Personally I'd like to see a female 12th Doctor. That would be brilliant. Someone hot, who is a complex character.
( It would certainly put paid to any accusations of backwardness and misogyny about the show ).

Yep yep.

Ambrose didn't set out to kill, so it wasn't murder. It was an unfortunate side effect. They showed she didn't enjoy applying the torture but was desperate for the nutjob to help. It was still wrong, but she was under extreme stress and this was carefully shown.

You have to try and ignore Amy and Nasreen being all diplomatic (and this being played up very prominently as a main non-subtle part of the plot) for OP's point to hold water.

So, we only really have the fact that Silurian military is female whereas ours are mainly male. And that some of their military have a bit of a "jihadi" mentality. I really don't think it came across at all misogynist. Maybe he could have had one of the silurian males recast as female, but really - how touchy and sensitive do they have to be about these things? I'm sure most people were getting the more overt messages and any "subtle hints" (intentional or otherwise) would be lost.

And if, in some small way, Doctor Who has managed to smuggle a subtle hint that men are all reasonable peaceful types, then perhaps the viewers might next read a paper or watch the news and get some very much less subtle hints to the contrary. So no harm done.

The military Silurians were female in order to mirror the human - a mother trying to protect her family. There's a reason that Ambrose is mother, wife and daughter.
Restac was trying to protect her family too - her sister and her species.

All of the females in Doctor Who are unreasonable apart from the females in Doctor Who who are reasonable.

I thought poor Ambrose got treated a bit harshly by some of the others. She was deliberately goaded into taking the action she did.

In Silurian terms then yes, it was weird. You were meant to hate all the female silurians and really like all the kind hearted guy Silurians. Also you were meant to dislike the mother who ruined everything. It was very obvious and somewhat odd, however in general Doctor Who terms then no, I'd say it is pro-women.

I think you would have had a point if you had confined your comment to the silureans.

The male Silurian scientist was also a voice of reason. And Ambrose's dad, so reasonable as well, especially compared to her. It just seemed a bit schematic, but might have been by accident.

Timelords aren't always reasonable:

The Master, the Rani, Rassilion (at least Dalton''s version)

Both 9 and 10 have showed less than reasonable sides at times.

The only TL with a record of total reasonableness is Romana

Because its realistic...

Women ARE on the the whole unreasonable...pretty much all the time...every single day.

I get what you're saying. For the purpose of the plot it had to be Ambrose who cracked. The writer could have avoided making the females the fighters but it is useful to reverse what has traditionally been the case in most human societies. It's certainly led to some interesting discussion.

Maybe, just maybe it was "that" time of the month.

I mean come on, the signs were there.

How very unreasonable of you!

I don't see any signs of unequal unreasonablyness in the series a whole. If you look back, male protagonists have outweighed female ones by some fair degree. Didn't see much of it in last night's episode either.

I'm glad you said that. I've been fighting the urge to say the same thing all day.

The Master would agree with that

i never noticed that all the silurian fighters were women, just the two sisters. have i missed something or was everyone else too busy looking at the armys tit area to have noticed

Everyone can be unreasonable at some point, both men and women because its human nature!!

And what's constructive manslaughter between friends?


Although I disagree with the originating poster, it has struck me that all the weeping angels were female too.


Yeah, and soon we'll have television adverts that portray married men as something other than objects of ridicule.

You forgot to quote the bit where I said "It was still wrong".

My point was this character behaved wrongly, but her motivations were clear, which I thought to be believable. This thread is about an accusation of misogyny. This character is not a case of the writer showing "hatred or contempt of women or girls" - he took care to anchor the behaviour in something many fair minded people would recognise from reality. She was able to have a rational conversation about it at the end and I think had learnt her lesson. Which was nice. No bigoted contempt there.

I've seen first hand cases of mothers justifying irrational, over the top and neurotic behaviour on the basis of simply having kids. As if it's some kind of trump card. This character is, I think, "fair comment."


Yes. Probably. But they were so fantastical and grotesque I really think any subtle messages about women would be lost. Angel Bob used a man's voice and that mixes things up a bit. Again, not really a strong contender for misogyny evidence.

(Unless we want to drive the thread into the ground by turning it into one of those insane political correctness conversations where we tally up the genders of baddies as if viewers have no brains and no ability to put things in context.)


Well, let's hope so. Those type of adverts are crass, aren't they? Not sure what it's got to do with my comment, unless we're trying to spiral the thread off topic? If it comforts you, the married man in the episode was shown in a very good light. (So take that, cleaning products companies!)

Too true. There was an ad for chocolate recently-one of a series with the slogan 'a little bit of what you fancy'-which featured the 'hilarious' gag of two women stealing the clothes of a guy in a sauna and then creasing up in laughter as he's forced to walk through a crowded room barely covered by a tiny cloth. I wsonder if that would have been considered as funny-or even remotely acceptable-if it had been two blokes humiliating a naked woman in such a manner? I suspect not.

Any herpetologists here? Are female lizards more violent than males?

Well, yeah. Also the Doctor's the only alien character in the story. Subtle hint: Men are bizarre! And one died! They're weak, too.

If you want to project subtexts onto things, go ahead. I'm not stopping you, and if it makes you feel fantastic then who am I to judge? But if you feel like you have to patronise women by not allowing them any character development or giving them internal conflict, then I think you're probably the one with the problem.

I absolutely agree. I don't know why this is supposed to be funny. Also women comedians who base their whole act on how useless men are. Not funny and very boring.

Sorry, off topic but it is one of my pet hates.

Agreed.

Women have had to put up with a lot of crap portrayals over the years, but this TV trend for making fools of men does not give a positive empowerment image to women. Despite that the women in the ad you mentioned would clearly be punching above their weight anyway.

There's another advert with the tag line 'so simple even Dad could do it'.

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about regarding this latest Doctor Who story, That's one story where the female characters were portrayed in a bad light. How many stories have there been with male villains? The villains are primarily male.

Simple fact is, the way the females were portrayed made them interesting flawed characters.

Have I stumbled on The Guardian comment page here?

It reminds me of one of their articles where a couple of dodgy portrayals of women are extrapolated into a new genocide against women.

"Dodgy portrayals" is giving the original argument too much credit. Portraying women as real people with flaws and feelings just like anyone else is what this episode did.

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again. If you're watching a woman portrayed in a way which isn't clear-cut perfect, and thinking "that's a bit sexist," that's horrifically patronising. That's a disgusting way to treat women. Being offended on their behalf because a character in a sci-fi programme did what she felt was right on behalf of her family? Yeah, very sexist.

Not to mention, Ambrose was an individual character. Not a stereotype. If you're generalising every woman you see on television to "the writer's perception of every woman ever," you are monumentally deluded. It's like you don't understand storytelling!

This episode had three flawed women. It also had one incredibly strong female character, one male character who was irresponsible and let a kid get abducted (more irresponsible than Ambrose would have ever been, at that), and one male character whose curiosity bordered on psychopathicness.

All I've managed to glean from this thread is that the OP has a kneejerk reaction to anything that's not clear-cut, a confused reaction to drama, and a patronising attitude to women.