A Look at the Use of “Girl” vs. “Woman” in New Who

I made another Who-related definitely-not-a-waste-of-time spreadsheet, this time looking at language as it relates to gender on the show over time.  Armed with new Who episode transcripts, I did a word search for “girl” and “woman”/“women,” keeping track of how women were referred to and who called them what (adult women only – I weeded out actual girls and, for the most part, teenagers, although some were borderline.)  I paid particular attention to the companions and instances spoken by the various Doctors.

This research started due to a suspicion I had that “woman” was more common in the RTD era and “girl” in the Moffat era.  As it turns out, this is true, but the difference isn’t as clear-cut as I’d expected and some interesting patterns emerged.  First of all, for raw numbers, the RTD era has 76 uses of “girl” and 89 of “woman,” which comes out to 13 more instances of “woman” than “girl.”  The Moffat era, meanwhile, has 129 uses of “girl” and 113 of “woman,” meaning 16 more instances of “girl” than “woman.”  This makes the margin on either side fairly slim.  (Note:  both words are referenced more often in the Moffat era, with 243 instances of “girl”/“woman” compared to 165 for RTD, but it’s actually relatively even considering Moffat’s longer time as showrunner.)

When you break the numbers into Doctor eras, the distribution of the weight is interesting.  The Nine era is actually weighted heavily on the side of “girl,” 25 to 9.  That said, over a third of those “girls” are in reference to a borderline chararacter, Gwyneth from “The Unquiet Dead.”  While I think Gwyneth is likely 18 or older, her position as a servant greatly reduces her autonomy as a woman, and Mr. Sneed is constantly addressing her, dismissively, as “girl.”  Nine himself doesn’t tend to use either, coming in at just 1 “girl” and 1 “woman.”  The numbers for both are up quite a bit during the Ten era (again, given how much longer his tenure is than Nine’s, the amount is fairly consistent) but the balance shifts in favor of “woman,” 83 to 51.  This is in part due to the fact that, over the course of the Ten years, there are quite a few women on the show who are over 40, including recurring characters like companions’ mothers and one-shot characters like Mrs. Moore and Queen Victoria.  While it might be interesting to see if the ratio shifts if you’re just look at how people refer to young women, it’s nice to see so many women who are middle-aged and older with important roles in the stories.  Ten uses “woman” 12 times and “girl” just twice.  Notably, he only seems to use the latter with something of a knowing wink, telling the Sybiline Sisters “it’s just us girls” in “The Fires of Pompeii” and calling Donna “the plucky young girl who helps me out” in “The Unicorn and the Wasp” (in light of the fact that there were no female police officers in the ‘20s.)

We see a big shift when Eleven comes along.  His era favors “girl” a whopping 105 to 63.  There are some debatable inclusions in here, quite a few references to Madam Calvieri’s “girls” in “The Vampires of Venice,” who are ostensibly students but seem grown-up to me, and 5 instances of the Doctor using “old girl” as an endearment for the TARDIS in “The Doctor’s Wife” (when she’s in Idris – I don’t count any references to the TARDIS when it’s the blue box.)  Speaking of Eleven himself, he uses “girl” 52 times and “woman” 18 times.  A lot of this is down to two of Moffat’s favorite monikers, “The Girl Who Waited” and “The Impossible Girl.”  Fortunately, the balance shifts back in Twelve’s era, favoring “woman” 50 to 34.  This is helped greatly, I’m sure, by “The Girl Who Waited” no longer being applicable and “The Impossible Girl” being largely retired.  Also helping out is the presence of Missy, who accounts for about a third of the “woman” mentions – again, we see how having a woman over 40 around redistributes the weight (River is also a factor in this in both the Eleven and Twelve eras, but it’s not nearly enough to tip the scales on the Eleven years.)  As for Twelve, he uses “woman” 16 times (almost a third of the word’s usages for his seasons overall) and “girl” 10 times.  Something encouraging about his use of “woman” is that he applies it quite generously.  Although Courtney is still a teenager, he offers to make her the “first woman on the moon” in “Kill the Moon,” and while Ashildr’s first episode is called “The Girl Who Died” (and she definitely skews young there,) Twelve isn’t at all fooled by her still-youthful appearance in her later episodes and consistently uses “woman” with her.

Now for the companion side of things.  I was really surprised by Rose, who gets “girl” pretty overwhelmingly, 23 to 3.  However, this usage seems to be fairly intentional:  8 are from villains who are derisive toward her, 3 are from her parents who still think of her as their “little girl,” and another 3 are from people in the past who would be more likely to condescend to her.  All in all, this accounts for more than half of her “girls.”  Martha is pretty even, with “woman” edging slightly ahead at 6 to 5.  Again, the “girl” usage feels deliberate, with 4 coming from villains (and 3 of those from the Master.)  Honestly, I’m a little surprised that Joan uses “woman” for her in “The Family of Blood” – even though she’s a mostly-nice woman, she’s definitely not without her racial and class biases, and I would’ve guessed that she’d have used “girl” with Martha.  Then there’s Donna, who’s similarly even with a slight edge on “woman,” 11 to 9.  Her “girl” references also include 3 from villains and 1 from her grandpa, and she refers to herself with “girl” a few times as well, although she seems to use it jokingly in the same way that Ten does.

Let’s move on to Moffat’s companions.  I was surprised by Amy.  I figured “girl” would outweigh “woman” for her, and it does, but not by as much as I was expecting, 20 to 6.  Unlike with RTD’s companions, only 3 of her “girl” mentions are from villains.  More than half of them actually come from Eleven himself, and though he does use “woman” with her 3 times, each one is in reference to her being a “police woman” when she’s dressed in her kissogram costume.  Something encouraging, though, is that the “girl” stuff is pretty frontloaded – ¾ of them come in series 5, dropping off sharply in series 6 and not used at all in series 7.  River is only Moffat companion (as I’m counting her) weighted toward “woman,” 26 to 7 – that also makes her the most weighted toward “woman” overall, not just for the Moffat era.  This is to be expected, since she’s older, though I was a little surprised at just how well she came out here.  However, this is partially due to another of Moffat’s monikers – it’s not used as frequently as “The Girl Who Waited” or “The Impossible Girl,” but “The Woman Who Kills the Doctor” accounts for most of her “woman” mentions throughout series 6.  River also gets “bad girl” from Eleven, twice, which I’m not a fan of.  And Clara – oof.  Skewing toward “girl” 47 to 10.  “The Impossible Girl” gets thrown around a lot, but “girl” just seems to be the general way of referring to her.  She gets it 11 times from villains, 14 times from the Doctor (13 from Eleven and 1 from Twelve,) and the rest from all over (note:  I’m also including Oswin – “girl” 9 times – and Victorian Clara – 2 each for “girl” and “woman” – in here.)  Fortunately, there’s a sharp drop-off like there was with Amy, as more than ¾ of her “girl” mentions are in series 7.  Although, really – 36 uses of “girl” in reference to the same adult woman in only 10 episodes?  Yeesh.  Lastly, we have Bill, favoring “girl” 6 to 3.  2 of her “girl” mentions are from villains (one being the Master and one being a racist Victorian,) while another 2 are from Twelve, in more of a “good girl”/“atta girl”-type vein.

As a final point of interest, you’ll notice that both the Black companions, Martha and Bill, have the fewest references to their gender with either word, 11 total for Martha and 9 for Bill.  It’s fair to say that both are shorter-run companions with one season each, but Donna is roughly the same and has twice that with 20 mentions.  It may feel weird to complain about Martha and Bill not being called “girl” or “woman” enough in the same breath that I’m saying too much for, say, Rose or Clara, but it’s a nod to the importance of intersectionality.  The same ideas can’t necessarily be applied equally, and where I see white companion Clara’s gender being harped on (and infantilized, since she’s so often called “girl,”) I can also see Black companion Bill’s gender being underplayed.

There you have it.  In summation, the RTD era isn’t as consistent with “woman” as I thought it was, although its usage of “girl” tends to feel more intentional when it does come up.  Rose doesn’t fare as well as I thought she would, but Amy turns out out somewhat better than I expected and River does quite well for himself, leaving Clara the deepest in the hole.  While usage varies throughout, the greatest culprit is definitely the Eleven era, and Eleven himself is the only Doctor to use “girl” more than “woman” (and by a pretty wide margin at that.)  What will the Chibnall era (and Thirteen!!) hold?  Only time will tell.