I think the deep misunderstanding from the fandom of robby's unconscious bias towards men, and *certain* fandom groups (at times, deliberate) mischaracterisation of it to paint it as intentionally malicious and overt misogyny, is genuinely one of the things I'm saddest about after season 2.
you've taken a very carefully written character- shown to be deeply, deeply good, and deeply relatable to the medical community, and based your entire view of him on an unconscious element of his personality, instead of accepting that good people have flaws. robby's bias (and it's storyline in s1) is meant to be a thing where you go "oh yes, even very competent, very kind men will have this bias often, due to the structure of society. he's written this way because he's realistic. his bias isn't good, but it doesn't de facto make him a bad person."
it's *not* meant to be something that you cling to to discredit his failing mental health, his overt and intentional goodness and his care for others. it's *not* meant to be something that you hunt through every scene looking for- because it's not there in every scene, or even whole batches of episodes. it doesn't inform every choice he makes and it's not present every time he talks to women- it's not even present *most* of the time. you're *not* supposed to hate him.
it's meant to be an occasional callback to the realities of society and how that impacts the behaviour of people who are (as far as they've thought about it) considering themselves feminist. because robby most likely *does* consider himself this way. he absolutely believes in equality and feminism, and he will stick up for women when he sees they're treated poorly (eg, the scene with the male paramedics). he just also doesn't notice the underlying bias he acts on at times.
the inclusion of his bias is meant to do the same thing as every other bias shown in the show that good characters have. mckays unconscious weight bias, langdons gender bias, ogilvies bias against drug users... all there to show good people carry these things, that no one is perfect, and we should look at our actions towards others.
the fandoms reaction to robbys bias being to wish for his characters death, rather than to understand the intended use as a realistic flaw, is frankly appalling. I will always mourn the interesting, nuanced conversations we *could* have had.
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