Created by Gail Simone back when she was just a blogger, Women in Refrigerators puts forth the idea that female characters basically serve as a plot device to motivate and move the story of a male hero, rather than treat the female character as a character in her own right. Depending on the person putting forth the idea, this practice can be seen as an example of lazy writing, as blatant sexism or misogyny, or as promoting violence against women.Wikipedia wrote:Women in Refrigerators (or WiR) is a website created in 1999 by a group of feminist comic-book fans that lists examples of the superhero comic-book trope whereby female characters are injured, raped, killed, or depowered (an event colloquially known as fridging), sometimes to stimulate "protective" traits, and often as a plot device intended to move a male character's story arc forward, and seeks to analyze why these plot devices are used disproportionately on female characters.
And in the defense of people making the claim, it isn't hard to find examples of female characters surrounding a hero who get brutalized, traumatized, transmogrified or even killed.
But here's the thing: Is this a gendered issue?
And there I say "No, it isn't."
The whole concept of Women in Refrigerators is nothing more and nothing less than the idea that one of the most effective ways to cause change in a hero is to change the people around them. This is something literally as old as fiction. The Epic of Gilgamesh has Gil's best friend and warrior ally Enkidu get killed by the gods, and his death is what prompts Gilgamesh to go on his epic quest for immortality. Heracles missed out on his chance to aid Jason and the Argonauts because his friend/minion/love(?) Hylas got kidnapped by nymphs. The thing that drives Achilles into his tent is the loss of Briseis and the thing that gets him out of his tent is the death of Patroclus.
This trope has been around forever.
Now, does it disproportionately affect women? Potentially, but even then, I'm not sure. And if it does, it's certainly not due to sexism.
One reason that it seems to happen a lot is that a lot of the most popular enduring heroes in fiction are male. Whether you want to argue that is sexist or not is a whole different argument, but relevant to this topic is that a lot of heroes are men, and in most cases, some of the people most important to a male character are people like his girlfriend, his wife, his sister, his mother, etc. Putting those people in danger is a sure-fire way to get the hero active.
That might be considered sexist, if the same thing didn't happen to male characters roughly as often. Just think about it: how many male mentor characters die so that the protagonist, male or female, can learn some lesson? How many fathers are murdered either alone or alongside their wives to make orphans of heroes?
Uncle Ben, T'Chaka, Thomas Wayne, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Uncle Owen, Jor-El, Jonathan Kent, Alfred, Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, the death of a male character to motivate a male hero is very frequent as well.
In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's younger brother and best friend are both killed before his bride to be dies as well.
It's also hard to call this a sexist thing when it happens to the male love interest of female characters. Wonder Woman gets her own movie, and Steve Trevor is the one who dies at the end to motivate her character growth. This also happened to Steve several times in the comics as well, dying and being brought back to change Diana's motivation. And when Diana got a new boyfriend, Trevor Barnes, he wound up dying before the story was over as well. He recently introduced younger brother likewise kicked the bucket to further her story.
It's not limited to Diana either. Carol Danvers' motivation during Civil War II was due in large part to the death of her boyfriend Rhodey, whose death likewise motivated Tony Stark. Carol's boyfriend also got murdered by Mystique in her earlier solo book.
It's almost like female characters tend to value their male boyfriends, husbands, brothers and fathers the same way that men value their female supporting cast.
It's also not unheard of for male heroes to die as often as female ones to motivate other heroes. The Martian Manhunter's death kicked off Final Crisis and was the motivating force for Ollie and Hal to do some exceptionally stupid stuff. Captain America died after Civil War to hit home the cost of the war. Spider-Man died in the Ultimates Universe to motivate Miles Morales to be a hero. Ted Kord died at the start of Infinite Crisis to set the stakes and make way for Jaime Reyes. Hawkeye died in Disassembled. Firestorm died during Identity Crisis.
It's true for gay characters as well. Moondragon wound up getting killed to motivate her lover Phyla-Vell.
This isn't a case of women having bad things happen to them to motivate male heroes. This the case of supporting characters, male or female, having bad stuff happen to them to motivate the hero, male or female. And it's a practice that's unlikely to change because it's such a sure-fire way to create drama.
Some people have said that this largely doesn't apply to male characters because they have tendency to return to life. This is no less true for female characters. Both Aunt May and Mary Jane have died, but returned. Jade was killed and brought back. Namorita was brought back after Civil War. The Wasp died and was brought back.
Some characters like Jean Grey die often, but it's for the same reason guys with regeneration or cybernetic limbs are the ones who keep getting badly damaged: because people know they can be put back to normal with little effort. The same thing keeps happening to poor Vision and Wonder Man as well.
There have been legit terrible things done to female characters that were stupid, borderline sexist. I consider things like Carol Danvers mind controlled pregnancy by her rapist to be one example, Sue Dibny's rape to be another. But the whole "Women in Refrigerators" concept just isn't a thing to me. Mostly it just served as a way for Gail Simone to get her foot in the door with the comic industry.