I listened to this podcast episode on Irene Adler from a female Sherlockian Toni Sutherland, and it enraged me. To be clear, Irene is only the focus of this one episode; I think the podcast in general is about Sherlockian "conspiracy theories" and discussing TV show episodes as far as I can tell. There is one supportive guy on the episode, citing a Sherlockian book to add to Toni's point about a conspiracy to belittle Irene Adler.
The title refers to Clara; this is not a character in the Canon. It's a stupid sexist thing that Baker Street Irregulars created and celebrated as their form of disgusting humor back when they were a men-only club. One guy made up a story claiming "my aunt Clara is the real Irene Adler" with absolutely no justification (and I doubt there was any such Clara in real life). No evidence, nothing. Sherlockians are normally devoted to geeking out over minutiae of the Canon and citing stories to back up their chronologies, but in this case, they overlooked their usual rigor for sexist, chauvinist reasons. They loved the bogus "Aunt Clara" song and they sang it annually at their dinners for decades.
In the song, Clara is depicted as a woman repeatedly pressured into sex by a pastor, until she finally gave in when offered the deed to the church, something apparently that she could make money off of. So now she's rich and promiscuous, sleeping with the entire town; respectable people "don't talk about Clara" due to shame and turn her picture to the wall. What the fuck does that have to do with Irene Adler, opera singer and defeater of Sherlock Holmes? NOTHING. Fucking men thought that was funny. Fucking men also thought it was fine to invite one woman friend to each dinner to do a ceremonial "toast to the woman" then shuttle her off to a female-only dinner so they could bawdily sing about Clara. Fucking MEN disrespecting and sniggering about women behind their backs like fraternity boys.
Women Sherlockians formed their own Adventuresses society in protest, and Carole Nelson Douglas wrote several feminist novels about Irene Adler. The Baker Street Irregulars finally let women join in 1991. I don't know how much progress has been made since then because they are private, invitation only, and they certainly don't talk about "Aunt Clara" on their About page detailing their history. Enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes should be open to anybody, and it's not like ACD wrote "men-only" on his books and stories in Strand magazine. But these fucking BSI men had to take something good for everyone and ruin it with juvenile exclusion. Like they're boys hating girls for having cooties. Fucking bastards.
That's part of why I hate what BBC Sherlock did to Irene Adler, making her a fucking evil criminal who lost to Sherlock. It's a fucking throwback to the worst Sherlockian sexism and chauvinism. Irene's not even smart enough to create her own nefarious plan; she bought it off Moriarty. And she's apparently fine with killing random women to fake her death, and we're supposed to be happy that Holmes rescues her. Fucking disgusting. Moffat revived ugly things, and yet he continues to have a career. Online, people think we're the ones overreacting for holding onto a grudge; that we're deranged shippers. It's bad enough mainstream media reduces her to a mere love interest, to being Catwoman. Better portrayals at least let Irene keep her smarts and independence.
Anyone claiming that #metoo went too far or complaining about wokeness can kiss my ass. It was fucking unfair and disgusting how much the world fucking catered to men back then. And the world continues to cater to incels and rapists and white supremacists and drunk incompetent hacks who hate DEI right now. You guys fucking never knew what real oppression was like.
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