Women in Star Trek
- Thread starter wefarrell
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*nods* Yes, fair enough. I tend to not pay attention to the men, but that's a valid point. Of course, this thread is about women...
Even in the movies and TATV?
You have a point, though - Trek shows have always did their best to dress (and undress) their actors, both male and female, in such a way to show and exaggerate their 'attributes' as much as possible. Ron Moore said they padded everyone's clothes, both the men and the women. If women were dressed to look curvier and bigger-busted, men were dressed to look stronger, more muscular and broad-shouldered. Still, sometimes it went too far, and some characters stood out as designated sex kittens because they were dressed differently than the rest. I'm just watching another rerun of TNG season 1 on SciFi Channel, and boy, those were some tight Starfleet pajamas, I mean, uniforms!
You can see Brent Spiner's nipples in some scenes. But Troi still had to wear a different costume that felt like a bunny costume, even though the clothes that everyone else wore was already quite revealing. Then there's Seven of Nine's catsuit - Jeri Ryan has a great hourglass figure as it is, was it really necessary to make her wear a corset and a costume that made the actress so physically uncomfortable?TOS is VERY sexist by todays standards... Although that may be understandable since it was made in the 60s. The Turnabout Intruder is a complete disgrace by equality standards. All the female characters on USS Enterprise wear miniskirts and appear in subordinate roles. And it has often been said that Uhura is nothing more than a glorified telephone operator.
TNG is also rather weak from a gender equality position. All the senior command officers are males. Deanna Troi often doesn't seem to serve much point aside from being T&A.
DS9 is a lot better. There are two powerful female roles in the main cast (with a bunch a powerful men as well). Kira is basically second in command on DS9. And Jadzia Dax is not just a science officer, but she often engages in non-gender stereotypical activities like fighting, partying with klingons, gambling with ferengis etc.
VOY is of course the clear winner. Not only do we have the first Star Trek series with a female captain, but we have altogether 3 powerful female roles - captain Janeway, chief engineer B'Elanna Torres and Seven of Nine. All powerful and well-written characters with an important role aboard the ship.
Star Trek: Enterprise may be seen as a slight regression in gender equality, although that can be understandable since it's a prequel that takes place long before The Original Series. Aside from T'Pol, who is both first officer and science officer, the only other main female character is Hoshi, an exo-linguist who serves as communications officer.
TNG is also rather weak from a gender equality position. All the senior command officers are males. Deanna Troi often doesn't seem to serve much point aside from being T&A.
DS9 is a lot better. There are two powerful female roles in the main cast (with a bunch a powerful men as well). Kira is basically second in command on DS9. And Jadzia Dax is not just a science officer, but she often engages in non-gender stereotypical activities like fighting, partying with klingons, gambling with ferengis etc.
VOY is of course the clear winner. Not only do we have the first Star Trek series with a female captain, but we have altogether 3 powerful female roles - captain Janeway, chief engineer B'Elanna Torres and Seven of Nine. All powerful and well-written characters with an important role aboard the ship.
Star Trek: Enterprise may be seen as a slight regression in gender equality, although that can be understandable since it's a prequel that takes place long before The Original Series. Aside from T'Pol, who is both first officer and science officer, the only other main female character is Hoshi, an exo-linguist who serves as communications officer.
I think DS9 did indeed to the best in terms of female roles. In spite of their lower numbers, the supporting female cast was varied, with two very effective and diverse recurring female villains (although I thought Winn descended a bit into panto towards the end).
Voyager failed by having a weak supporting cast generally - keeping Seska (another great female villain) and Lon Suder around and in prison would have spiced things up for me! Ensign Wildman could have been given a role that occasionally related to her job instead of her motherhood, and the rebellious Maquis (Chell etc) should have been used to better effect over more episodes.
Similarly, T'Pol was great but the supporting cast on Enterprise was very weak - in many ways mirroring TOS. Hoshi and Mayweather (both very easy on the eye) never really got much of a chance to shine in dramatic roles.
As far as gay themes go, Trek suffers by making it an issue i.e. a major focus of the plot. It may be that the American networks and religious right make it more of an issue in the USA than elsewhere?
Other sci fi shows have used gay relationships as incidental parts of larger plots. Ivanova's brief relationship with Talia (which suffered because it had to be condensed down to a single episode instead of spreading into series 3 as a result of Andrea Thompson's desire to move on to more lucrative work) and Admiral Cain in Razor where her relationship with a Six explains her brutality but is otherwise not a key factor in the plot. The gay character in Caprica is defined by his role as a gangster and nobody bats an eyelid that he's married to a man.
In State of Play, the heroic gay MI5 agent didn't make it into the movie version and nor did the gay American right-wing politician for that matter! Obviously some characters had to be cut to fit the mini series into a 2-hour film but the only remaining bi-sexual character is an arrogant drug-using reprobate. It's a shame that the more positive role was a victim of editing!
Voyager failed by having a weak supporting cast generally - keeping Seska (another great female villain) and Lon Suder around and in prison would have spiced things up for me! Ensign Wildman could have been given a role that occasionally related to her job instead of her motherhood, and the rebellious Maquis (Chell etc) should have been used to better effect over more episodes.
Similarly, T'Pol was great but the supporting cast on Enterprise was very weak - in many ways mirroring TOS. Hoshi and Mayweather (both very easy on the eye) never really got much of a chance to shine in dramatic roles.
As far as gay themes go, Trek suffers by making it an issue i.e. a major focus of the plot. It may be that the American networks and religious right make it more of an issue in the USA than elsewhere?
Other sci fi shows have used gay relationships as incidental parts of larger plots. Ivanova's brief relationship with Talia (which suffered because it had to be condensed down to a single episode instead of spreading into series 3 as a result of Andrea Thompson's desire to move on to more lucrative work) and Admiral Cain in Razor where her relationship with a Six explains her brutality but is otherwise not a key factor in the plot. The gay character in Caprica is defined by his role as a gangster and nobody bats an eyelid that he's married to a man.
In State of Play, the heroic gay MI5 agent didn't make it into the movie version and nor did the gay American right-wing politician for that matter! Obviously some characters had to be cut to fit the mini series into a 2-hour film but the only remaining bi-sexual character is an arrogant drug-using reprobate. It's a shame that the more positive role was a victim of editing!
As regards the uniforms - they were a product of the 60s and the cast loved them, as well as fans of the show. It was the first and last time the show's producers attempted to bring any kind of style into the uniforms and they were gorgeous. The ubiquitous boiler suit look for ever after was dreary and unimaginative. They were not sexist, they were 60s. As regards the 'telephone operator' jibe, has it ever occurred to you how difficult it must have been to put a cast of principals in a small room filled with imaginary control panels and make them all look usefully employed?
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Well, since TOS comes from a different time, i can give it a pass. Not TNG. It came out in the late 80s, and has no excuse for not having a female executive officer of some rank other than a doctor, who came off more as a nurse to me anyway.
However, the thing TOS has over all of them? HOT BABES! I can't really think of too many hot babes on DS9 or TNG, that were guests...oh..they had some..but HOT BABES on TOS were what this young perv was into at that age. Green, white, black, didn't matter..I liked HOT BABES. So was it sexist to show them in outfits that used their breasts as torque? Sure. But, its clear by the love that our culture still shows for TOS, no one seems to think it did any harm...other than giving me and millions of others, tennis elbow.
Rob
Yeah, I think the miniskirt comment might have been a bit off.
What I see as the problem isn't that women wear miniskirts - it's that miniskirts are mandatory for all starfleet women. If starfleet women are free to choose their uniform and some women wear miniskirts while others wear regular uniforms, I don't really see any problem with it. It's the fact that it's mandatory that comes off as a tacky. And this is especially true on away missions, where starfleet personnel might end up in dangerous situations or extreme environments, with low temperatures, dangerous insects, poisonous plants, violent animals, etc.
As I recall, starfleet women actually wore regular uniforms in Gene Roddenberry's first Star Trek pilot, The Cage. The Cage even has a female first officer. However, The Cage does seem to be derogatory towards women in some other ways - Captain Pike tells Yeoman Colt about how he's not used to having women on the bridge. That was really out of left field. Although it's probably a comment on the changing jobs market in the 60s, with women entering workplaces that used to be for males only.
The unisex tunics (or were they baggy shirts?) and trousers were worn by both male and female officers in the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," as well. They're still the most practical, functional, and comfortable-looking Trek uniforms, even 46 years later.
The Enterprise wasn't a civilian workplace. It was a military vessel. And a female yeoman, let alone a woman First Officer, on a naval ship was a pretty far-out idea in 1964. So I wouldn't call Pike's comment "out of left field" at all -- merely a reflection of the times.
You guys have brought up so many issues I never would have considered, I'm glad I decided to crowdsource most of my research for this paper. I think the best way for me to structure my paper would be to divide it two parts, one on women's roles on the enterprise and one on trans gender issues (or lack there of).
For the first part I'll only talk about TOS, TNG and Voyager. I'm going to save DS9 for the trans gender part because TOS TNG and Voyager all follow the same format and were aired in non overlapping time periods. Also these shows are morally more absolute, the roles and occupations of the characters are better defined and their personal lives are pretty much separated from their work.
TOS was groundbreaking in that it showed women in the workplace and in space, an exciting new frontier in the 60's that was reserved for men. Women were experts who were vital and just as capable as men in their roles, and female crew members weren't sexualized in any way. At the same time roles were gender specific, Uhura was a glorified operator, all the nurses were women and all the commanding roles were men. I'll try to mention 'the Cage' but it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the series so I'm not sure how I'll work it in.
TNG picked up where TOS left off, women have more important roles, such as the doctor, but the idea of females commanding is pretty much tokenized. Some women are put in commanding ranks but rarely do we see women actually giving orders.
Transitioning between TNG and Voyager I'll talk about the role of starfleet captain, the central character to all the shows.
Brilliant, I'm definitely using this. Would I be correct in saying that her gender doesn't affect the plotline? She's borg which would make her androgynous, aside from her appearance of course.
For the first part I'll only talk about TOS, TNG and Voyager. I'm going to save DS9 for the trans gender part because TOS TNG and Voyager all follow the same format and were aired in non overlapping time periods. Also these shows are morally more absolute, the roles and occupations of the characters are better defined and their personal lives are pretty much separated from their work.
TOS was groundbreaking in that it showed women in the workplace and in space, an exciting new frontier in the 60's that was reserved for men. Women were experts who were vital and just as capable as men in their roles, and female crew members weren't sexualized in any way. At the same time roles were gender specific, Uhura was a glorified operator, all the nurses were women and all the commanding roles were men. I'll try to mention 'the Cage' but it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the series so I'm not sure how I'll work it in.
TNG picked up where TOS left off, women have more important roles, such as the doctor, but the idea of females commanding is pretty much tokenized. Some women are put in commanding ranks but rarely do we see women actually giving orders.
Transitioning between TNG and Voyager I'll talk about the role of starfleet captain, the central character to all the shows.
A huge part of TOS is the idea that a leader needs to be a mix of both rationality and raw emotion. Patrick stewart pulls off Picard's hot-temperedness and aggression really well, and as you implied, some of the show's best moments are his contained state of rage while he's on the bridge facing off against enemies. These emotions strike me as male gendered, are there any similar Janeway moments like these? I haven't really watched too much Voyager and I'm very curious. Does she have any unique feminine attributes that give her an advantage as a captain? To me she seems completely gender neutral on the bridge, but the writers go out of their way to feminize her in her personal life.
Brilliant, I'm definitely using this. Would I be correct in saying that her gender doesn't affect the plotline? She's borg which would make her androgynous, aside from her appearance of course.
Does she have any unique feminine attributes that give her an advantage
There was one episode where Voyager was traveling through a section of space where the local government had it in for (I believe) telepaths, like Tuvok. Janeway hides them inside the transporter.
In a unusual move for her, Janeway charms the leader of the team that repeatedly inspects her ship with her feminine wiles. Very seductive.
Someone help me with the episode's title.
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There was one episode where Voyager was traveling through a section of space where the local government had it in for (I believe) telepaths, like Tuvok. Janeway hides them inside the transporter.
In a unusual move for her, Janeway charms the leader of the team that repeatedly inspects her ship with her feminine wiles. Very seductive.
Someone help me with the episode's title.
.
You find rage, hot temper and aggressiveness "male-gendered"? Really? I don't.
Are there moments like these, in what sense? Moments when she's full of pent-up rage? Yes, of course. I'd say she can be a lot more aggressive than Picard, see Equinox for instance.
I don't know what you mean by 'going out of their way to feminize her in her personal life'.
I'm unsure what you mean by "unique feminine attributes"? The only things that come to my mind that really fit that description are bearing children and breast-feeding, and I can't see what use would a starship captain have for those in their professional capacity.
Counterpoint?
But you could just as well say that Kirk used his "unique masculine attributes" whenever he flirted with/seduced an alien female in order to help his ship and crew, no? Spock also used his "unique masculine attributes" on the female Romulan Commander during the mission to steal the Romulan cloak.
In fact, flirting, seduction and sexual manipulation aren't "unique" feminine or masculine attributes at all, it's just a matter of whether you are the right gender to be attractive to your target (which depends on the target's gender and sexual orientation).
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I disagree with this.
The post-TOS shows, including DS9, cast women in roles just for the sake of having women, in an affirmative-action move. That's sexist and not progressive at all. No one should be cast based on gender, but that is exactly what they did.
Behr even admitted that there is no way they were going to do S7 of DS9 without adding another woman to the show, claiming 'we need a woman on the show,' which is absolutely ridiculous and proves the aforementioned point. That is why Ezri had no purpose whatsoever for being on the show (completely irrelevant to the plot, and a counselor being senior staff who takes part in all the station decisions makes no sense). She was included on the show only because she is a woman, and show's quality suffered dramatically because of it.
To really treat women better like you are saying DS9 did would require them to be cast not based on affirmative-action/filling token 'women' roles just for the sake of having women on the show, but rather casting women because they proved based on acting talent alone that they are the best persons for the role. No Trek show has ever done that.
TOS treated women best out of all the Treks shows because it is the only one that didn't give them undeserved roles based on affirmative-action.
This issue is always raised. So many seem to take it as strictly meaning that women were barred from command. On the flip side others (myself included) view at as Janice Lester's biased perspective. The fact is she is evidently unbalanced and you can see why Starfleet would never grant someone like her command of anything.
Also when she accuses that Kirk's "world of starship captains doesn't allow women" she is obviously bitter. It can easily mean that Kirk's career of starship command doesn't allow much room for a serious relationship, which is obviously what Janice Lester wanted.
The thing is in TOS that there were some things they hedged about in terms to how far they could push certain ideas. There's nothing in TOS that definitively says women cannot command. They did something of an end run around this by having a Romulan woman commanding a squadron of ships in "The Enterprise Incident." I think this was the writers really trying to start pushing the idea. If TOS had gotten a fourth season we might finally have seen a woman in a Starfleet command position. I think the idea is reinforced by them having Uhura take command in TAS' "The Lorelei Signal."
One question I've never had answered was if anyone during TOS' run had ever suggested having a woman guest star in a Starfleet command role and if so then why wasn't it followed through?
Some people also raise the issue of the short skirts. Again this is something that I feel is often taken out of context. In the '60s many women adopted the short skirts as a sign of emancipation and asserting their femininity. Today it's seen as sexist, but that's not how it was seen then. Furthermore the skirt is no more colourful window dressing than having contemporary women dressed in ridiculously skin-tight catsuits. Indeed even today and for some time women dress in ridiculously tight jeans that they can barely move in. And it's so common no one pays any attention to it.
Women within the different Star Trek series was a reflection of that particular point in time and the writing parameters or style (imposed on that show).
1. TOS - Women were depicted within accordance of the late 1960s.
2. TNG - Women were depicted according to the 1980s.
3. DS9 - Women were depicted according to the 1990s within a rich character and story arc type writing style.
4. VOY - Women were depicted according to the 1990s within a TNG style type writing approach.
5. ENT - Women were depicted according to the 2000s (due to the further widespread promotion and access of women on the internet) as objects of beauty within a dumbed down (no apologies) writing style.
1. TOS - Women were depicted within accordance of the late 1960s.
2. TNG - Women were depicted according to the 1980s.
3. DS9 - Women were depicted according to the 1990s within a rich character and story arc type writing style.
4. VOY - Women were depicted according to the 1990s within a TNG style type writing approach.
5. ENT - Women were depicted according to the 2000s (due to the further widespread promotion and access of women on the internet) as objects of beauty within a dumbed down (no apologies) writing style.
Yes, but I don't think you can ignore the evident intent of what they were trying to do. In "The Cage" Number One is second-in-command and is in command when Pike left the ship. And numerous writers in subsequent novels and comics have picked up on what they see as the intent that Number One could command and that she could still go higher. DC Fontana in her novel Vulcan's Glory even refers to this possibility as Pike reflects on Number One one day getting her own command. Jon Byrne's recent writing for IDW comics also shows Number One commanding her own ship.
It's easy to say the writers and producers should have had more guts to show more, but we don't know the behind the scenes circumstances. Maybe someone actually wanted to write such a role, but the notion might have been blocked by someone higher up. We don't know.
In light of what we do know I tend to view it more positively in that there's nothing in the series that definitively says women cannot command.
LOL - this is hilarious. Any crewmen who don't deserve their position (both men and women) are that way because they are written that way! You can't blame the characters - blame the writers for writing the women badly. Kira deserved her posistion, Jadzia deserved her position. Ezri didn't really - she was riding on the back of Dax's achievements - but that was the whole point of the character - she wasn't meant to be a confident genius like Jadzia.
The overall problem isn't replacing one female character with another for the sake of tokenism - they did this on Voyager too - the problem is not having enough spare female characters to take up the slack if one leaves or dies, leaving a more conspicuous sea of men.
I would have been happy to see Harry Kim replaced by Seven of Nine but if they had done that, she would have been a he. The writers seem to think that the 2:1 ratio is how it should be and so if a woman leaves they introduce another woman to maintain that balance.
Warped 9:
Well, true. Star Trek is in fact not your normal television program to begin with in the fact that it handled heated topics and issues that most TV Series wouldn't tackle.
Yes. Which is all in retrospect (after the fact) of course.
I am going by what the actual TV show was telling me at the time when there was no comic books or novels adding it's own inspirational interpretations of what happened or could have happened.
Well, I don't think there was a law against female Captains in the 23rd Century (i.e. TOS Series time). I just don't think there was any female Captains at this point in time due to any number of possible reasons.
Personally, I don't like the idea of women not being in command of their own starships in the TOS Series era, but that is what was told and shown to me, though. So I accept it for what it is rather than what other writers would have liked to have been.
Here is a scene from Turnabout Intruder:
http://www.tubechop.com/watch/60122
In TOS's "Turnabout Intruder", Janice Lester states to Kirk that... "Your world of Starship Captains doesn't admit women". Many folks think that Janice was talking about Kirk leaving her to be a Captain. However, Kirk later said that Lester tortured and punished him over the fact that his world of Starship Captains doesn't admit women. How can Janice punish Kirk if he left her? In other words, what this scene really means is that it is possible for women to become Captains within Starfleet, but there just hasn't been any women Captains yet with that particular point in time within the Original Series (because of the difficulties of the test or whatever).
To read the full argument. Please, check out this post here...
http://trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=3979643&postcount=115
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Oh, and Harry Kim was great on Voyager. It would have been a huge mistake if they let him go in the middle of the series. Whether you liked the character (actor) or not: He was necessary in order to maintain that buddy relationship (with Paris) on the show.
And I totally don't mind the equal balance to women ratio when they replace a character, either.
I mean, the same result could have happened on a chance dice roll. So it doesn't really bother me.
And I totally don't mind the equal balance to women ratio when they replace a character, either.
I mean, the same result could have happened on a chance dice roll. So it doesn't really bother me.
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Luther, we can't agree on this. Lester felt extremely bitter and wanted revenge. She found a way not only to punish her ex lover (Kirk), but even more sweetly by taking his place and living the life he chose over her.
Yes, to an extent TOS does reflect certain attitudes of the day, but it doesn't perfectly reflect everything going in the world on in those times. There were already women accomplishing noteworthy things then even if they weren't reflected on TV. Hell, women were flying fighter planes over the Atlantic in WW2. Hell, Lucille Ball was running Desilu Studios! She gave the green light for Star Trek to go ahead! You are taking the absence of evidence as evidence.
TOS was also about looking forward. How forward thinking is it if we assume Starfleet and the Federation were stuck in the societal mindset of the late 19th/early 20th century? It doesn't gel.
Yes, to an extent TOS does reflect certain attitudes of the day, but it doesn't perfectly reflect everything going in the world on in those times. There were already women accomplishing noteworthy things then even if they weren't reflected on TV. Hell, women were flying fighter planes over the Atlantic in WW2. Hell, Lucille Ball was running Desilu Studios! She gave the green light for Star Trek to go ahead! You are taking the absence of evidence as evidence.
TOS was also about looking forward. How forward thinking is it if we assume Starfleet and the Federation were stuck in the societal mindset of the late 19th/early 20th century? It doesn't gel.
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