Spoiler alert: I don't.

My early characters were impossibly powerful, but people said it wasn't fun and it wasn't fair.

I began to limit my characters, however people told me that girls cannot be strong, and I believed them.

I made my character weak and limited. My character couldn't do much and there was always an older brother that would be the only one keeping my character from dying.

Later on I created my character digitally with more diverse reactions. I made sure I limited my character so things would be fair and I got into fights that I purposely lost because I knew what it was like to lose all your confidence.

People told me I was weak, insignificant, a liability, useless, never good enough, whether they meant it or not, I believed them.

Every day I tried to make my character stronger but people shoved me down.

In phycology, there's a study about learned helplessness. This basically means if someone tells you something enough times you believe it. You feel like you can't do something because people tell you you can't.

In conclusion I don't make my characters weak. You do.