Generally, female actors play female characters. Mulett was talking about the roles for actors.

I'm not sure what you mean here - that no character should be defined by their relationship to another character? Or that no character should be written with lazy gender biases?

The problem here is that you've got to show that it really does get presented the other way, and that it does affect the demographic negatively.

Edit: sorry, your follow-up message that I didn't see until after this one, clarifies thing. Of course, no group of people should be marginalised, should be ignored or pushed into the background, particularly when they make up half the population. But a problem has to be identified first, and men just don't have that problem.

Thank you.

It is surprising that many people don't seem to appreciate that female actors have a tougher time finding good parts than male actors.

One of the additional criteria for the Bechdel test is that the two female characters must be named.

For me, that highlights the issue - not only are female characters often written purely to react to what the male characters are doing, but sometimes they don't even get names!

Trust me, I know about the lack of roles for women. I do a lot of plays, and have just been in Jesus Christ Superstar, playing a great, well-written named character, opposite the only well-written named female character in the show. And I'm just about to start rehearsals for my Edinburgh show - A Few Good Men.

Again, a really good show with only one female character.

Both shows have arguments for only including a few female parts (in Jesus' alleged time period, women were not seen as anything important, and AFGM is set in the military - still a largely mael dominated wrold), but there is scope for having more female parts written into them. (Both shows fail the Bechdel test, btw...)

And the amount of shows we do, we actively look for shows with more female parts... But it's really, really hard.

It is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. But we mustn't allow it to go the other way (not that I'm saying in any way that it will any time soon) by addressing the problem in individual genders. It needs to be stamped out completely.

This Tumblr post pokes some holes in Moore's 'study' ....

http://frecklestherobot.tumblr.com/p...y-is-dishonest

Hmmm, that poster starts with the same discussions that have been had here, including some the same misapprehensions. While I completely agree that there's lot of variance of opinion about what 'counts' with regards to appearances, screen time, discussions between female characters - I think it's a bit overstep of the mark to call the original writer 'dishonest'.

To be fair though, she did let her personal opinion really get in the way with regards to River, so it's incredibly dishonest to present something, leave out information, mix in said personal opinion, and then call it a University Study, which is something that is usually unbiased.

It's a dishonest portrayal of how women are portrayed in the show.

Moore's article is totally of her own personal bias as well, which makes it harder to take it seriously.

No, it's perfectly fine. She makes it very clear it's her personal interpretation of the figures she's presented - providing an editorial commentary or interpretation of results is a perfectly fine thing to do.

And she's absolutely right about River - no matter how 'badass' she is and intriguing her method of introduction, she was written as a romantic interest for the Doctor. The daughter of his companion, brainwashed into falling in love with him, willing to sacrifice her life for him, does absolutely everything he asks of her without question.

I mean, I like the character, and love Alex's portrayal, but she's hardly an independent spirit. When was the last time we saw her do any archaeology?

It's not about debating subjective facts of the character, though. It is NOT fine when it essentially becomes a piece of libel.

Regardless of River this, River that, facts were still ignored in favour of creating a bias against Moffat. As the Tumblr post stated, the facts when all the other episodes are taken into accountt put the statistics in Moffat's era's favour. The fact that she left out evidence (in episodes and the other female characters of Moffat's era) to reach a conclusion which she clearly wanted, and that the anti-Moffat crew on Tumblr no doubt wanted, proves that the study is invalid,.

The most important factor is that she left some game-changing statistics out to reach her desired conclusion. That's the problem here.

Then what you mean is that the methodology was flawed. That's an objective debate, that's different from her opinions on whether River was a sexist caricature or not.

You can't go around throwing accusations of libel around, and then 'prove' it by making some of your own by calling someone dishonest.