Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2014 4:44 am
I'd say that Steed is more intuitive in his intelligence (although the guy does read Proust, so he's not exactly represented as anti-intellectual), while Emma and Cathy are more directly intellectual, but in some ways less intuitive. Ultimately, it's less about "intelligence" and more about different types of intelligence, in terms of the whole of the series. The Master Minds makes a point of Steed being less intellectual than Mrs. Peel, but this also means that he's the only one who thinks to just unplug his speaker system because it annoys him. That whole episode is about how easily manipulable people are who think they're intellectually superior, and again it takes the analytical genius of Mrs. Peel (she's the one who gets them access to Ransack in the first place) and the down-to-earth intuition and emotional intelligence of Steed to defeat them. So whether or not you like the fact that Emma makes fun of him for "cribbing", the whole episode strikes a very nice balance.
But that doesn't much change or challenge my analysis - it's a long-standing tradition in western culture that women are represented as being more emotional/irrational (that's one of the reasons why we couldn't have the vote, remember?), while men are more logical/rational. I find it interesting that the Avengers, to some degree, turned this stereotype around without actually feminizing or masculinizing its leads. But it's just a perspective based on what happens in the episode, the character types, and the implications of certain associations with each, as I've said above. You can take it or leave it.
But that doesn't much change or challenge my analysis - it's a long-standing tradition in western culture that women are represented as being more emotional/irrational (that's one of the reasons why we couldn't have the vote, remember?), while men are more logical/rational. I find it interesting that the Avengers, to some degree, turned this stereotype around without actually feminizing or masculinizing its leads. But it's just a perspective based on what happens in the episode, the character types, and the implications of certain associations with each, as I've said above. You can take it or leave it.