Make Dr Who a woman
FEMALE BOFFINS have launched a campaign for the next Dr Who to be a woman. Steady on, girls – it's only 80 years since we gave you the vote. You'll be wanting equal wages next. Then you'll be wanting to be taken seriously. Where will it end?
It will end at least with a cessation of the patronisation of women in the media if the UKRC, the UK quango charged with getting more women into science, engineering and technology careers, gets its way.
The UKRC's campaign for a female Dr Who, launched today, is part of a wider initiative of equality campaigners to give young women positive role models in sci-tech pursuits, in the same way that Obama's presidential victory and Lewis Hamilton's Formula One racing championship have provided positive role models for young black men.
Annette Williams, director of the UKRC, said in a statement that the campaign was an attempt "to give women something more to aspire to than being the Doctor's assistant."
The gender stereotype of a woman bumbling boobily over anything technical is thought to account for the low numbers of women entering sci-tech careers, and fewer still reaching the top. Only 24 per cent of computing undergraduates are women, and fewer than 13 per cent hold ICT jobs, according to the UKRC.
The stereotype sits in the mindset of male-dominated industries like a discouraging leer. It creates a working culture that can hang over women entering sci-tech professions like an oppressively low glass ceiling.
The media, say equality campaigners, perpetuates the stereotype. Studies of women in films and television have found them being routinely portrayed in relation to technology as simple, silly, weak, emotional, tarty, pathetic or merely a love interest for a male lead.
For example, said a female ecologist in a recent UKRC report (49-page .pdf): "One of the main characters [in Star Trek] was supposed to be a woman who was supposed to have multiple degrees, she was supposed to be very experienced, very adept scientist, but she was shunted into a nursing role...and she never got any lines...All she was was a love interest for the Vulcan."
We are perhaps overlooking the small matter of Captain Janeway, the female lead of Star Trek Voyager. But exceptions like this should not blind us to the wider malaise. One group of young female scientists told the UKRC they had been asked by a TV producer to dress in bikinis and do a shower scene in order to demonstrate some science. They refused.
Other studies (50-page.pdf) have found that the sexualization of women in relation to technology discourages girls from studying sci-tech subjects. It portrays technology as a manifestation of sexually-charged masculinity, places women in subservience to it and men, and makes nerds go around thinking their gender makes them superior.
Over half of people surveyed by the UKRC thought it was about time there was a female Dr Who. Billie Piper, Dawn French and Joanna Lumley were favourites. Women thought Dr Who acted like a woman a lot of the time anyway: he was a creative multi-tasker. And he was intelligent.
The last series editor, His Majesty the Russel T Davies, helped pave the way. His character Martha Davies actually became a medical doctor. She always did conjure something of the Florence Nightingale archetype. But the BBC weren't available to comment on the UKRC campaign. That shouldn't discourage us from debating the idea.
It's already thrown up some interesting possibilities. If Dr Who came back as a woman, said one entry on the UKRC's Make the next Dr Who a Woman! Facebook page, then the next time he regenerates he could give birth to himself. He could even impregnate himself, but let's not go there, shall we? µ
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I vote Sandi Toksvig to be the next Doctor!
The Doctor wasn't born... he was Loomed!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungbarrow
Did they forget about Rose? Who ended up with a gigantic gun saving everything and the only one in the series to ever get the Doctor's semi-title
"The one that makes people better" = Rose
Allmost even forgetting Sarah Jane Smith.
In Stargate SG1 you got Samantha, smartest woman alive. They even got an SG team purely female.
Atlantis, the same basic thing.
Startrek even was the very first show in Scifi to show equality between men and women.
My vote would be to keep the Doctor a man, his personality changes, not his gender. It would totaly change what it means to be the doctor.
:) A double episode dealing with a botched up regeneration which turns him into a woman would be very fun tho.
In short, good initiative, but they forget what it allready there.
Wrong!
The Doctor wasn't born... he was Loomed! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungbarrow
posted by : david, 10 December 2008
Wrong link there Dave. Its actually:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(Doctor_Who)
What! Dr who a woman. Preposterous. Its time to put these lesbians off the roads, out of the work place and back in the kitchen.
Wow, I just skipped my first "drayshek" comment in the new design.
Why not go the whole hog and make the next doctor a black disabled transexual with downsyndrome.
First off I find this comment, "Women thought Dr Who acted like a woman a lot of the time anyway: he was a creative multi-tasker. And he was intelligent." sexist, and second, it's already been done back in 1984.
Independent film maker Ryan K. Johnson cast Barbara Benedetti as The Doctor in his fan videos. Been there, done that, time to move along.
A lesbian Dr Who - Billie and ...
This is the flipside to the current gay male role models running the British monarcy media. Only old women create a stink and they probably don't watch science fiction anyway.
Make that hopeless character "donna noble" the next doctor....that would be the end of time for sure.
It was bad enough suffering thru her endless overacting in your face. To make her David Tenent's replacement would be insufferable in the extreme.
Save the planet, don't don't waste time on this diversion
How much is this quango being paid for coming up with ideas like this ? Can I have their job please. How many other quangos are there doing the same thing as this one ? With expensive organisations like this in power, no wonder the UK's finances are in such a mess over the rest of the worlds.
What? The only male Vulcan i know of in a major role in a Star Trek series was Spock and i'm pretty sure he never had any romantic entanglements with any female doctors..... mainly because back then there was only Bones and his female nurse assistant.
Are they thinking of Picard and Beverly Crusher? Either way, Mrs. (Dr) Crusher had many episodes where she was integral to the plot and salvation of the ship and crew and in fact even commanded the enterprise during at least one episode.
It is'nt necessary to make Dr Who a woman. Just bring back his long departed Time Lord side kick, Romana.
Romana, played by two different actresses, was an intelligent female Time Lord who travelled with the Doctor and helped him out with technical problems and such. She was funny and loveable. In the series Romana survived the Time War because she was stuck in E-Space. Now she can be brought back into her own series. Problem solved, you bunch of trouble makers !!
Thanks and see you out there,
Loki Sunrider
Im all for it.. bring on the female doctor I say... just get rid of donna nobrains (who is a rolemodel for naught but pathetic nohopers everywhere) and bring back the doctors daughter..
Oh Heavenly Time Lady, witch art Chiphova? -
Give us this day the full word processor -
Lead us not into half-words such as "man" -
Deliver us our daily INQ as we google those who would trust pass us -
For thine is the 64-bit question -
The full-word such as "woman" - "TARDIS" - "awomem"
Who? A black World Champion? A gay James bond? What next, an illegal alien elected President of the U.S.?
Lets be creative and make Doctor Who be Two Women... at once. All kinds of possibilities for fun with the side kick there! :
One shouldn't forget about the Doctor's Daughter Jenny (Georgia Moffett, real life daughter of the Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison ).
She was manufactured from the doctors DNA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor's_Daughter
She has some of the powers of Time Lord including regeneration.
These stupid women won't be happy until they can use a urinal. Newsflash, just because someone views something as sexist, racist, or whatever, doesn't mean it actually is. This reminds me of those stupid morons who say AIDS isn't a gay disease(as in gay men).
And reality continues to subjugate liberals.
Doctor Who a woman! No way! It's one thing to accept he can change in to a new body but he is male and it should stay that way. Certainly his companions hese days have been shown as intelligent and not just there as a pretty (screaming) face.
As for an earlier comment about Star Trek's Lt Christine Chapel Having multiple degrees but being a nurse in the show is somewhat inaccurate. She was a qualified doctor and bio-researcher but chose to accept the only available position on the Enterprise to search for her fiance Dr Roger Korby who had disappeared on an earlier space mission.