I am a woman who has seen The Revenant. This is a bigger deal than it may sound. First, it means I can categorically tell you that the film – the new one by the Birdman director, big Oscar contender, set in the American wilderness in 1823 – does not feature a scene in which Leonardo DiCaprio is sexually assaulted by a bear.

Such was the claim made by a correspondent for the Drudge Report on Tuesday. “The bear flips Leo over,” they wrote, “and thrusts and thrusts during the explicit mauling. He is raped – twice!” As studio Fox stressed in its swift response, the animal is clearly a female protecting her cubs rather than, say, a male so overcome by the sight of the A-lister he throws caution and many millennia of evolved behaviour to the wind.

Being a woman who has watched The Revenant also means I’m in the exciting position of being able to vouch that it is safe for my sex. Doubts had been raised. Last week, respected US critic Jeffrey Wells wrote: “The Revenant is an unflinchingly brutal, you-are-there, raw-element immersion like something you’ve never seen. Forget women seeing this.” Yet somehow I survived: no smelling salts necessary, neither fainting nor retching helplessly towards the exit.

Wells was hauled over the coals for his comment – rightly so, of course. The Revenant may be bloody and primal, but so is childbirth. It depicts a journey of freezing temperatures and the harrowing quest for shelter, but I see other women hoping to catch the 7.54am from Harringay too. One gender does not have a monopoly on understanding brutality, nor enjoying it shown on screen.

Yet while Wells was getting a Twitter kicking (his words: “like a wildebeest being surrounded and torn apart by hyenas or wild dogs”), JJ Abrams, director of the new Star Wars movie, was applauded for his reassurance that The Force Awakens would be “more female-friendly” than George Lucas’s originals. By which he meant there would be more women in it, including a space pirate, a mysterious newcomer, and a chrome-plated lady warrior. Plus, of course, Princess Leia herself – back and, according to Carrie Fisher, “defeated, tired and pissed” (ie no more gold bikini, no more complex hair).

Yet this fresh injection of XX chromosomes does not alter my eagerness to see the new Star Wars. Abrams’ assumption that in order for a movie to be female-friendly it has to have women in it is on the same spectrum as Wells’s claim that women won’t cope watching men clobber each other for a couple of hours.

Both are wrong. Women, after all, account for two-thirds of the readership of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher stories – books which are all about the wallop. Last weekend at the UK box office, the top film was Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg’s cold war drama in which men in suits trade legalese in dusty rooms (the women are there to worry about Tom Hanks). It took nearly £1.6m, a fraction more than Black Mass, a mobster drama in which the only female roles of note involve being abused by Johnny Depp. Carol, meanwhile, an extremely well-reviewed romance whose femme credentials couldn’t be stronger, took just over half a million.

Not only is it flawed logic to suggest that more women onscreen will make a movie appeal to real women, it’s patronising. Confusing population with representation risks putting the debate into reverse gear. Remorseless cheerleading for female stories can take you back to a time when boys were denied dollies and pink wallpaper was compulsory for girls.

Our capacity to identify with characters who don’t share our genitals shouldn’t be underestimated. And in an age in which gender fluidity is embraced, it feels jarring to hold up, say, self-possessed, drop dead gorgeous Katniss Everdeen as a refreshingly better role model for girls than, say, shy little Harry Potter. Not just jarring; muddled-headed too. The circumstances and experiences of both characters are wildly outside the orbit of most of us. Whether they are boys or girls seems pretty irrelevant.

There is some worth in depicting strong female characters for the sake of it. But to confuse doing so with an increase in quality or in the female-friendliness of a film is a delusion. Merit must not be subjugated to agenda. Having your heart in the right place is not enough. The recent poster girl here is Suffragette: an average movie with the inspired marketing notion that if you see yourself as a feminist, you need to see this film. Even detractors tend to say that, whatever its flaws, this is a movie every young girl ought to see.

I disagree. Good intentions do not a good moral make. Suffragette is a film which says direct action is how women were able to secure the vote. Historically, that’s leaky – the film muffles other factors, such as a further decade of negotiation, a few enlightened politicians and the first world war. In this omission, the implicit message audiences are left with is that if you want to get results, militancy may be your best option.

There are two small roles for female characters in The Revenant: a native American captured by some troops – and that angry bear. I can’t say I felt kinship with either, despite all that we share. What makes the film female-friendly is not the girls. It is the quality.