Based on what on-screen dialogue?
Is femininity a villain in TOS?
- Thread starter JirinPanthosa
- Start date
Based on what on-screen dialogue?
It might be based on the description of Starfleet practice in The Making Of Star Trek, which is not contradicted anywhere in the series. If she becomes pregnant she has a choice to abort or be rotated to a Starbase to carry her pregnancy to term. It doesn't say she has to resign. So it's entirely possible she could return to starship duty if she chose to make arrangements for the child's care.
This is the actual passage from The Making Of Star Trek.
Man-plus-woman-plus-time very often equals babies. It would be a trifle awkward having a bunch of toddlers around a starship, and it is therefore natural to assume some type of birth control will be required. This point has never been discussed in the series, since the censors won't allow it. But if the subject could be discussed, the consensus is that birth control would closely parallel the military practices of today.
Birth control would be mandatory for unmarried females, voluntary for married females. In keeping with the advanced state of the medical arts as practiced aboard the Enterprise, a single monthly injection would be administered. A woman found to be pregnant would be given a choice of a medical discharge or rotation to a shore base for the remainder of her pregnancy.
Now this was written in the mid 1960s so societal changes since weren't foreseen, nor the possibility of men taking some form of birth control. But note that it doesn't say she has to resign. It also sidesteps the issue of terminating the pregnancy likely because it was a touchy subject, but that option presumably could be available. If a ship is months from a near starbase and she wants to carry the child to term then she could possibly be assigned modified duty until she can transfer off-ship to starbase.
I asked a question earlier and got no reply: What would happen today if a woman serving aboard a destroyer or carrier or some other naval vessel got pregnant?
Man-plus-woman-plus-time very often equals babies. It would be a trifle awkward having a bunch of toddlers around a starship, and it is therefore natural to assume some type of birth control will be required. This point has never been discussed in the series, since the censors won't allow it. But if the subject could be discussed, the consensus is that birth control would closely parallel the military practices of today.
Birth control would be mandatory for unmarried females, voluntary for married females. In keeping with the advanced state of the medical arts as practiced aboard the Enterprise, a single monthly injection would be administered. A woman found to be pregnant would be given a choice of a medical discharge or rotation to a shore base for the remainder of her pregnancy.
Now this was written in the mid 1960s so societal changes since weren't foreseen, nor the possibility of men taking some form of birth control. But note that it doesn't say she has to resign. It also sidesteps the issue of terminating the pregnancy likely because it was a touchy subject, but that option presumably could be available. If a ship is months from a near starbase and she wants to carry the child to term then she could possibly be assigned modified duty until she can transfer off-ship to starbase.
I asked a question earlier and got no reply: What would happen today if a woman serving aboard a destroyer or carrier or some other naval vessel got pregnant?
None of which, it should be noted, actually carries any weight anymore. And if it was never mentioned on air, it doesn't matter. Certainly nobody writing Trek stuff today would ever consider this binding or relevant.
Indeed, it can be possible to take even on-air material a little too literally sometimes. Questions of "canon" and "continuity" aside, not every moment of every episode needs to be regarded as Holy Writ and a major, incontrovertible statement about the Star Trek universe.
That dopey remark in "Who Mourns for Adonais," about Lt. Palamas quitting the service when she meets Mr. Right? Best to just ignore it and not treat it as Official Starfleet Policy for all time and all episodes.
Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake. You keep the good stuff and quietly forget any missteps.
Oh for Pete's sake, type "pregnancy rules navy" into Google and voila, the answer. 
Thank you. I knew I'd read this in one of the books about the show, but couldn't recall exactly which one.
@Maurice: Gene Roddenberry had input into The Making of Star Trek, so I consider that book to be at least as authoritative as any of the dialogue in the episodes, especially when there wasn't any dialogue that contradicts it.
Hmm. I come at this from the opposite direction. At this point, it really doesn't matter what the original intent was back in the day. Time, society, the audience, and Star Trek have moved on, so there's no reason to treat any of that as "authoritative."
The way I see it, there's plenty of wiggle room here. Star Trek is an ongoing work of fiction after all; not an encyclopedia. It's constantly being made up as it goes along . . . and there's no reason you can't change your mind along the way.
Ah, but does what the original thinking was matter anymore?
On a practical level, if somebody nowadays wrote a movie, episode, or book in which a female officer got married and then accepted a promotion to first officer instead of leaving the service, would anyone really object "Wait! You can't do that because of a sexist remark in a fifty-year-old episode! As supported by something written in an old 'Making of' book!"
Who knows? That may well have been the original intent, but we're perfectly free to reinterpret it these days as we see fit. Or ignore it if it's best forgotten.
Instead of treating a bit of old-fashioned sexism as gospel, why not just write it off as an unfortunate misstep and ignore it when necessary?
As I understand the original idea, the saucer section would separate and be parked far from a anticipated combat area or dangerous event. Obviously there would be situations where foreknowledge wouldn't exist.
There were occasion where the separation didn't happen when it should have. The episode New Ground is a perfect example of where they could have separated, it wouldn't have interfered in the mission, and it was known that the ship was going into a dangerous situation.
Which is your prerogative. My point was that the shows contain nothing to indicate such a policy, no matter what The Bird intended or made up for said book.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned being glad those attitudes changed between TOS and the later series...
Why, yes. Yes, I did:
Timewalker said:
I'm well aware that what was said in The Making of Star Trek was meant to apply to TOS. After all, that book was published back in the '60s, and nobody had a clue there would even be an animated series, much less movies and spinoffs decades later.
Absolutely. But I'm saying that even when it comes to TOS we have the option of just ignoring that stuff. We don't have to seize on one stray line or reference book and claim categorically that female Starfleet officers in the 23rd century were expected to retire from the service when they got married, not if that attitude seems embarrassing dated nowadays and can easily be glossed over.
On a practical level, TOS novels are still being written and published (I'm working on another one now) and I can't imagine any contemporary Trek author feeling bound by what that paragraph in the old "Making Of" book said.
It's no longer "authoritative" nowadays, even when talking about TOS.
But we aren't discussing what we would do today, but how it was done then and the thinking behind it. And the perceptions of the viewers of the time.
Ah, but does what the original thinking was matter anymore?
On a practical level, if somebody nowadays wrote a movie, episode, or book in which a female officer got married and then accepted a promotion to first officer instead of leaving the service, would anyone really object "Wait! You can't do that because of a sexist remark in a fifty-year-old episode! As supported by something written in an old 'Making of' book!"
Who knows? That may well have been the original intent, but we're perfectly free to reinterpret it these days as we see fit. Or ignore it if it's best forgotten.
Instead of treating a bit of old-fashioned sexism as gospel, why not just write it off as an unfortunate misstep and ignore it when necessary?
Besides that, the scope of the OP itself seems more than wide enough to include the perceptions of viewers in today's audiences. In addition, the thread title wasn't "Was femininity a villain in TOS?" but rather "Is femininity a villain in TOS?"
The passage from the book doesn't worry me that much as being that sexist. Sure it shouldn't differentiate between married and unmarried and its tone is not PC enough - you know birth control is mandatory.
I explain it away as that the Enterprise is on a 5-year mission. She may be required to go out in deep-space years at a time. She doesn't want to have to turn back if people (either men or women) deliberately or accidentally get pregnant. She's on a potentially dangerous mission and is not built to house infants long term.
The Ent-D on the other hand does have those facilities and I believe by the time of TNG the galaxy is a little less unknown and the ENT-D perhaps a bit more capable of defending itself.
In regards to 'The Making of Star Trek' I heard that GR didn't actually have much to do with writing that book. That he didn't even read it before it was published - didn't have the time. That he just rubber-stamped it. Does anyone know if this is true?
Obviously a book on Star Trek would reflect a lot of his views though.
I enjoy your TOS novels very much, but my point is that what was said in The Making of Star Trek was applicable to then. The book was published in the 1960s, so it would reflect 1960s attitudes and reasoning.
The book was written by Stephen Whitfield, but I can't imagine Gene Roddenberry and some of the other top people not having input. There are memos quoted, various people are quoted... this book was published in 1968.
Woman villains are fine. It's the way they were villainous. They weren't villainous in a controlled, deliberate way (Other than Spock's fiance). They were villainous out of jealousy and spite and lack of ability to control their emotions.
Circe Baratheon is villainous too, but in a calculated, deliberate way, and her feminine qualities (Protectiveness of children) are her redeeming virtues. In TOS, it's the women's feminine qualities that make them destructive.
I've seen a lot of Hitchcock movies. By modern standards they could also be described as sexist, but it's not nearly the same. Women tend to be dependent on men in Hitchcock films, but they're not trying to murder people out of feminine jealous rage. The worst quality of women in Hitchcock films is naivete, but they're often secret agents, they're often very clever and sneaky, and their feminine characteristics manifest as moral strength.
The sexist qualities of 60s entertainment show women as weak as incapable, sometimes naive and stupid, but it doesn't usually show their feminine qualities as actively causing destruction.
How about Deela or Losira or Mea3 or Vanna? They were enemies doing their best (as they thought) for their people. Their feminine qualities weren't the reason they caused problems for Kirk and his crew.
And even though there is a lot of other types of sexism in these episodes Kara in "Spock's Brain" and Shahna in "Gamesters" didn't seem to be motivated by their feminine whims. If you look past the go-go boots Kara wants to save her people. She's not having a fit of jealous rage. She just wants her people to survive.
And virtually every episode where Klingons are in show men are macho posturing. Its important for Kang, Kor and Kras to personally 'defeat' Kirk. Isn't that showing men with their masculine qualities at their worst?
In "Day of the Dove" it was Mara's reasoning that helped save the day. Her husband thought she had turned to the other side because Kirk had raped her and she liked it or some such crap. I say girl looked here, man looked stupid.
I'm not denying there's sexism in TOS but its not in every single woman character.