'You're a game girl' - Allison Williams and the feminine side of science

posted January 23rd 2023

In my quest to try and force everyone I know to listen to Counter-Measures, last year I managed to entice one of my friends to sit and listen to the first two series' with me. Though she agreed with me that the series is very good, she said that she found it disappointing that Allison seems to be girly and that her relationships seem to detract from her credentials as a scientist. This is quite in contrast with what Karen Gledhill herself thinks, who says 'I think it makes it more interesting having a love interest going on in there... I think it makes Allison more real.'^[1] I have already spoken about how fantastic I think the fact that two female scientists from a 1980s TV episode get to have their own spin-off range in a previous post, so I will try not to repeat myself too much here. Instead, I would like to focus my attention on Doctor Allison Williams, who we are consistently reminded got the 'highest grades of [her] year; of any year in fact,' and explore how much she subverts - or indeed, upholds - the stereotypical image of the fictional female scientist.

Where Rachel fits the archetypes of the Male Woman and the Lonely Heroine^[2] as the type of female scientist who is a lonely career woman, too uptight to care about anything but her work, Allison in contrast is somewhere between the Naive Expert and the Assistant. Flicker defines the Naive Expert as:

A very good-looking woman, who is incredibly young if we take her professional status into consideration, fills this role. This woman scientist has a brilliant career, but her naivete and feminine emotions get her into some difficulty [...] She embodies the “good” type of woman — morally impeccable — who believes in goodness and is accordingly naive in her actions.

and the Assistant:

As a woman, she is assigned the smaller, weaker part, the “typical” female characteristics [...] Although she is indeed scientifically qualified, her strength lies in her social competence. As subordinate to her more competent scientific partner, her role is as translator for society [...] here it is clear that the character of a woman scientist in film takes over the function of a type of bridge between rationality and emotion.

Immediately, it becomes clear that Allison is a subversion of the Assistant. Where the typical Assistant is subordinate to a man, the fact that Allison is Rachel's assistant alters that dynamic radically. Though she has the same dependance on Rachel as a typical Assistant would have on her male superior, by eliminating that male scientific voice altogether Counter-Measures allows both Rachel and Allison to function as scientific authorities as neither are fighting the way they would be seen if they were paired with a male scientist. However, Allison does still often get relegated to the Assistant, as she herself notes in Peshka, where she and Rachel have this argument:

R: Now you're just being silly.
A: Yes, silly old Allison. You wouldn't think I was a scientist in my own right.
R: Of course you are.
A: Then why do you still treat me like a lab assistant?
R: I don't!
A: The day you took over the team, I thought it would be different. No more fighting to be noticed! I honestly believed things would be better.
R: And they're not?
A: I expect to fight people like Toby! I never thought I'd have to fight you too.

By giving Allison the chance to highlight how an Assistant is usually treated by a narrative, Peshka asks us to question how we are seeing Allison. Again, the fact that Rachel is the superior allows them to deconstruct the idea that the assistant must play the 'smaller, weaker part' as Allison is able to appeal to the struggles that Rachel must also face as a female scientist in the 60s. Neither Rachel nor Allison are acting with particular rationality here, further blurring that idea that the Assistant must be the emotion to the superior's intellect, and making their argument about Allison's struggle to be recognised as 'a scientist in [her] own right' means it becomes impossible to dismiss Allison's academic prowess. She is unafraid to challenge Rachel, and Rachel respects this which only serves to strengthen their partnership and give the audience reason to believe they can both be formidable scientists.

Another function the Assistant usually fills is to be someone that the complex science must be explained to so that the audience can understand what is happening. This is the role the companion usually fills in Doctor Who proper as they can force the Doctor to explain themselves, and then explain the Doctor to others they come across. Although Allison does usually fall into the poistion of having to explain what Rachel is doing, the delightfully clever thing that C-M does is give that scientific illiteracy to Gilmore. This allows Allison the chance to simplify the science for the audience without making it seem that she can't keep up with Rachel. If anything, Ian becomes Assistant to both Rachel and Allison, completing the deconstruction of the Assistant archetype altogether. He is more than happy to 'leave all the modern day technical whatnots to young Allison' in Clean Sweep, and even Remembrance itself sets the precedent for his scientific illiteracy by having Allison exasperatedly explain a supernova to him. He also acts as an emotional anchor to them both in different ways - for Allison, he acts almost as an older brother in the way he cares about her, something which is especially obvious in episodes such as Changing of the Guard where he is deeply concerned with her wellbeing and safety in the face of danger.

^^ not the first time allie is hyperaware of her appearance (physical and behavioural) - she has them all on in pelage

-it's the selfawareness of the text, even back in remembrance -YES she is the sexy one YES she has a string of boyfriends and YES she uses her looks BUT rachel weaponises that and they laugh about it after - it's the knowing manipulation by the CHARACTERS rather than the blind bias of the writers which just see women as sexy assistants -plus like, she's sexy but she wears the trousers and the duffle coat - she is a modern woman - also the shift between oldcm allie and new - new is so desperate to prove herself but new is like. more assured. but still can't quite balance the want of a family. she's becoming the lonely heroine. she's becoming rachel. which isn't a bad thing - the tragedy isn't the fact she is promoted to boss - no scientific doubt but the personal sadness of losing her best friend :( - and yes she can't have family or a lover bc she's Doomed but what separates r/a from the classic lonely scientist is that THEY ARE FRIENDS and esp in new cm they are all bffs - 'we're all the family we've got' wktk / 'and we're never letting go' hollow king - it's the fact that she's allowed a life outside science -conclusion! allison is about as nuanced as they come and also i'm in love with her byeeeee

emily said once that it was 'disappointing' that allison is girly girly and whatever but that pissed me off bc she's NOT and even if she is she's still GOOD and here's why