Hi Everybodeeeeeee *Kermit Flail*

[charliesmum]

I'm sitting here at the fiance's house, playing on my laptop while he's out getting coffee with his BFF, as he does on Sunday.

I keep thinking I want to write an essay on Stephen Moffatt and his female characters, to address how I feel about the accusations of him being a bit of a mysoginsit, but it would be something that would take more thought and care than I currently feel like giving it at the present time.

What I will say, though, is we have to be careful about creating what we think a woman 'ought' to be. Is there a resaon someone can't make women who are smart, clever, adventurous and yet would still like to get married and have babies?

I always felt that feminism was about a woman having a choice in what her role would be. In a perfect world, everyone would have a choice, even. If a man wanted to be the stay at home dad, he could do that without people thinking he's a loser or a layabout, and if a woman decided she wants to stay at home and tend to the house, she won't be considered setting the movementn back 50 years.

I was never built to have a 'career' I think; but I made choices in my life that made it impossible for me to do the housewife thing. I think I'd have been happier if I could have done that; I really do.

I have friends who have amazing careers and couldn't imagine them giving that up when they had children, so they beccame working mother's, and did a good job of it.

And I have a few friends who were stay-at-home mothers, because that's what they choose to do.

Are the working women better than the ones who didn't follow a career? No. The only idiot in that bunch was me, because I didn't know what the heck I wanted to be when I grew up when it was time to grow up. But I don't regret it. I am what I am, and all.

Sorry I got rambly anyway. I'd love to know everyone else's thoughts on this, and female characters in Doctor Who and other fandoms, and whatever else you may feel like sharing.

Ready...go.

Comments

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I always felt that feminism was about a woman having a choice in what her role would be. In a perfect world, everyone would have a choice, even. If a man wanted to be the stay at home dad, he could do that without people thinking he's a loser or a layabout, and if a woman decided she wants to stay at home and tend to the house, she won't be considered setting the movementn back 50 years.

This. Exactly this.

Feminism should be about conforming to pre-existing standards; it should be about making those standards irrelevant and obsolete. If a woman wants to devote her time to being a mother or a man to being a father, there shouldn't be any stigma attached to that--after all, isn't that just as much a full-time career as anything else? It isn't my choice but I would never dream of looking down on someone else for doing so--it's what my grandmothers did and at least in part what my own mother did when she gave up a surgical practice for a field of medicine that would give her shift work instead of being on call all the time. I am in the lucky position of having a husband who would be a stay-at-home father if my job paid well enough to support us fully (which sadly it does not and most likely never will) and who is more than happy to split household chores with me when we're both working.

As for Steven Moffat, I have never fully understood why people think he's any worse of a misogynist than anybody else in the entertainment industry. Does he objectify women? Sometimes, but no worse than anyody else--a great counterexample, I thought, was Irene Adler on Sherlock, who clearly used her sexuality as a tool but that was it. A tool. (Of course the last five minutes bothered me but I'm willing to accept that it was 98% of a fantastic episode.) And, yes, it's a bit annoying that River Song went from being utterly amazing in those first few episodes (and even in most of Series 5) to defining herself based on the Doctor, but, again, I don't want to jettison her character altogether.

Whenever I run across a "Moffat is a misogynist" thread, I always feel guilty that I don't agree with it because it makes me a bad feminist. I feel the same way when I dress up or wear skirts or care about my appearance or let a man help me with my luggage in an airport. But even as I feel it, I know that feeling isn't correct--because isn't the point of feminism that there is no wrong way to be a woman?

[finmagik.livejournal.com]

Irene Adler in the ACD canon was implied to be a Courtesan that's what Adventuress meant. And everyone gets in over their head. I didn't quite like it. But I liked the fact it mean her and Sherlock could be together and potentionally have sexy times.

[finmagik.livejournal.com]

Your Awesome you got feminism right. I'm a Feminist but I think many women in the movement seem to think the traditionally female domestic things are anti-woman. That's why cooking, canning, preserving, cleaning, sewing, knitting have fallen by the wayside. Which IMHO is sad. Women who did those things fed and clothed and took care of the other half of the race. And if men didn't appericate that, to bad. They should now. And I think society is crumbling because we don't know those skills. Also to much credit.

[finmagik.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I pride myself on cooking and I want to learn perserving, and canning. I see all ready made pre-boxed short cuts as 'cheating' hell I make my own sauces half the time. Canned meats and veggies are fine. Pre-boxed mixes, sides, what have you cheating. And Really everyone should know how to make a pie crust and make one if thye have the space. My Mom worked a teaching job: cooks, cleans, decorated her house and was my strongest adovcate for my Aspie self growing up. Also my BFF Scarlet is the knitting, sewing and designing master and My Aunt MJ does it as well. They are all strong women. Not to mention my Grandmother Liberal 80, cooks everyday cleans her house, drives. I come from good stock. People should know how take care of themselves.

[finmagik.livejournal.com]

I do quick pickles myself.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

The problem that I have with Moffat is ALL the alleged heroines who have shown up on Doctor Who during Moffat's tenure--ALL, without exception--have been focused on men.

After one abortive wedding in her intro, Donna gets the same fate twice--happiness with a man and two perfect children in virtual reality in the Library, and marriage to Shaun Temple after the Doctor wipes her memory. Amy gets Rory (who is, admittedly, THE BEST BOYFRIEND EVER) and a daughter so fantastic that the Doctor marries her. Abigail from the Christmas Carol episode loves the Scrooge character so much that she doesn't mind using up the few days of life that she has left to make him happy. Madge from this year's Christmas special gets to save an entire race purely because she's borne offspring, because apparently pregnancy and childbearing miraculously convey special physical and moral strength no one else can possibly possess. This is not unlike Nancy from "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances," who not only mothers a flock of orphaned and abandoned children during the Blitz but who also manages to save the world from the gas mask zombies when she hugs her son Jamie and tells him, "I am your Mummy."

And River. Dear God, I am disappointed in River Song. She had so much potential at the beginning--a brave, funny, intelligent adventurous woman. And Moffat ruined her by making her entire life centered around the Doctor.

The Doctor is River's sole focus. She is completely defined in relation to him. She was created and trained as a weapon to kill him. She became an archaeologist, not to discover new things about peoples of the universe or to increase knowledge and understanding, but so that she could find the Doctor wherever he went. She has left messages for him throughout time and space. She will cheerfully jump out of a window in the certainty that the Doctor will be there.

Everything she does, she does because of him. The Doctor matters to River literally more than anything else in the multiverse.

Over and over again, the women are supposed to be standalone characters...and over and over, Moffat gives them the same reward: marriage and motherhood.

There's nothing wrong with either one. But if Moffat kept having every man who ever helped the Doctor become a firefighter, it would feel just as off. There's nothing wrong with being a firefighter, either. But--everyone shouldn't BE a firefighter.

Honestly, I've been getting this message from books and film and stage plays and TV shows since 1962: you're a girl, so marriage and motherhood are the summum bonum of your life. It's been almost fifty years. I'm tired of that message. I'm tired of being told by society and the media that I have to be defined by whether or not I have a man and whether or not I can convince him to marry and whether or not I can have children and how everlastingly tragic it will be if I don't marry and have children, even if I don't want to do either.

And you can't even genderflip the message to explain what's wrong, because society doesn't insist that men get married and sire children and do nothing else. You can't get across the impact of having this dinned in your ear through TV and songs and films and ads and comics and webshows and books and real life people, day after day, every day, from infancy on.

I think that Steven Moffat genuinely believes that he is a liberated man. I think that he'd probably say that he's praising women for what they are best at (being maternal and affectionate) and giving them what they want--husbands and children.

And honestly, I don't mind if women want to be wives and mothers. That's fine. Both involve a lot of work. I respect the people who do both.

But why do Moffat and the rest of the media keep insisting that marriage and motherhood are the only important dreams, the only VALID dreams for girls?

[finmagik.livejournal.com]

I like Irene Adler. And I do see what you mean. I wish Doctor wasn't so hypocritical as a show it keeps doing that to women. One the few women who don't end as wives or mothers are Timeladies.. Oooops Bye Gallifrey. Also who got killed first by Rassilon Timelady!

[madeleinebella.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a small epiphany I had around my pre-teen years. I had decided that I wasn't going to wear anything designer or anything considered currently "in fashion," because I was a non-conformist. I was rejecting certain styles simply based on the fact that they were too "popular". My Grandpa helped me see the absurdity in this decision, pointing out that rejecting something just because of it's popularity is just as bad as embracing something because of its popularity. Either way, you're letting your personal decisions depend upon the actions/preferences of others, and that's silly.

I agree 100% - feminism is about society permitted women to structure our lives however it makes sense to us, to be true to who we are as PEOPLE - independent of anyone's conception of how we should or should not behave as women.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Is there a resaon someone can't make women who are smart, clever, adventurous and yet would still like to get married and have babies?

Robert Heinlein did a lot of that and he was the most misogynistic of all.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

I am not talking about Moffatt specifically here, because I also don't have the energy or the enthusiasm do enough research to make a plausible case. But I think the issue when it comes to fictional representation is not so much about the choices each individual female character makes, as the overall pattern. If every single female character someone ever writes is smart and interesting and adventurous... and suddenly has an overwhelming urge to stay home and make babies and do housework, eventually I think it becomes plausible to ask whether there is some overarching theme here. In fact, I would say exactly the same thing if every single character they wrote were smart and interesting and adventurous and also absolutely despised babies and didn't want to get married. Not all women make the same choices, and if a particular fictional universe represents life as if they do, there is a problem no matter what the specific choice was.

Essentially I think I'm saying exactly the same thing you are; the problem lies in the representation of women as they ought to be - as a single main template with only minor deviations.

[drakonlily.livejournal.com]

The problem I think, when I complain about female characters (now I haven't SEEN this show, but I heard the internet explode) is that people assume "bad ass females" have to be a stereotype. I want a woman of strong character, not a strong woman character all the time. In that same note, women of color are practically ignored unless they follow very specific tropes.

Women have to be the ones to sacrifice themselves, if she's a sexual villain she has to do it on the behest of a man, if she's smart she can't also be sexual... the list goes on. I think confronting these issues, regardless of source is very important.

It's like my issue with the guy who wrote "Watchmen" he uses the "dead lesbian" trope to death. And while I get that he's trying to show that the bad guys are REALLY BAD because they kill lesbians, he's degraded those lesbian characters to "the dead lesbian" removing their being a character at all, really.