cosmic_llin | (no subject)

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Hmm... has anyone ever noticed - practically all the judges in Star Trek are women?

There's Philippa Louvois in The Measure of a Man, Norah Satie in The Drumhead, Els Renora in Dax, Makbar in Tribunal, T'Lara in Rules of Engagement... can anyone think of any more? Or any male examples to balance them out?

Even in the Original Series there was a female prosecutor, Areel Shaw, although in that case the judge was male.

I dunno, I quite like the idea that in the future, law becomes, for whatever reason, a female-dominated profession.

(X-posted to

cc_sff)

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There was a thing not long ago that IRL there are way more girls studying law now than boys (and getting the grades to do so) so it may well come true.

Huh... that's neat! Well done, Star Trek.

And of course Janeway herself in the suicidal Q ep.

Oh, yeah, good point!

The only male 'judge' I can think of is Picard, who does love to play arbiter. But yes, I've noticed the tendency toward women judges, too. And lots of female legislators, as well – thinking of Noor and Cretak (played by the same woman!) and Lela Dax, but there are many more.

What's interesting to me, too: the Starfleet admiralty seems to be about at parity, genderwise (my beloved Necheyev, and the hot Vulcan woman whose name I don't recall and can't Memory-Alpha up at the moment, Janeway) – BUT starship captains are almost exclusively male. I can't think of a female one, barring Janeway. What the eff is that about? Especially since other cultures, especially the Romulans, seem to have produced quite a number of female commanding officers. Get it together, Starfleet.

Re:

lauriestein's comment above: one of the problems with our own, sad, non-24th-century culture is that women are in the majority in law school, doctoral programs in the humanities and social sciences, MBA programs, and in a few fields of medical training, and have been for some time. BUT the strength and flexibility of the glass ceiling is such that in spite of this, men retain an overwhelming majority at the top: partners in law firms, tenured professors, corporate CEOs and head surgeons are – and are likely to remain – overwhelmingly male.

Maybe it'll all change after first contact. Warp capability: a feminist issue. You heard it here first.

(Um, I guess Noor's not technically a woman. But she's played by a lady, so I say: fair game.)

As far as that goes, I'd disagree if that episode had done a good job of presenting an androgynous society. As it was, it came across more like Planet of the Man-Hating Lesbians.

Yeah, well done guys.

Exactly. High on the list of Trek Queerfails. (Though not nearly as high as 'Profit and Lace,' which is just actively painful.)

*shudder*

That should actually be a list. I remember being a bit annoyed with Nana Visitor when she said in an interview that she hadn't wanted for the Intendant to be bisexual, but then I realised that yeah, having your only* queer recurring character be a ruthless, power-mad hedonist isn't exactly ideal. Still <3 the Intendant though.

* I'd like to count Garak but, as many hints as there are, it's not irrefutable.

To be fair to Nana, she does follow that up with something quite like your statement: 'I never liked that people took her for bisexual because she's an evil character. There are so few gay characters on TV, and we really don't need an evil one.' [citation (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kira_Nerys_(mirror))] Now, I might have felt differently in the nineties; I can't say. But I do take issue with the 'gay characters should be gay role models' line of thinking, mostly because I tend to subscribe to the 'not gay as in happy; queer as in fuck you' school of thought. Nothing could be queerer than the Mirrorverse, if we think of queer as a challenge to normative ideals. And if we want happy queers, we do have reformed Mirror!Ezri and possibly Mirror!Leeta and come to think of it where the eff is the Mirror!Ezri/Mirror!Leeta fic? ::Loses train of thought entirely, because, well, swoon::

And I count Dax as queer. Her gender-multiplicity is so frequently invoked as one of her strengths. She's a great fix for another TNG queerfail (though a more ambiguous one) and missed Trill opportunity in 'The Host.' (And I do count 'Rejoined' as a MAJOR queer win.) DS9 does better than any other Trek series, on the whole. But I agree, still a pretty poor showing.

Yeah, I think when I read it, it was quoted out of context, which seems unfair, so I’m glad she actually did say the second part! And yeah, I’d have to agree with you on the whole role models issue – portraying queers as saints is almost as unhelpful as the opposite. It does concern me though that there seems to be a trend (particularly, from my POV, in SF&F – but that could just be because that’s my genre) for using bisexuality/homosexuality as shorthand for ‘evil in a slightly squicky way’. I’m thinking of characters like Baron Harkonnen in Dune. The Intendant as an individual character doesn’t bother me, but the trend does, a bit. See more examples here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DepravedBisexual

But yeah, Mirror!Ezri/Mirror!Leeta FT epic W. There should be fic. Maybe I’ll write some when I’m done with my Deanna/K’Eylehr… or you should write some!

Yeah, I count Dax as queer, although I get the feeling a lot of the writing staff/production team didn’t. I really love Rejoined too – I hear some people have an issue with it because they see it as a story about a lesbian couple choosing not to be together because of what other people think, but what I like about it is how the same-sex aspect of their relationship isn’t even an issue, for anyone. More writing like that please, Trek.

It’s true, DS9 is the queerest of the Treks. Even not including the examples we’ve already mentioned, there are scattered moments that give the impression that DS9 is the kind of place where pretty much anything goes as long as it’s between consenting adults. I love the scene in Rules of Acquisition where Jadzia realises that Pel is in love with Quark, but hasn’t figured out she’s female.

In fact, DS9 seems to be the most liberal and realistic of the Treks in terms of sex/relationships generally – I mean, practically every time Deanna hooked up with someone it went terribly wrong, and Beverly wasn’t allowed so much as kiss unless she’d fallen madly in love with the guy. The people on DS9 date, occasionally have casual sex, break up amicably and otherwise, have marriage problems, have attractions to people other than their partners, flirt with people they meet at the bar... with TNG and VOY, it tended to be love-interest-of-the-week or True Love Forever, with not a lot in between.

Okay, I had to read this like three times because I couldn't get past when I'm done with my Deanna/K'Eylehr – OMG OMG OMG, O. M. F. G. Want. NOW. ::is dead of swooning:: You are such a winner, Llin. Such. A winner.

I do agree with what you say about The Depraved Bisexual (awesome TV Trope, and one which I hadn't seen). The other major SF&F fail in terms of Poor Use Of Queerness is Terry Goodkind's statement, in constructing the Mord'Sith, that you can only be a lesbian if you're brutally and repeatedly raped, first. ::Beats Terry Goodkind over the head with a very large Sledgehammer Of Queer Feminism::

I love that moment in "Rules of Acquisition," too – one of the major Queer Wins. I love that they have Quark starting to fall for Pel before he realizes she's a lady, too. Quasi-Shakesperean. Oh, Ferengi love. Sigh.

he people on DS9 date [etc]
Yes! This. (And there's always my favorite non-character, Captain Boday.)

I do have a post coming up (still inside my head) on Twoo Wuv in Voyager, giving it a little more credit than its extreme heteronormativity probably deserves. To be seen.

Hahaha… don’t get too excited, it’s only going to be a short one, but I was going through some clips for a vid and I found the bits with them in and they are actually ridiculously flirty and I thought it deserved a ficlet. ;)

Huh, I haven’t read much Goodkind and now I’m not sure I want to. A friend informs me that Legend of the Seeker is made of femslashy goodness, though. But then, she tried to read the books and declared them awful, so.

Hee, yes, that episode is just made of win generally. Now I kind of want to have some kind of queer DS9 marathon. Hmm… thinking about it, that could be a fun variation on a rewatch community…

Ah, the legendary Captain Boday! There should be fic. I wonder if there is?

Ooh, I look forward with interest to that post!

You can't read Goodkind unless you're a teenager (or younger) who hasn't yet developed a political consciousness. He makes Robert Jordan look like a radical queer Marxist-feminist revolutionary. Yeeegh.

But this? Now I kind of want to have some kind of queer DS9 marathon.

I am so down.

Blech. Oh well, it's clearly too late for me.

And yes! It should be a thing!

Maybe it'll all change after first contact. Warp capability: a feminist issue. You heard it here first.

Don't know Star Trek, but this is BRILLIANT (and, as I'm aspiring to tenure-track professorship, hopefully true!).

:D

According to Trek, we only have to make it to 2063. Then we can meet Vulcans and get drunk with James Cromwell, and maybe finish off the work of the feminist movement. Well, first we have to survive the Eugenics Wars and World War III. But hey, that's gotta be easier than grad school.

Yeah, you're right - there have been a few one-off guest character female captains, but they often seem to end up dead anyway. Must try harder, Starfleet/Star Trek.

Ah, Nechayev is awesome.

Don't know Star Trek, but I can name Inquisitor from Sixth Doctor era.

Haha, good point! She was great.

I'd add Travell of the Tollan then! (SG-1, various episodes) :-)

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