Oh, adorable Mathilda Gregory at the Guardian doesn’t understand that women simply don’t like science fiction and don’t read it and have no interest in writing it. Obviously. Because science fiction is a boy thing.
Why Doctor Who needs more female writers
[S]eason seven of Doctor Who will feature no female scribes at all. Not in the bombastic dinosaurs and cowboys episodes that aired last year, and not in any of the new episodes we’re about to receive. In fact, Doctor Who hasn’t aired an episode written by a woman since 2008, 60 episodes ago. There hasn’t been a single female-penned episode in the Moffat era, and in all the time since the show was rebooted in 2005 only one, Helen Raynor, has ever written for the show.
…
When questioned on the subject last year, Caroline Skinner, the show’s recently departed executive producer, said that it was her intention to see more women writing for Doctor Who. But none has emerged. So I asked producer Marcus Wilson about his plans to improve the balance of male and female writers on the show. “Due to schedules and other projects, both male and female writers whom we have wanted to join the team simply haven’t been able to,” he said. “For us it’s about who can write good Doctor Who stories, regardless of gender.”
Hey, it just so happens that the best people who can write Doctor Who stories happen to be men. Is that the fault of the men running the show?
*groan*
If they wanted women writers on Doctor Who, they would have them. There are no excuses to be made.
Bizarre and problematic.
I have been bemoaning this for some time. Perhaps if there were some female writers we would get to see some non-Moffaty female characters instead of all the feisty hot young Doctor groupies.
To be entirely fair, ‘feisty hot young Doctor groupies’ easily describes the female companions RTD introduced in several key ways as well. It’s hardly just something Moffat introduced to the show, and it’s not really fair to act as if he’s the only one responsible for it; it’s been part of the basic companion archetype the show’s been working from since 2005. Amy and Clara (from what we’ve seen of the latter so far) aren’t THAT different from Rose and Martha (and Donna to some degree).
Which just underscores the point, really; more female voices would benefit the show in general. It’s not just a problem with Moffat, it’s a problem with the ‘boy’s club’ attitude to science fiction and fantasy in general.
(I wonder what Donna might say to being called a groupie?)
There’s a huge difference between them. RTD’s female characters *felt* real. You could see the logical progression of their feelings. With Moffatt, not so much. Amy’s baby is stolen from her – she goes home to wait for the Doctor to bring her back. Realises baby is grown and that those years are gone forever – not really any reaction at all. The plot couldn’t afford to delve into those feelings so it didn’t. It’s hard to come to any conclusion other than women are not as important as plot.
I don’t know if this qualifies as a Doctor Who Thing Of The Day so I’ll just leave a link to this interview I just read with Steven Moffat for you to read as well: http://collider.com/steven-moffat-doctor-who-season-7-interview/
Given that the writers are sucked up from the pool of up-and-coming and out-and-arrived s/f & TV writers producing notable work at the moment, who do you think should get invited to write for series 8?
Are you implying that there simply aren’t any women writers working at the BBC for Moffat to pick from? Cuz that’s an even bigger problem…
We’ve had this discussion before, and the point came up then.
Yes, that is the real (bigger) problem. Doctor Who takes established TV writers. And there aren’t enough of them that combine being women with being seen as having potential to write for this show, with having the time and inclination to write for the show. This isn’t just a problem with Doctor Who, it’s a problem with the TV industry. People seem to assume the potential pool of writers is huge. It isn’t. It’s quite small. And just because someone writes a blinding SF or fantasy novel, doesn’t mean they can write a script for Doctor Who. There are skills involved other than “come up with a fantastic plot.”
Also, I think “working at the BBC” is irrelevant. We’re talking writers, not BBC employees. Heck, my cousin works for the BBC, but she’s not about to start submitting Doctor Who scripts. The life of a writer is rather unpredictable (I know, I lived it for 5 years), and involves coping with ups and downs. This latter point, by the way, is an explanation of why writers are more likely to be well-off white people, rather than an explanation of why they are more likely to be men. Though I have a suspicion that society makes it easier for men to deal with such lifestyles than it does women. I may be wrong about this; if I am not, that is also a (bigger) problem.
When this discussion comes up, there seem to be tacit assumptions firstly that there is a huge pool of potential women writers for the show, and secondly that this pool is deliberately being snubbed. I think these assumptions actually diminish the extent of the problem. The protestations of showrunners may indeed be masking a conspiracy against women, but isn’t it more likely that they are basically true, and the real “conspiracy” is the larger bugbear of an unequal society?
In the interview I linked to above, Moffat mentions how he likes to get other showrunners to write for Who, wherever possible. How many female showrunners are there for him to choose from?
I’m not saying he should only be choosing showrunners to write for the show (other than Neil Gaiman, of course) but since he is, that might also play a part in limiting female candidates.)
Well, there’s Shonda Rhimes, Diablo Cody, Marti Noxon, Nancy Miller, Jenji Kohan, and Jane Espenson (she’s only been showrunner for a web series, but she also wrote for Torchwood, along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Game of Thrones). I’m sure there are other capable women I’m forgetting.
Or did you mean that to be a rhetorical question?
These women are all Americans, working in American TV, and as near as I can tell, no American has ever written for Doctor Who. Only two of the six (Noxon and Espenson) work in genre television. It’s also worth noting that while Jane Espenson did write for Torchwood, she wrote for Miracle Day in particular.
Which is not to say that any of these women are automatically disqualified for the gig. But I wouldn’t exactly call this a short list of potential candidates to write Doctor Who, for reasons that have nothing to do with their gender.
Neil Gaiman is a showrunner? He is primarily known as a fantasy writer and for many years, he was an unknown outside the field of comic books. Jane Espension, on the other hand, was a co-creator of Warehouse 13, among other things.
No he’s not a showrunner and for the record, I don’t agree with Moffat’s stance that only showrunners or mainly showrunners should be considered. I was just trying to reason why things might be as they are, given his mindset, that’s all.
Nothing you say here is anything that hasn’t been proffered — again and again — as a “reasonable explanation” for why there aren’t more women in all manner of fields. And time and time again, we see that the moment women get some support, they prove these explanations to be bullshit.
It simply is not reasonable that, even given the special requirements of writing for Doctor Who, the overwhelming majority of those who meet the requirements are men.
You seem to be assuming that I’m suggesting that women shouldn’t get support. I think they should. I’m not arguing against that. I’m simply saying that the tacit assumptions on which this argument is often constructed don’t seem to address the problem, and as long as they don’t they aren’t going to be able to engage as constructively with a solution.
And to address your final paragraph: “reasonable” is a highly ambiguous word. Is it fair? No, for the reasons I’ve addressed. Does it make sense? Sadly, yes it does. Please don’t assume I’m saying that’s a good thing. It most certainly isn’t, any more than the predominantly white profile of writers is.
Point taken, but I’d argue that that this case at least is less ‘women are not as important as plot’ and more ‘characters in general are not as important as plot’ for Moffat. It’s not as if Rory, upon learning that his daughter was missing and upon realizing she’d grown and those years were gone forever, reacted much differently, after all.
And okay, Donna’s the exception and ‘groupie’ is harsh (but then, it wasn’t my word to begin with) but it’s not as if Martha and Rose at least stray that far from the ‘feisty attractive young female attracted to the Doctor’ template. Rose is willing to give up absolutely everything in her life for the Doctor and Martha’s entire time on the show is pretty much defined by her unrequited feelings for the Doctor, after all.
The last woman who wrote for Who was Helen Raynor who got torn apart for writing the bad Dalek episodes (although I liked her Sontaran ones!) I think she went into shock, the online reaction was so bad.
(Re:below -Martha had other stuff in her life and left the Dr when she realised he couldn’t return her feelings. She knew herself well and moved on. Rose was just a baby, so was Amy. Donna was, at least, a mature lady. I watched the last series of Being Human and thought they should have cast Kate Bracken as Amy because she could do spiky AND warmth but I digress).
Maybe women are put off writing for DW because of the reaction Helen got, it might be a genre that’s hard to break into.
Men write shitty episodes too.
I really doubt that Moffat is approaching women writers who are then turning him down because they’re worried about fan reaction.
I’d like to see Audrey Niffenegger have a go–after reading “The Time
Traveller’s Wife”, she clearly knows her way around wibbly-wobbly,
timey-wimey. :)
Well, Maryann, you’d better go submit your resume!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
Sadly, no, but one can dream…
No, I don’t watch that much TV so I really didn’t know.
Jane Espenson, I mean.