Yeah, the reason modern military uniforms include the option of skirts for women is that less than 100 years ago it was fairly scandalous for a woman to wear pants.
The military is a little slow to change, but change it does.
Perhaps this changed, I mean the speed of change. The mini-skirt wore on TOS might reflect a current civilian style that is being emulated in the Starfleet uniform worn by Human officers and enlisted. And it may have been fairly briefly in fashion too, lasting only a few years. In the time period of TNG, Starfleet personnel might possess the option of wearing a TOS style mini, but simply do not exercise the personal option .
First of all she's a character from the early 1960's not the late 1980's.
This is where you're wrong,
Nichelle Nichols was a actress from the mid 1960's.
Uhura was a character from the mid 23rd century, dressed as a person from that time period would be.
That's a picture of a woman in a dress uniform ironically enough. Do you think she wears that while she's piloting an F-18? Or parachutes wearing that?
I was going to point out that I've piloted (small) aircraft before wearing a mini, but wait a second , what I was actual wearing was a unitard with a mini, very convenient and comfortable. And that (kind of) is what the women were wearing on Star Trek, if you visualize Helen Noels crawling through that air shaft it would be easy to imagine the briefs being a integral attached part of the uniform, the same with Uhura in the few scenes where you can see her nickers. The uniform is actual very practical viewed as a sort of skirted non-tight unitard, it provides increased freedom of movement over the male uniforms which makes it more practical not less, It would be much easier for the women (and men) to fight in than if they were wearing trousers.
I've also parachuted in a unitard
things were always spraying sparks all over the place
But the women were not bare legged. Their were wearing 23rd century stockings, I can't remember there being a case of anyone have even a torn stocking and thay would have protected the legs just as well as the jumpsuits wore by Crusher and Janeway. There would have been no problem crawling through jeffreies tubes (Noels in the air shaft, no problems). In the episode WRLGMO, Nurse Chapel beams down to a planet with extreme cold temperatures. She's wearing a mini and her legs appear no more colder that her fully covered arms (Remember: in-universe explanations only !)
having families aboard put civilians unnecessarily in harms way.
I've alway had a little problem with this. People do take their children into (semi) dangerious situaions because they want them close. I was born on a US military base in Germany in 1987, not to far from the "Funda Gap," My parents put their four children directly in the path of Soviet tank columns because they wanted us close to them.
Please present some examples from 24th century "Star Trek" where skant-wearing Starfleet officers or security guards were sent into hazardous situations.
And while we're at it, please could you provide some examples where the standard TNG/DS9/VOY jumpsuit provided protection from phaser fire, Klingon bat-leth or Borg assimilation tubes? Modern day military personnel wear a uniform because it is in fact a uniform. Female military personnel,
if given a choice, would in fact wear shorts and short skirts on duty in some situations.
