Agency of Female Characters

[Pauln6]

I've been enjoying a re-watch of some of season one on the Horror Channel this month and one thing stood out: the women generally stand around and do nothing. Sulu assesses tactical options in several episodes. DeSalle can't wait to get stuck in. Rand, Ross, Uhura, and Martine, they all present themselves as officers and trained astronauts but all they do is cower and fail to understand the bigger picture even when it's really obvious to everyone else. Kirk is making an obvious play on Trelane's naive understanding of human interaction and it's implied that Ross falls for it too. In Shore Leave, Martine and Barrows just cower and rely on the men for help.

I was wondering if there are many instances where female characters are given any agency in the show, by which I mean they make a relevant decision without a direct command from a man that has an impact on the story. I can think of a few examples but they've been pretty sparse and very limited:

Number One leading the landing party and setting phasers to overload
Vina is generally awesome throughout
Janice Rand makes coffee with a phaser - tenuous i know, but they really needed that coffee.
Helen Noel improvising on her solo mission
Marla Mcgivers deciding to betray Khan
Zarabeth rescuing Spock and McCoy
T'Pring playing Spock for a fool
The Romulan Commander being in command
Lenore Karidian being all kinds of crazy
Marta being all kind of crazy
Janice Lester being all kinds of Crazy
Elaan being all kinds of Crazy
Losira being all kinds of programmed as a deathbot
Deela

It's not very impressive considering that a lot of them were nuts or guest alien leaders and most of the best examples of Starfleet officers were in the pilot episode. Are there any more?

 

[Timewalker]

I've been enjoying a re-watch of some of season one on the Horror Channel this month and one thing stood out: the women generally stand around and do nothing. Sulu assesses tactical options in several episodes. DeSalle can't wait to get stuck in. Rand, Ross, Uhura, and Martine, they all present themselves as officers and trained astronauts but all they do is cower and fail to understand the bigger picture even when it's really obvious to everyone else. Kirk is making an obvious play on Trelane's naive understanding of human interaction and it's implied that Ross falls for it too. In Shore Leave, Martine and Barrows just cower and rely on the men for help.

I was wondering if there are many instances where female characters are given any agency in the show, by which I mean they make a relevant decision without a direct command from a man that has an impact on the story. I can think of a few examples but they've been pretty sparse and very limited:

Number One leading the landing party and setting phasers to overload
Vina is generally awesome throughout
Janice Rand makes coffee with a phaser - tenuous i know, but they really needed that coffee.
Helen Noel improvising on her solo mission
Marla Mcgivers deciding to betray Khan
Zarabeth rescuing Spock and McCoy
T'Pring playing Spock for a fool
The Romulan Commander being in command
Lenore Karidian being all kinds of crazy
Marta being all kind of crazy
Janice Lester being all kinds of Crazy
Elaan being all kinds of Crazy
Losira being all kinds of programmed as a deathbot
Deela

It's not very impressive considering that a lot of them were nuts or guest alien leaders and most of the best examples of Starfleet officers were in the pilot episode. Are there any more?

Amanda. While she did follow Sarek's orders, he certainly didn't order her to lecture Spock or slap him for his logic. He would have been furious with her if he'd been present when she did that (in a Vulcan way, of course). No, she didn't manage to convince him, but I think it did have an effect on how Spock and Sarek were able to reconcile as much as they did in that episode.

Dr. Ann Mulhall. Sargon ordered her to be part of the landing party, but it was her own decision to host Thalassa's consciousness.

Presumably Nurse Chapel was only too happy to volunteer to host Spock's consciousness.

Uhura took command of the ship in the TAS episode "The Lorelei Signal."

In "Mirror, Mirror," the men all stood around when MU-Marlena held a phaser on them; it was like "OMG, what'll we do - we can't hit a girl!"... so Uhura stepped forward and disarmed her.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Nona in Private Little War was a strong willed female character.

 

[Timewalker]

Nona in Private Little War was a strong willed female character.

Eleen in "Friday's Child" was, as well.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Eleen in "Friday's Child" was, as well.

And she lived on in TOS universe, unlike Nona who met an untimely end at the hands of the Villagers.

 

[Timewalker]

And she lived on in TOS universe, unlike Nona who met an untimely end at the hands of the Villagers.

And I'm pretty sure that it was her decision to name her baby "Leonard James Akaar".

[McCoy]"Oochie-woochie-coochie-coo!"[/McCoy]

 

[BK613]

Ariel Shaw had no trouble putting aside her past feelings for Kirk in order to nearly pin his career to the wall. A very convincing prosecutor IMO.

 

[Pauln6]

All good examples. Marlena did also make the decision to save Kirk's life.
I suppose you could argue that Rand's decision to turn down drunk evil Kirk's advances was agency.

Mulhall had huge potential as a character with agency but she spent most of the episode possessed by a vain housewife who was led around by the two male characters. The ship's astrobiologist should be trotted out every three episodes or so! It was frustrating that Spock, a physicist, or McCoy, an old country doctor used to divide astrobiology plot elements between them when it clearly warrants a character on its own - although TNG thought a therapist would be a more useful character, so there you go. Chapel was a biologist, they should have use those skills more often to give her some agency beyond choosing when to hand McCoy the next slide.

 

[Timewalker]

Ariel Shaw had no trouble putting aside her past feelings for Kirk in order to nearly pin his career to the wall. A very convincing prosecutor IMO.

The OP specified actions taken that they were not ordered to do.

Areel Shaw was ordered to prosecute Kirk. Being a professional, she did so to the best of her abilities.

 

[FormerLurker]

Elaan being all kinds of Crazy

I rather think Elaan was all kinds of stuck up and privileged instead of crazy.

 

[Timewalker]

I don't think Elaan actually meets the OP's criteria. She's enroute to be married - at the orders of male politicians. She tries to kill the male who is assigned to teach her manners, and when Kirk takes over, she decides she respects him because he's strong enough to stand up to her. They fall in drug-induced love (until Kirk decides he loves the Enterprise more), and Elaan goes through with the marriage.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Vanna from "The Cloud Minders" as the leader of the Disrupters.

 

[Pauln6]

It is very hard to find examples of crewmen who have any agency. More often it seems that when they use their professional skills they get it wrong somehow. Martine daydreams, Noel thinks a zombie seems well adjusted, Mcgivers falls for Khan, Rand gets kidnapped by children, Palamis falls for Apollo, Ross is fooled by Kirk's jealousy. Uhura seems to be one exception. Her line about being frightened was originally Rand's so I'll forgive it.

 

[Tosk]

More often it seems that when they use their professional skills they get it wrong somehow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think that having agency meant that your decisions are necessarily the "right" ones.

 

[Pauln6]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think that having agency meant that your decisions are necessarily the "right" ones.

That's true but there are frustrating repeat patterns:
Falling for the wrong guy: Martine, Palamis, McGivers, Rand, Chapel x2, plus Keeler, Rayna, Romulan Commander.
Using professional judgment but being wrong/useless: Dehner, Noel, Palamis
Being a 'victim' of violence/kidnapping: Rand x3, Barrows, Ross, McGivers, Masterson, Romaine [I didn't include Uhura or Chapel since their appearances have been many and varied or instances where the men are kidnapped too, except Ross since her sole purpose in the episode is to get kidnapped and wear a pretty dress].

I think there are also plenty of instances where male characters suffer as above but they get lost in the sheer number of male characters doing awesome stuff too. The problem for the women is that there are far fewer and they are far more likely to be passive, victims, or plain wrong, and far less likely to act independently.

I have a lot of admiration for Uhura. While she often doesn't do much, and when she does do something, she is shown to be a bit too reliant on Kirk for her inspiration, she does also display a reasonable ability to innovate and improvise when the need arises. It's such a shame that she wasn't featured more often on landing parties like Sulu and Chekov. I think she gets kidnapped to a planet almost as often as she gets chosen for landing party duty.

It's a shame Ann and Miranda couldn't have been merged into one character. A blind, telepathic, sassy, independent astrobiolgist would have been very cool to feature twice per season.

 

[Timewalker]

I have a lot of admiration for Uhura. While she often doesn't do much, and when she does do something, she is shown to be a bit too reliant on Kirk for her inspiration, she does also display a reasonable ability to innovate and improvise when the need arises. It's such a shame that she wasn't featured more often on landing parties like Sulu and Chekov. I think she gets kidnapped to a planet almost as often as she gets chosen for landing party duty.

There's something people tend to gloss over with Uhura: What happened to her on Triskelion. We hear her screaming, and Kirk yelling, "What's happening to Lieutenant Uhura?"

Well... this big, hairy guy is in her cell, she's screaming... WTF do you think is happening? It's not made clear if he succeeded in raping her, but it is obvious that he's trying.

There's a fanfic that actually addresses this, as after the mission, Uhura develops PTSD and tries to deal with it.

It's a shame Ann and Miranda couldn't have been merged into one character. A blind, telepathic, sassy, independent astrobiolgist would have been very cool to feature twice per season.

I liked Ann Mulhall - intelligent, no-nonsense, and (to the best of my recollection) the only female officer post-"The Cage" to have the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Miranda? Nope, didn't like her at all.

 

[MarsWeeps]

1) Edith Keeler
2) Rayna
3) T'Pring ( Oops...already mentioned)
4) Salt Vampire
5) Horta

 

[Spock's Barber]

Kirk/Lester
Lester/Kirk.....

Dammit. That episode still confuses me.

 

[Commishsleer]

After about the first half of Season 1 it really was mostly about the big 3. I remember early episodes where Rand manned navigation (in an emergency) and where they had department head meetings. In Season 2 and 3 Spock, Kirk, McCoy and Scotty did everything. Male and female crew didn't have any "agency" except when they were betraying the ship or something.
In the "Paradise Syndrome" I always wondered why Spock didn't have Uhura and linguistics researching the translation of the Fabrini code. Surely they didn't have anything else to do for 3 months.

T'Pring and and T'Pau certainly ruled their own decisions and fates. Miranda wasn't going to be pushed around by boyfriends, Kirk or Spock. My opinion about Deela was that she was tired of all the killing and let Kirk win.
Despite the sexist way of "taming" Elaan, here was a woman forced into marriage who was trying her best to get out of it. Same with T'Pring. Despite what I think of their methods, neither was insane. Both were using acceptable methods in their society.

 

[Timewalker]

Despite the sexist way of "taming" Elaan, here was a woman forced into marriage who was trying her best to get out of it. Same with T'Pring. Despite what I think of their methods, neither was insane. Both were using acceptable methods in their society.

It's a bit chilling that the logical Vulcan society condones murder as a legally acceptable way to get out of an unwanted marriage. T'Pring didn't give a damn which man died - she chose the most logical/expedient way (to her) to ensure being free of Spock while making sure Stonn would still be alive.

Some of the fanfic regarding T'Pring's subsequent life post-Amok Time shows her absolutely no mercy. There's a "rated adult" series of stories in which Stonn lets her know just exactly how displeased he is that she sullied his honor by not involving him in her decision to use Kirk as her champion. He decides to make T'Pring his literal chattel, as the law allows him to do.

There is another story in which T'Pring is not made literal chattel, but karma comes back to bite her many years later, when she's unable to find a bondmate for her daughter. Nobody will consider allowing their son to be bonded to the daughter of a woman who showed that she was willing to let her own (first) bondmate be killed for such a frivolous reason.

I've never read anything, anywhere, in which T'Pring comes out of this with her honor and reputation untarnished, or that she ever comes to regret her decision because it was unethical.