ayries:

Shit that is not sexist re: Irene’s portrayal in Sherlock:

• She is a sexual person
• She is a sex worker
• She is gay/a lesbian
• She is not 100% perfect 100% of the time
• She does not do literally every single thing on her own

Shit that is just generally not automatically sexist:

• A woman losing
• A woman needing to be helped/saved
• A woman being emotional, vulnerable, etc.

Shit that is problematic, if not downright sexist, re: Irene’s portrayal in Sherlock:

• The fact that she is sexualised in a way that specifically appeals to straight male fantasies when lesbians have a long history of being exploited thus in the media
• The fact that this is used to reinforce the harmful stereotype that lesbians ‘just need the right man’
• The fact that the way she was shown as being flawed was specifically set up to make her lose to a man in a way that reflects common stereotypes about women, i.e. they are more emotionally vulnerable than men, basically reinforcing the idea that traditional femininity = weak
• The fact that Moffat and co. went out of their way to add Irene being saved into a narrative where, originally, she needed no help, in a media which tends to need women to be saved disproportionately to men
• The fact that, again, they went out of their way to change it from a woman winning to a woman losing in a society where dudes typically end up the best off at the end of stories

Context, people. It’s all about context. If SCAN were a different story, then perhaps it wouldn’t have been the problem it is. But SCAN is a story about one thing, and ASiB a story about another, and the discrepancy between what Moffat read and what he wrote is the real issue tbqh.