I am male, and I don't understand defending Snape either. I do understand that people would want to understand him, but excusing his behavior based on that understanding makes no sense to me. That is because in the end he still bullied children, and was dismissive and/or cruel to the adults in his life as well (except Dumbledore generally). He disrespected the dead and lied quite often (including 1/2 truths and blatant lies) and while I love sarcasm, he was written so as to use it in 'the wrong place at the wrong time' situations for the most part. Also I note that "understanding" Snape generally includes finding fault with all of the other characters in HP that ever touched his life, including his peers and even the children he taught. That really says nothing about Snape himself in terms of the resultant individual and the choices he faced and made. That is because the conclusion is always "it negatively affected him" so he made a bad choice. Yeah, well, EVERY character in canon had lots of things negatively affect them and they didn't all choose to make bad choices. And some people were not negatively affected at all that we know of (i.e. Lucius, Bella) and they made a bad choice anyway. So the "understanding" process seems deeply flawed to me.

So I look at the facts and conclude that the character was purposely written to be unlikeable (as the author has indicated, and even expressed surprised that some readers liked him), and I do dislike him as the author intended. Also, I don't find his story tragic because I feel that when a person is responsible for their own misfortune, it is simply pitiful, not tragic. Especially when the person continues to make their life difficult by exhibiting a bad attitude and poor behavior. I do also see a sad, bitter, vindictive, vunerable and insecure man behind the facade he employs, but that seems contrary to the notion of him being a protector - but rather one who requires protecting - so I don't really understand the thought process in that regard.

Snape reminds me of a bad chief executive officer of a corporation. Intelligent and questing to get ahead at the cost of all else around him, including other people - with the exception of perhaps his own family. Sure he is a great protector under normal circumstances, but when the chips are down, he will even betray his family to achieve his most desired goals and allow harm to come to them as well. And there is ever the risk of the 'protector' being caught out and taken away (jailed or whatever) so it is a kind of false protection. This is like Snape; in his quest to honor Lily who he claims he loves, he will do anything, but his personal, selfish desires come first which is why he could mistreat Harry and still claim to be honoring Lily - when that was actually disrespect and dishonoring her. He could even agree to give a message sending Harry to his death, the thing Lily had died to avoid, in order to follow his own desires.

So I don't really understand the defenses or excuses made for Snape and the idea of him being a great defender is lost on me in light of the above paragraph, so I am still pretty much at a loss about it all.

Just to the bolded portion. The difference is that many of the other characters in HP had a "door" to escape the harsh times. A way out usually in the form of a person. If you look closely, you'll see that these people had a friend to pull them out, Sirius had James, Harry had Ron, DD had family.

Who did Harry have for the first 11 years of his life at the Dursleys while they were abusing him? Bella and Lucius had help, I agree, but they went bad anyway - so the point is, having someone didn't help them.