Earlier today I saw a post by another Hypable user asking fans whether they thought Steven Moffat was sexist. The most interesting part of this article is the variety of comments and the heated arguments that have been spawned by this innocent question.

But I think that it’s necessary to consider, before we judge, the characters Moffat has created, the ways in which they may be considered sexist, and the ways in which they defy the mold of femininity.

Let us start at the beginning, with the first New Who episode that Moffat penned: ‘The Empty Child.’ This happens to be one of my favourite episodes, as is its sequel, ‘The Doctor Dances,’ but there is one thing that irks me about his characterisation of Rose. Rose is very much the weak female in this episode, and it’s probably the episode in which she is the most ridiculous. She falls for Jack Harkness almost immediately, and as for how she met him, yes, she flew away attached to a blimp. I’m pretty sure she should have checked before climbing up that rope; it’s almost like taking candy from strangers. But luckily for Rose, the handsome captain is there to catch her.

Yet Rose is like that, isn’t she? At least at the beginning. She has a bad dye job, a pretty wimpy boyfriend, average job. She doesn’t know that she is capable of so much more, and so Moffat gets lucky in his portrayal of Rose. She’s pretty hopeless, but she learns and eventually becomes The Bad Wolf and a pretty cool character.

Next up we have Madame de Pompadour, or Reinette, as she’s fondly called by the Doctor. She seems pretty stable. She doesn’t really blink an eye when a strange man comes leaping through her fireplace, but she quickly becomes a bit annoying. She has this inane idea that she must take care of the Doctor, and eventually, her entire life comes to revolve around him. She does her duty and waits for him to come back, somehow trusting that he will show up one day, and when he doesn’t, she continues to wait, until her death.

Religious types may say this is admirable (to wait for her one true love) and sure, it is sort of romantic. I don’t want to attack religious people (ask me about my own beliefs one day); however, you have to ask yourself whether it’s true love – because we learn the Doctor really loves Rose – or some silly feminine idea of duty. It’s always the girl who waited with Moffat, isn’t it?

But I did say before that Reinette is pretty stable, and it’s true. She’s strong and stands up for herself in the face of clockwork adversity, but if she really was this forward-thinking independent, wouldn’t she move on once she realised that she’d been left behind, regardless of the situation on the Doctor’s side?

Next up we have Sally Sparrow, from another of Moffat’s greatest episodes, ‘Blink.’ This episode is pretty creepy, and you have to have a strong character to carry this crazy new monster. Sally seems pretty independent. She doesn’t panic and she is quite good-looking, too, although that may be more Carey Mulligan’s fault than Sally’s. But she does get a bit of attention from lady killer, DI Billy Shipton, and so we have to assume that Sally was written to be quite attractive. Now we begin to see a pattern with the Moff’s females.

River Song is one of the more controversial characters of Moffat’s, and she was introduced in ‘Silence of the Library.’ Having done a bit of research before even contemplating writing this article, I know that even Russell T Davies loved the character of River originally. I’m sure we all were a bit excited and curious about her at first, but the more I see of her, the more I wish she would go away. Moffat was clearly trying to create an equal for the Doctor, and in doing so he also wanted to encapsulate a bit of badassness; however, River takes it too far.

When judging River, you have to consider her background: the fact that she was stolen as a baby and has been indoctrinated to believe that her sole purpose in life is to kill the Doctor. So she sets out to destroy him, and never wavers from this, only to end up marrying him. But as an audience we only get to see her backwards, so we get this horny woman who can’t help herself but flirt shamelessly with the Doctor as well as with the audience, with her hints and nods to future revelation. So, is River a strong independent woman out to kill the man as per her destiny, or a flirtatious hint-giver that cannot help but poke her nose into the affairs of the man she loves…er…hates…er Moffat may need to clear that one up.

As for her being an equal to the Doctor, she does go on a random killing spree with the Silence, and I thought the Doctor was a bit of a pacifist, you know, after that whole thing where he committed double genocide and then met a nice girl with a bad dye job that changed his anger to love. What strong woman shoots on a whim, when she could turn around and walk away? In my opinion, a stronger woman would leave the Silence and go back to killing the person she’s been trained to kill.

We can talk about River’s background as much as we want, but in the end we are left with a woman who’s biggest moral dilemma is whether to wink at the end of a statement or not. If River didn’t have this lifetime desire to kill the Doctor, I reckon the universe would be better off, as more of it would be alive.

The final character that needs discussion is Amy Pond, who’s job is a kissogram. Now she has a complicated background as well, after being abandoned by the Doctor as a child. Then she becomes the girl who waited, her fiance dies a few times, and really, the poor girl needs to have a bit of a break. She gets old pretty fast as well, what with her constant need to be right, her flippant attitude towards everything and the offhanded way she treats both Rory and the Doctor. Girl power may be the first thing that comes to mind, but to be honest, if this is girl power at its best, I really don’t want any part of it.

Moffat really does himself no favours with Amy. She doesn’t really demonstrate any good feminine qualities, besides the fact that she looks good in a mini skirt.

This is where I believe Moffat really lets himself down. He tries almost too hard to make his characters exciting and badass and really cool gangsters, but in actual fact most viewers are looking for something to relate to. Its hard enough relating to a show about a 900-year-old alien who has committed double genocide and is a bit of a bigamist, let alone long-legged attention seekers and frizzy-haired murderers.

So is Steven Moffat sexist? Probably not. But he is a male, so he has a harder time appreciating what most girls are really like. Call me jealous for being an ordinary woman who can’t knock out baddies with a supersonic gun, and I don’t look good in short denim skirts. But I liked the girl with the bad dye job, and the temp who could type a 100 words per minute but had the worst self esteem, and the doctor who ended up playing second fiddle. There is something believable about them that makes them worth idolising and watching and using as role models, because being a kissogram is a wonderful life goal.

In short, if Moffat’s female characters displayed the same, normal human qualities and faults that you can see in everyday girls, then he may seem less sexist. Thankfully he may be able to give us this with the new series and the new companion coming up. I await Jenna-Louise Coleman’s ordinariness with great anticipation.