Wikipedia

Women in refrigerators is a literary trope coined by Gail Simone in 1999 describing a trend in fiction which involves female characters facing disproportionate harm, such as death, maiming, or assault, to serve as plot devices to motivate male characters, an event colloquially known as "fridging" (originating from the gruesome death of Alex DeWitt in the Green Lantern comics). Simone's original list of over 100 affected female characters, published on the "Women in Refrigerators" website, sparked discussions on sexism in pop culture and the comic-book industry.