“it could be that this is some degree of sexism . m.i.a. had to deal with this with the respected website pitchfork.com where they assumed that diplo had produced all of her kala album without reading any credit list or nothing , it just had to be , it couldn´t have been m.i.a. herself ! it feel like still today after all these years people cannot imagine that woman can write , arrange or produce electronic music . i have had this experience many many times that the work i do on the computer gets credited to whatever male was in 10 meter radius during the job . people seem to accept that women can sing and play whatever instrument they are seen playing .but they cannot program , arrange , produce , edit or write electronic music . ”
—Björk, on sexism in the electronic music genre
Why Do Men Keep Putting Me in the Girlfriend-Zone?
You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend.
But then, then comes the fateful moment where you find out that all this time, he’s only seen you as a potential girlfriend. And then if you turn him down, he may never speak to you again. This has happened to me time after time: I hit it off with a guy, and, for all that I’ve been burned in the past, I start to think that this one might actually care about me as a person. And then he asks me on a date.
I tell him how much I enjoy his company, how much I value his friendship. I tell him that I really want to be his friend and to continue hanging out with him and talking about our favorite books or exploring new restaurants or making fun of avant-garde theatre productions. But he rejects me. He doesn’t answer my calls or e-mails; if we’d been making plans to do something before this fateful incident, these plans mysteriously fail to materialize. (This is why I never did get around to seeing the Hunger Games movie. Not to name any names, but thanks a lot, Tom.) Later, when I run into him at social events, our conversations are awkward and lukewarm. This is because the moment we met, he put me in the girlfriend-zone, and now he can’t see me as friend material.
I must say that I find this really unfair. I mean, I’m a nice girl. I have a lot to offer as a friend, like not being a douchebag and stuff. But males just don’t want to be friends with nice girls like me. They can’t help it, I guess; it’s just how they’re wired, biologically. Evolution conditioned our male hominid ancestors to seek nice girls as mates and form friendship bonds only with the other dudes that they hunted mammoths with. It’s true—I know this because I studied hominids in my fifth-grade science class.
So what’s the answer? Should I take up mammoth-hunting in an attempt to appeal to the friendship centers of men’s primal lizardbrains? Should I keep making guy “friends” and then prevent them from making a move on me by subtly undermining their self-confidence? Should I just give up on those manipulative, game-playing, two-faced bastards once and for all? I don’t know. I mean, I’d really like to have a true friendship with a guy someday, but it’s so hard to trust and respect them when they never say what they mean—and you never know when you might be relegated to the girlfriend-zone.
Naomi was actually a heroine who died for her home albeit in vain. She risked her life but actually lost it. She sacrificed herself. She had the welfare of her kin in mind all this time. She just wanted to protect her family.
She’s a warrior.
She’s a strong woman.
She died a heroic death.
RIP Naomi
brb crying
“How Do Women Get Dressed in the Morning? In a world of prudes, sluts and rapists An outfit is no longer a fashion statement But an excuse And a reason To be harmed Even knee length skirts Are a reason But if you add knee socks to hide your legs Then it becomes too sexual You’re a whore A tank top that shows shoulders is asking for it It makes your breasts whisper “touch me” Or So I’m told I’ve listened closely And mine do not speak If I dress conservative Then I’m a prude A stuck up bitch(girl) Who needs it bad But is too high and mighty to ask If I wear a T-shirt and jeans Then it must only be because I know it shows my hourglass Because I want to feel sexy Not because I find Levi’s comfortable A mini skirt and low cut blouse Would make me a slut With a bad reputation Something easy to touch at a party After I have a beer or two Not a victim of PTSD Who was just able to look in the mirror this year They don’t see self confidence They see Slut, whore, loose woman Printed on the fabric of everything in my closet Nun outfit Nurse Maid School Girl Don’t bother picking a costume at Halloween If your clothes aren’t good enough During the rest of the year Then Halloween must be a conspiracy Don’t wear your hair in pigtails It’s too sexual They’ll call them ‘handle bars’ Don’t wear a ponytail They’ll just use it to grab you Don’t leave your hair down It means you’re flirty And gives them something to run their fingers through It doesn’t matter what you wear anymore But they like to tell you it does It makes them feel better to have an excuse To say you picked the outfit Wear a business suit Or go naked It’s your fault either way They have to say something To get off the hook, To let them sleep tonight 3/24/13 Bree Felling www.breefelling.com”
—By poet, spoken word artist, author and activist, Bree Felling
The Myth of the Classic Companion
Say what you want about the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, but at least we’ve come a long way. We might pick apart the show’s treatment of its female characters to death, but nowadays they’re given some agency and treated like people; they’re not just there to scream and play damsels in distress anymore, like in the classic series.
Right?
The above sentiment seems to be fairly common these days. Not just among Whovians who have never watched the classic series, but it’s also been perpetuated by media. Christopher Eccleston on BBC Breakfast Interview back in 2005, when asked about how the revival differs from the classic series talked about “the sexism of the underwritten female role”; on the BBC-sponsored documentary The Women of Doctor Who (that despite its title only touches upon female characters who have appeared on the show post-2005) the new series is praised for having made the companions into “proper characters”.
Even the show itself seems to echo this in Journey’s End, implying that Sarah Jane used to play a more passive role during her time on the TARDIS:
Davros: You were there on Skaro, at the very beginning of my creation.
Sarah Jane: Yeah, and I’ve learned how to fight since then.
This is a problematic view to hold.
Classic Who was without question sexist. Like all pop culture, it was a product of its time, which has meant very different things from 1963 to 1989; some eras have arguably been more progressive than others, but in the end we are all bound by the trappings of the time we live in. But sexism in fiction can appear in a variety of ways; the way women are characterized, the way women are presented visually and what role women play in the narrative are all different aspects interacting with one another. They make a whole, but they can be scrutinized individually and there can be a fair amount of dissonance between them.
Does it matter if the audience is told that Zoe is more intelligent than the Doctor (by the Doctor himself, no less) if several writers don’t utilize her abilities? Is Sarah Jane’s feminist opinions undermined by the fact that she screams? Is Leela less of a capable character because her outfit blatantly panders to the Male Gaze?
A character is defined as much by who they are as by what they do and what role they play in the narrative. There is no clear answer to the above questions; they all illustrate problematic aspects of the narrative as much as positive aspects of the characters themselves.
If there’s anything Doctor Who has always been very good at, it’s to create a varied cast of women. From Susan to Ace, each female companion has been given their own personalities, skills and weaknesses; they are not cardboard cut-outs that are simply placed on the show to ask questions and provide exposition, or move the plot along by being placed in mortal peril. They have all been “proper characters”, and the vast majority of them haven’t suffered from being underwritten. The emotional life of the characters and their development were not prioritized the same way they are today, true – that doesn’t mean these elements didn’t exist, that Classic Who couldn’t be emotionally intense or allow characters to grow with their experience.
Did they scream? Yes, most of them – and sometimes with good reason. Did they have to be saved? Yes, but they also did a significant amount of saving.
That Polly is rendered unconscious and held hostage in The Power of the Daleks doesn’t negate the fact that she single-handedly engineers a plan to capture and blackmail a redcoat in The Highlanders (with the help of another female character) that will prove vital to the plot later on. Jo Grant may be something of a klutz but her skills in escapism have got the Doctor out of a tight spot more than once. And whatever Russell T. Davies seems to think, Sarah Jane has been able to handle a rifle since 1976.
We live in a society where women and their contributions are constantly undermined and undervalued, and this is reflected not only in the way female characters are written, but in the way we treat and relate to them. Why do we choose to remember the female companions of the past as screaming damsels in distress, rather than the three-dimensional characters they actually were? By doing so we not only ignore the many examples of well-written female characters there were, but dismiss them as something to be ashamed of.
Conflating almost thirty years of female representation on public television into one stereotype and dubbing it “screaming women” is to dismiss thirty years of an extremely varied cast of companions.
It’s to write off more than a dozen female characters and their contribution to the show as unimportant.
Yes, Classic Who was sexist. So is New Who, and most shows on television, in one way or another.
This year, Doctor Who celebrates fifty years since it first aired. That’s fifty years’ worth of female characters; human and alien; from the past and from the future; upper-class and working class; scientists, warriors, delinquents, air hostesses. Not perfect, not perfectly written, but all with their own strengths and weaknesses.
It would be nice if we saw them all as a source of pride, rather than mistakes.
-Mathilda (writer for Feminist Doctor Who)
