10 Problems Nobody Wants To Admit About Peaky Blinders

Despite its popularity, a glaring problem with Peaky Blinders is that despite featuring more than its fair share of female characters who have developed their own strong followings, the show continuously undervalues them.

Whilst the show is set during an era of very limited social progress, in its formative years, Peaky Blinders did a very good job of highlighting the inequalities and sufferings of women living in Britain during the early 20th century, and the ladies who appeared in the show stood out for showing just how strong women were to live in this time.

But as the series progressed the female characters evolution became a de-evolution.

Grace Shelby was completely disregarded for much of seasons 2 and 3 after being one of the standout characters in the first series and killed off. Ada Shelby went from being a progressively minded woman who wanted a fresh start for herself away from the corruptive influence of her family, just to be sucked back in by them and end up capitulating to helping them whenever they asked.

Esmee and Linda were two of the more vocal opponents of Tommy and the other men's decisions and influence but were never given anything much more todo then shout at them. Polly has become every bit as degraded and violent as her nephews now are, and former prostitute and secretary to Tommy, Lizzie, may have married him but in his head, he still pays her, as we heard straight from the horse's mouth in Series 5.

Obviously, with the main focus of the show constantly being on the exploits of Tommy there is never going to be much room to make any real change to how the show chooses to develop its female characters, but it still remains one it's most easily visible problems.