakup which served as a wake-up call for the love interest about what he really wants (read: the protagonist).

And she’s readily available to swoop in and stir up trouble for the protagonist, who will either respond with generous kindness or admirable wit. No matter what, the protagonist comes out on top, and the ex gets what she deserves for daring to date someone else’s soulmate before said soulmate showed up: villainization and probably a lonely end.

The Nice Guy

He’s sweet, friendly, supportive, and forever crushing on his female best friend. Oh, and, like a true friend, he’s bitterly jealous of this woman’s romantic happiness with another partner and hopes the relationship will implode so she can run into his arms instead, even though she’s never shown any interest in doing so before. He’s so confident that he’s taken to sabotaging this rival partnership for his friend’s own good. He believes in the friendzone because he believes all women are hardwired to pick the wrong men (i.e., not him) without assistance.

Sometimes romantic feelings are unrequited, and that can definitely hurt. A little angst is a fine plot point...but if this guy truly loved his friend, he would want her to be happy, even at the expense of his own happiness. Anything less immediately voids the nice guy status he so proudly boasts.

The noble backstory death

How many male protagonists have dead wives, daughters, mothers, sisters, girlfriends, and female friends littering their pasts and influencing their presents? Many more than female protagonists with dead husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, boyfriends, and male friends, certainly.

Past tragedy can be a valid backstory. However, when a fictional woman’s entire life is reduced to the catalyst for a man’s character growth, it reinforces the concept that women exist for the furtherance of men—in this case, even their deaths are for a man’s benefit—but are not independent individuals with goals of their own.

Ultimately, women are people. So female characters should be people, not props in the background of a male character’s (or even another female character’s) story.