Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies.

There's something that's been bothering me off and on for a few weeks. It's been in my head since the snafu in maladaptive's LJ, where luna_hoshino got into a tizzy of some sort because no one else though Aeris and Yuna were particularly strong feminist characters. At some point the "women in refrigerators" phenomenon was mentioned, and someone said that Aeris's death was solely to make Cloud's struggle against Sephiroth even more personal (though why it needed to be I have no idea), and that if Barret had died instead, it would have had the same effect on the group.

Now, I am not saying that I disagree with this. I don't tend to really dwell on issues like this, partly because it tends to get too deep too fast for my liking, and partly because I'm kind of rusty at being analytical, and people use references that I don't know anything about, so a lot of it goes over my head and I'm left feeling really stupid and completely disconnected.

What I am curious about is this: from what I've noticed, most character death is used to either further plot, give the main character(s) fuel for angst and/or characterization, or both. So where does it cross the line from necessary character death to sexism? Is it sexist for any female character to die? How are the characters supposed to react to her death, or the death of any character, so that said death isn't just a catalyst for character development or a larger plot point? When is a dead woman not a woman in a refrigerator? Is a dead man ever a "man in a refrigerator"? Does this make me a bad feminist/woman/'intellectual'/person for not understanding it right away? And why can't I seem to ever spell refrigerator right the first time around?