Trek's female characters

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Mikey
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Re: Trek's female characters

Post by Mikey »

Atekimogus wrote:Really? I thought three diminsional thinking was one of the view areas were males have a slight advantage, beeing the hunters of the tribe etc....
The idea is that, on average, women are more spatially/verbally-oriented, and men are more linearly/mathematically/logically-oriented.
GrahamKennedy wrote:*snip*
You're still arguing against a misconception of my point - one which has been pointed out, BTW. I never said "all women are 'x' and all men are 'y,'" nor did I say that there is no crossover or individual differentiation. I merely said that there are trends toward certain patterns of cognition based on physical neurological differences - which is true.
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Re: Trek's female characters

Post by Lighthawk »

Mikey wrote:You're still arguing against a misconception of my point - one which has been pointed out, BTW. I never said "all women are 'x' and all men are 'y,'" nor did I say that there is no crossover or individual differentiation. I merely said that there are trends toward certain patterns of cognition based on physical neurological differences - which is true.
I think, and could be wrong, that his arguement is that the show could have had a female picard, who acted exactly as the actual picard did in every way (save for maybe some gender specific moments, depending on her sexual orientation), and no one would have remarked "boy, she sure acts like a man", or the like. They just would have accepted that it was her individual personality, and would not have seen her gender as having any impact on her behavior, save for any romantic/sexual situations.
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Re: Trek's female characters

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Mikey wrote:
GrahamKennedy wrote:*snip*
You're still arguing against a misconception of my point - one which has been pointed out, BTW. I never said "all women are 'x' and all men are 'y,'" nor did I say that there is no crossover or individual differentiation. I merely said that there are trends toward certain patterns of cognition based on physical neurological differences - which is true.
I fully understand what you are saying. And what I am saying is, those differences, if they exist at all, are so minor, and with so much overlap, that it's simply nonsense to say that a female character should be written any differently than a male one. The actions and attitudes of male and female characters are interchangeable aside from the obvious issues of biology.
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Re: Trek's female characters

Post by Mikey »

Lighthawk wrote:I think, and could be wrong, that his arguement is that the show could have had a female picard, who acted exactly as the actual picard did in every way (save for maybe some gender specific moments, depending on her sexual orientation), and no one would have remarked "boy, she sure acts like a man", or the like. They just would have accepted that it was her individual personality, and would not have seen her gender as having any impact on her behavior, save for any romantic/sexual situations.
Indeed. I never said otherwise. I said that since it's more likely that woman acts like a woman, the path of least resistance for a male writer is to limit his most in-depth characterizations to male characters. This was never a response to "Could there be a woman who acts like Picard?" It was a response to "Why do female characters have more limited characterization?"
GrahamKennedy wrote:I fully understand what you are saying. And what I am saying is, those differences, if they exist at all, are so minor, and with so much overlap, that it's simply nonsense to say that a female character should be written any differently than a male one. The actions and attitudes of male and female characters are interchangeable aside from the obvious issues of biology.
Yes, yes, yes! I'm not arguing with that! A female character could easily have the same personality as a male one. If every female character acted like a man, one would begin to wonder.
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