Why women dosen't display their Ranks ?

[Malaika]

people always blame JJ&Co for the lack of rank in Uhura's uniform but:
- They admitted that it was a mistake that the costume designer did
- even in tos, the short sleeves uniform doesn't show the rank

besides, I honestly think that this is the kind of minutia that only hard core trek fans will notice. Go asking the general audience if they know what those stripes on Spock's uniform mean... surely they don't know he's a 'commander' because they saw those.
I don't have a problem with these things. People always refer to Uhura with her rank anyway.

 

[Uhurock]

I think TOS started with non-coms wearing those dreadful coveralls. Or perhaps they were low-ranked enlisted folk. I don't remember any Petty Officers, and I don't know if Chief Petty Officer was a rank in TOS. By TNG it got a little confusing, with Chief O'Brien being either a a Chief Petty Officer or a Chief Warrant Officer, and it got weirder still by DS9 with the ranking pips. I remember O'Brien [in the TNG episode where we meet Worf's human parents] making the time-tested joke, "Don't call me sir, I work for a living," so assume he was a CPO.

In TOS ensigns did not have rank insignia, their sleeves were "blank." As was Yeoman Janice Rand's. As was Nurse Chapel's [she had that cute little badge with the red cross on it]. I don't know if these women were considered ensigns or not. All the insignia were "one and a half stripes below" what they are in today's sea services. As a captain Kirk should have had four wavy stripes, Spock, three, and so on. The pips in TNG set that aright.

As for Troi, she wore the civilian garb, I guess, to make her "more approachable to prospective patients," or perhaps IRL was displaying BOOBIES for the audience. I was glad to see her assume the same uniform as everyone else. One thing Jellico got right anyways!

Former enlisted Coastie

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think TOS started with non-coms wearing those dreadful coveralls. Or perhaps they were enlisted folk.

Officers wore them too.

In TOS ensigns did not have rank insignia, their sleeves were "blank." As was Yeoman Janice Rand's. As was Nurse Chapel's [she had that cute little badge with the red cross on it]. I don't know if these women were considered ensigns or not.

Crewmen also wore the same uniforms as ensigns in TOS. I always kind of thought that Rand was a petty officer and that Chapel was a lieutenant in TOS.

 

[Yanks]

When Zoe Saldana is onscreen, there are better things to look at than rank stripes. Just sayin'.

That's a fact!

This isn't called for. Just because a person doesn't like nuTrek, it doesn't follow that he/she is claiming that "JJ Abrams raped my childhood" (or whatever that ridiculous phrase is).

I thought it was funny. People need to quit acting like a couple of two-hour movies are life and death affairs.

Star Trek and interacting with Star Trek fans is suppose to be fun.

Agree here. I have a bigger problem with folks not getting promoted over long periods of time.

Like Harry on Voyager and the entire Enterprise crew in TATV to name a couple.

 

[Nerys Myk]

TOS Chapel would not have a stripe since she was an ensign. She becomes a Lieutenant in TAS but I have no idea if they started to display her rank stripe at that point. I deem it unlikely.

I find it unlikely that an experienced nurse, with a background in bio research, would be a ensign.

 

[J.T.B.]

I find it unlikely that an experienced nurse, with a background in bio research, would be a ensign.

Ensign/2nd Lieutenant has long been the entry-level grade for real-world nurses. In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" it was implied that Chapel had recently joined Starfleet in hope of finding Roger Korby, so maybe she took the first position that was available to her.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I find it hard to think of Chapel as "entry level".

 

[BillJ]

I find it hard to think of Chapel as "entry level".

She's not, neither was Noel. It's just people grasping to try and win a point.

 

[J.T.B.]

I find it hard to think of Chapel as "entry level".

Like I said, she still could have taken an entry-level position. She is a lieutenant in TMP, the same grade as Chekov whom we know was an ensign in TOS.

She's not, neither was Noel. It's just people grasping to try and win a point.

Nah. Even if Chapel didn't wear stripes she was entitled to, we know that rank insignia were worn on the sleeves of women's TOS uniforms. So it's not comparable to the sleeveless uniforms in ST09/STID in the first place.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I find it hard to think of Chapel as "entry level".

Like I said, she still could have taken an entry-level position. She is a lieutenant in TMP, the same grade as Chekov whom we know was an ensign in TOS.

She's not, neither was Noel. It's just people grasping to try and win a point.

Nah. Even if Chapel didn't wear stripes she was entitled to, we know that rank insignia were worn on the sleeves of women's TOS uniforms. So it's not comparable to the sleeveless uniforms in ST09/STID in the first place.

She was a Lieutenant in TAS as well. Supposedly she was the CMO in TMP. I'd think as such, Lt. Commander would haven more appropriate.

McCoy's short sleeve tunic lacks rank insignia.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Star Trek is serious business and interacting fans is meant to be a dick-waving affair in which one establishes dominance through their encyclopedic knowledge of Trek minutiae. Like registry numbers and proper warp nacelle alignment.

Anyone who disagrees isn't a True Fan. Go have sex with your girlfriends, posers.

Thank you, this post made my day! I almost spit my coffee all over the computer screen!

 

[Timo]

The nuMovies are actually rather exceptionally excused from displaying rank on the usual red-gold-blue uniforms...

In TOS, it seemed that red-gold-blue was worn by everybody everywhere, except when gold became green for pompous occasions. Starship crews wore it, starbase crews wore it, even dress uniforms proudly featured the bright colors.

In nuMovies, though, the red-gold-blue thing seems to be reserved solely for the crews of starships while on assignment. Nobody down on Earth will be caught dead wearing those in public. Suddenly, the bright colors become the analogue to the coverall color coding of aircraft carrier deck teams, and whatever is indicated by the color (the jury is still out on that, in all the timelines and spinoffs) is far more important than rank or identity. Plus, aboard a starship, everybody knows everybody anyway (although in TOS it was a bit easier than in nuMovies, considering the crew size difference!).

Granted that the planetside uniforms in nuMovies don't differentiate very well, either. In the first movie, the reds and dark greys worn at the Academy were not exclusive to cadets and instructors: many a character identified as a commissioned officer wore those, too. Where were the rank identifiers in the reds? The epaulets had space reserved for rank, but that went unused. The greys didn't have epaulets. But again, that supposedly was Academy-only wear.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Oso Blanco]

Plus, aboard a starship, everybody knows everybody anyway (although in TOS it was a bit easier than in nuMovies, considering the crew size difference!).

The TOS crew was still over 400, do you really think that everybody knew evedybody, including their ranks? The company I work for has about 150 employees, and I'm one of the few people who really knows everyone. Normally, people from let's say the development department have no idea who works in the accounting department and vice versa. Add the personell rotation rate of a starhip to that!

 

[Pauln6]

I find it hard to think of Chapel as "entry level".

Like I said, she still could have taken an entry-level position. She is a lieutenant in TMP, the same grade as Chekov whom we know was an ensign in TOS.

She's not, neither was Noel. It's just people grasping to try and win a point.

Nah. Even if Chapel didn't wear stripes she was entitled to, we know that rank insignia were worn on the sleeves of women's TOS uniforms. So it's not comparable to the sleeveless uniforms in ST09/STID in the first place.

She was a Lieutenant in TAS as well. Supposedly she was the CMO in TMP. I'd think as such, Lt. Commander would haven more appropriate.

McCoy's short sleeve tunic lacks rank insignia.

I was basing my assessment on the fact that:

a) Roddenberry stated that Chapel was probably a brevet - a provisional ensign. Alissa Ogowa was an ensign too.
b) We have no evidence that Chapel was an experienced nurse or head nurse initially, and she was not even sure she'd be staying on the ship beyond Exo II. There is no evidence that she completed Starfleet training in TOS or that she worked as a nurse for Korby. In fact her only stated qualifications are that she was a research biologist and Korby describes her as a scientist. The show was written a time when nurses were not required to have much in the way of qualification so stepping in to be a nurse would not be a stretch.
c) She is stated to be promoted to lieutenant at the time of Mudd's Women but this does not mean she was a lieutenant all along. She was a lieutenant when she was a newly qualified doctor. It's not hard to imagine that her qualification would have afforded her a further promotion so brevet (S1) - ensign (S2-3) - Lt(jg) TAS - Lt (TMP) seems like a sensible progression.
d) We have no evidence that Noel is greatly experienced either as as opposed to a specialist in her field. She is quite young, her superior is a Lt-Commander, and Julian Bashir started out as a Lt(jg) on his first assignment. Most likely she was a Lt IMO.

 

[Nerys Myk]

a) Memory Alpha lists Mike Okuda as the person making Chapel a brevet ensign, in a game that came out 1998.

b) There have been nursing schools in the United States since the late 1800s . By the 1930s the Yale School of Nursing was offering Masters Degrees in Nursing. I imagine most of what the folks in charge of Trek thought of Nurses came from encountering them while in military service in WWII.

Chapel is mentioned to be a student of Korby's in WALGMO. Korby's last message was five years before the events of the episode and Chapel signed up for service aboard a starship hoping find him. So I'd guess Chapels been out there looking for him for those five years. What it doesn't say is if Chapel was in Starfleet prior to Korby's last message. Could be she was in the Science Division as bio researcher. I hope she didn't Kim it and stay an Ensign for years.

c) Where does it say she was promoted to Lieutenant? Pretty sure she just shows up with a Lieutenants stripe. Lt jg is a dashed stripe, so she was a full Lieutenant in TAS.

d) Noel is a Doctor, at best she'd have to be a Lt jg like Bashir and sport the dashes. Anne Mulhall was a Lt. Commander working as an Astrobiologist. She could have answered to McCoy (Lt. Commander) or Spock (Commander). As a redshirt she might have answered to Scotty (Lt. Commander) though lord knows why.

 

[Green Shirt]

This is obviously a male gingerbread man since he has rank insignia on both his sleeves and pants. The bowtie and buttons are non-regulation.

 

[J.T.B.]

McCoy's short sleeve tunic lacks rank insignia.

True, though it seems clear that was more like medical scrubs than a normal duty uniform. And when TOS went to the big screen, even that was addressed with the shoulder marks that could be worn on short-sleeved shirts. Like I said, it's a minor thing, I just think it would be more realistic to provide for rank insignia on uniforms that can't display the standard cuff stripes. I'm not sure why that's controversial, but OK.

In nuMovies, though, the red-gold-blue thing seems to be reserved solely for the crews of starships while on assignment. Nobody down on Earth will be caught dead wearing those in public. Suddenly, the bright colors become the analogue to the coverall color coding of aircraft carrier deck teams, and whatever is indicated by the color (the jury is still out on that, in all the timelines and spinoffs) is far more important than rank or identity. Plus, aboard a starship, everybody knows everybody anyway (although in TOS it was a bit easier than in nuMovies, considering the crew size difference!).

But if that were the case, they wouldn't need rank insignia on the long-sleeved uniforms, either.

I wouldn't compare the shipboard uniforms to the flight deck clothing, which is generally restricted to carrier air departments and air wings, but to the USN's blue underway coveralls of today, or the wash khakis and utilities/dungarees of earlier times, which were worn across all departments. And all of which provided for rank insignia.

 

[Pauln6]

a) Memory Alpha lists Mike Okuda as the person making Chapel a brevet ensign, in a game that came out 1998.

b) There have been nursing schools in the United States since the late 1800s . By the 1930s the Yale School of Nursing was offering Masters Degrees in Nursing. I imagine most of what the folks in charge of Trek thought of Nurses came from encountering them while in military service in WWII.

Chapel is mentioned to be a student of Korby's in WALGMO. Korby's last message was five years before the events of the episode and Chapel signed up for service aboard a starship hoping find him. So I'd guess Chapels been out there looking for him for those five years. What it doesn't say is if Chapel was in Starfleet prior to Korby's last message. Could be she was in the Science Division as bio researcher. I hope she didn't Kim it and stay an Ensign for years.

c) Where does it say she was promoted to Lieutenant? Pretty sure she just shows up with a Lieutenants stripe. Lt jg is a dashed stripe, so she was a full Lieutenant in TAS.

d) Noel is a Doctor, at best she'd have to be a Lt jg like Bashir and sport the dashes. Anne Mulhall was a Lt. Commander working as an Astrobiologist. She could have answered to McCoy (Lt. Commander) or Spock (Commander). As a redshirt she might have answered to Scotty (Lt. Commander) though lord knows why.

Thanks for the assist. It's odd that they thought Chapel would be qualified enough to be a CMO in TMP (from the novelisation). I thought it took 4 years to qualify as a junior doctor and 3 years of supervision to be able to practice medicine on your own? That would mean a) that McCoy was wrong to call her Nurse Chapel or b) Starfleet has so few doctors that they make a third year medical student a CMO? Neither seems likely. They really should have just made her a Phd biologist with some medical training IMO to give her a niche of her own.

I have no idea why Mulhall was in red either.

 

[drt]

I have no idea why Mulhall was in red either.

And to add insult to injury, Kirk had no idea who she was, even though there were maybe a half-dozen LtCommanders on board. Although, I suppopse we could make the arguement that Kirk may have known about Mulhall, but having not yet met her expected his new astrobiologist to be in blue.

 

[Pauln6]

I have no idea why Mulhall was in red either.

And to add insult to injury, Kirk had no idea who she was, even though there were maybe a half-dozen LtCommanders on board. Although, I suppopse we could make the arguement that Kirk may have known about Mulhall, but having not yet met her expected his new astrobiologist to be in blue.

She was never seen again so clearly the implication is that they had an affair and she left the ship.

Actually, I always felt that the lack of a biologist in TOS left a gap in the crew that McCoy, who is meant to be an old country doctor was forced to fill. Chapel could have served that purpose too or Mulhall.

I've been doing a TMP era comic on Youtube and I used Chapel as the more xeno-biology & research based doctor and I even gave Mulhall a cameo using images of Pulaski plonked on a TMP body. I will concede that the regulars lose quite a bit of 'air time' if you use situation appropriate guest characters too often. I did her department as orange for science but maybe I should have done it green for life science? Meh, I'm happy leaving green as medical only I think.

I'm a bit slapdash though as it can be a pain to keep cloning in and out rank stripes when you have to borrow bodies. In one image I had to put Rand's head on Ilia's body which involves rank, colour, and department. Yeesh.