Thanks. I suspected there was no "abortion" mentioned therein. The latter option is how the Navy is now: a pregnant women gets rotated off a ship to a shore post (at ~20 weeks).
Is femininity a villain in TOS?
- Thread starter JirinPanthosa
- Start date
Thanks. I suspected there was no "abortion" mentioned therein. The latter option is how the Navy is now: a pregnant women gets rotated off a ship to a shore post (at ~20 weeks).
So in this sense the thinking was against the expectation of the era when many would assume (or sometimes even be required) the woman would leave her employ upon becoming pregnant.
Interesting discussion!
Earlier in the thread someone mentioned Wildman and Torres. What happened on Voyager can't really be compared to the other shows, because even if women serving on ships that were less well equipped than the Enterprise D for having infants aboard were required to rotate to starbase or HQ duties, this simply wouldn't be possible on a ship 70 years from the nearest starbase. In fact, it wouldn't suprise me if the fertile members of the crew wouldn't be required to have at least one child eventually, to have a crew to steer her home after 70 years. Lifespans in the 24th century are likely to be decades longer than in the 21st, but hardly long enough to get a hale and hearty crew back home without access to transwarp conduits.
That said, the fact that a miniskirt is a part of a female uniform on TOS says it all about its sexist attitudes. On shipboard it might be barely acceptable, but on missions it just looks silly. Granted that many female characters are written to be strong and capable with rational motivations.
Earlier in the thread someone mentioned Wildman and Torres. What happened on Voyager can't really be compared to the other shows, because even if women serving on ships that were less well equipped than the Enterprise D for having infants aboard were required to rotate to starbase or HQ duties, this simply wouldn't be possible on a ship 70 years from the nearest starbase. In fact, it wouldn't suprise me if the fertile members of the crew wouldn't be required to have at least one child eventually, to have a crew to steer her home after 70 years. Lifespans in the 24th century are likely to be decades longer than in the 21st, but hardly long enough to get a hale and hearty crew back home without access to transwarp conduits.
That said, the fact that a miniskirt is a part of a female uniform on TOS says it all about its sexist attitudes. On shipboard it might be barely acceptable, but on missions it just looks silly. Granted that many female characters are written to be strong and capable with rational motivations.
That was one of my posts. I pointed out that it's a good thing Starfleet regulations (and attitudes) toward female crewmembers becoming pregnant were gone by Voyager's era, or the ship would have been screwed - there is no way the rest of the crew could have kept that ship functioning without B'Elanna's genius.
And yeah - I don't understand why Janeway didn't come up with a family-friendly policy from the get-go, when they thought it would take at least 70 years to get back.
But at least Harry would have made Captain... after the older senior officers had died of old age.
And now I've got a ridiculous scenario in my mind:
A 95-year-old Harry Kim steers Voyager into spacedock at Earth
Kim: "Ensign Kim reporting - Voyager is finally back from the Delta Quadrant!"
Starfleet: "Ensign Kim? But you're... a little old to be an Ensign, aren't you?"
Kim: "Captain Janeway and all the other captains since then never promoted me, sir."
Part of the issue here is one of perception. Today the miniskirt looks sexist and is seen as an example of overt male chauvinism, but in the era the miniskirt was a symbol of female empowerment. GR didn't come up with the miniskirt---the original female uniform was tunic and slacks---but it was apparently Grace Lee Whitney who suggested the miniskirt to convey the same sense of empowerment as women were doing in the real world. At the time part of the miniskirt's appeal was its (then) social context even in the face of the tunic and trousers for women making more sense.
No, it still doesn't make a lot of sense, but then neither do the men's attire on landing party duty. With a bigger budget and resources they all should have been wearing field jackets and other attire particularly in colder climates.
Maybe for some reason they weren't usable again and budget restrictions kept them from revisiting the idea during the series. And we know they revisited the idea in the films.
Fair points. I guess the idea of miniskirts being a part of female empowerment seems too strange for me to think of it. Speaking as someone who wore a tunic and slacks (granted they were made of silk) at my own wedding, I just can't see them as empowering.
To some extent women's attire was dictated by men for the longest time, and still is to some extent. Women were expected to be attractive yet also restrained in terms of their sexuality. At the base of it could be the old double standard of a man expressing his sexuality was slyly and roguishly appealing while a woman doing so was considered basically a tramp. Men playing the field (like GR) could be privately admired (as long as they showed some class which GR could apparently lack). A woman playing the field could quickly have her reputation ruined.
At the time the miniskirt was something of a breakout statement just as women beginning to show their legs and cut their hair short had been in the 1920s. It was something of an act of defiance. Of course, it was (and remains) a matter of context. Wearing a miniskirt to work simply wouldn't be accepted. I recall some older women recalling women beginning to wear slacks in public could cause a sensation---who does she think she is? It was all a measure trying to break the convention of men dictating how women should dress.
A lot of it is perception. Today I find low riding jeans or pants (on men and women) to look sloppy, childish even slutty in some cases, but that could be just my own perceptions. I know I don't find tattoos and certain body piercings attractive or complimentary in any way whatsoever. Indeed I find those things quite unattractive, but that's my opinion and not universally shared.
At the time the miniskirt was something of a breakout statement just as women beginning to show their legs and cut their hair short had been in the 1920s. It was something of an act of defiance. Of course, it was (and remains) a matter of context. Wearing a miniskirt to work simply wouldn't be accepted. I recall some older women recalling women beginning to wear slacks in public could cause a sensation---who does she think she is? It was all a measure trying to break the convention of men dictating how women should dress.
A lot of it is perception. Today I find low riding jeans or pants (on men and women) to look sloppy, childish even slutty in some cases, but that could be just my own perceptions. I know I don't find tattoos and certain body piercings attractive or complimentary in any way whatsoever. Indeed I find those things quite unattractive, but that's my opinion and not universally shared.
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Here's the quote from TMOST on that topic:
No mention of abortion at all (at the time, the practice was still illegal under any circumstances in a majority of U.S. states).
YARN
Fleet Captain
And suppose the question were, "Is social climbing villainous in Shakespeare?"
And suppose that one said, "Because we, today, do not currently feel social climbing is bad, social ambition is not bad in Shakespeare. Iago and Molvovio are just bad apples, from our point of view."
Very few literary scholars would feel comfortable insisting on such a reading of "is" which excludes
the intended purpose of the artwork,
the cultural milieu in which the artwork was understood,
and how the original audience understood it.
To insist that "is" exclusively means "presently" is to demand that we interpret and evaluate the artwork as we dimly see it through the mists of time. It excludes the sense of "is" which respects the artwork as a point of origin (and the universal message it offers us). To view an artwork as an act of protest, for example, requires that we know what it is protesting against.
Moreover, to ask if there was sexism on Star Trek is rather silly, since it was a television show of its time. Of course, it was sexist. Madmen has made a living off reminding us that people in the 60's smoked a lot and viewed women differently.
Even if, however, we accept this as the appropriate default interpretation of "is" (i.e., the notion of the timely - what it means to us today - as opposed to the timeless/universal message or original/intended message) in an interpretive question, we would still find that this question is wrong-headed. Why? Because it misreads the code of patriarchy which informs Star Trek TOS. Women weren't villains, but merely slightly weaker creatures with softer (but important) virtues that men needed to protect.
Well, it's a good thing that I wasn't advocating that the thread topic was exclusively about the present, right? Instead, I was simply saying that the thread topic doesn't exclude discussion of the present.
YARN
Fleet Captain
And my post answers that question. No, feminity isn't a villain, rather it is lesser source of virtue (e.g., something which needed the protection and leadership of masculinity); Feminity is only villainous under a rather simple formula of "women/feminity are weak, weakness is bad, villains are bad, ergo women/feminity is villainous."
Believe me, that was revolutionary for those days.
Or in the 23rd century abortion is not considered an acceptible option.scotpens;9196000[QUOTE said:
The opposite is true as well. The way a man attired himself during courtship (and when in public in general) had a bearing on how successful he was with the opposite sex. Casual sex, romance, relationships, and marriage.
The caveman with the finest pelt around his waist got the attention of all the cavegirls.
Ok, just watched Metamorphosis. Not my first time seeing it but last time was over a decade ago.
WTF. Nobody has any problem with the fact that the Companion just STEALS this woman's body?! Rape any?
WTF. Nobody has any problem with the fact that the Companion just STEALS this woman's body?! Rape any?
Yeah, but she also created the situation where Hedford's life was in danger. If she hadn't held them there she would have just been treated.
So imagine if I poisoned somebody, and then said "I'll give you the antidote if you be my slave forever".
^^ There seems to be an inherent logic flaw within that story. The Companion claimed that everyone's "curious" aging process had ceased when she brought them to the asteroid. The Companion could not only stop aging but also rejuvenate another life form (well, a human anyway) as evidenced by the youthful Zefram Cochrane. So why couldn't she reverse the progression of Nancy Hedford's illness?
One could argue the Companion wasn't aware of Hedford's illness until it was too late, but that still doesn't wash because after she merges with Hedford we hear McCoy's assertion that all trace of the illness is gone.
The only logic that works (very thinly) is that the Companion could only save Hedford by sacrificing herself (her immortality anyway) and that she had to remain on or near the planetoid to continue living at all. Or at least that's how she understood it. And whatever is left of Hedford after the merging possibly understands that to leave the planetoid is a death sentence for both of them, ignoring the logic of beaming up to the orbiting Enterprise to cure the disease.
The impression I got is that Hedford could well be a willing participant in this merging. The Companion could well have communicated to her (offscreen and out of sight) that the Companion could only save her if they both remained on the planetoid. Earlier we saw Hedford (albeit feverish) lament that outside of her job her life was empty. A merging not only saved her, but she also experienced the Companion's profound love for Cochrane. So maybe for Hedford overall it was a win-win situation.
One could argue the Companion wasn't aware of Hedford's illness until it was too late, but that still doesn't wash because after she merges with Hedford we hear McCoy's assertion that all trace of the illness is gone.
The only logic that works (very thinly) is that the Companion could only save Hedford by sacrificing herself (her immortality anyway) and that she had to remain on or near the planetoid to continue living at all. Or at least that's how she understood it. And whatever is left of Hedford after the merging possibly understands that to leave the planetoid is a death sentence for both of them, ignoring the logic of beaming up to the orbiting Enterprise to cure the disease.
The impression I got is that Hedford could well be a willing participant in this merging. The Companion could well have communicated to her (offscreen and out of sight) that the Companion could only save her if they both remained on the planetoid. Earlier we saw Hedford (albeit feverish) lament that outside of her job her life was empty. A merging not only saved her, but she also experienced the Companion's profound love for Cochrane. So maybe for Hedford overall it was a win-win situation.
^ Perhaps the magic of the planetoid also bolstered the health of the pathogen that was making Nancy sick, which counteracted any boost given to her.