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Stats on women, and Gwen from Torchwood.
In poking at the stats ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redstarrobot was doing last night on the disempowerment/death of women in the last four seasons of Doctor Who, my brain decided this morning as I lay half-awake to start rambling about Gwen from Torchwood and how fandom dislikes her and how in some ways, I think her character choices were exceedingly masculine rather than feminine.
(but first, links to the stats, since they're rather depressing for a show that's modern and claiming to be feminist)
The original stats, dealing with just the women
Newer stats, with men taken into account
The biggest example of this, of course, is Gwen tazering Rhys and shoving him in a cell at the end of the series. She's doing this to protect him, because he doesn't understand and isn't strong enough to survive.
For an excellent example of the normal run of this sort of thing, please see The Mummy, specifically the scene where Rick pickes Evelyn up and dumps her on her bed, then locks the door. In movies, comics, tv, etc., this scene is almost always played with big strong men protecting the helpless, innocent females.
In Torchwood, it's the woman who protects her man. The end result of most of these is usually more peril for the helpless victim, by the way. Evelyn gets kissed by a creepy mummy and has to be saved. Depending on the film, the women are killed, abused, kidnaped, tortured, etc. Gwen needed help getting him there, because he is not a small man, but that's really beside the point.
The second one is Gwen shagging Owen because Rhys wouldn't understand.
This is a huge staple in all sorts of army/black ops scenarios. Man is tortured by what he sees every day, and his sweet wife at home simply wouldn't understand all he's been through, so he sleeps with his co-worker/a hooker/insert random villainess because she'll get it. Or she won't, and it's his way of a sort of self-punishment.
Gwen's reaction to the stuff going on in Torchwood is entirely human, her using Owen because he's there and understands--and she can't tell Rhys--is sad, but it's also human.
And, in the end, if it hadn't been for the canibals, I'm not sure she would have. But something like that was so far out of her realm of experience she needed something to have it make sense. And she chose shagging Owen, because he was there.
Her continued affair with him was as much inertia as it was sexual attraction, really.
Huh. This just occured to me, while thinking about the affair--Gwen drugging Rhys and confessing her sins because she needs absolution is also something I've seen male characters do before. Off the top of my head, I'm not remembering one. I just know I've seen it. I've also seen the guilt-ridden men who would totally jump at the chance for that forgiveness if they could make it so sweet little wifey wouldn't remember they'd been bad.
And I hated that scene. I thought it was demeaning to both of them. It is. No matter which side is drugging the other, really.
redstarrobot was doing last night on the disempowerment/death of women in the last four seasons of Doctor Who, my brain decided this morning as I lay half-awake to start rambling about Gwen from Torchwood and how fandom dislikes her and how in some ways, I think her character choices were exceedingly masculine rather than feminine.(but first, links to the stats, since they're rather depressing for a show that's modern and claiming to be feminist)
The original stats, dealing with just the women
Newer stats, with men taken into account
The biggest example of this, of course, is Gwen tazering Rhys and shoving him in a cell at the end of the series. She's doing this to protect him, because he doesn't understand and isn't strong enough to survive.
For an excellent example of the normal run of this sort of thing, please see The Mummy, specifically the scene where Rick pickes Evelyn up and dumps her on her bed, then locks the door. In movies, comics, tv, etc., this scene is almost always played with big strong men protecting the helpless, innocent females.
In Torchwood, it's the woman who protects her man. The end result of most of these is usually more peril for the helpless victim, by the way. Evelyn gets kissed by a creepy mummy and has to be saved. Depending on the film, the women are killed, abused, kidnaped, tortured, etc. Gwen needed help getting him there, because he is not a small man, but that's really beside the point.
The second one is Gwen shagging Owen because Rhys wouldn't understand.
This is a huge staple in all sorts of army/black ops scenarios. Man is tortured by what he sees every day, and his sweet wife at home simply wouldn't understand all he's been through, so he sleeps with his co-worker/a hooker/insert random villainess because she'll get it. Or she won't, and it's his way of a sort of self-punishment.
Gwen's reaction to the stuff going on in Torchwood is entirely human, her using Owen because he's there and understands--and she can't tell Rhys--is sad, but it's also human.
And, in the end, if it hadn't been for the canibals, I'm not sure she would have. But something like that was so far out of her realm of experience she needed something to have it make sense. And she chose shagging Owen, because he was there.
Her continued affair with him was as much inertia as it was sexual attraction, really.
Huh. This just occured to me, while thinking about the affair--Gwen drugging Rhys and confessing her sins because she needs absolution is also something I've seen male characters do before. Off the top of my head, I'm not remembering one. I just know I've seen it. I've also seen the guilt-ridden men who would totally jump at the chance for that forgiveness if they could make it so sweet little wifey wouldn't remember they'd been bad.
And I hated that scene. I thought it was demeaning to both of them. It is. No matter which side is drugging the other, really.
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And I always figured Evie was Amelia, but younger. *g*
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And yeah, Evie kinda reminds me of Amelia too. :)
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The same ones who rabbit on about racism and sexism in Who and Torchwood. Funny, that.
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Because it's generally true. I, of course, had to add my own bit, which required one person to miss my point entirely (sure, honey, it's okay to ignore the badly-written women and fixate on the badly-written males). I'm thinking I need a fucking bingo card for the arguments against paying attention to the female characters.
Argh. *cranky*