i do think the women in the show matter, actually. this is kind of the thesis of my blog. the show, ultimately, is about house, but the ways in which the female characters affect and reflect him cannot be understated—much of the show’s greatest episodes and arcs show him in parallel to the women. you’re right that the show isn’t about women—because it is about house—however, this doesn’t negate the fact that there are still multiple main female characters that have a pretty damn big importance to the show’s narrative. i think to claim otherwise is naive, personally.
characters can go through badly written arcs and still be well-written as a whole; forest for the trees. this show especially has had almost every character—male or female—go through arcs that are out of character, poorly aged, or poorly executed. i am of the opinion that this doesn’t negate the idea that these characters are well written — it just goes to show the limits of the medium. characters can be complex, consistent, and well-developed and still have badly written arcs and episodes; these are things that can and do coexist.
i think that it is counter-productive to criticize the show for misogyny whilst simultaneously minimizing the female characters entirely; to ignore the parts that are well done simply because there are parts that aren’t. unfortunately, in our ~society~, you will be hard-pressed to find any female character—in any piece of media—that isn’t a victim of misogyny in the writer’s room to some extent. i don’t think that the solution to this problem is to disregard the characters entirely, nor do i think the solution is to ignore the problem itself — the solution is to make space for criticism without falling to the notion that criticism in itself is indicative only of failure.
in short, it is to be able to recognize the fact that acknowledging that the show has structural problems with misogyny can coexist with acknowledging that the show has female characters that are written with a degree of complexity on par with the male characters.
don’t get me wrong, i will be the first to point out the misogyny within the framework of the show—and i have, many times—as well as the untimely jokes, and i don’t delude myself into believing that it is feminist in any way, but i do believe that the notion that all of the female characters are badly written is counter-productive at best, and misogynist in itself at worst. it doesn’t help that this criticism is made, almost entirely, less by fans who are trying to genuinely critique the writing (like yourself), and more by fans who are trying to morally excuse why they don’t like the female characters (like the post that inspired my original post). there is a time and place for criticism, and i will be there, but there is also a huge problem with people who do, actually, hate women, co-opting critical terms to make themselves feel better about said hating women. which is what the original post was about.
