The Doctor is a parental figure. A female Doctor would be, to me, like a parent getting a sex change - great if that's what they want, but more than a little confusing to me as a person. That is, fair enough, ultimately my problem, and it's a concept that's worth exploring in a fictional setting, but I'm ultimately coming to Doctor Who because of its tradition of exploring macro-social issues through the allegory of monsters rather than its tradition of exploring psycho-sexual hangups through the allegory of regeneration.
Put that stuff in Torchwood and I'll quite happily go watch it there, but let the Doctor do what the Doctor does without complicating things, please. A show does not have to do everything a little and be brave in every direction - it needs only do what it was designed for very excellently, and go about that focus without fear.
And I don't think it's fair to levy sexism as the only possible reason for the opinion. Gender-swapping a character does a lot more than change its societally implied competencies (which I am agreed is a thing it does not have to do at all, in fact). The goal of gender equality is a society where people of any gender can display their individual skills to their fullest potential without labouring under the gender-fuelled misapprehensions and presumptions of others; it is NOT to create a sexless society where genders are interchangeable and only determinable by reference to physiology. A female Doctor DOES create a different character and a different dynamic, it doesn't draw on the same archetypes that have fuelled the doctor over the show's history, and it sits poorly with much of what has made the show work over its long history.
Do feel free to point out to me non-continuity or fanfic stuff with a female Doctor that proves me wrong, though.
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Date: 2009-01-09 03:55 am (UTC)Put that stuff in Torchwood and I'll quite happily go watch it there, but let the Doctor do what the Doctor does without complicating things, please. A show does not have to do everything a little and be brave in every direction - it needs only do what it was designed for very excellently, and go about that focus without fear.
And I don't think it's fair to levy sexism as the only possible reason for the opinion. Gender-swapping a character does a lot more than change its societally implied competencies (which I am agreed is a thing it does not have to do at all, in fact). The goal of gender equality is a society where people of any gender can display their individual skills to their fullest potential without labouring under the gender-fuelled misapprehensions and presumptions of others; it is NOT to create a sexless society where genders are interchangeable and only determinable by reference to physiology. A female Doctor DOES create a different character and a different dynamic, it doesn't draw on the same archetypes that have fuelled the doctor over the show's history, and it sits poorly with much of what has made the show work over its long history.
Do feel free to point out to me non-continuity or fanfic stuff with a female Doctor that proves me wrong, though.