Short answer - Female stereotypes

"To what extent do the female characters in 'The Dark Knight Rises' and 'SALT' challenge traditional female stereotypes?"

Despite of not have watching the two films myself, from the attained information from the exemplar answer, I have established that the female characters from the two films challenge traditional female stereotypes to a high extent. The reason for this is because universally traditional, pre-feminist expectations of women entailed their socio-political stance to be dormant as they were expected to act submissively to men who were the leaders of this patriarchal society. This is directly contrasted with the representation of the catwoman, for instance, who takes an active role as a leading female character to vigilantly and independently (notably without the assistance of a male figure) save others as well as brutally kill her enemies (a lot of which happen to be men, thus further disputing the traditionally imposed idea that hyper-masculinity means great power and strength. 

It may be arguable on the other hand that the women are yet succumbing to traditional female stereotypes as they are eventually the sexually objectified playthings of the men in the films. This is apparent in the scene of the catwoman's sexualised submission to a man's aggression as she is coerced against a wall. This reinforces the role of women as merely sexually appealing to men as this scene would satisfy a primarily male audience, as theorised by Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory. However, this can be refuted by the claim that women exploit and in frequent cases of contemporary media - flaunt their sexuality as a means of their own benefit and power over men. This is overlooked due to a gemini effect created by mainstream media which establishes women to be on the weaker end of the process of transmitting sexual satisfaction to a man, thus forgetting that women may even intend to exploit their physicality.