I love the clichés of twee British TV murder mysteries – the village fete, the teacup switch, the gunshot in the dark room – but what I like best is the presence of lots of fantastic old ladies, a group which are underrepresented in nearly every other type of television genre.

In 1999, people over 60 made up 21 percent of the UK population, but just 7 percent of the television population (source) and in 2012 a BBC report (PDF) flagged the absence of older women on TV as a major problem.

I’ve said in another post that for the most part in popular culture, old women are given one of just two identities: dear old biddy or evil crone. In Twee British Murder there is a greater range of stereotypes to be found, although the biddy/crone dichotomy is still there. Through by no means a comprehensive list, I’ve identified five overlapping Twee British Murder character options for older women.

1) The Help

Rosalie Williams as Mrs Hudson. Image: Granada

An army of elderly female housekeepers, cooks, nurses, cleaners and secretaries form a vital part of the machinery of Twee British Murder.

Although they are rarely the killer, and tend to be only incidental victims (when they Know Too Much, for example) they have a vital dramatic function, especially as witnesses.

The cook remembers that someone different from usual offered to take the breakfast tray up to her mistress, the former nanny recalls a crucial detail from a suspect’s past…

It’s these long-suffering souls that make up the bulk of body-finders too, although they’re almost always questioned and dismissed with no further contribution except looking anxious.

But why are the servants and employees so swiftly ruled out? This 1928 article, 20 Rules for Writing Detective Fiction, states that:

A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person — one that wouldn’t ordinarily come under suspicion.

Of course! Servants are a bunch of crims already: making one of them the murderer would be TOO OBVIOUS.

Moving on. An atypical member of this category is Sherlock Holmes’ tolerant landlady, Mrs Hudson. This is from The Adventure of the Dying Detective:

The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women.

I am a little obsessed with the 1980s Granada series starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. In this series, Mrs Hudson (played by Rosalie Williams) is an important part of the small ‘family’ which surrounds the detective. Here’s one of my favourite Mrs Hudson moments, from The Cardboard Box, at 4:40mins in:

2) Frail Rich Lady

Often bedridden, with elaborate medical care requirements, and generally found in a spooky old house surrounded by squabbling, grasping relatives, these women are often trying to make a last minute change to their will when they meet their demise.

Frail Rich Ladies tend to be victims, but can occasionally turns out to be killers. Letitia Blacklock in A Murder is Announced, Laura Welman in Sad Cypress, and Amelia Barrowby in How Does Your Garden Grow? are classic examples from the Christie canon, as is Emily Arundell from Dumb Witness.

Bearing in mind the underlying biddy/crone stereotype binary, most of the above examples are on the biddy side of things. But there’s a fabulous Frail Rich Lady getting her crone on in one of Baroness Orczy’s Lady Molly stories, The Woman in the Big Hat (PDF). She’s 12mins in:

3) Eccentric Spinster

Eccentric Spinsters are also occasionally widows. The important thing is that they have been manless long enough for their eccentricity to flourish.

This is my very favourite old lady character type, and one that I aspire to. One of the best examples is the three sisters in Agatha Christie’s Nemesis. Here they are having tea with Miss Marple, at 7:09 mins in:

I love how there’s a bit of a maiden, mother and crone thing going on, with Clothilde, the more bookish, stereotypable-as-mannish, serious one (crone), Anthea the ‘girly’, immature one (maiden) and their more well-adjusted sister Lavinia, who tries to keep everything under control (mother). Lavinia’s the one who had been married, of course, so she’s coded as noticeably more ‘normal’ than the other two.

The Bradbury-Scott sisters above are at the biddy end of the spinster spectrum, but there’s a fantastic crone version called Honoria Lyddiard in the Midsomer Murders episode Written In Blood. She’s at 5:28 mins in:

Eccentric Spinsters can be victims, witnesses or killers, and can often be found providing another dramatic function: introducing a supernatural, prophetic red herring.

This provides a contrast with the detective’s rational method and cheap thrills for the viewer, as well as obfuscating the sequence of events for both. Prunella Scales turns in a scene-stealing performance as psychic Eleanor Bunsall in another Midsomer Murders episode, Beyond the Grave, and in Dumb Witness one of the two Miss Tripps receives a message for Poirot, at 15:13mins in:

4) Village Busybody

A provincial murder mystery staple. Like the servants and staff, this character provides vital information and misinformation, clues and red herrings for viewers. Without this character, there might be no mystery at all. She is a key witness, frequently a victim because she’s seen or heard something she shouldn’t have, but never the killer.

Although she’s only middle-aged in the TV adaption, Caroline Sheppard is worth a mention because of Agatha Christie’s comment in her autobiography that:

It is possible that Miss Marple arose from the pleasure I had taken in portraying Dr Sheppard’s sister in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. She had been my favourite character in the book – an acidulated spinster, full of curiosity, knowing everything, hearing everything: the complete detective service in the home.

My New Year’s resolution this year was to get the word ‘acidulated’ into every tenth conversation.

While Caroline Sheppard is relatively harmless, her crone counterpart uses her knowledge to manipulate others. Mrs Rainbird is an extremely camp example of this in the Midsomer Murders pilot The Killings at Badger’s Drift at 22mins:

5) Wise Woman

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Image: BBC

*Puts on What Would Miss Marple Do? t-shirt*

There’s not enough space here to do her justice, and I haven’t managed to find the perfect clip, but I wanted to share this: in her autobiography Agatha Christie likens Miss Marple to her grandmother in that “though a cheerful person, she always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and was, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right.”

That “frightening accuracy” is the hallmark of the Wise Woman, and Marple isn’t the only one in this role solving murders – I’d also put forward Gladys Mitchell’s creation Mrs Bradley.

The glamorous TV version of Mrs Bradley played by Diana Rigg departs pretty drastically from the description of her appearance in the books (she is emphatically witch-like: “She possessed nasty, dry, claw-like hands, and her arms, yellow and curiously repulsive, suggested the plucked wings of a fowl”). Nonetheless, she still provides a worthy crone counterpart to Miss Marple’s biddiness. In this clip, she’s driving away from her ex-husband’s funeral at 3:40mins:

Zoe Brennan, in her book The Older Woman in Recent Fiction, links both Miss Marple and Mrs Bradley (as well as other older women detectives such as Miss Silver and Miss Pym) with feminine archetypes, from fairytale witches to the Furies. This is a connection which Agatha Christie clearly had in mind when one character gives Marple the nickname ‘Nemesis’.

Postscript

For some more info about why this all matters, have a look at Understanding Age Stereotypes and Ageism (PDF). It’s also worth noting that while Twee British Murder is good on age diversity and features a lot of women characters, it fails dismally across other diversity strands.

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is the single most famous roleplaying game in the world, the route most people got into roleplaying, and the flagship of the hobby. So it’s a tragedy that the game is pushing away potential fans through artwork and even game text that is overwhelmingly focused on one customer demographic: white men.

Photo via Flickr user Megan Knight (http://www.flickr.com/photos/meganknight/5497474167/)

That’s a pretty provocative statement, right there. But I’m confident in making it, because the evidence is there for anyone who wants to see it. You could start by flipping open a copy of pretty much any D&D book and looking through the artwork. See how many women and people of colour you can find – and then see how many of them are half-dressed or made to look weak or submissive.

Actually, you don’t need to, because someone already did it for you. Anna Kreider reviewed the artwork in the D&D 4th edition books (specifically the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Players Handbook, Players Handbook 2 and the Adventurer’s Vault) and rated the images therein.

Kreider’s findings were striking – of the 40% or so of humans (and demi-humans) that were depicted as female, well over a third hit each of the measures she chose (being half-dressed or posed in a sexually suggestive way, for instance). Needless to say, the remaining 60% of images, the ones which were of men, tended to be wearing more clothes, in more active, non-sexual poses.

It gets better, because Chris Van Dyke had a look at D&D from the perspective of race. He was able to find only two examples of a non-white character in the core books of all four numbered editions of D&D. That means non-white folks are practically invisible in D&D.

Now, these findings are based on subjective judgements. That’s unavoidable, because things like “sexually suggestive” and “white” can often only be judged subjectively in artwork. You can go and judge for yourself if you doubt their conclusions. But I think if we’re honest, these results only confirm what most of us already knew from experience.

It isn’t the end of the world. I’ve enjoyed lots of pop culture replete with sexism. And after all, it’s only a fantasy! But then again, shouldn’t our fantasy worlds contain a richer variety of creatures than real life? And what does it say to potential new gamers if they can’t find a picture of someone like them anywhere in these books? Is D&D really just a game about white dudes slugging it out in a dungeon somewhere? I don’t think so.

OK, so what to do about it? I love roleplaying, and despite years of moaning about the mechanics, I still love D&D. The fact that it’s not exactly a beacon of gender and racial equality is, for me, an obstacle to be overcome rather than a sign I should give up on the game altogether.

It so happens that Wizards of the Coast are writing a new edition of D&D right now. That’s why I put together a petition calling on them to do better.

If you’ve read this far, maybe you agree with me – and if so, it would be great if you went and signed it, and better yet share it with your friends and encourage them to sign too.

The petition won’t change anything in itself. Wizards of the Coast could ignore it, and maybe they will. But if they can see that there are hundreds of gamers out there who want more than whitewash and chainmail bikinis, maybe they’ll respond. We owe it to the hobby to give them a clear message.

• Rabalias is a leftie, feminist Londoner and veteran roleplayer. He plays and GMs more than any normal person and less than he’d like to. He designs games in the time he has left over from playing them, and blogs about roleplaying at Black Armada. Rabalias has two cats and a lady companion who also roleplays, which is pretty sweet.

In a world where it’s increasingly hard to get your message across, and available methods of communication are becoming more and more sophisticated, it’s refreshing to see a return to the simple things in life.

Like slapping a sticker somewhere nice and prominent that screams FREE PUSSY RIOT in fat felt tip pen.

I found this beauty a couple of months ago whilst walking across the Golden Jubilee pedestrian bridge. Sitting loud and proud, obviously homemade, with bright colours and a take-no-prisoners message.

Hear hear!

So, why is this a Found Feminism?

Well, obviously there’s the show of support for Pussy Riot and the spreading of their message. Whoever slapped this on the wall was inspired to make and display the sticker themselves. I hope there are hundreds of them stuck around London. I only found the one. I hope other people find more. I hope they make their own.

I’m also going to add points for the artwork, done in a way that echoes feminist punk stylings. It’s that hand-drawn aesthetic of “we did this in our bedroom” personal creation. It mirrors the hand-knitted balaclavas of the band members, and it’s the heart and soul of grassroots movements.

Plus, it’s funny.

I’m not saying that feminism should be side-splitting all the time, although I do dislike that stereotype about feminists as po-faced, dungarees-wearing, yoghurt-plaiting monsters² who hate all fun and all jokes. But being able to make someone smile when you get your point across can be valuable – and who wouldn’t grin at this sticker, with its cheerful two fingers up to one of the most terrifying and powerful men in the world? Doesn’t matter how strong you think you are, Mr Putin – the writing on the wall in London thinks you’re a dick.

Finally, there’s the political message here. The sticker, and Pussy Riot, are part of a rekindling of the political power of feminism, reminding us all that there’s more we can do (much, much more) than form elegant critiques of the use of the female nude in art for the Sunday edition of the national newspapers.

There are problems out in the world that an active, aware and politicised feminist movement can work to solve. Should work to solve. And the fact that someone with a few highlighter pens and a handful of stickers is getting out there and having a go, in their own way, at doing it should put a rocket under those of us who have more reach and power to do what we can.

So yeah, fuck rubber face Putin.

• Check out the website Free Pussy Riot for news and how you can get involved.
• Our Rhian wrote on Pussy Riot when they first appeared in the UK national press here, and again after the trial here.

1. Terry Pratchett, THUD (particularly in the form of Granny Weatherwax, he’s the source of a lot of useful moral philosophy).
2. Actually, I really like dungarees, and would quite happily wear them, especially for their iconic status in (mis)representing feminism. But that’s because I’m a real person and not a stereotype! I cannot plait yoghurt, however.

Chell, the character you play in Portal 2

Whether or not you agree in full with that critique, Portal is different, even down to the attitudes its game designers have towards designing the female avatar.

We can certainly look at this new arrival as a continuation of gaming house Valve Corporation‘s pleasing two feminist fingers up to traditional notions of male-centric gaming.

Speaking of traditional notions, in the Epic Fail corner we have Brink, which was also hailed as being a revolutionary, life-will-never-be-the-same-again game. Which it might well be, on some fronts, and as far as I can tell, it is a pretty cool shooty-killy game. But then, I like guns and explosions. However, woe unto those who cry “awesome”, because one of the main selling points of Brink is that the dollmaker (the widget that lets you select how your character looks) has literally millions of variants, so many that the internet has spawned tons of webpages and YouTube vids helping you through this process. And yet, none of these options are female. Cue a variety of opinions on the Internet as to whether this is actually important.

Naturally, I think it is, and if we want to chuck hard facts into the argument, let’s remember that under-representation of women is rife in almost all walks of life and serves as a discouragement to other women from participating, thus continuing the gendered ghetto. The gaming world is an interesting one because whilst men do outnumber women in terms of time spent playing computer games, around a third of game players are female.  Which is quite a lot, really. I often wonder how many more women would enjoy them if there were more games that had a more inclusive idea of gender. And, as if in answer to my musings, along comes a good example from 2006 sent in by our own Rob, Saints Row 2.

Now, a game franchise based on gangster culture is not the most likely source of this Found Feminism, and the website does not scream “we’ve totally got our gender issues sorted!” at me, but hold onto your controllers kids, because Rob has pinged me over some screen grabs from the dollmaker which make for interesting viewing.

The sliders shown to the left of the character (the second image enlarges if you click) allow you to toggle a  number of variables, including muscle, fat, age and skin tone, which effectively lets you make characters who look far from the basic stereotype hypermasculine and hyperfeminine models so common in games. Of course, you can still be Mr Abs and Ms Double G should you so wish, but the important thing is that the option to NOT do this is there.

And that’s rather the point of this Found Feminism, and one of the reasons I am a feminist. I am not up in arms because the representations of women in computer games are of beautiful sexy assassins, it’s because there is so rarely an option to be anything else. Which means that when a few games come along that push against those barriers, we should applaud the makers and encourage them to do more. And perhaps one day the promised cake of gaming gender equality will no longer be a lie.

• Found Feminism: an ongoing series of images, videos, photos, comics, posters or excerpts – anything really, which shows feminist ideas at work in the everyday world. What’s brightened your day? Share it here – send your finds to [email protected]!

But hey, that was decades ago, right? That was from a time when people held far more dubious views, hell people had only recently stopped using tape worms as a miracle diet (no, seriously). It was a less enlightened time, but we’ve moved on since then, yes?

Well, no, not so much. The world of advertising is still filled with dubious messages, awkward depictions of race and gender, and terrible division of products along gender lines (“This is a girl product! Make the packaging pink so they’ll buy it! This is a boy product! Fill the advert with explosions!”) So what we have here is a collection of half a dozen or so recent magazine adverts that have taken their attitudes straight from the 1950s.

Mr. Clean

It was Mothers’ Day in the US recently, and Mr Clean decided to run this advert for the occasion. Maybe I’m misinterpreting the advert. Maybe Mothers’ Day in the US is a bit different to the UK. Either way, the apparent message of “Get back to the cleaning! And get your daughter to help, she needs to learn!” seems a little… well, off.

Goldstar Beer

Goldstar Beer have an interesting view of how drinking works, one that manages to simultaneously insult both men and women. Women are complex and have to worry about matching their drinks (girly, fruity drinks, naturally) to their outfits, because they’re shallow like that. Men, meanwhile, are simple-minded creatures who are only capable of desiring one thing: beer. And not even good beer. Crappy mass-market beer.

Goldstar have another advert in this campaign that manages to be even worse on some levels – take a look for yourself here.

Nike

It’s not just gender that advertising fails on either. Here we get a delightful intersection of gender and homophobia from the fine folks at Nike. Because ballet isn’t manly, you see, and you don’t want your son to do something that isn’t manly. Best buy him some Nike trainers as soon as you can and get him doing something macho like soccer, before the homosexuals lure him into their sordid world of energetic dance routines and toned calf muscles. Because that is totally how reality works. Yes.

DeBeers

Women, you see, are basically like magpies, only larger and incapable of flight. So not very good magpies. But like magpies, women are innately drawn to shiny shiny things; the shinier the better. And as DeBeers know, if you feed her craving for shiny objects then she’ll pretend to like you and sate your desperate need for validation. Which, of course, is all women are good for. (That and cooking you dinner, which is a talent the common magpie rarely excels at.)

Wait no, all of that was wrong. What the hell, DeBeers? Really?

Prudential Financial

Social values, 1950s style. Cooking, cleaning, caring for your child. These all start with C. More importantly, they’re all things that the wife does, because hey, it’s not like she has a job, right? Women in the workplace? Madness! And all of those things are time consuming; why, hiring someone to do them all would be fairly expensive. When your wife dies, you won’t be grieving over the loss of your life’s love, you’ll be wondering who’s going to make dinner if you can’t afford to hire a cook. So you’d better get life insurance out on her. Or, I guess, buy some diamonds and lure a magpie, either way.

Qsol Servers

I was going to say something bitingly snarky and witty, but… I just… wow. I’ve been defeated by this advert. Just imagine I said something hilarious and cutting and you’re all very entertained.

So, defeated by that last advert, I’m going to stop here. I implore all of you to go out and get jobs in advertising and make better adverts than these, so that we can someday feature them in Found Feminism.