Feminism in Star Trek Discovery

[SJGardner]

Good to see others have already said everything I would've wanted to say above. I'm just so sick of this "we need balance" approach with the hackneyed panels of "two wrongs won't make a right" and "too far in the other direction", and treating representation and equality as some antagonistic zero-sum game where instead of lifting up historically oppressed groups to the same level of privilege enjoyed by the majority, any kind of representation is instead taken as "taking away" from men or white people or straight people who would become disadvantaged if they "conceded too much ground." As though equality wasn't about people having the same rights and opportunities, but rather about the amount of power allowed to "the two sides" of an antagonistic conflict. As though gender equality wasn't about women being elevated to the same position as men, but rather men graciously awarding a portion of the power they rightfully own to women, but afraid that giving up too much would cost them their position of control and lead to a man-hating matriarchal dystopia, because of course it's all about who's in control.

I just keep myself to what the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg said about the Supreme Court: true equality won't be achieved when there's an enforced gender parity. It will be achieved when people would react to an all-female composition with the same disinterested shrug they've been regarding all-male rosters with.

 

[Char Kais]

Perhaps some examples would illustrate your point?

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This video only contains only scenes from seasons 1 and 2.

The two main scenes are course the sequence with Evan Connolly and especially the scene where they assemble the red angel suit with the two stupid clumsy men (0:08-0:15).


The leaders of the Federation, Vulcan, Earth, Trill, and Emerald Chain are all female.


The all-male away mission ends in a humiliating defeat:

Tilly talks in a belittling way to a male subordinate:

 

[CorporalCaptain]

So, if I point out that time in "Journey to Babel" when Kirk berated Uhura for exercising poor judgment at her station, does that mean that TOS had "a personal vendetta" against women?

KIRK: [...] Lieutenant, you've got your sensor locator on a wide beam. You've established a receiver on board this vessel. Tighten your field to the interior of the ship.
UHURA: Yes, sir.​

[http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/44.htm]:

 

[Relayer1]

I hadn't considered the gender balance. I tuned out all such discussion ages ago, believing diversity and representation is good and dismissing it as juvenile resentment at there being a female lead or leads.

I suppose there might be more female characters or female led stories, but so what ? I still don't give a shit.

 

[Sci]

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This video only contains only scenes from seasons 1 and 2.

The two main scenes are course the sequence with Evan Connolly

The same scenes that established Connolly as arrogant and less competent than he believed himself to be, also established Pike as a hyper-competent, confident leader who inspired the men and women below him. There's no anti-male bias here.

and especially the scene where they assemble the red angel suit with the two stupid clumsy men (0:08-0:15).

Everyone assembling the Red Angel suit was depicted as brilliant and hyper-competent.

The leaders of the Federation, Vulcan, Earth, Trill, and Emerald Chain are all female.

I don't really see how this is a problem or why it matters. Most of the time, film and television defaults to depicting political leaders as male; all this means is that in the 32nd Century, men and women are equal.

The Kaminar Council includes both men and women, and Saru, a man, holds the privileged status of Great Elder. The only leaders of Kwejan we ever saw were male. The monarch of Althain is male. The Commanding Admiral of Starfleet is male. The Guardians and Commissioners we saw on Trill were male. The Emerald Chain's ruling class included many men. The United Earth President's entourage was both male and female.

It's also worth bearing in mind that prior to the premiere of Rillak, literally every single Federation President we had ever seen -- the President in TVH (dubbed Hiram Roth in the novels), the President in TUC (dubbed Ra-ghoratreii in the novels), Jaresh-Inyo in DS9, and arguably Jonathan Archer per the barely-legible bio screen in "In A Mirror Darkly, Part II" -- were male. In a society with true equality, it's extremely unlikely that we would constantly see only men in power.

In fact, the Klingon Empire has canonically depicted a more gender equal set of leaders in the canon than the Federation. For the UFP, only 20% of canonical Federation Presidents (1 out of 5) have been women; for the Klingon Empire, 25% of Klingon Chancellors have been women (2 out of 8)!

For Vulcan, we've seen three leaders: V'Las, T'Pau, and T'Rina. That means two-thirds of Vulcan leaders have been women -- but it's important to bear in mind that Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana have said Vulcan was always supposed to be more matriarchal.

For United Earth, we've seen two leaders: Nathan Samuels, who was only ever referred to as "Minister" and appeared to be in charge of foreign policy, and the unnamed President who cameos at the end of "Coming Home." It's unclear exactly how the U.E. power structure works, but either way I'd say it's nice that United Earth has, even given such a small sample size, a 50/50 gender balance.

The all-male away mission ends in a humiliating defeat:

It was a defeat; it was not humiliating. And they were defeated by two men who had previously defeated an all-female away team led by Captain Burnham.

Tilly talks in a belittling way to a male subordinate:

No. Speaking firmly to your subordinates in a military is not the same thing as speaking in a belittling manner. We see Starfleet officers do this all the time from both men and women.

You're just making shit up or exaggerating shit to pretend DIS has an "anti-male" bias.

 

[SJGardner]

Isn't it weird how women in positions of authority are always treated far more harshly on Star Trek (as well as everywhere else?) Alynna Nechayev has always received all kinds of flak for being this shrill, cold, antagonistic evil woman who is constantly undermining and emasculating our male heroes with her irrational demands and constant condescension, where she has never ever been anything different than any other slightly out-of-touch flag officer giving orders to a subordinate on the series. Janeway has consistently been treated as this hysterical evil witch who is constantly driven by her uncontrolled emotions and sends redshirts to their deaths or destroys planets left and right because she is either on her period or experiencing menopause. And of course Burnham herself, who has been called narcissistic, a Mary Sue, and even some worse things for doing mostly the same things male captains have done before.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

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This video only contains only scenes from seasons 1 and 2.

The two main scenes are course the sequence with Evan Connolly and especially the scene where they assemble the red angel suit with the two stupid clumsy men (0:08-0:15).


The leaders of the Federation, Vulcan, Earth, Trill, and Emerald Chain are all female.


The all-male away mission ends in a humiliating defeat:

Tilly talks in a belittling way to a male subordinate:

Oh what a surprise. You drop in with the confirmation biased, cherry picked examples that prove nothing, served up on toast by a pointless piece of dreck of a YouTube video in lieu of your own thoughts.

 

[jackoverfull]

I don’t see this issue at all, nor do I see any agenda being actively pursued. In fact it could be more interesting of what we actually got if they worked seriously to get some points across. The huge issue for me is that most of the characters are still pretty much a blank canvas after four years and the writing has often been abysmal. Adira is the perfect example: in theory they’re a fantastic concept, a young human-trill who happens to be non-binary and has a ghost boyfriend in their head, but they gave them a totally nonsensical backstory and basically never did anything with them after the first few episodes.

Right, because there was that time where Species 10-C were giant space ovaries who wanted the right to abort their offspring but religious fundamentalists like Book and Tarka were trying to outlaw it. Oh wait, that didn't happen, and it was a pretty standard scifi story.

damn, that sounds way more interesting than what we actually got!

 

[Sci]

Isn't it weird how women in positions of authority are always treated far more harshly on Star Trek (as well as everywhere else?) Alynna Nechayev has always received all kinds of flak for being this shrill, cold, antagonistic evil woman who is constantly undermining and emasculating our male heroes with her irrational demands and constant condescension, where she has never ever been anything different than any other slightly out-of-touch flag officer giving orders to a subordinate on the series. Janeway has consistently been treated as this hysterical evil witch who is constantly driven by her uncontrolled emotions and sends redshirts to their deaths or destroys planets left and right because she is either on her period or experiencing menopause. And of course Burnham herself, who has been called narcissistic, a Mary Sue, and even some worse things for doing mostly the same things male captains have done before.

100%.

Some people like to pretend they believe in equality when in reality they find depictions of equality threatening. They don't really believe in equality; they believe society should be led by cisgender heterosexual white men.

 

[cultcross]

Oh what a surprise. You drop in with the confirmation biased, cherry picked examples that prove nothing, served up on toast by a pointless piece of dreck of a YouTube video in lieu of your own thoughts.

Let's lose the personal edge please.

The same scenes that established Connolly as arrogant and less competent than he believed himself to be, also established Pike as a hyper-competent, confident leader who inspired the men and women below him. There's no anti-male bias here.



Everyone assembling the Red Angel suit was depicted as brilliant and hyper-competent.



I don't really see how this is a problem or why it matters. Most of the time, film and television defaults to depicting political leaders as male; all this means is that in the 32nd Century, men and women are equal.

The Kaminar Council includes both men and women, and Saru, a man, holds the privileged status of Great Elder. The only leaders of Kwejan we ever saw were male. The monarch of Althain is male. The Commanding Admiral of Starfleet is male. The Guardians and Commissioners we saw on Trill were male. The Emerald Chain's ruling class included many men. The United Earth President's entourage was both male and female.

It's also worth bearing in mind that prior to the premiere of Rillak, literally every single Federation President we had ever seen -- the President in TVH (dubbed Hiram Roth in the novels), the President in TUC (dubbed Ra-ghoratreii in the novels), Jaresh-Inyo in DS9, and arguably Jonathan Archer per the barely-legible bio screen in "In A Mirror Darkly, Part II" -- were male. In a society with true equality, it's extremely unlikely that we would constantly see only men in power.

In fact, the Klingon Empire has canonically depicted a more gender equal set of leaders in the canon than the Federation. For the UFP, only 20% of canonical Federation Presidents (1 out of 5) have been women; for the Klingon Empire, 25% of Klingon Chancellors have been women (2 out of 8)!

For Vulcan, we've seen three leaders: V'Las, T'Pau, and T'Rina. That means two-thirds of Vulcan leaders have been women -- but it's important to bear in mind that Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana have said Vulcan was always supposed to be more matriarchal.

For United Earth, we've seen two leaders: Nathan Samuels, who was only ever referred to as "Minister" and appeared to be in charge of foreign policy, and the unnamed President who cameos at the end of "Coming Home." It's unclear exactly how the U.E. power structure works, but either way I'd say it's nice that United Earth has, even given such a small sample size, a 50/50 gender balance.



It was a defeat; it was not humiliating. And they were defeated by two men who had previously defeated an all-female away team led by Captain Burnham.



No. Speaking firmly to your subordinates in a military is not the same thing as speaking in a belittling manner. We see Starfleet officers do this all the time from both men and women.

You're just making shit up or exaggerating shit to pretend DIS has an "anti-male" bias.

Nicely said. Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing. Even on this SuperFeminist Star Trek, Discovery has had 4 proper Captains and one is a woman. Pike was so important a character he got a whole spin off.

 

[Bornin1980something]

I think Discovery's biggest strength is its diverse cast and minority representation. Indeed, I had the privilege of personally complimenting the cast from the floor at Destination Star Trek Birmingham 2019. I wish the other shows (and The Orville) were more like it. After all, Starfleet is not supposed to represent just the American population. It supposedly represents all of an equal, united Earth. White people are not a majority in the global population (and I say all this as a straight white man).

That said, diverse casting does not by itself make for an excellent show. For me, the problem has always been the centrality of Michael Burnham. Having a lead who wasn't the captain kind of made sense in the first season, and might have made even more sense in the original seasonal anthology idea (which would have focused on a different story each season, with the protagonist not necessarily being a captain). However, the idea never really fitted with trying to make a Star Trek type ensemble cast. Furthermore, after the first season, it became highly contrived, as new writers tried to develop the whole cast while still centering the story around Michael Burnham. If Michael Burnham wasn't your favourite character, tough! She was made more and more important, and the suspicion she had attracted in season one was replaced by a cultlike adulation.

It could also degenerate into protagonist centred morality, with her choices being right by definition, just because she was protagonist! As an example, when she was demoted in early in season three, and Tilly made first officer, I correctly predicted that Saru would ultimately realise his 'error', and bow down to Michael Burnham's greatness! Personally, I had always wanted to see a black female lead in Star Trek. Given Uhura's legacy, I was actually disappointed that Janeway was white! But, what I didn't need was to be constantly told how much I had to like even the character I had always been waiting for.

 

[Brainsucker]

Well, whatever Discovery represent politically, I don't care about it. For me, let just people who love the theme / political voice that represented by Discovery enjoy the series, while the people who dislike the theme choose another shows.

I, myself like only Discovery season 1 and 2. Watch Season 3; And only watch the 1st episode of 4th season. I think it is not for me. So I stopped watch it after that, and forget about Discovery. I prefer to wait for The Strange New World.

If Discovery not for me, then it's not for me. But Discovery have their own fans. Whatever they're SJW, feminism, etc; that's not my problem. Let the fans enjoy the show. While people who can't enjoy it seek another shows that fit to them. Hopefully Kurtman give people who can't accept Discovery political view a choice. Some kind of Star Trek Series that more traditional in political view. So both parties can enjoy their preferable Star Trek.

 

[gvn2fly]

Discovery may not have the best writing, but I like what it's done with representation. I mean TOS and TNG had one woman on the bridge (And the TNG staff was a counselor) why do people get upset at a show having more women officers on the bridge? When rewatching TNG not too long ago I noticed sometimes when LaForge would have his engineering meetings it would be all men, or maybe one woman.

Again, as someone pointed out the other shows depicted the federation presidents as men, why is it wrong to also have a woman president?

It's almost like the SW fans that loved the old movies that really only had one woman in them, and then complain that the new movies have a woman lead or more women characters.

Looking at the actual main cast this season we had:

Book, Saru, Stamets, Culber (4 males)

Burnham, Tilly (wasn't in every episode), and Adira who is non binary. So 1 lead who identifies as a woman who was in the whole season.

If you extend it to recurring:

Vance, Kovich, Tarka, Hira (4 men)

Rillak, T'Rina, Ndoye, Reno, Owo, Detmer (6 women)

I really don't see the problem here?

 

[ThankQ]

Then all the fragiles freaked out

First thought that read "all the fraggles freaked out" and I was ready to put down some money.

 

[Chakoteya]

I've seen seasons 1 + 4 of DIS, and frankly I see it more as being gender-blind. The roles could pretty much be played by anyone, they just happen to be cast this way.

 

[SJGardner]

One thing I've seen very often from the diehard complainers is that back in '18 when this phrase became popular, the show's female cast as well as then-showrunner Gretchen J. Berg hosted a panel titled "The Future is Definitely Female," which the culture war crowd had already started misrepresenting as misandrist hate speech outside of Star Trek, and it immediately led to a flareup in near-identical threads furiously condemning the show for its perceived lack of balance and alleged male erasure (or often specifically straight white male erasure, which of course surprised nobody). I remember that phrase being featured in every single representation-focused thread for the entirety of Season 2 as well as the year-plus break before Season 3 (e.g. right up until the interim period of "Burnham always cries" before the focus of the complaints eventually settled on everybody talking about their emotions all the time). It came to the point where even if you pointed out how the identities of basically every major character on the show were incidental to them, and Stamets being gay or Burnham and Tilly being women wasn't the defining characteristic of their personalities, "The Future is Female" was still thrown back at you immediately as an attempt to argue that even if the show appears on the surface to portray the characters in a gender-blind way, the BTS statements of the creators plainly state their intents and inextricably render all female characters on the show and all their actions mere mouthpieces for the sole purpose of conveying their political agenda. Georgiou's "tiny male brains" comment in Season 2, even though it was said by a character consistently portrayed as the Token Bad Guy of the team whose views and suggestions not even the rest of the characters agree with, was nevertheless seen by these people as a direct confirmation of their argument.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

As a male, I interpret "The Future is Female" as a celebration of representation, not of the erasure of males.

 

[fireproof78]

As a male I realize this: I don't give a shit. I have heard doom and gloom from all stripes since following fandom. It carries no more weight. It means very little now as far as a substantive complaint.

 

[jackoverfull]

I've seen seasons 1 + 4 of DIS, and frankly I see it more as being gender-blind. The roles could pretty much be played by anyone, they just happen to be cast this way.

which is as things should be. Unless a story relevant reason is present, of course.

 

[The Wormhole]

Honestly, even if the claims of "gender imbalance" were true and the show really did have something like five female characters per every one male character, so what? I can not imagine why any man would feel bothered let alone threatened by the presence of so many female characters in a TV show. I'm not going to claim to be a champion of female representation or anything like that, I will flat out admit that I'm okay seeing more women on TV entirely because as a straight male I want to watch good looking women on my TV shows.

Now, sure, many of you likely read that last sentence and are now branding me a male pig, and that's a perfectly legitimate opinion to hold. But hey, I'd rather be labeled a male pig than an incel any day of the week, and you can quote me on that.

Besides, it's not like watching a female dominated show is going to give you cooties or anything.