the things we cherish are small indeed

Martha Jones:

She was the first main Black companion on Doctor Who…I'll just talk about the fandom racism/misogyny itself and not the racism/misogyny in the show itself. She was subject to overt and subtle misogynoir from the fandom, especially since she came after white fan-favorite companion Rose Tyler. People disliked her for having a crush on the Doctor, which Rose also had, and was unfavorably compared to Rose. There's a lot more, but I don't want to write a whole essay.

She's a medical student, and incredibly smart and capable! In her stories, she's incredibly compassionate to those around her, and offers emotional as well as medical assistance. Also, she has incredible style!

Martha gets absolutely shafted by the fandom, most of whom cannot seem to forgive her for not being Rose Tyler. That she dares to leave the Doctor and live her own life is apparently an act more evil than any the Daleks could dream of. A lot of fans insist that Martha's race has nothing to do with why they dislike her. A lot of fans are fucking liars.

Martha is competent and intelligent and screams way less than usual for a companion so she is clearly excellent.

I think fandoms been very racist and misogynistic towards her, relagating her as some spineless woman always pining after the doctor instead of a badass MD who saved the day many times

Not only misogyny but racism too. Martha is an incredibly smart and brave character who doesn’t get half the credit that the Doctor’s other (WHITE) companions get. She gets dogged on by the fandom for a lot of reasons that are overlooked or forgiven when Rose Tyler does a lot of the same things.

She was the only RTD companion who wasn’t given superpowers in order to save the day. Girl saved the world with nothing but gumption and a good pair of walking boots.

I still see hate fics for her in the big year of 2026 please god she's not getting in the way of your ship she walked away from that bum ass alien 15 years ago

So many fans consider Martha a "rebound" companion for 10 and say that she only cares about impressing him or something. Completely ignoring the fact that she was charmed into coming with him! Just like everybody else who travels with the Doctor. She also canonically SAVED THE WORLD by giving the people something to believe in and got to leave on her own accord without something terrible happening to her. She's also shown to be incredibly smart and talented, quickly adapting to situations even if she might be freaked out at first. And after she leaves she gets to work with UNIT (and im pretty sure she also appears in the Torchwood spin-off series) and eventually she ends up with someone who understands what she's been through. Martha is SO MUCH MORE than just a rebound companion or a girl obsessed with the Doctor. Sheis (at the time of meeting her) being trained to be a full on doctor who has incredible will power and a clear desire to help others.

I was part of the crowd who hated her for "getting between" my ship and "replacing" Rose. I even avoided rewatching the season she was in when i rewatched most everything else. (Just to be clear i wasn't part of the fandom during this time and i didn't spread the hate). After seeing her on this blog i started thinking back and reflecting on my opinion of her and concluded that i was being super misogynistic and racist. I decided to rewatch her season and even just a few episodes in i could tell how amazing Martha is. She's everything you could want in a companion, she's smart, capable, compassionate, brave, she balances The Doctor's personality really well. In fact i found myself more annoyed with The Doctor for how shittily he treated Martha, and the writers for not handling the whole thing better. All this to say: Martha get behind me i will defend you with my life and the lives of everyone who has ever hated her

Thirteen:

Despite being a great incarnation of the character, somehow she is uniquely bad. Despite having many of the same traits as the 'male' Doctors, somehow it is worse when she does it. She's constantly held up to greater scrutiny and one cannot help but see that misogyny plays a huge role here

Dared to be an incarnation of The Doctor who was played by a woman and all the needs and geeks were as normal about that as you'd expect

‘Jodie Whittaker (actor) killed the show’ ‘the Thirteenth Doctor sucks and is bad and new who sucks after her!!’ Etc holy moly. So much bashing of the show because of her and not because the writers just sucked for a while (which honestly is the case for most of the show)

She's literally the exact same character the Doctor has always been- hypocritical self righteous bullshit and all. But for sooooommmmeeee reason it's charming and compelling and adds great depth to the character when it's David Tennant but it's shallow and poorly written and inconsistent when it's Jodie Whittaker

She won the poll for Doctor most likely to bite someone even though Eleven bit someone onscreen. She's great

This may have already been said but BBC literally had to apologise for 13 not knowing how to comfort Graham at the end of Can You Hear Me. Which is completely insane because when a male doctor gaslights his female companion that’s allowed but she’s not allowed to be even just awkward?