<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>After all, it's the <I>Hero's</i> Journey, not the Heroine's Journey. And it isn't possible to simply replace the male hero with a female without doing away with all the psychological underpinnings of the cycle. The Meeting With the Goddess, the Atonement With the Father, and especially the Apotheosis (which is the lynchpin of the whole Journey) would be rendered meaningless in the context of a female hero.
It follows that Lucas who has been so faithful to the Campbellian nature of the SW universe would have trouble introducing fully-developed female characters. I'm not calling him a sexist or anything like that, of course (Leia is a far cry from Barbarella, after all), there just isn't much place for females in a universe where males are the god-like centers of all Creation and females are simply tributary reflections of the true "male" nature of mankind.
Just for an example: Try naming 15 major male characters in the five existing SW films. Pretty easy. Now try naming 5 major female characters. Uhhh...</div>
[b]Sorry, it looks like I'm going to have to kill you in an instant.[/b]