Female Command Officers & the Uniform Code

[Tara]

Seriously, who's to say what will be considered unprofessional in 300 years? Our two most recent secretaries of state would wear business suits consisting of knee-langth skirts, while 100 years ago it was obscene for a woman to show her ankles.

This is precisely my point. While today the micro-miniskirts of the 1960s seems horrifically sexist in the 2000s, the truth was, they were a rebellion against the fashions of the 1950s, exactly the same way the flappers were in rebellion against Victorian corsets. My mother was in her 20s while the original series was airing, and she wore skirts just as short as Uhura's. Hell, the high school girls at the private Cathlic girls school I attended in the 1980s (when we had to kneel on the floor and have our hems brush the carpet or risk being sent home to change clothes) had skirts just as short in the 1960s.

It is NOT always about "the male gaze", "eye-candy", "sex appeal", etc.. There's historical context that gets tossed out the window if folks assume it's that simplistic. It was very much about women choosing what they wished to wear, and being comfortable and celebrating their freedom to do so.

I continue to hold fast to the believe that a female officer should be treated with respec due her rank and experience regardless of which uniform she chooses to wear, in a world where we know that that uniform is a choice. And in-story, frm the variety of uniform options in canon (trousers or skirt) we do know that it was a choice.

I just choose to believe that in the future, we'll keep moving forward instead of backward. And I don't see how requiring a woman be dressed like a man before you award her the same respect as a man as anything other than a barbaric notion that I thought (and hoped) had vanished decades ago.

 

[Captain Rob]

not a person trying out for Hooters.

Waitresses at Hooters wear bright orange hot pants, not mini-skirts.

And from personal knowledge, some don't even wear any panties.

Store locations, names, and descriptions please.

 

[T'Bonz]

While today the micro-miniskirts of the 1960s seems horrifically sexist in the 2000s, the truth was, they were a rebellion against the fashions of the 1950s, exactly the same way the flappers were in rebellion against Victorian corsets. My mother was in her 20s while the original series was airing, and she wore skirts just as short as Uhura's. Hell, the high school girls at the private Cathlic girls school I attended in the 1980s (when we had to kneel on the floor and have our hems brush the carpet or risk being sent home to change clothes) had skirts just as short in the 1960s.

I too wore mini-skirts and even micro-mini-skirts (one year they were in fashion.) However, in those times, pretty much that was what you got if you were under the age of what, 40 or 50? Only older women wore skirts that weren't mini-skirts. In some respects, it was a lack of nice stuff to wear. Dresses/skirts were mandatory in my schools through around 1969 or 1970, if memory recalls, and my dad didn't allow me to wear slacks or jeans to school until around 1972.

You couldn't GET anything but a mini.

Not everyone was in rebellion against the 50s, I was born at the tail of it and didn't recollect their styles, obviously.

Some of us wore the short skirts due to lack of alternatives or due to peer pressure and not to be feminist or liberated or whatever.

Lest y'all think I'm an utter prude, I just didn't like showing off my ass. I wasn't averse to low-cut or tight tops. So I'm partly a hypocrite. Still, my bra never was allowed to show.

 

[Mr Silver]

You couldn't GET anything but a mini.

And now such items of clothing are considered "Trashy" or "Slutty" in many cases, its actually pathetic how fashion judges people

 

[Captain Robert April]

Not unlike how, in the 70's, you had no choice but to wear bell bottoms, there were no straight leg pants! The only option was how big you wanted your bell bottoms to be.

 

[MANT!]

Actually, in the 70s I wore boot cut jeans..seldom wore slacks just for School dances-parties mostly. My feet are small and the bell bottoms made them disappear, so I had no choice until 1979...

 

[sbk1234]

I think one would be hard pressed to find a situation where that barely-there skirt would be in the way of anything.

Oh, I could see somebody losing their dignity when their clothing is torn in a fight, suffering a cut-open leg after running and sliding (exactly what happened during the filming of A League Of Their Own) and a whole other kind of calamities.

I'm assuming that in 300 years, advances will be made in clothing durability, and the ladies will be wearing extra-shielded, double-strength, iron-padded, rip-proof pantyhose, so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[gomtuu20]

My mind agrees w/ the feminists, but my......um.....flesh agrees w/ the pigs. I'M SO CONFLICTED! If I were in a real starfleet, I would want the women to dress conservatively, but this isn't real and I like Roddenberry's style of uncovering and adoring women. Wether we like to admit it or not and whether we like it or not, women's appeal throughout time has been their beauty and sex appeal. If it weren't, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Hooters and Playboy wouldn't make any money if this were not true. But I also respect their abilities, their counsel and their perspective. Admittedly, I sometimes hazve to get past the appeal of their bodies before I van get to that point though. I'm so conflicted!

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think you may have stumbled into one of Roddenberry's points about how female characters were portrayed on Star Trek. To put it simply, why can't a talented, professional, competent female character also be attractive? Why does she have to be dressed in a potato sack in order to be viewed as a serious professional?

 

[Neutral Zone]

I have no problem with Rodenberry's vision of women in the future, but why he thought that 60's look would still be in fashion 300 years later beats me.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I have no problem with Rodenberry's vision of women in the future, but why he thought that 60's look would still be in fashion 300 years later beats me.

40 years from now, people will wonder why ENT looks so 2000s or VOY & DS9 so 1990s (people are already saying TNG is starting to look slightly dated, particularly the early seasons).

Of course, we could chalk it up that some modern fashions--particularly of the 20th-Century--come and go and are even revisited more than a few times over the ages...

 

[kkozoriz1]

And what would a person from 1610 have thought we'd be wearing? No matter what yout come up with you'll be wrong.

 

[Captain Robert April]

So, codpieces aren't coming back?

 

[cmdr_forst]

Not to hijack the thread or anything, because this is partly on the topic of female clothing...

I have been reading Star Trek 365 and during the discussion/analysis of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" there is a still (presumably) taken from the episode that depicts a man and woman walking down the Enterprise corridor. The woman is wearing a red sleeveless top and a short white skirt; the man a blue striped shirt and blue shorts. Tennis outfits, perhaps.

Two questions: 1) Is this from WNMHGB and 2) Is it the only example of contemporary 1960s clothing seen aboard the Enterprise?

 

[GSchnitzer]

1. The shot in the Star Trek 365 book is from "The Cage." (These folks are just about to pass Captain Pike in the corridor; you can just barely make him out.)

2. This same dress was seen in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in the briefing lounge:

3. All the costumes were contemporary for the 1960's: they were made in the 1960s.

Not to hijack the thread or anything, because this is partly on the topic of female clothing...

I have been reading Star Trek 365 and during the discussion/analysis of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" there is a still (presumably) taken from the episode that depicts a man and woman walking down the Enterprise corridor. The woman is wearing a red sleeveless top and a short white skirt; the man a blue striped shirt and blue shorts. Tennis outfits, perhaps.

Two questions: 1) Is this from WNMHGB and 2) Is it the only example of contemporary 1960s clothing seen aboard the Enterprise?

 

[T'Girl]

Female Commander : "Somewhere on this board there is a thread about how minishirts reduce a female officer's authority."

Enlisted Troll: "Morons. Say Commander, I've dropped my communicator there in front of you again. Would you mind terribly bending at the waist and picking it up please?"

Female Commander: "Oh sure."

Enlisted Troll: "Ahhhhhh."

 

[Anji]

Before you guys start criticising something I really wish you'd do your research...like back to the 1960s when this TV series was made.

Women up until that time had to be covered up: skirts to the ankles, sleeved shirts and collars up to the neck. Being able to show a little skin was a sign of liberation (anybody out there heard of the Women's Liberation Movement???)

Fashion at that time had short skirts, pants that looked like underwear (in my area were called "show pants") and go-go boots. I wore em and had no problem wearing them. Any guy gave me any flack about my outfit I did what any self-respecting girl of that time would do which is call him a "male chauvinist pig" and slap him.

The current debilitating conservatism did not exist back then.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Before you guys start criticising something I really wish you'd do your research...like back to the 1960s when this TV series was made.

Women up until that time had to be covered up: skirts to the ankles, sleeved shirts and collars up to the neck. Being able to show a little skin was a sign of liberation (anybody out there heard of the Women's Liberation Movement???)

Fashion at that time had short skirts, pants that looked like underwear (in my area were called "show pants") and go-go boots. I wore em and had no problem wearing them. Any guy gave me any flack about my outfit I did what any self-respecting girl of that time would do which is call him a "male chauvinist pig" and slap him.

The current debilitating conservatism did not exist back then.

I think you might be exaggerating there. A quick search of 50s fashions shows dresses that were below the knee but well above the ankles, short sleeve and even sleeveless tops. Off the neck collars as well.

Women werent exactly wearing a jilbab back then.

 

[T'Bonz]

Being able to show a little skin was a sign of liberation (anybody out there heard of the Women's Liberation Movement???)

Fashion at that time had short skirts, pants that looked like underwear (in my area were called "show pants") and go-go boots. I wore em and had no problem wearing them.

Dunno, I never found it to be "liberating." Walking up the steps in a mini in school and wondering if the boy behind me was looking at my underpants made me feel objectified and embarrassed, not liberated. And it wasn't like we could get anything other than a mini. It was a mini-dress/skirt or else slacks and until I was in junior high, we weren't allowed to wear slacks. I know some girls found it cool to show off a lot, but I was more modest (non-mini, non-burka. )

Liberation for me as a young female would have meant being able to play BASEBALL in Little League like the boys did, not the lame-ass softball which was all that girls were offered back then. How many times did I hear "Girls don't/can't/shouldn't do that!" (Which was utter bullshit.) I'm glad today that girls have more options.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So, codpieces aren't coming back?

I heard that this time they will be pieces of actual cod.