Original post here

So this started as a reply to the above but got pretty…side-tracked since I was only going to reply about the women and then drop it but whoops. So I guess it’s getting its own post? I dunno sorry everyone.

Ah, oh boy. I really do apologise so much to my followers because Moffat’s sexism is one of my buttons and after last episode? I give up. Apathy makes this easier to tear down. We’ll start with the list and go down it and just wander through the fields of sexism from there.

And read more apparently hates me. Sigh. Hopefully it works.

Please, please note. I actually like some of these characters. And hell, I like some of the stories. But if we’re talking about what Moffat writes and what he does with the characters, the stories he writes for women and how he handles them, then just focusing on the positives is going to look, well, overwhelmingly positive.

So I’ll do a counter list of these characters and some points - rather crucial points for understanding Moffat’s bullshit - that emphasis the problematic.

Nancy - Is defined by her role as a mother and her rejection of it. Is punished for rejecting it and only redeemed once she accepts this role. Her very character definition is a mothering role to the children and in the end her most important role is motherhood. The world would have ended if she hadn’t accepted her position as a mother, in fact. What’s really eyebrow raising here is that she was even still taking care of him, just as his sister. Yet that is unacceptable, even though it’s her nightmare to be a mother. And so it’s what she becomes. Wanting to be a mother isn’t an issue - though neither should not wanting to be one and considering her reactions, well - but Moffat’s writing is a whole and this is a piece that shows a good glimpse of his thoughts on women and their roles in stories.

Reinette - Ends up defined by the Doctor. We see this one repeated a few times. Knowing his name and believing he is worth the monsters, something River herself asked before giving her lives to the Doctor. Is he worth it? Women are often put in roles of sacrifice for men. Anyway, the sexual element is another big one here, adoring the Doctor and looking only towards him.

Historically, Reinette was a pretty amazing woman. But in Doctor Who, the end has her role as waiting for him, growing older and sicker and still waiting until the last. So, so much could have been done with her character and her story while still involving the Doctor, still allowing her to want him and care for him, while acknowledging the amazing life she led and the accomplishments she made.

We also mark her as the first of Moffat’s favourite thing at the moment, writing women whose lives revolve around the Doctor from childhood and who grow up to want him and seek him.

Kathy - I want to touch first on Sally’s friend. Tossed back in time, to a time very, very different for women, torn away from her friends and life she had, she marries the first man she runs into, a man who followed her despite her telling him repeatedly to back off, but makes sure to tell us she’s never been happier in this time, with this man and her role as a mother. Oh, okay. Again, the bigger picture here.

Sally - Sally’s ending is my real issue here. She settles down with a man who matches up with Moffat’s favourite type: the harmless, nice guy, like the one that followed Kathy. Rory is a fleshed out version of this who, prior to his very questionable character development, nice and harmless. Considering Moffat feels like one of these himself and a lot of his anger at his first wife and general feelings on women were rooted in the Nice Guy ideals that he pushed on Press Gang and Coupling, this is an important note. Sally ends up settling down with this guy to run a video store with him, when before she seemed freer and happy, now she obsesses over the Doctor and creates a folder of things on him.

Yes, the Doctor needs that folder for Moffat’s favourite time paradoxes but that itself is another trope he abuses. Once she’s finished her task of giving the Doctor the folder, she fully embraces her new life.

River and Amy could have entire essays devoted to them - like the others, I feel the need to note - but especially these two I feel are impossible to discuss without a lot of words. So I’m going to try to make this short and touch on a few points.

River Song - Raised to kill the Doctor, gives her life for him, seeks him, chooses her career path based on that, what about her isn’t defined by him? No, really. What is? In this new timeline, the rebooted universe, she ensures her own birth by encouraging Amy and Rory to hook up. She worries about her weight right after regenerating, she uses lipstick as a weapon, she’s an attempt at a femme fatale with her sexual innuendos and deadly talents. She has a change of heart, though, not because of her parents or her life that she lived with them on Earth but because of the Doctor. Then she sacrifices herself for him, something she also truly dies doing yet again later. She waits in prison for him and discusses how she spends all her time waiting for him.

When it’s all taken together, every choice she’s made is for him. About him. Even if she chooses it, it was because of him. She is defined by her relationship with the Doctor and everything we see about her is about him, not her. It’s never really about River. Her mystery isn’t who she is: it’s who she is to the Doctor. She is Amy and Rory’s child who is destined to kill him and love him. Growing up with Amy, she obsesses over him more than even Amy does. In fact, she rather steals Amy’s childhood of obsessing over him. Military brainwashing factors in here but why is she brainwashed? Because of the Doctor. His existence.

And speaking of all that, if she already killed him in an earlier regeneration, why was she still on a mission to kill him, anyway? Either way, her only relationship is to the Doctor. Even what we see of her and Amy is all about the Doctor, finding out about him. Her relationship to her parents is, pretty much, nothing. And what River gets for this life of devotion is downloaded into a computer where the last we see of her is in a motherhood role, raising three children, two of whom aren’t even real. Yet she smiles and is content. Whatever River is, I can say she’s not an “oh I am in a computer for all eternity now, I guess I’ll raised some kids.”

Maybe, if the diary hadn’t been left to her, she could have made a few choices that weren’t so heavily burdened by the Doctor. But the diary is the TARDIS and River was told by the Doctor that she is the child of the TARDIS and thus special to it and him. How much ‘choice’ does River really have, ever, in her entire life? From the moment she’s born until the moment she dies, with everything we’ve seen? I’d say zero.

Amy Pond - I’m going to mostly focus on Amy’s development in S6 because I feel it’s the most damning evidence there is for Moffat’s sexism. Amy’s pregnancy, let me start off to say, was handled and continues to be handled in a frankly disgusting and squicky way. She didn’t know she was pregnant but the Doctor knew about the gangers and the whole idea of it and he would watch her strange condition and she was never told. Never. And did the Doctor jump on this and go search for the answer? No. They had a few adventures in between. Then, without explaining a damn thing to her, he wakes her up in the middle of giving birth to a child she didn’t know about. Has Amy reacted to this? No, not really. She’s become passive and quiet, not allowed to express her feelings on this and it’s not explored at all just how horrifying and terrible this is. What was done to her had some shock value and that’s it. Where is the exploration of what the shit was done to her and where is the Amy who screamed she would kick their backsides?

But this is the rebooted universe, the healthy one, where she has parents and had a childhood friend named Mels who pretty much had all the say in everything. Amy’s obsession - which was treated as unhealthy, fancy that, finally obsession with the Doctor treated as unhealthy! - is Mels’ and Amy apparently only had her but it doesn’t matter, it was River and Amy still doesn’t get to react. It still isn’t explored. Amy is just there, a device now.

And let’s look at more. Let’s look at Rory, who has to give permission when Amy gets a hug for Christ’s sake. It isn’t fucking funny. The Doctor is her friend and he has to ask Rory if he can hug her. It’s not the first time, either. Rory, who mocked her accent in this episode out of nowhere. Rory who she is pretty much punished about all season, for not being in her place as a good girlfriend, so she’s haunted by his death and cries a lot. When she doesn’t know what to do, she cries in Rory’s arms, and Rory is the action hero on the bike, again mocking her accent when she questions him. (The mocking thing really, really pissed me off, you can probably tell.)

Amy was a girl who bit her therapists, who kicked and screamed and wouldn’t back down no matter how afraid she was. There’s nothing wrong with a character giving up and crying but that wasn’t who Amy was. But in this ‘right’ universe, everything is fixed and Amy is better now, because she’s learning to defer to the men. In that episode, Let’s Kill Hitler, her golden moment was because she is River’s mother and can access her data. Her role as a mother is what matters now. Her role as a wife. But not her. We don’t get to see Amy’s feelings on this trainwreck that is her life now and how little choice she was given in any of it, how it was hidden from her and she was lied to by people she loves. It isn’t about her.

But you know what, I don’t have to talk about Amy. Moffat did for me.

Some people have gone so far as to say that Amy is a plot device more than a character.

I never heard it said, so I don’t know how to respond to it…But she isn’t. She actually gets in the way of the plot sometimes. Amy’s tricky—she doesn’t always do what she’s told, she’s not quite as adoring of the Doctor as she ought to be, she’s naughty.

Part of the criticism comes from the fact that Amy is purely defined by her relationships with the men in her life—the Doctor, Rory—as opposed to her predecessors, for whom we saw vibrant, active home lives, aside from any romantic attachments they might have.

We see an active home life for Amy. Her boyfriend and her…I don’t see what’s different there.

Well, any family life for a start. Or life outside of Rory.

We don’t see her mum and dad much…[But] I can’t think of anyone who isn’t defined by their relationships…I think she’s sometimes defined perhaps by her problematic relationships with those people, her slight indecision about who she’s in love with, her willful selfishness at times, and her badness, which I quite like. As I say, “bad girl in the TARDIS.”

- Steven Moffat

I put my favourite part in italics and bold there but let me restate it: she’s not quite as adoring of the Doctor as she ought to be. Let’s not forget she gets in the way of the plot. So her treatment, getting thrown in the back of her own life and the things happening to and around her, is on purpose, because she “gets in the way.” And from the same interview, this part is another fun bit.

Should we find that relationship strange, that the Doctor is dating their daughter?

If he is indeed dating their daughter. He seems to have, at least if nothing else, a woman who flirts with him with a wifely confidence. How will that work? I think Rory will probably punch him twice a day: “Hands off both of them!” I don’t think it will bother Amy for a heartbeat because actually she has made a choice. She doesn’t want the Doctor. Or rather, she’s got the Doctor in that way and she would think, “You go, girl. Go get him!”

Again we see the emphasis on the places of men and women. River has ‘wifely’ confidence. Amy is encouraging because she no longer wants the Doctor. No threat! So River is allowed. Though Rory’s say is still the man’s position of decision on the actions of both River and Amy.

And this is all without going into the way in the comedy skit, Amy’s ‘bad girl’ nature is the subject of humour. She wears short skirts! She gets her way with them! God, put on some trousers, Pond! But like he said on his twitter, two Amys? What ‘hot-blooded male’ wouldn’t be all over that? And his idea of humour is rather important.

“When writing comedy, you have to have the confidence to believe that there is only one type of relationship in the world, and we are all having it; that all men behave in the same way and so do all women; I fill the script with universals, and people seem to watch!”

- Steven Moffat

“I don’t know how well women come out of Coupling,” says Moffat, the son of a headmaster, who taught English in Greenock before following his original writerly instincts and scoring his first success with Press Gang. “There’s this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that women are needy. Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth. We don’t, as little boys, play at being married - we try to avoid it for as long as possible. Meanwhile women are out there hunting for husbands.”
Not that I study such things, but this seems to contradict the findings of at least one recent survey, suggesting it is women who cope better on their own. We’re all weekend relationship-psychologists now, of course, but since Moffat - now a dad of two - has subjected his own entanglements to special scrutiny for the benefit of the sitcom, maybe his opinions on the sex wars rate better than most.

“I used to have Patrick’s life, minus the large accoutrement,” he says of his days impersonating a road construction vehicle. “I had a fantastic penthouse flat in Glasgow and put it to the best possible use. It was tremendous fun.” But it was his first meaningful relationship in ages that inspired Coupling. When he and Susan started living together, he says he was confronted with a “completely different set of life priorities”: suddenly there were cushions everywhere. Or, as his alter ego in the show puts it: “Tiny picture frames, toilet-roll holders, toilet-roll … ”

So, post-New Man, post-Lad, where does the male of the species stand now? “Well, the world is vastly counted in favour of men at every level - except if you live in a civilised country and you’re sort of educated and middle-class, because then you’re almost certainly junior in your relationship and in a state of permanent, crippled apology. Your preferences are routinely mocked. There’s a huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male.”
- Steven Moffat

folklores:

This is a post about River Song and why what Moffat is writing with her makes my skin crawl. I don’t hate her. I also don’t dislike her. Rather, I’m insulted by the way she is presented and written. I know that disliking her is hardly an unpopular opinion but those that do like…

Well, this is not going to be a fun one, I think. But I would like to make something very clear at the beginning of this reply, because you did it in yours and to be honest I am quite tired of this.

I am very tired of this false dichotomy that fandom has created.

I was talking, very specifically, about Steven Moffat and the character of River Song, in an even narrower context of The Impossible Astronaut and the Library episodes. Yet you end up bringing in RTD era stuff, as a few others have. So let me clear this up again: RTD IS SEXIST TOO.

I was not, however, writing about RTD. There is no reason to bring him into the discussion. If you like Moffat, you must hate RTD. If you dislike Moffat, you must love RTD. If you hate River, you must like Rose. If you like Rose, you must hate Martha.

Forever and ever and ever. That is what discussion and debate in this fandom has become. Nothing can speak on its own merits or shortcomings. It must be compared to, “well this person did it too!” or “But obviously it’s because you favour this.” And I’m tired of it. There’s no reason for it. If I wanted to write about RTD’s sexism, it would be a very long essay and when it hit Journey’s End it would become an anger filled rant of swears and capslock.

But that isn’t what I was talking about. So. RTD? Is not relevant to this conversation. The only person I’m talking about is Steven Moffat and the only character was River Song, along with a few past examples of his writing for support involving his other characters. His characters. Not RTD’s. Now if we wanted to expand it, we could and it would just get difficult under the weight of all that sexism and that wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have right now. This wasn’t entirely aimed at you but it comes up so much in so many conversations that it’s worth having here.

All right, so now then.

Of course, the thing we really need to evaluate this against is something we don’t have: how much of her life is spent in Storm Cage? We’ve seen that she’s been able to escape at least twice under her own power in response to the Doctor’s need for aid and was on Work Release at least once during which time she was able to call on the Doctor. If her meetings with the Doctor are the only points within her recent history in which she hasn’t been in prison, then living for them may not be so problematic. In and of itself.

Again I’m going to say that this is very generous considering the beginning of the episode shows she can just pack up and leave Arkham Asylum whenever she wants. So why does she escape only for the Doctor? Why not escape because she can and if it’s so miserable there, it would allow her some freedom. We can’t have it set-up where she can both escape anytime she wants to and be trapped and yearning for the days with the Doctor. Only one of them can be correct and the beginning shows she can just pack and leave. So again, it’s very generous to say it is only because of her imprisonment.

And I’m not going to copy paste everything but you didn’t address the points I was actually discussing. I’m not talking about Moffat’s love of time loops and why things must be - except in the case of consent into this relationship - but the implications of her death, of saying that she lives for someone and that a ‘fate worse than either of their deaths’ is not being remembered by him. The implications and gravity of her words change because of this speech. The reason she dies and reasoning behind it are in question.

The fact that existing beyond bodily death isn’t a foreign concept doesn’t mean it’s the Doctor’s decision to decide how River will live and die. There’s also no reason to think he’s going to come back for her since that seemed to be his general idea of saving her and leaving it at all. What we’re shown is that digital life, like the feedback loops, is considered unnatural and disturbing. We don’t know what River wanted but she never once indicated it was to live in a virtual life raising children - which is how the episode ends. Moffat himself said he didn’t think beyond that and feels that’s the end.

Again, not touching the RTD stuff. I already made my opinions on that known.

As for Moffat possibly loving the chance to write Seven, he’s on record as thinking everything in Old Who is ridiculous and bad, so no he wouldn’t. Also it’s rather insulting to say it’s a similar relationship. Also, using Moffat episodes to back up why it’s okay in the long run for Moffat to have the Doctor feeling sexual urges for Amy isn’t the best idea. The Doctor Dances was subtle and quite open to interpretation. You’ll be hard pressed to find even the more devoted Rosefen who believe that somehow indicates their first time having sex. Moffat is the one bringing sex into everything, into his episodes and into the Doctor. Romance was more RTD’s style but most if not all sexual references from the Doctor to a companion you’ll find in Moffat’s work.

I’m also frankly not sure how you can say The Doctor Dances is so strictly about the Doctor and Rose having sex.

We also have no reason to think ‘girl’ doesn’t mean ‘girl’ here. It’s used twice and implied she’s very young when she meets him. How young? We don’t know. But young enough.

Now here’s something I will quote from you.

I find that assignment of gender rather offensive actually, as it has nothing to do with what is purely a matter of experience vs inexperience. Not to mention it gleefully removes any form of agency and responsibility for her own actions River possesses.

You honestly don’t see why gender matters there? Why an older man in a position of authority putting ideas in a young, vulnerable girl’s head is problematic? I’m not sure why you think I would be gleeful about it taking her agency away. I’m pissed that it does. I can’t see a Doctor doing that and yet she says it happened and gender matters a whole lot. If you can’t understand why it does, then there’s no point in this conversation.

As for Amy, you did, I hope, see her room, covered in dolls made of the Doctor, drawings and items and that she made Rory dress like him and play like him and that when the monster of the episode looked into Amy, it saw only a little girl still clinging to her Doctor. She was indeed damaged by that meeting with him. I love Amy and think she’s fascinating but to deny that the Doctor gave her issues is really denying a lot.

Since ever. Disobeying the Doctor almost inevitably results in otherwise avoidable danger and death unless the writer is trying to make a point about the Doctor’s hubris. Remember the guy that Nine chucked out of the TARDIS for not listening to him about trying to game the future?

No. No. And no. My friend wrote a nice essay on why this is bullshit. But I’ll put down something here anyway. The Doctor has friends. He is not always right. They call him out on it. This has existed since the very first episode where One was told that beating someone to death with a rock isn’t good. And it’s continued and always, always, always been present. And don’t get me started on those episodes and how unfairly the treatment went there.

And one more thing.

You might as well chide the devout for living for those times they feel closest to their god(s), because really that’s what it comes down to. Gender is incidental, because the relationship would be functionally identical with any combination of sexes given the Doctor is a god in a box and River is a mortal.

You have now made the comparison that the Doctor is River’s God and - for the record again GENDER DOES MATTER WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY OF MEDIA WHERE GENDER MATTERS - and if you can’t see why this is beyond unhealthy, unreasonable, and disgusting at this point then frankly I give up.

This was much much less nice than I wanted it to be but I’m afraid such is the only way I can put all this. Sexism is a very upsetting topic to me. Enjoy what you want! There’s no escaping it. But acknowledge it.

fuckyeahlongbox:

shobogan:

folklores:

That awkward moment where you’re finally uncomfortable and skeeved enough to talk about something and you’re fairly certain it’s going to go quite badly as these things tend to do.

But, well. Here’s hoping anyway.

This is a post about…

For Donna: She wanted to get married very badly because she had nothing else. We’re shown that her life and what she thought of it was crap. She was a temp that no one was apparently very nice to and had the sort of friends that would make moves on her husband and a family that figured she was always just acting out. Donna seeks fulfilment and life wasn’t giving that to her but a message so many women are fed is that marriage will fix that. Now, once she’s had time with the Doctor, she becomes quite happy as herself and no longer seems to want any of that.

The Library episodes, written by Moffat, were not the pinnacle of feminism. Donna gets jealous and angry over River - something she’s never been shown to do, I mean hello Martha? - gets distracted by shopping and generally mills about until she’s tossed into the computer. This is where we get the wonderful lines from the pretty girl who is no longer pretty because she could only be clever or pretty! Of course! Ugh.

When Donna’s development is erased, then she’s fine with marriage again. But only in Moffat’s episodes does she ever again post-Doctor express some sort of want for it. It’s also worth noting Wilf mentions she occasionally seems depressed and far off, like she could have something better. Marriage, here, is settling.

As for River, I feel it’s rather generous to say it’s due to prison, considering that prison is apparently Arkham Asylum and she could break out whenever she wants. So why she doesn’t simply break out for reasons aside from seeking out the Doctor are beyond me.

That awkward moment where you’re finally uncomfortable and skeeved enough to talk about something and you’re fairly certain it’s going to go quite badly as these things tend to do.

But, well. Here’s hoping anyway.

This is a post about River Song and why what Moffat is writing with her makes my skin crawl. I don’t hate her. I also don’t dislike her. Rather, I’m insulted by the way she is presented and written. I know that disliking her is hardly an unpopular opinion but those that do like and love her have, in the past, kept me from saying anything. Not directly, no, and I like to hope that fans will understand criticisms and not sweep them away, which I too often see. A post that went around my dash several weeks ago claimed she was flawless and that there were no objective reasons to dislike her save personal preference. Again, I felt rather upset by this because of how upsetting her character is for me. But now that my dash is pretty much nothing but the now famous speech, I feel the need to say something.

And for more disclaimers, these are all my own opinions and I just feel the need to put them out there now. I’ve never liked how she’s written. I feel she’s one of the best examples of why I’m so wary of letting Moffat ever write a woman. And I guess I’m finally putting it into words despite, well, everyone scaring me - including the extreme haters. But here it goes.

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