You have a really good point about how our perception of Jack the Ripper would be a lot different if he was killing young boys instead of female prostitutes. And now I'm VERY curious to think of how fandom's reaction would be different if Damon had been killing, oh, say, Matt and Tyler instead of Vicki and Lexie *daydreams about that for a while*.

I will say, that while TVD's treatment of Damon is problematic, I DON'T think that they've presented it in any way as the fault of Vicki/Lexie/Caroline/Bonnie/Elena. In fact, I feel like the show presents those women (especially Caroline and Bonnie and Elena) as firmly in the right and in no way deserving of the shit Damon pulls. (Especially Caroline. In fact, I think the writers expect the Matt/Caroline relationship to be satisfying because she's finally with a "good man who treats her right." That relationship fails for me, but I think that's what they were trying for.)

As for Vicki... I had NOT expectation of her dying (which was probably me being a bit genre-blind) and then she died and I was like "woe!" and then she was a vampire and I was like "awesome!" and expecting her to be around for the next three seasons as this show's Jessica and then she didn't even make it through the next episode. *sadface*