Doctor Who On Feminism

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Title:	Doctor Who On Feminism
Creator:	Martin Wiggins
Date(s):	1981, 1982
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Doctor Who
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Doctor Who On Feminism is an essay by Martin Wiggins.

It was printed in Dimension Four #1 in 1982, but it was a 1981 reprint from the zine Fendahl.

the essay as it appears in Dimension Four, illos by Val Verse

Some Topics Discussed

• Doctor Who
• feminism
• Companion Sarah Jane Smith: her assumptions and lack of knowledge
• women should stay in their place

The Essay

One problem with the Doctor's female companions is that they can become stooges. One of Malcolm Hulke's more common gambits to avoid this was to make them profess a form of feminism. This is best illustrated in his novel "The Green Death", where Jo's growing feeling of independence from the Doctor is symbolised in her insinuation that the English language is part of a conspiracy against womanhood, repeatedly insisting that people abandon a perfectly legitimate nuance of the word "man" and substitute "human being."

Sarah is more outspoken in her feminism when she joins the Doctor, especially when she is confronted by a medieval society in which it is, as Lady Eleanor Fitzroy puts it, "a woman's place to wait." The two sexes have separate roles, and the male world of the banqueting hall and the woman's kitchen both have their hierarchies. The root of the problem is that Sarah (and womanhood in general) has rejected the traditional female role, and in stead of creating for herself a replacement, chooses to attempt to usurp the traditional masculine one - hence the significance of her decision that men's clothes will suit her better than con temporary feminine attire; (from "The Time Monster").

Because Sarah has taken on this par-pseudo-masculine stance, she can see in the traditional woman only what medieval man saw - a capacity for sex and 'lowly work'. Since her feminism assumes (quite wrongly) a natural conflict between the sexes, all the world usual women's lib cliches are exhumed in her reaction to it: "I'm not afraid of men, they don't own the world. Why should we always have to cook and carry for them?" Meg, an experienced kitchen inmate, dismisses this attempt to stir the serving wenches to revolution as "foolish thoughts".

This is because Sarah, being an outsider, has missed a lot. Meg implies that by knowing her own place she has grown old enough to be wise, and her remark that "men are like children, ever fond of noise and brawling" indicates this wisdom. She realises that although men have a monopoly on the use of force, the intelligent woman can use her "female cunning", against which Rubeish warns the Doctor, to be come a first-rate political schemer— witness Lady Eleanor's plot to assassinate Irongron.

What Sarah learns is that feminism is often a distorted perception of society, her real desire not being to free herself from male domination, but to 'stand on her own feet', as Lis Sladen put it, without help from anyone, regardless of sex. This IS, of course, impossible - even on the feminist paradise of Drahva, (Four Hundred Dawns - Third Season) where men are treated like cattle, either destroyed at birth or kept for stud, most of the exponents of feminism would feel dissatisfied because they would still need help from someone else from time to time. Certainly there are many independent women in "Dr. Who" - Thalira, Bettan, Leela, and so on - but they do not tend to waste time complaining of female subservience to men, thus assuming its existence; they just assume its non existence and get on with looking after themselves. Feminists, in "Dr. Who" at least, are straining at shackles of their own forging.

Fan Comments

Martin Wiggins' articles were intelligent and enlightening, but I must reply to his article on feminism as it seems to me his perception is a bit distorted. The point that Sarah argues about being equal, while Leela just goes ahead and assumes she is, is well made—however, the background of the two women is quite different. Sarah was trying to compete in the career world of the present-day (more-or-less) Earth, where even if a woman comes in assuming equality she doesn't always find equal opportunities. And to a modern woman not yet used to time travelling not even sure quite what's going on, the separation of the sexes to the extent it occurred in medieval society would be shocking. Also I think neither Sarah, nor most of the women I know, no matter how strong they are on feminism, would consider Drahva a "feminist paradise". Of course, feminists often take things a few steps too far, or just assume that the road to true freedom is being able to do what men do—but a slight overreaction is certainly justified when you consider how long and to what extent women have been (yes!) oppressed. In an ideal world—and hopefully in our own future—we will all just assume equality, as Leela does. Enough lecture...