Moffat Women

Synonyms:	Moffat's Women
See also:	Joss Whedon#Sexism
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Moffat Women is a term used to describe the female characters written by Steven Moffat, showrunner for both BBC's Sherlock and Doctor Who. It has become a shorthand for his perceived problematic depiction of female characters. Within fandom these characters have inspired much debate, and this term often appears in fannish discussions.

Discussion around Moffat's Women often focuses on how many of them share similar characteristics and motivations; with some claiming the Moffat is only capable of writing one female character. They are often feisty, sarcastic and flirty. They are outwardly very confident and independent. However their narrative arcs often revolve around a man. Some fans claim that these women lack agency and they are often used as plot devices.

I'll also add that people call him sexist for writing his female characters (namely Amy, River, and Clara from Doctor Who and Mary and Eurus from Sherlock) as the same woman-with-a-mysterious-past archetype that acts as a plot device the lead male characters must solve.

However, much criticism has been had towards this term, especially in recent years, including from many women fans of his shows.

What makes a character a "Moffat Woman"?

Aside from being a prominent female character in a series or episode penned by Steven Moffat, what traits do "Moffat Women" have in common? In the meta 'The Client Chair: "His Last Vow," Moffat Women, And Me Being So Very Done Right Now', PlaidAdder explains what makes the character of Mary Morstan in BBC's Sherlock (as well as Irene Adler, aka The Woman, and River Song) a Moffat Woman:

So if you know ... Moffat, then you know that the woman they surprise in the act of killing Milverton is going to be Mary. Why? Because Moffat loves gun-toting psychopathic ninja assassin women. He thinks they're hot. He thinks you can never have too many. He thinks, in fact, that being a psychopathic assassin is one of the few things that makes a woman worthy of marriage. Or so I assume, from the fact that Eleven falls in love with and marries the psychopath who was raised to kill him, and that Sherlock's only possible romantic/erotic attachment with a woman (again, if you konw the story, it's very obvious that Jeanine is the update of Milverton's housekeeper; Moffat even takes care to inform us that Sherlock is still a virgin, so The Woman's dominance is not threatened) was to a double-crossing professional dominatrix who spends a lot of her on-screen time naked and prefers the riding crop but is no slouch with a pistol, and that John was apparently attracted to Mary purely because he somehow detected on a subconscious level that she was really a psychopathic gun-slinging sexy ninja assassin.

Because this is the thing about Les Femmes Moffita. They can kill as many people as they want, as sexily as they know how; but their agency within the storylines we see is always fatally compromised by their love for the hero. River Song, for instance. Great character, when she started out. Loved her in "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead." Not pleased to discover that a) she's the daughter of Eleven's companions b) she was raised with the sole purpose of killing the Doctor c) she gave up her ability to regenerate to save him--after first nearly killing him d) she becomes an archaeologist for the sole purpose of being able to track the Doctor and meet up with him from time to time which means taht since e) she dies for him then f) there is not a single moment of her entire life when she is truly independent of the Doctor. Her entire life revolves around him, from before the cradle to after the grave. Irene Adler thinks she's playing Sherlock; but she falls in love with him too--even though she's supposed to be gay--and is therefore undone. They act like they're dominant. They often dominate the hero personally. But structurally, within the story, they are subordinated to the men they're attached to.

Justification by the Creator

Screencap of a now-deleted Moffat tweet in which he claims to be "sexist" in favour of women

In a 2012 interview published in the Guardian, shortly after the third season of Sherlock finished airing, Moffat responded to some of the criticisms of the way his female characters were written, particularly the accusations that his iteration of Irene Adler's story was regressive and less empowering than the original by Arthur Conan Doyle. Moffat maintains that he has created strong female characters with feminist storylines and character arcs.

In the original story, Irene Adler is an adventuress who outwits Holmes; in Sherlock, as Jones put it: "She's become a high-class dominatrix saved only from certain death by the dramatic intervention of our hero." She added: "While Doyle's original is hardly an exemplar of gender evolution, you've got to worry when a woman comes off worse in 2012 than in 1891."

Moffat, unsurprisingly, doesn't agree. "In the original, Irene Adler's victory over Sherlock Holmes was to move house and run away with her husband. That's not a feminist victory." He says he found Jones's argument "deeply offensive". "Everyone else gets it that Irene wins. When Sherlock turns up to save her at the end it's like Eliza Dolittle coming back to Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady: 'OK, I like you, now let me hack up these terrorists with a big sword.'

It's not the first time Moffat has been accused of sexism in his writing. He wrote a storyline recently about Doctor Who's mother. "I was called a misogynist because I was reducing women to mothers. 'Reducing women to mothers' – now there is possibly the most anti-women statement I've heard."

Jones also charged that during his stewardship of Doctor Who (he took over as head writer from Russell T Davies in 2008) Moffat plucked women characters "from a box marked 'tired old tropes' (drip/scold/temptress/earth mother to name but a few), and his consequent failure to sketch a compelling central dynamic between the lead and his companion has seriously affected the show's dramatic power."

Moffat balks at this. "River Song? Amy Pond [two leading Doctor Who women characters he created]? Hardly weak women. It's the exact opposite. You could accuse me of having a fetish for powerful, sexy women who like cheating people. That would be fair."

Moffat has also responded to accusations of sexism by asserting that he is sexist towards women and believes they are better than men, writing in a now-deleted (but widely-quoted) tweet:

I AM sexist: women are cleverer, nicer, kinder and better at stuff. Don’t let on or they’ll keep us in fields. FIELDS!!!

Counter Arguments

• The Frustration with Moffat Women Discourse in the 2020s (Feb 2023) by OMAWMeta

Further Reading

• The Problem with Steven Moffat's Female Characters, ^{Archived version} by Mollie Greenberg (2017)
• Doctor Who vs Women video essay by verilybitchie discussing Moffat's women (2023)