Alison Page wrote:

I'm not particularly *trying* to be annoying by saying this - but aren't both of those positions rather extreme?

<g> I for one am not a bit annoyed; and yes - I was being _deliberately_ extreme because my point is really that one tends to find what one is looking for.

Deliverance does rather lazily use gender cliches. I think B7 is somewhat flawed by laziness of writing and plotting, mixed up with the good stuff.

Agreed. But then the problem is really cliché and not misogyny, isn't it? And I'm not closing my eyes to sexism - I've had to deal with plenty of it IRL. But reading it in where it isn't necessary is just too damn tiring, IMO.

I don't think it's enough to say 'well, a male priest would have grovelled just like Meegat did'. because showing an innocent awed man grovelling at Avon's feet (or Jenna's) would have been less dull, less safe, and less cliched. The writer didn't think of it, or didn't choose to do that.

Thing is, I'm not sure that it would have been less dull or clichéd. The Star Trek episodes which have obvious gender reversals are frequently derided as trite and offensive. I was just reading somewhere this past week that in order to be fresh with a plot one must: (1) think of the obvious solution; (2) think of the opposite of that; (3) then write something that is the opposite of _both_ (1) and (2).

Mistral