"Well, it's not exactly female-orientated anymore, not since the sixties. You know, the equal-rights-for-men marches. You know, they burned their jockstraps and all that."
-Deb Lister ("Parallel Universe")
Deb Lister was Dave Lister's female counterpart from a parallel universe with a female-oriented society.
Biography
Little biographical information about Deb is known. It could be assumed her life followed a parallel course to Dave's, only with a female perspective (though given some reversed gender roles as well these differences are less defined). The only noticeable difference was that while Dave smuggled a cat on board whose descendant is Cat, Deb smuggled a dog on board whose descendant is the Dog. Presumably she is the last surviving human in her universe, and the only survivor of the disaster that killed her crewmates.
When Deb met Dave, they engaged in a night of drinking contests that resulted in a drunken one night stand, something they both seemed to regret. The unintended consequence of this liaison was that Dave became pregnant due to being in a dimension where men could become pregnant rather than women. Dave ultimately gave birth to twin sons Jim and Bexley Lister. ("Parallel Universe")
The twins were later sent back to Deb's dimension to live with her, as this was required for their long term survival due to them reaching the age of 18 within three days in Dave’s universe. ("Backwards")
Personality
Deb shares many of the same layabout idiosyncrasies as Dave, with both of them being shown to enjoy drinking, dancing, eating curries, lazing around, and having a fairly low standard of personal hygiene and manners. She shares Dave's party trick of drinking six pints of lager and belching the whole of "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
Quotes
- "I wouldn't exactly say [society] is female-oriented anymore, not since the sixties, and the equal rights for men marches, when they burnt their jockstraps and all that." ("Parallel Universe")
- "I assumed you had taken care of that, it is the man's job to use precautions." ("Parallel Universe")
Trivia
- Deb makes several references to her matriarchal world, which intend to shine a light on the patriarchal and often sexist tendencies of Dave's world, and highlight Rimmer's sexist behaviour, especially when he interacts with his alternate self: Arlene Rimmer.