Pike's "woman on the bridge" line

[Commishsleer]

Damn, tough school. I never saw any type of physical punishments after 1967.

Sounds like Private or Catholic school to me.

Heard lots of horror stories from those schools.

In some states in Australia corporal punishment is still allowed in non-government schools in some states.
If they did anything like that though it would be in the news.

The state public school I attended cut out corporal punishment for girls in the 70s but kept it as an option for the boys

 

[Refuge]

The state public school I attended cut out corporal punishment for girls in the 70s but kept it as an option for the boys

If it were the other way around and it was kept as an option for girls and not boys there would be a shit storm.

 

[Shawnster]

Why do we have threads like this? So a group of posters can denounce things and celebrate how much better they are then those "terrible people"?

So, in other words, following Star Trek's lead when they encounter any 20th century barbarian

 

[TrickyDickie]

I went to elementary school in the same era and certainly didn't have it that bad. Was this just the school you attended or a regional thing?

Small public school in central New York State. I don't know about other schools in the region in those years.

It was a mess.

I had to leave early one day, to make the trip to attend my uncle's funeral. It was all arranged with the school. When it came time to leave, I was on my way down a flight of inside stairs when I was stopped by a teacher whom I didn't even know, who shouted down from the top of the stairs. "Where do you think you're going?!?" I told her I had to leave to go to my uncle's funeral. "You get back here right now!" I told her, "I'm going and you can't stop me!" She went on with threats and guff, as I headed out the door.

In those days, children were taught that adults were to be trusted and obeyed without question. I never told my parents about any of the incidents until many years later. If I had told my father, at the time, let's just say that I don't think things would have went well for those people....

 

[Vger23]

I agree with others who beat me to the punch on this one:

This was an unfortunate line that was meant to bring attention to how great it was that the Number One character was the XO of a Starship in the future, and we're showing that on 60's TV.

Unfortunately, it was a shit line that has lasted 55 years and has certainly not really dated well.

 

[uniderth]

There is no there. Someone will always object to something. You can not please all of the people.

YES. THIS! THIS! THIS! ^^^^^

Culture does not have a destination. There is no such thing a "progress" in an objective sense. "Progress" in any culture is purely subjective based on what a society values. Anything labelled as "progressive" cloud also be labelled as "regressive" based on what goals you are attempting to reach and what your measurement criteria are.

The only objective truth in regard to culture is CHANGE. Cultures have changed and they always will change. The society that exists now will be considered outdated in ten or twenty years time. THAT is the truth.

Despite Pike's comments, the Cage has some pretty awesome female characters.

Wait, Pike never said the women weren't awesome. He just said we wasn't used to a women(female yeoman) on the bridge. He made no comment concerning any of the women's professional capabilities.

 

[Kor]

I was watching Mission Impossible Rogue Nation last night and I was disappointed to see that such a very recent movie featured only one prominent female character. She was great but in one of the final scenes Alec Baldwin and Jeremy Renner were sat in front of a committee and it felt that the scene was so white , middle-aged, and male it made my eyes bleed. I don't understand why they didn't put any women on the committee. Who casts these things?
...

Well, there was one African-American man on the committee. But I think the whole point of casting a bunch of old guys as authority figures is to indicate that they're a monolithic bunch of stern, traditionalist, inflexible, backwards-thinking fuddy-duddies. Making the committee more diverse would have diminished that sense.

Generally/ traditionally, white women or eurocentric looking women were sexualised and marginalised. All other women were lucky to get a look in. It's changing very slowly.

On the other hand, in colonialist contexts, there was lots of sexual objectification of non-Caucasian or part-Caucasian women by Caucasian male power structures.

But back to Star Trek...

So, in other words, following Star Trek's lead when they encounter any 20th century barbarian

I got this sense way more from TNG than TOS.

Kor

 

[ChallengerHK]

Attractive would seem to be the default position, casting someone who would be considered unattractive is a deliberate choice.

This has not always been the case, though. A few years ago, watching the original Twilight Zone, I was struck by how unattractive, yet immensely talented a lot of the leads were. Burgess Meredith and Jack Klugman were in 4 episodes each, not because they were good looking, but because they were talented. I would say that the 60s were the beginning of this shift, although even into the 70s you had William Conrad as Cannon. Starting with the 80s, I can't recall much that was different from Charlie's Angels.

And talent is what I look for. Someone upstream mentioned the remake of The Andromeda Strain, and I concur with that analysis. The actors are young and pretty, and I'll add (not for that remake alone but for more mass production entertainment) without talent. I was talked into watching Twilight a while back, and I was amazed that something that was so freakishly popular had so little talent in it. It's worth noting that the vast majority of dollars spent on entertainment are spent by tweens and teens.

I'm largely indifferent to this, personally. When it comes to actors without talent, I just don't watch the things they appear in. Where I have an issue is when, for instance, some producer will cast a minority actor because he or she is a minority, regardless of talent, and then tell me that I'm some flavor of "-ist" if I don't watch it. Get better people and I'll watch, all other factors (scripting, directing) being equal. I struggled through Deep Space Nine because of Avery Brooks. There were plenty of talented actors, many of whom were black, vying for that role, but the producers chose to...go another way.

 

[Nyotarules]

Wait, Pike never said the women weren't awesome. He just said we wasn't used to a women(female yeoman) on the bridge. He made no comment concerning any of the women's professional capabilities.

In universe his comment was as sexist as my boss stating he is not used to seeing women in management positions in the office, even after 30 years of the experience. Did he only promote male officers during his career? The Cage was Mad Men in space, I'm glad the pilot was rejected.

 

[Commishsleer]

Small public school in central New York State. I don't know about other schools in the region in those years.

It was a mess.

I had to leave early one day, to make the trip to attend my uncle's funeral. It was all arranged with the school. When it came time to leave, I was on my way down a flight of inside stairs when I was stopped by a teacher whom I didn't even know, who shouted down from the top of the stairs. "Where do you think you're going?!?" I told her I had to leave to go to my uncle's funeral. "You get back here right now!" I told her, "I'm going and you can't stop me!" She went on with threats and guff, as I headed out the door.

In those days, children were taught that adults were to be trusted and obeyed without question. I never told my parents about any of the incidents until many years later. If I had told my father, at the time, let's just say that I don't think things would have went well for those people....

I suppose I shouldn't brag about my school. It was full of paedophile teachers. Due to an impending court case the retired vice-principal said he knew about it but was powerless to stop it.
Please tell me that those teachers would not get away with that sort of thing brazenly in the open nowadays.

In universe his comment was as sexist as my boss stating he is not used to seeing women in management positions in the office, even after 30 years of the experience. Did he only promote male officers during his career? The Cage was Mad Men in space, I'm glad the pilot was rejected.

If we just remove the line then we have Pike with a female 1st officer whom everyone respected without question and obeyed in Pike's absence.
However one of Pike's fantasies was supposedly to buy and sell Orion animal women. To me this is much worse than the line. Creepy - is this how Pike really sees women ?

 

[Kor]

I like to think Pike wasn't seriously considering slave trading when he talked about going into business in the Orion colonies. Boyce was the one who pointed out to him that this was the implication. There must be other ways to make money in that locale... just like there surely must be ways of making a living in Vegas other than the casino industry.

Kor

 

[uniderth]

If we just remove the line then we have Pike with a female 1st officer whom everyone respected without question and obeyed in Pike's absence.
However one of Pike's fantasies was supposedly to buy and sell Orion animal women. To me this is much worse than the line. Creepy - is this how Pike really sees women ?

PIKE: I said that's one place I might go. I might go into business on Regulus or on the Orion colony.
BOYCE: You, an Orion trader, dealing in green animal women, slaves?
PIKE: The point is this isn't the only life available. There's a whole galaxy of things to choose from.

I don't know that the desire to go into business on Orion necessitates being a slave trader. There are probably a lot of different lucrative business opportunities on Orion. Dr. Boyce's role in this scene is to be the devil's advocate. So he would naturally pick one of the worst examples of business on Orion. Pike then dismisses this worst example by basically saying that he's not interested in debating the details of what he'd be doing in his fantasy life as an Orion trader. Instead he's just saying that there are a wide variety of opportunities outside of being a ship's captain.

Spoiler: Trigger Warning: Debating Orion animal women and trafficking

Do we even know the cognitive capabilities of Orion animal women? Presuming the illusion the Talosians gave Pike was accurate then we know Orion Animal women are capable coordinated movements. But we don't even know if they can speak or their thought processes. Based on the script they behave more like animals than intellectual humans.

We also have the line that the inhabitant of that planet actually liked being taken advantage of. While certainly this represents what people would consider today to be a toxic male fantasy from an in universe perceptive if these inhabitants (not just the green skinned ones but the other human looking one) approve of being slaves then trafficking them may not be as morally repugnant if it is something that they consent to.

And if the green skinned ones are not as cognitively capable then even though they look human trading them would be no different than people buying pet dogs today. Although apparently considerably more dangerous.

Yes I'm discounting Marta from "Whom God's Destroy" becasue we have no evidence she was an Orion other than the color of her skin and seeing and species from multiple planets have similar colored skin we can presume that there are many species with green skin.

Before Replying: I'm only interested in discussing this from an in universe perspective. So if you want to call me out for defending or preserving a toxic male view of women, just don't. I understand where you're coming from and I'm not encouraging human trafficking or the sexualization of women in the real world. I'm talking about fictional species in a fictional universe. No real sentient beings were harmed in the creation of this post.

 

[johnnybear]

Yes it seems odd for a society so greatly advanced as we have been told to be allowing it's citizens to go in for slavery in the twenty third century! Even if it is for another world outside their laws as such, anyone dabbling in such things would be arrested when he returned to Federation space surely?
JB

 

[Kor]

Consider real-life precedents. If somebody goes to visit another country and engages in activities that are legal there but illegal back home, do they get in legal trouble when they go back to their country of citizenship? It may depend on the nature and extent of the activity. For instance, I'm fuzzy on the details, but I remember reading that there are restrictions on US citizens engaging in commerce involving countries that the US has an embargo on, even if it happens in another country.

Kor

 

[SolarisOne]

However one of Pike's fantasies was supposedly to buy and sell Orion animal women. To me this is much worse than the line. Creepy - is this how Pike really sees women ?

#NotMyPike

 

[Kemaiku]

Damn, tough school. I never saw any type of physical punishments after 1967.

My primary school did well into the 90's because it's Quaker founding meant it was overlooked by authorities for years. When I was in second or third year of high school I heard about several arrests after too many complaints. I have no permanent scars from anything they did, but I remember a lot of it.

 

[Nyotarules]

Enterprise retcon that the Orion women are running things and the Orion men are the real slaves was interesting

 

[FormerLurker]

Consider real-life precedents. If somebody goes to visit another country and engages in activities that are legal there but illegal back home, do they get in legal trouble when they go back to their country of citizenship? It may depend on the nature and extent of the activity. For instance, I'm fuzzy on the details, but I remember reading that there are restrictions on US citizens engaging in commerce involving countries that the US has an embargo on, even if it happens in another country.

Kor

Officially, what is called sex tourism is illegal. If a US citizen travels to, say, Singapore for the purpose of engaging in sexual practices that are legal there, but illegal in the US, like sex with minors, when they get back to the US they will be arrested and charged with the criminal offenses associated with their activities in Singapore, even though those activities are legal in Singapore.
There are other offenses that also apply, I've just heard of cases like the one I described.

 

[starbuck]

sure they are lots of things we could moan about from trek's history

 

[Nyotarules]

sure they are lots of things we could moan about from trek's history

It means St Pike of 'I will go through the valley of the shadow of beeps' is not perfect. Maybe it was his form of penance for his past fantasy slave trader dreams and anti females on the bridge comment.