I was looking at Bounding into Comics and there was an article about how Christopher Eccelson was saying that Dr. Who needed more women and that it was a bit of a "boys club". Of course the interviewer didn't ask him why he came to this conclusion after making his money. Someone in the comments asked something I've been asking for the last few years, which was "what is wrong with guys having something that they like?"
Although with Dr. Who, there were female fans going back to the beginning and they were never clamoring for a female doctor. If the show actually wanted to make money they would've just spun off a female time lord or something. This kind of reminds me of James Bond with the whole "men want to be him and women want to be with him", but now they seem to be ruining that character.
This is why I am very skeptical about any female fans or minority fans who can't shut up about representation. I mean just look in the gaming world with that Anita (can't remember her last name) or Zoe Quinn. I never thought that the gaming industry would succumb to this nonsense and it disgusts me when I see all these major comic con events with panels about females or something about racism.
If you are a true fan of something then you won't let the fact that you may not be "represented" stop you. I'm a black guy and was born in 1980. I remember when I first started buying comic books as a kid. Most of the people there were white guys but we bonded over comics. I didn't care about the demographics of the hobby. Same goes for sci-fi books, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. That is why I firmly believe that if you are obsessed with diversity/representation then something is wrong with you. It is the height of arrogance to enter a hobby and then immediately demand that everything has to be about you. Of course the shill media will print endless articles about how evil white male nerds are or how evil star wars fans who don't like the sequel trilogy are. Although the funniest ones are how evil gamers are. Most nerds thought it was awesome if a woman showed interest in that stuff. I'm single now and I joke sometimes that if I went on a date and my date said that playing Skyrim is one of her passions I would propose on the spot.
I remember hearing a discussion of the doctor that stuck with me.
"He needs to be whimsical, a wise old man of the universe, and just a little broken."
Men want to be him, but Women both want to be whisked away by him on an adventure, and also want to try to fix him.
The gentlemanly aspects of the doctor are intrinsically linked to the structure of the show.
This is thrown out with a woman doctor.
Men generally don't fantasize about being whisked away on an adventure by a mysterious wise woman.
This structure can work switched, but you have to weaken the supernatural character more, make her a rather ordinary girl fleeing from supernatural forces using the power of a machine she doesn't really understand, and in desperate need of protection. There's your waifu bait.
Of course that wouldn't fly with a progressive board of approval, and also would be even more of a character break making it even harder for audiences to accept.
It would have been so much easier to go back to him being a dapper British dude with a face off the cover of a teen magazine. It wouldn't guarantee the show would be good, but it would have likely been a steady source of profit with a built in "thirsty teen girl" demographic.