Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Okay, so maybe I'm just overly feminist but I really believe that all characters should have more to them then just to serve the purpose of making another character change something about their ways.
In my fiction class today, we read a boy's short story in which he had such a character. A man moves to a new city, and he is naive about many things. He meets a pretty girl, and basically just from meeting this girl decides to change his life.
I don't buy that. And I told him so. But that he replied something along the lines of, "I feel like most guys do that." And my professor (who is a woman, by the way) agreed. Which really annoyed me. This girl should at least be using the guy for something in her life too. She shouldn't just be pretty and fun.
The female character he wrote is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Many movies I love have characters like this. Zooey Deschanel basically is one in real life. Wikipedia tells me that the MPDG is "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures."

Why is this okay? How can a whole class of writers accept this? Maybe, I've grown to be too big of a feminist but I really believe all the characters should have their own purpose not just the purpose of making someone else's purpose.

Risky Business

Today, my poetry professor emailed me to tell me I'm too hard on myself and that I am a gifted writer. He thinks that I am always looking for the right answer, which can't exist in poetry. I think that what he said was true, but I would include that what I really want is to know that I am on the right track. I want to know that I'm saying something meaningful to someone other than me. I think I'm starting to need validation as a writer.
It's too late for me to switch my major, but I want to know that what I'm writing isn't complete bullshit. Poetry is my downfall, and unexpectedly my poetry classes are my favorite this quarter. I would still consider myself a fiction writer, but I think I'm learning more from this class than any other writing class so far.
So here it goes, I'm going to post a draft of a poem that I am working on. You can hate it, love it, or tell me it needs work. I'm up for anything. My professor also told me that I take criticism well, I am willing to rewrite and that I am an open, risk taking person in my writing.
So here's another risk, posting my own poem online.

Outside

In one moment our friendship was lost

Like the dog on the sign taped to that streetlight

My boyfriend is drunkenly petting a stray cat on the lawn

Your boyfriend is next to me saying you didn’t mean it

You snarled and snapped and stomped back into the house

the house where everyone else drinks and laughs

The house where I should be instead on this concrete curb,

My hands cupping my face
and your boyfriend, not mine

Attempting to bring me inside

Your boyfriend laughs when I tell him there’s nothing left to fix