3.27.2013

No Girls Allowed (Female Television Writers, or a Lack Thereof)

People have started sending me links to this article by The Guardian about the lack of female writers for shows like Doctor Who. "Why haven't you written for Doctor Who yet? Or Sherlock?" I get asked that all the time.

Look, it's not for lack of trying on my side. You can say, "Maybe you're not good enough," and maybe that's true, except I've done pretty well elsewhere. And I'd say Moffat's track record (or lack thereof) speaks for itself. ::shrug::

The UK broadcast system in general, I've found, is not female friendly, the US system only slightly more so. But especially in the UK, it is a very incestuous grouping of men who collaborate and are tightly armed against anyone new coming in, particularly women. You'll see the same names over and over again in the credits (and often the same faces across a handful of shows as the actors also benefit from this knot). It's a nasty little web. And until some kind of action is taken to dissolve that, it doesn't look to change any time soon.

But maybe I should try to be more sympathetic and understanding. After all, there may be real psychological trauma involved here. Maybe this is just a group of overgrown nerds who find girls just as scary now as they did in grade school. More so, even, since we're bigger now than we used to be. Or, on the flip side, maybe this is their revenge against all the girls who rejected them in grade school. Who knows? But whether driven by fear or spite, the result is the same: No Girls Allowed.

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