I Don't Want to be Right

[Archon_Wing]

Yes, of course I would agree with the idea that these things are a vicious circle. I've been thinking quite a lot about this lately, from the standpoint of the liberal/radical divide in feminism. Is it enough to "respect women's choices," and let that be the beginning and end of one's feminism? Or is there some more structural problem, that forces us to say "no, some peoples' values are just wrong, shaped as they are by patriarchy"? What does one say to a feminist who accepts "patriarchal" views of what women want as her personal preferences, freely chosen? What about if that person was a man?

I would disagree that there is such a thing as a "natural" or "correct" impulse; humans are fundamentally social, learning creatures, and what we create in culture is not something alien or incorrect, nor is there a "real" self that somehow stands behind culture. Our real selves learn things from our social context, and reconstruct it for the next generation with a few changes. That's what "natural" humans do.

Well, I think that is what I was asking; for any individual, what level of femininity or masculinity is "correct"? I don't think we can fairly say. In other words, if I choose to do auto mechanics, no one would know if I'm doing it because I enjoy it, or if I'm doing it to fulfill societal expectations. And, therefore, I believe the same applies to female stereotypical roles. Only the individual can assess their own motives, but it seems even educating people about stereotypes in hopes of breaking the self-discrimination vicious circle introduces stereo type threat types of anxieties.

For TOS, sure. But Star Trek has examples of powerful women in commanding roles. I thought Janeway was a rubbish captain, but the fact that there was a woman in the big chair was a major step forward. Jadzia Dax and Kira Nerys were both strong characters, as was Beverly Crusher. Even Troi got better as the series progressed, and (as Marina Sirtis keeps pointing out) as her cleavage got smaller.

In TNG, I would say the counselor, and the doctor were "traditional" nurturing roles, in fact the Doctor also played the role of mother, and the counselor was frequently cast as daughter. The "Kirk" role was split into the more sensitive brainy Picard, and the suave and macho Rikker. I didn't watch much of DS9 -- so I can't comment.

Oooohh Star Trek talk! /grabs a tricorder.

While I like TNG, in a lot of ways it was a step backwards from TOS. I mean granted TOS lacked female characters but considering the times both series were in, at least TOS put a woman in the communication station; Uhura wasn't as horrifically sexualized as Troi or even Crusher even if she was occasionally. Roddenberry had some really strange ideas towards the end, and basically anything that would make the characters interesting (aka anything that wasn't perfect) was a big no-no, and you ended up with little turds like Wesley Crusher. Tasha Yar was sadly a huge joke as a character who was just magnificently incompetent. (Well, to be fair, everyone else in season 1 was). Overall, the cast individually is just a lot more stiff and boring than the TOS cast, though arguably as a whole they have more cohesion.

But that would change after Roddenberry stepped aside, and we had some interesting female characters such as Ro Laren who didn't fit into this ideology, a confident commander Shelby that challenged the too comfortable Riker, and that would give the lead to characters like Kira. There was also the obnoxious Admiral Nechayev who was a authority figure who happened to be right a lot. And I guess Guinan was alright. Kinda funny the side characters ended up more interesting.

DS9 definitely had more interesting characters for sure though occasionally they tried too hard to make Kira and Dax able to hang with the other characters, though this has more to do with Dax just not being that great of a character in terms of depth. At least they weren't just fanservice.

Voyager was generally a step or 10 behind in characterization, although Seven of Nine was quite a detailed character, if you could ignore the silly outfits they put her in.