Doctor Who, especially the classic show, has a reputation for being a bit sexist. Which is hardly surprising, considering that it is a product of its time across so many different decades. We lucked out in the late sixties when a classic battle of the sexes episode (including a scene where Jamie spanks Zoe, Taming of the Shrew style) failed to be made. But with such a paternal structure, whereby the Doctor is male and also the character who knows most about everything most of the time, and the employment of such strategic companion costumes as the mini-skirt and, in the 80′s, the mini-skirt AND boob tube combination (not to mention poor Peri in her leotard and shorts) it certainly doesn’t escape that taint. Even the female characters allowed to be close to the Doctor’s intellectual equal, such as Liz and Romana, are regularly taken down a peg or two because the entire premise of the show is that the Doctor is more capable at what he does (even when being comedically bad at what he does) than anyone else.

There’s a reason that more action figures have been made of Leela in her leathers and Peri in her leotard-with-shorts than any other Doctor Who companions. And let’s not get into the recent revelations that Jon Pertwee insisted on a recast of the role of Sarah Jane Smith, because the actress cast before Elisabeth Sladen was too tall, and he liked to perform against a physically small woman, one he could be seen to physically protect. Ahem.

But there’s one sexist trope that, narratively, Doctor Who almost never used, and looking back over some of the rather dodgy decisions made by the show and its almost all-male writing tradition, it’s quite impressive that they didn’t. They almost never killed the girl.

[Spoilers follow for a bunch of Classic & New Who]
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Reason #1: Huntress
Reason #2: Power Girl

The Science Fiction Translation Awards are running a fundraiser, accepting donations now towards the running of their awards, which aim to promote and celebrate great science fiction translated into English, and to provide a substantial cash prize to the original author as well as translator.

It’s a great cause, and there are a bunch of great book prizes up for grabs for a few lucky donors. I’ve contributed a complete Creature Court trilogy (feels so GOOD to be able to offer that!) and it’s in some very good company.

Speaking of the Creature Court trilogy, Sean the Blogonaut wrote a lovely review of Book 2: The Shattered City: “Action, blood and lust and a little bit of dressmaking. If you enjoy well written action, political intrigue, anime like transformation of characters into monstrous beasts and well written sex scenes give the whole series a go.”

I’ve been enjoying Tor.com’s current theme of military SF – I don’t think of myself of a fan of that particular subgenre, and yet I am familiar with so many of the works they discuss! I guess that means something. I liked this post about Starbuck and gender in Battlestar Galactica. Ahh, Battlestar Galactica. You got it so right, before you got it so wrong…

Speaking of military SF, over at i09 Jen Heddle makes a compelling argument that they should have brought Robotech back already. Hell, yes they should! Want me to write it?

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via Tumblr, art by Mike Maihack

OK this is my favourite news article of the week – a Womble performer traumatised a nation (well, the six year old portion of the nation) when he accidentally removed his head during a live webfeed. Now, my first reaction was basically that it’s awesome that the Wombles are a THING again for today’s kiddies. As a mother of a six year old myself (who broke my heart with her reaction to finding out about the Santa thing last year)… seriously?

“Parents from around the UK said the ‘damage had already been done’ and that they had been forced to come up with ‘all kinds of explanations’ about why there was a human inside a Womble.”

HOW MANY KINDS OF EXPLANATION ARE THERE?

Elsewhere in the world, Aqueduct Press continue their marvellous blog series of posts about the Best Reading, Listening, Viewing, etc. in 2011. I like especially that the contributors are asked to talk about what they enjoyed, but not limit themselves to work published this calendar year. And I was honoured to be asked to talk about my own favourite things of 2011. I forgot lots of things, of course, but that’s what my own blog is for!

Also, Brit Mandelo of Tor.com blogs about her new reprint anthology, Beyond Binary, which includes a story by MEEEEE as well as a whole bunch of more famous and wonderful writers. Hooray for genderqueer SF being talked about!

Nnedi Okorafor blogs powerfully about her discomfort in discovering, in the wake of her marvellous World Fantasy win for Best Novel, that the trophy depicts the head of a very racist, unpleasant person. Ie. H.P. Lovecraft. Which has led to all kinds of conversations across Twitter and other forums about, you know, what kind of alternative trophy could better represent excellence in fantasy fiction, or the history of fantasy literature. I suspect TRADITION is going to win out on this one, or at least a combination of tradition and resistance to change, which are not entirely the same things, but personally I can think of a whole bunch of other unpleasant heads which could take his place. Like Medusa!

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Well, Tumblr and Nanowrimo are joint culprits, I think. I’m about 500 posts behind on my blog reading for the week, so no Friday links today!

Instead, I give you FESTIVE FRIDAY LINKS IN PICTURES!

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Any chance of catching up with all my blog reading this week was heartily delayed by my discovery of awesome Doctor Who rewatch blog The Wife in Space in which a diehard Doctor Who fan talks his wife into experiencing his favourite show in chronological order. Their conversations are funny and incisive, and I adore Sue’s take-no-prisoners attitude. She is tough but fair (scoring stories across the full range of 1-10), and watching her get sucked into a world of Billyfluffs, Base Under Siege and of course the dread reconstructions of lost episodes is horribly fascinating.

Sue (explaining the experiment to her flabbergasted brother-in-law): That was a walk in the park compared to something like The Toymaker or The Zarbi Planet. Some of the episodes don’t even exist and we still watch them!

I do especially like the fresh perspective of someone who doesn’t care about conventional fan wisdom, and takes every episode as they find it.

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As usual every other week, Galactic Suburbia has peeled out some of my best & crunchiest links. But that’s okay, still plenty to go around! You don’t mind the mostly frivolous, right? Well, not entirely frivolous.

The Bitch Magazine series looking at maternity issues in pop culture is continuing to produce some gems like this post about the myth of almost-certain-death-in-childbirth that we see in historical drama.

Sherwood Smith muses on the difference between metafiction and fanfiction.

Deb Biancotti wraps up her excellent On Burnout series of Blog Briefs.

An interview with Australian manga writer-artist Queenie Chan.

The question of why comics by women are becoming more, not less scarce, is tackled with the question of whether comics by women are bad for business?

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I was linked by @preciousthings on Twitter to this great article which introduced me to comicbookGRRRL.  Here, she blogs about the criticism that female bloggers receive when tackling issues to do with women on any geeky subject, and why blogging about comics is important to her.  From there I also found her massive “Women in New 52” review which I enjoyed because she had some refreshingly different opinions on some of the comics than I’ve read elsewhere. In particular, her discussion of the bits she liked about the new Catwoman comic (such as the way the expression of Selena’s personality through action, and especially her friend/fence Lola) and her later comparison between how sexuality is portrayed in Catwoman vs. how it is portrayed with Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws.  She also loved some comics I hated, was indifferent to some I really liked, and so on. Good stuff!

Which reminded me that I have forgotten to update reviews on the other #2s I have read in the last two weeks.  Ooops!

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