So much word to all this! I have a somewhat more charitable view of Joss' protagonist privilege in BtVS (as 2maggie2 has said, I think it's a bug and not a feature), but I agree with the general point, which is that pretty much all the Scoobs, regardless of gender, do harm to others and still have the focus placed on their pain much of the time. This is because the show is about them.

And the Gwen/Spike comparison is baffling. She was in three episodes. Why exactly it's supposed to be a zero-sum pain-game

And YES to Starbuck and Adama.