Depicting Women in Combat

[Bry_Sinclair]

DS9 is the best Trek for strong female characters.

Kira is without a doubt my favourite character in all Trek, partly because she is such an amazing ass-whooper; taking on Jem'Hadar and Klingons without hesitation, dropping several security guards whilst heavily pregnant, and giving Damar a beat down he'd never forget. Even in starship combat she is a force to be reckoned with, to the point she takes over the assault on Chin'toka and no one in the fleet questions it.

Dax whoops butt too, but she is always a far more 'honourable' warrior, whereas Kira is a scrapper.

 

[SonOfMogh]

DS9 was good in this regard, but unfortunately fell into the trap of making the female combatants unrealistically strong. I have no issue with Kira being able to beat huge guys in hand to hand combat, she absolutely should be able to, but she had a considerable size disadvantage and as such should not be able to knock them flying with little physical effort. There's a scene in Way of the Warrior where Dax kicks a Klingon without any real application and he just drops to the ground. If Dax looked like Brienne off Game of Thrones that would be fine, but she doesn't so it ends up looking like a 90's videogame.

 

[Captain Kathryn]

I definitely prefer how DS9 and VOY depicted women as opposed to TNG and TOS.