Yes, fuck it. Fuck everything about bringing politics into writing as anything, but a possible subject. There are weak leads, strong leads, mediocre leads, all of them can serve their role in the right kind of story. If you want to write an empowering novel about a strong female lead go ahead, but trying to shoehorn in that character into a story which doesn't suit them is moronic. TL;DR Write all sorts of characters depending on what kind of story it is and fuck whatever feminists, MRA's or whoever else will shout from the rooftops.

Back to Twilight. There is a reason why the book sold so amazingly. It is the quintessential purest form of YA (Young Adult age category, basically literature aimed at teenagers). YA is about struggling with problems. Not even always dealing with problems, just struggling with them. You could write a YA book about someone having bulimia and it would sell (in fact some people have actually done that IIRC). The main points of YA are:

1) The world is dark and shitty.

2) The main character has a serious (from their point of view) internal problem.

3) The main character is most often than not an outcast. No one understands them (adults especially, they either don't care, are portrayed as totally unsympathetic or make the situation worse).

All of this will make an adult roll their eyes out of the god damn sockets, but it resonates with hormonal self-doubtful teenagers. Twilight is most definitely not a book I would enjoy and I haven't read that much of it, mostly getting my impression from the films (watched the first one due to being bored as fuck and bits and pieces of the last one while another person was watching). Still, I can't help, but be amazed just how freaking much the author managed to pander to the audience. They knew which buttons to press and how hard to press them. I'm not even sure if I can call it shitty writing, because it god damn worked. It had the exact effect the author wanted.