A woman without a man is nothing.

[Pauln6]

Well if we're already disagreeing about what you're disagreeing about this is going to go downhill fast.

What I meant was I think captrek is saying the creators and writers of Trek made most of the female characters on the show seem to need a male to complete themselves and that the creators and writers were doing a disservice to those female characters by doing that.
I'm confused as to how you think he's defending that attitude instead of pointing out that it's not the best way to portray women in Trek.

Whatever reasons they give, there has always been a problem portraying women effectively in Trek. There are several female characters whose primary purpose is to be the love interest of a male character (Rand, Kassidy, Leeta, Keiko) while Wildman, despite being the only recurring scientist on the show was restricted to doing mommy stories. With the loss of Tasha (who left partly due to lack of development in the character) we had women in the caring professions in TNG (and the security chief character was replaced by a bartender), while in Voyager the captain appoints a woman in her senior chain of command only reluctantly.

Look at NuTrek. A modern update for these characters and yet in the 21st century they left out all the powerful women from the oringinal: the female first officer, the female vulcan leader, plus two of the three recurring female characters from the show (although Chapel gets a name check). The women we do get are two mothers, a green slapper in a bikini, and Uhura, the girlfriend and love interest of the two leads. Even Chapel, a scientist who became a nurse to pursue her fiance into space, is still going to be a nurse rather than a scientist/biologist in the new version. There's nothing wrong with being a nurse obviously but it is going to tie her to McCoy's apron strings and limit any growth for the character beyond a cameo.

Now there were some great characters who didn't really need a man. TOS Uhura, Ro (even her fling with Riker was handled perfectly), and Vash (toying with Picard was fun for her), while Kai Winn, and Seven were given romantic sub-plots that were clearly just sooo wrong for the characters.

I think this thread should be retitled, 'A woman whose only role is as an extension of her man is nothing.'

 

[Sector 7]

This is just another attempt by captrek to get attention by creating a topic he knows will get a reaction from posters. Read his threads, they are all the same. As I have mentioned before, in any other setting it would be called trolling.

Here's the pattern:
1 - post an inflammatory thread title
2 - say something stupid and ridiculous
3 - it gets the attention of serious-minded TrekBBS members
4 - a few posts later captrek says, "Golly gee whizz, folks, anyone with half a brain knows I wasn't serious. I was just stating what [in my ignorance, I assume] 'they' thought." 'They' always gets the blame.
5 - the furor dies down
6 - captrek starts the process all over in another thread

I choose to spend my time outside of his rat's maze. Spend your time where you wish.

 

[Pauln6]

This is just another attempt by captrek to get attention by creating a topic he knows will get a reaction from posters. Read his threads, they are all the same. As I have mentioned before, in any other setting it would be called trolling.

Here's the pattern:
1 - post an inflammatory thread title
2 - say something stupid and ridiculous
3 - it gets the attention of serious-minded TrekBBS members
4 - a few posts later captrek says, "Golly gee whizz, folks, anyone with half a brain knows I wasn't serious. I was just stating what [in my ignorance, I assume] 'they' thought." 'They' always gets the blame.
5 - the furor dies down
6 - captrek starts the process all over in another thread

I choose to spend my time outside of his rat's maze. Spend your time where you wish.

1. Respond to people that turn the inflammatory remark into a reasoned discussion.

2 Don't post in the thread at all.

No offence but rising to the bait just derails what could be an interesting discussion. See, and now you made me do it too!

 

[Captrek]

Read his threads, they are all the same.

Here's the pattern:
1 - post an inflammatory thread title
2 - say something stupid and ridiculous
3 - it gets the attention of serious-minded TrekBBS members
4 - a few posts later captrek says, "Golly gee whizz, folks, anyone with half a brain knows I wasn't serious. I was just stating what [in my ignorance, I assume] 'they' thought." 'They' always gets the blame.
5 - the furor dies down
6 - captrek starts the process all over in another thread

What are you talking about? Which other threads are you referring to? Here are all my threads: http://trekbbs.com/search.php?do=finduser&u=16223&starteronly=1

 

[zar]

Otherwise, why not start a thread called "A man without a woman is nothing" and post this OP:

Almost every major male cast member on Trek has a love interest with a female cast member.

Except... that's not really true. He is right that female main characters are more likely to be hooked up. And the reason for that is simple math. The male main characters generally outnumber the female ones. So the writers, in their obsession with making up male-female pairings, are naturally bound to use up all the females.

 

[JiNX-01]

I am quite sure Captrek was merely making a little joke with the thread title, so I think those of you who took offense might be misreading him (assuming he's a him) just a bit.

A fair supposition. I don't know Captrek at all so obviously I wouldn't know the nature of his sense of humor.

 

[Avon]

the only way to solve this is a time-travelleing orgy featuring T'Pol, Janeway and Kai Winn

 

[DevilEyes]

Otherwise, why not start a thread called "A man without a woman is nothing" and post this OP:

Almost every major male cast member on Trek has a love interest with a female cast member.

Except... that's not really true. He is right that female main characters are more likely to be hooked up. And the reason for that is simple math. The male main characters generally outnumber the female ones. So the writers, in their obsession with making up male-female pairings, are naturally bound to use up all the females.

Except... that's not really true. Janeway wasn't "used up", neither was Hoshi, nor TOS Uhura (OK, that was for other reasons...), nor Pulaski - and Yar and Ro only had one-night stands. And how it is not true that almost all of the male characters had female love interests, often in the main cast (including unrequited ones they were just pining for, doesn't that make them weaker and more pathetic?)? Make a list of those that didn't, and let's see how many names you'll be able to come up with.

More importantly - how exactly does a woman getting into a relationship with a man prove that she is "nothing without a man"? Are women not allowed to be in relationships and be strong and capable professionals at the same time? It's just one or the other, if you want to be a "strong woman" you need to be celibate, but the same logic doesn't apply to men?

The point is, captrek pretends (or maybe even believes) that he's raising a feminist issue, when in fact he exemplifies a really bad case of gender double standard; he starts off with a preconceived idea that a relationship between a male and a female character on the show automatically makes the female weaker, but not the male, and then manipulates the facts in order to support his agenda, and ignores the facts that prove it wrong. You could just as well do the same to prove the opposite.

And some people in this thread apparently can't see the difference between a female character whose primary role is to act as a love interest for a male character (i.e. Rand, Chapel in TOS, despite their jobs - they were not meant to be main characters; arguably Uhura in nuTrek, but this is just the first movie in the franchise so they jury is out) and a female character who is a character in her own right, whether or not she gets involved with males or not (Kira, Ro, Jadzia, Seven, T'Pol; Janeway doesn't even get involved with anyone). Take Paris/Torres for instance - if their romance and its effect on her character is taken as a proof that Torres was nothing without a man, can't you tell exactly the same thing about Paris, that he was nothing without a woman? I've seen people say that Jadzia's main storyline in the later seasons was being Worf's girlfriend/wife, but it's also true that Worf's main storyline, after season 4 (and with the exception of "Tacking into the Wind" in late season 7), was that of Jadzia's boyfriend/husband, wasn't it? He also served as a link to the Klingon characters like Martok and Kor, but so did Jadzia, who also had a previously established connection to the Klingons. And Worf's storylines in season 7 were all connected to Ezri Dax, she was even the one who prompted him to do the one really important act he did on DS9 (challenging/killing Gowron)... so... he was nothing without a woman?

It's amazing how often people who criticize TV shows for their alleged sexism actually seem to come from very sexist positions themselves (even if they don't seem aware of it), and this is a perfect example.

 

[Shatnertage]

In general, I don't think having a relationship with anyone else, male or female, makes you a weak person, which seems to be the starting assumption. In fact, it means that you're patient enough to put up with someone else's shit, and you've got enough to offer that they're willing to put up with yours.

If anything, I think that Trek downplays the potential for relationships. I'm sure that when you've got otherwise-unattached people stationed together for long stretches of time, away from home, facing stressful situations together, you're bound to see them develop relationships.

 

[Pauln6]

I agree it's not all or nothing but it is skewed. In spite of their lower numbers, I can certainly think of more than a few female characters whose primary purpose is to be the love interest for a male character but not many the other way round. Bariel is the closest but he also had his feud with Winn. Chakotay was Janeways bitch, even if there was nothing sexual going on but that was because they forced the writers to neuter the character early on, taking out most of what made him a real individual and even the actor felt that he was weakly written as a result. Hoshi and Mayweather were third tier characters and I don't think their sex or sexuality really mattered much to the writers (except in the Mirror Universe).

Paris and Torres had one of the most realistic and affecting relationships in all of Trek - it wasn't rushed and it felt real whereas the Chakotay/Seven relationship did neither character any favours.

Worst sci fi example I can think of is Catherine Sakai in B5. She had all the appearance of being a character in her own right and clearly had her own plot thread but as soon as her man was sidelined, the character vanished - her plot was little more than a device for him. Without him, there was no point to her character appearing ever again apparently. Very annoying!

 

[thumbtack]

I prefer a woman without a man.

 

[zar]

Janeway wasn't "used up", neither was Hoshi, nor TOS Uhura (OK, that was for other reasons...), nor Pulaski - and Yar and Ro only had one-night stands. And how it is not true that almost all of the male characters had female love interests, often in the main cast (including unrequited ones they were just pining for, doesn't that make them weaker and more pathetic?)? Make a list of those that didn't, and let's see how many names you'll be able to come up with.

Many of the male's love interests aren't with other main characters, so they aren't as memorable. Notice how all the examples given in the OP are between two main characters, a male and female. I guess I shouldn't have used the wording "all used up" because there were exceptions. I simply meant to point out the obvious reason why a higher percentage of the females are involved -- there aren't as many of them.

More importantly - how exactly does a woman getting into a relationship with a man prove that she is "nothing without a man"?

I'm not sure of the origin, but I'm pretty sure "A woman without a man is nothing" is a saying, a figure of speech. I don't think it reflects captrek's true feelings or even necessarily means that he's accusing the creators of Star Trek of feeling that way. Then again I don't know him and he hasn't said much to clarify himself yet...

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Geez, people, the thread title is sarcastic. Do you really think I’m trying to say that a woman without a man is nothing and trying to cite as evidence the fact that a fictional TV franchise put all their female characters into romantic relationships?

“A woman without a man is nothing” is the apparent mindset of the people who made Star Trek...

And what some people have been telling you is that there's no evidence that those who made ST had that mindset either. For every one of those women you cited, there's a male character who either is/was in a relationship or is pining for someone. That ends up being most of the significant males.