Why was Mulgrew so polarizing?
- Thread starter Captain Worf
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Because on Trek up until Kira, women in Trek were just window dressing.
No women that was part of the crew ever spoke up to Kirk or Picard(Beverly doesn't count. If her husband wasn't Picard best buddy, she would dare either.) Uhrua need Kirk to save her, Troi ran after Picard console him. The first ep. of DS9, Kira openly challenged Sisko. However many women found Kira to butch. The trick with having a female captain was to make her straight forward like a man but feminine enough not to be seen as a lesbian. They made sure right off the bat with her exchange with Mark(You only bother me the way I like to be bothered.) and her body language, that Janeway was no Lesbian. They then had Janeway stand nose to nose with anyone that would question her, establishing her straight forwardness.
By the writers and directors doing that, IMO as a man, she definately caught my attention.
You're younger.
In my professional experience, this attitude is less common among younger guys who grew up with women in the workforce. Men my age and older have more issues...
Agreed
Which is why I love the show "Mad Men" on AMC.
It shows just how much work & social environment & culture within it has changed so much during the years.
Alas, I work with five other guys and two of them (26 and 22) have said that women can't be good managers and seem to have a problem with being given orders by women.
Personally, I thought Voyager was really behind the times. They made a big deal out of a woman captain, like it was some amazing pioneering event in television history, at a time when woman were already CEOs and in other positions of authority. It would have been a big deal in the 60s. It didn't seem relevent in the 90s.
Far from being polarizing to some fans, I think it was the studio and the writers who were hung up on a female captain. They were the ones making a big deal out of it, when it shouldn't have mattered. That would be like Paramount promoting DS9 as having "the first black commander!" You just show it, you don't make a big ass deal about it.
For fans and those involved in the show, it became their crutch. When the show would be criticized, the response would always be, "Oh, those sexist guys just couldn't handle a female captain."
Far from being polarizing to some fans, I think it was the studio and the writers who were hung up on a female captain. They were the ones making a big deal out of it, when it shouldn't have mattered. That would be like Paramount promoting DS9 as having "the first black commander!" You just show it, you don't make a big ass deal about it.
For fans and those involved in the show, it became their crutch. When the show would be criticized, the response would always be, "Oh, those sexist guys just couldn't handle a female captain."
Ironically, at my last job, all of my co-workers, including the President, were women. Granted, it was a small company. I often got box-toting and spider-killing duty.
I think you probably nailed it.
Ironically, at my last job, all of my co-workers, including the President, were women. Granted, it was a small company. I often got box-toting and spider-killing duty.
Funny, I always get box-toting and water bottle loading and spider killing duty.
My male coworkers are wusses.
But I have to say, it's fun for this 52 year-old, size 0, tiny little thing to heave the water bottle into place while the guys are muttering, "Okay, that's one boss you don't want to cross..."
Well, I don't think the problem was really that the sexist guys couldn't handle a female captain, but I do think some perfectly ordinary guys (not all, but some) have trouble judging a female captain, and the reason is that lots of those perfectly ordinary guys do still have problems judging female bosses...for a variety of reasons.
I don't mean they think to themselves, on first meeting their new female boss, "Oh, she's not qualified - she's the wrong sex." But I do think they can have problems adjusting to the differences in management styles, and sometimes "problems adjusting" turns into "she's different from male bosses and different=wrong."
Here are some differences based on reading and on my observations from a few decades in the workforce, including a few as a boss (though I am no longer, thank God - supervising people sucks). I think this does have some applicability to Janeway:
1. Female bosses tend to have a different management style than male bosses. For example, a few people have commented on Janeway's "motherly" streak. Well, whether you realize it or not, that is very common among certain female bosses. It can be bad, but it can also be an extremely effective way of managing some people. So did Mulgrew/the writers put that in there on purpose in recognition of this fact of 20th/21st century life or because they thought it was part of Janeway's character or what? I don't know.
2. Female bosses - well, females generally - who act like male bosses tend to be judged much more harshly. What is "aggressiveness" in a man is "bitchiness" (and worse) in a woman. Yes. Still.
3. Female bosses tend to be consensus builders rather than lay-down-the-law types. There are exceptions, of course. I don't know if this is the case in military organizations. I'd guess not - I'm thinking a Marine colonel is a Marine colonel is a Marine colonel - the reason being that the training and discipline and desire to be a good Marine or whatever overrides most societal norms. But it is often the case out here in Civvie Land. Now, here's where Janeway went against 21st-century norms, because my recollection is that her character followed the military lay-down-the-law norm rather than the Civvie Street norm. And you know what? I think some people - the ones who do expect female bosses to be consensus builders or motherly - found that unsettling.
But of course the other problem was that she wasn't written consistently, but we've gone over that a jillion times before so there's no need to do so again.
What in the heck was my point? Oh, yes: It's that while I don't think sexism played that big of a role (and I think Hober is right that it was more the writers and the studio who got hung up on that), I do think expectations of how a captain ought to act did play a role. But that's just a guess on my part.
I don't mean they think to themselves, on first meeting their new female boss, "Oh, she's not qualified - she's the wrong sex." But I do think they can have problems adjusting to the differences in management styles, and sometimes "problems adjusting" turns into "she's different from male bosses and different=wrong."
Here are some differences based on reading and on my observations from a few decades in the workforce, including a few as a boss (though I am no longer, thank God - supervising people sucks). I think this does have some applicability to Janeway:
1. Female bosses tend to have a different management style than male bosses. For example, a few people have commented on Janeway's "motherly" streak. Well, whether you realize it or not, that is very common among certain female bosses. It can be bad, but it can also be an extremely effective way of managing some people. So did Mulgrew/the writers put that in there on purpose in recognition of this fact of 20th/21st century life or because they thought it was part of Janeway's character or what? I don't know.
2. Female bosses - well, females generally - who act like male bosses tend to be judged much more harshly. What is "aggressiveness" in a man is "bitchiness" (and worse) in a woman. Yes. Still.
3. Female bosses tend to be consensus builders rather than lay-down-the-law types. There are exceptions, of course. I don't know if this is the case in military organizations. I'd guess not - I'm thinking a Marine colonel is a Marine colonel is a Marine colonel
- the reason being that the training and discipline and desire to be a good Marine or whatever overrides most societal norms. But it is often the case out here in Civvie Land. Now, here's where Janeway went against 21st-century norms, because my recollection is that her character followed the military lay-down-the-law norm rather than the Civvie Street norm. And you know what? I think some people - the ones who do expect female bosses to be consensus builders or motherly - found that unsettling. But of course the other problem was that she wasn't written consistently, but we've gone over that a jillion times before so there's no need to do so again.
What in the heck was my point? Oh, yes: It's that while I don't think sexism played that big of a role (and I think Hober is right that it was more the writers and the studio who got hung up on that), I do think expectations of how a captain ought to act did play a role. But that's just a guess on my part.
It was not just Paramount and the network that made a big deal about it....it was some of Voyager's female fans and Kate Mulgrew that pigeonholed her into the role of "female" captain. Some of Voyager's most ardent fans were overly invested in the fact that she was the first female captain. Sisko's fan base did not make a big deal out of his race and neither did the show runners.
So, JustKate, what you're saying is that female bosses in civilian life tend to have a generally different style than male bosses, and are often judged harshly if they try to implement the male style. Military personnel, on the other hand, tend to behave the same across the board, be they male or female.
Janeway, being more or less a military officer and definitely having a gung ho streak to her, may have been judged unfairly by the audience based on the civilian differences you mentioned?
Is that what you mean?
Janeway, being more or less a military officer and definitely having a gung ho streak to her, may have been judged unfairly by the audience based on the civilian differences you mentioned?
Is that what you mean?
Yes - but regarding the military angle, my suppositions...well, they aren't quite 100 percent guessing, but they've got a fairly significant guessing quotient.
I've never been in the military, though I've been around it a lot, so I've never experienced being commanded by a female officer, and the two people I know best who were in the military served either at a time or in a place (father in WWII; husband in a tank unit) where they didn't have female officers in direct command over them. So unlike some of my other statements about the military, I'm not drawing on direct experience or experience-once-removed. My military guess is based simply on female officers I've met. But "met" isn't at all the same thing as "been under the command of." Hence my calling it a guess.
But yes, I do think it's possible that some people expected Janeway to act more like a civilian boss than a captain - just because that's the sort of leader they are more familiar with. And I think the fact that she's female made those expectations...more complicated, let's say.
I've never been in the military, though I've been around it a lot, so I've never experienced being commanded by a female officer, and the two people I know best who were in the military served either at a time or in a place (father in WWII; husband in a tank unit) where they didn't have female officers in direct command over them. So unlike some of my other statements about the military, I'm not drawing on direct experience or experience-once-removed. My military guess is based simply on female officers I've met. But "met" isn't at all the same thing as "been under the command of." Hence my calling it a guess.
But yes, I do think it's possible that some people expected Janeway to act more like a civilian boss than a captain - just because that's the sort of leader they are more familiar with. And I think the fact that she's female made those expectations...more complicated, let's say.
Military yet mom-ish, hmm.
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