10 Dumbest Doctor Who Controversies
2. Female Doctor Makes Young Men Criminals...?
In 2021, it was claimed that prominent female characters in pop-culture – including Daisy Ridley's role in Star Wars, along with Jodie Whittaker's casting as the Doctor – had created a dearth of positive male role models, forcing young men to switch over to Peaky Blinders and take up crime instead.
This was the insane claim made by former Tory MP Nick Fletcher at a Westminster debate marking International Men's Day.
Fletcher's bizarre statement was apparently met by bafflement from his fellow MPs, presumably because it's a much more complex situation, as Labour MP Anneliese Dodds – now serving as Minister of State for Women and Equalities – pointed out.
Jodie Whittaker's Doctor didn't oversee a massive rise in child poverty, nor did she slash funding for initiatives to give young men a better chance in life. She's an actress. Playing a fictional character.
And what does it say about Fletcher's view of gender politics that he believes boys don't have it in them to look up to women as heroes? The Thirteenth Doctor and the female Ghostbusters didn't turn young men into criminals, just as much as Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones didn't.