Q:What I've seen going around isn't that his portrayal of Irene is sexist (even though some say that because he made her into a dominatrix, which I think is bullshit), but the fact that she needed Sherlock to rescue her in the end. I myself feel uneasy when talking about that scene, because I'm not sure at which point a story stops being a story and starts showing some of the author's point of view. In that case, it would be that Irene wasn't strong enough to save herself/to win.

Anonymous

Things that are not sexist:

  • a female character who is sex worker;
  • a female character who makes a mistake;
  • a female character who doesn’t win every single round;
  • a female character who needs and accepts help;
  • a female character who isn’t a strong human being.

A plot point not being sexist doesn’t mean you have to like it, definitely, but a character getting a hand from the protagonist in a story, after she has easily bested him twice, doesn’t make her weak. It makes her a human being.

60 Notes/ Hide

  1. smell-ya-later-bitches said: THIS, YES. Please, can you make it rebloggable ?
  2. lindentreeisle said: I was thinking about this today- actually I lie, I was having an imaginary conversation with Moffat. And he said, “So you think I’m a misogynist.” And I said, “No, you wrote a really shitty scene. These are different things.”
  3. cractasticdispatches said: wish we could reblog this b/c YES TO ALL OF THIS
  4. madlori said: OH GOD THIS.
  5. thetimesarchitecture said: you win all the awards for that answer
  6. earthfirefly said: I think the problem with Irene (and most of Moffat’s women) isn’t so much their individual characterizations (though there are issues there), but the broader context, i.e., we live in a world where “strong female character” has become sononomous with “sexy, feisty female in…
  7. thefakegingerxx said: Please make this reblog-able. It’s wonderful.
  8. totally-boatless said: YES. Please make this rebloggable.