I'm talking about the OT. The '70's - '80's. Leia taking charge of her own rescue and holding more than just her own in a fight was revolutionary for its time. And for that, it was OK for girls to casually like Star Wars, but to be actual fans was considered weird. By the time the prequels came out and it became clear that female fans weren't going to keep quiet about their fandom any more, they put a few more women on screen in pretty cool background roles. And Episodes 1 and 2 passed the Bechdel Test, but barely. (Plus, in my opinion, the Bechdel Test still sets too low a bar for realistic representation of women.) The only female characters with more than one or two lines in one scene were the Mother and the Love Interest.
The TV shows made some other small improvements. However, with the new trilogy, I feel there's been no better time than now to be a female Star Wars fan, and I base that on my experiences and observations having been a Star Wars fan for just over 40 years.
While there are legitimate complaints and tastes vary, my grievance with many of Rey's detractors (besides reasoning based on stuff that didn't happen in the movie or stuff that did happen that they didn't notice, like Rey saying she was a pilot), isn't just that they don't like Rey, but that they also don't like Leia's Force-full survival instincts, they don't like Holdo, they don't like Rose, they don't like Paige's big scene, they don't like Connix screaming commands, they don't like Tallie, and they don't like Phasma showing any human weakness (though I agree that she died too soon, not because I wanted her to be an inhuman boss monster beating up the Black guy, but because I love her deleted scene). To those people (not folks who just dislike Rey, mind you), it seems women are most tolerable when least human.