CERU, keep in mind one thing that there's a huge difference between the first conception of a character drawn out in character art and written into the first script and then the character that goes past focus tests, player review, script revisions, and so on and so forth.
Jill and Claire, and the Resident Evil series in general, comes so damn close to being a "feminist" game series, insofar as it would have equality in the series between men and women.
The first test to see if a form of media is 'equal' as it were goes like this: "Do two women talk about something other than a man?"
Resident Evil 1: I can't recall it. Jill and Rebecca never meet. Resident Evil 2: Yes, chock full of the ladies talking. Resident Evil 3: No. Resident Evil CV: I can't remember if Claire and Alexia actually have a conversation, or if its mainly Claire talking to Alfred or Chris coming to save Claire and thus he's the one having the chat with Alexia. Resident Evil 4: I don't think Ashley and Ada interact in any real form.
And then you have the costumes. The ladies of Resident Evil wear tight, form fitting t-shirts, tube tops, miniskirts, wet suits, daisy dukes, long flowing dresses and high heels, so on and so forth. The guys wear police uniforms, combat vests, so on and so forth.
Jill is constantly falling on her ass and being saved by Barry. Rebecca is constantly being saved by Billy or Chris.
I mean, it's nothing to get in arms about - I very strongly suspect that Capcom simply gets more positive responses from their fanbase when they portray women in the way they do in their games - plucky, heroic, strong but nooooot quite equal, and so write the scripts to fit. After all, the trend in what the ladies wear is arguably much worse after 1, and 4 is a sausage-fest, PS2 and Wii exclusives notwithstanding.