Is femininity a villain in TOS?

[YARN]

You're distorting the issue.
You're making it about something which it is not.

I would appreciate arguments to substantiate your claims.

We are discussing the conceptual baggage of gender roles in Star Trek, specifically discussing whether femininity is "a villain" in TOS. If we find that masculinity is itself critiqued or problematized (even villified in extreme examples like a super-man like Kahn), then it would be inaccurate to suggest that Star Trek was simply "sexist." If old-school masculinity is substantively critiqued in Star Trek, then we may find that a more feminized masculinity (e.g., subdued, communal, supplicating, cooperating) is superior to pure masculinity. What my analysis suggest is "it ain't that simple" - we cannot simply reduce TOS as villifying women.

 

[Amaris]

I would appreciate arguments to substantiate your claims.

I already gave examples. You ignored them.

We are discussing the conceptual baggage of gender roles in Star Trek, specifically discussing whether femininity is "a villain" in TOS. If we find that masculinity is itself critiqued or problematized (even villified in extreme examples like a super-man like Kahn), then it would be inaccurate to suggest that Star Trek was simply "sexist." If old-school masculinity is substantively critiqued in Star Trek, then we may find that a more feminized masculinity (e.g., subdued, communal, supplicating, cooperating) is superior to pure masculinity. What my analysis suggest is "it ain't that simple" - we cannot simply reduce TOS as villifying women.

No, and you are misdirecting, which is why it's pointless to continue discussing this with you.

 

[BigJake]

The evidence has already been shown regarding how women were portrayed in the original series.

Evidence doesn't interpret itself. What I object to is the interpretation.

That's your right. But to object to it effectively and persuasively, you have to have something worthwhile to say that isn't a ludicrous false equivalency like "there were male villains too."

The hard fact is that for a vast percentage of female TOS characters, it is possible to predict whether they would be portrayed as submissive weaklings (of the villainous variety or otherwise) simply by their gender. This cannot be done with the male characters, who inhabit all the possible niches of character in the stories. When that is true of one gender and not the other -- and when you have only a tiny smattering of exceptions that prove the rule, like T'Pau and T'Pring -- then what is happening is sexism, and it's stupid to try to wriggle out of admitting that.

Although this is preferable to the complete horespucky, if you'll pardon my Vulcan, in your last post:

The sense that we get in Star Trek is that manly men are outmoded. They need to be neutered, domesticated, even feminized . . .

Didn't your mother ever tell you that if you keep contorting like that, you'll stay that way? Kirk is the manly man stereotype and deliberately constructed to be so, right down to seducing women as a commonplace mission tactic. Starfleet officers are structured around an idealized masculinity, and are performed as military men first, and every idea the series has about men and women is resolutely masculinist and conceives of women as rightfully (and pleasantly) subordinate to men. This is made painfully, thuddingly, face-smackingly obvious in virtually every episode.

What is occasionally critiqued is what the writers perceive as savagery or primitivism, which they see Star Trek as surpassing. That has absolutely nothing to do with critiquing masculinity. You're dancing and you've got to know it.

 

[Amaris]

^ THANK you, BigJake. Nail on the head.

 

[Greg Cox]

MCCOY: "And he thinks he's the right man for her, but I'm not sure she thinks he's the right man. On the other hand, she's a woman. All woman. One day she'll find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service."
KIRK: "I like to think of it not so much losing an officer as gaining..."
SCOTT: "Come along."
KIRK: "Actually, I'm losing an officer."

So if she finds "the right man," she just has to up and leave the service. Definitely a backward way of looking at things.

Yeah, that bit makes you cringe these days. Honestly, that strikes me as more dated and obviously sexist than the occasional flawed female character . . .

But God help us if we're treating "Turnabout Intruder" as representative of a typical TOS episode. We might as well argue that all Star Trek is idiotic because, well, "Spock's Brain."

 

[Maurice]

...
And if Marla betrays the ship for a man in "Space Seed," Crewman Compton switches sides for a woman in "Blink of an Eye."

"Wink of an Eye".

 

[Amaris]

MCCOY: "And he thinks he's the right man for her, but I'm not sure she thinks he's the right man. On the other hand, she's a woman. All woman. One day she'll find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service."
KIRK: "I like to think of it not so much losing an officer as gaining..."
SCOTT: "Come along."
KIRK: "Actually, I'm losing an officer."

So if she finds "the right man," she just has to up and leave the service. Definitely a backward way of looking at things.

Yeah, that bit makes you cringe these days. Honestly, that strikes me as more dated and obviously sexist than the occasional flawed female character . . .

What I find interesting is the attitudes on the series. The technology doesn't bother me, because for all I know, the 1960s style and deco will come back in a big way in 200 years. The attitudes, though? I just hope sexism doesn't make such a big comeback in 200 years.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

This is why I liked the idea of families on starships.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

This is why I liked the idea of families on starships.

Where as I think it was idiotic in the extreme due to the danger.

And no the kids aren't at as much risk on a planet or space station since usually you need at least a fleet to destroy one of those, where as a starship can be taken out by just one enemy vessel.

 

[Greg Cox]

The optimist in me likes to think that, when it comes to sexism, TOS was often two steps forward, one step back. For every episode where Uhura goes "I"m frightened!," there are many more episodes where she's as confident and capable as any other member of the crew. For every old-fashioned femme fatale or damsel in distress, there are other, less stereotypical female characters (Areel Shaw, Dr. Jones, etc.)

Then again, maybe it was more like one step forward, one step back sometimes.

 

[Timewalker]

T'Pring and T'Pau were pretty cool.

T'Pring may not have been submissive, but she definitely was a bitch.

That, right there, is part of the problem. When a man does something sneaky or conniving or underhanded he's sneaky or conniving or underhanded, but when a woman does it, she's a bitch (aka female dog).

What T'Pring did was nasty and dishonorable. That's how I define a bitch. If a man did something comparably nasty and dishonorable, I'd have an equally uncomplimentary word for him (Wyatt Miller, are you listening? Couldn't just be civil and tell Deanna you didn't want to marry her - you beamed aboard a plague ship to get away!).

 

[Greg Cox]

...
And if Marla betrays the ship for a man in "Space Seed," Crewman Compton switches sides for a woman in "Blink of an Eye."

"Wink of an Eye".

Oops!

 

[Greg Cox]

At the risk of sounding like a TOS apologist, the show's attitude toward women looks much better when you compare it to other SF shows and movies of the time and of the previous generation. There are no female crew members in Forbidden Planet (1956), after all, and the female astronauts in It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), although nominally scientists, seem to spend a lot of time serving meals to their male counterparts and clearing away the plates afterward. And in The Green Slime, which came out a few years after TOS debuted, the female crew members are all secretaries and nurses who scream in panic and need to be rescued when the aliens attack.

So TOS deserves credit for at least trying to have resourceful female crew members and scientists and engineers aboard the ship, even if the pervasive sexism of the time had a nasty habit of creeping back in . . . .

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'd like to follow up about the point of families on starships.

I understand that there was a huge double standard, in that the same wasn't said for men, but in an era when families weren't allowed on starships, why would it be unreasonable, at least in and of itself, to expect that at least some women might leave the service at some point, to have children?

Is the problem in the leaving, or is it that the same wasn't said of men? It's the latter, e.g. that they never said that Chekov might fly off if he ever met the right woman, that makes it sexist, right?

Or what?

 

[Greg Cox]

Is the problem in the leaving, or is it that the same wasn't said of men? It's the latter, e.g. that they never said that Chekov might fly off if he ever met the right woman, that makes it sexist, right?

Or what?

I don't think that bit was specifically about families on starships. That was simply a reflection of the then common, pre-feminist notion that women only have careers until they settle down and get married.

It's not making a statement about Starfleet or space exploration. It's just an obsolete attitude that has dated badly over the years, but which nobody probably thought twice about back when the ep first aired. It says less about Starfleet in the 23rd century than about American in 1967 . . . .

Here's the thing: Not every sexist bit in TOS needs an in-universe explanation. Sometimes you just have to sigh, remember that the show was made nearly fifty years ago, and make allowances for the bits that haven't aged well.

 

[Maurice]

T'Pring may not have been submissive, but she definitely was a bitch.

That, right there, is part of the problem. When a man does something sneaky or conniving or underhanded he's sneaky or conniving or underhanded, but when a woman does it, she's a bitch (aka female dog).

What T'Pring did was nasty and dishonorable. That's how I define a bitch. If a man did something comparably nasty and dishonorable, I'd have an equally uncomplimentary word for him...

That the go-to was the most obvious sex-specific pejorative is rather the point.

 

[Pauln6]

T'Pring may not have been submissive, but she definitely was a bitch.

That, right there, is part of the problem. When a man does something sneaky or conniving or underhanded he's sneaky or conniving or underhanded, but when a woman does it, she's a bitch (aka female dog).

What T'Pring did was nasty and dishonorable. That's how I define a bitch. If a man did something comparably nasty and dishonorable, I'd have an equally uncomplimentary word for him (Wyatt Miller, are you listening? Couldn't just be civil and tell Deanna you didn't want to marry her - you beamed aboard a plague ship to get away!).

What T'Pring did was work the system like a pro. Or is a woman's desire to avoid an arranged marriage something we should now judge harshly? It was the (rather silly) Vulcan requirement to fight to the death that was the problem. I admire her ruthlessness - it's what being a Vulcan should be all about! Spock admired it too - right before he pretty much said, wow, I've had a lucky escape.

But no, T'Pring should not be lumped in as a villain, and nor should the fact that she happened to be a woman the issue. The way the script treat Palamis on the other hand...

I was also disappointed that we didn't get to see more of Mulhall when she wasn't possessed. She seemed to be rather sassy.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Is the problem in the leaving, or is it that the same wasn't said of men? It's the latter, e.g. that they never said that Chekov might fly off if he ever met the right woman, that makes it sexist, right?

Or what?

I don't think that bit was specifically about families on starships. That was simply a reflection of the very common, pre-feminist notion that women only have careers until they settle down and get married.

It's not making a statement about Starfleet or space exploration. It's just an obsolete attitude that has dated badly over the years, but which nobody probably thought twice about back when the ep first aired. It says less about Starfleet in the 23rd century than about American in 1967 . . . .

Yeah, I realized that, actually.

Doesn't really answer my question, though, and I probably didn't ask it right.

With no families on starships, what kind of statement could Star Trek have made instead that wouldn't have been sexist? Or, like the loo, was it something better left untouched?

Star Trek does something concrete in TNG that would allow people on starships to have families without leaving their careers, and it's seemingly resoundingly criticized, in the fan circles like the one around here, and even by people working on the show.

It's lose/lose.

Where's the win on a show premised as being aboard a starship? Since these are supposed to be our intrepid heroes, I'd genuinely like to know.

 

[Timewalker]

The optimist in me likes to think that, when it comes to sexism, TOS was often two steps forward, one step back. For every episode where Uhura goes "I"m frightened!," there are many more episodes where she's as confident and capable as any other member of the crew. For every old-fashioned femme fatale or damsel in distress, there are other, less stereotypical female characters (Areel Shaw, Dr. Jones, etc.)

Then again, maybe it was more like one step forward, one step back sometimes.

Uhura did redeem herself in "Mirror, Mirror" by disarming Marlena when the men were too squeamish to do it.

 

[Pauln6]

The optimist in me likes to think that, when it comes to sexism, TOS was often two steps forward, one step back. For every episode where Uhura goes "I"m frightened!," there are many more episodes where she's as confident and capable as any other member of the crew. For every old-fashioned femme fatale or damsel in distress, there are other, less stereotypical female characters (Areel Shaw, Dr. Jones, etc.)

Then again, maybe it was more like one step forward, one step back sometimes.

Uhura did redeem herself in "Mirror, Mirror" by disarming Marlena when the men were too squeamish to do it.

In Uhura's Defence, it was probably Rand's line (and Rand was a bit of a wimp) but at least Uhura, as an officer, was technically in charge of the security detail.