Trek's female characters

[Graham Kennedy]

I've been thinking lately, that it seems to me that Trek treats its female characters poorly. In fact I'm going to make the claim that in the whole history of the show, there has barely if ever been a major female character that was actually a normal, everyday, interesting Human being. Female characters almost always have some "gimmick" hung on them. A run through...

Uhura - the classic "token black". She was indeed a normal Human, but the show almost never used her. Even the actress herself admits she did so little on the show that she considered quitting.

In TNG, there was Troi. She was made "the empathic one", and most everything about her resolved around that. Then there was Beverly, who probably came closest of anybody to being a real person, but she was saddled with Wesley and most of her stuff was about that.

In DS9 there was Kira, who was the Angry Bajoran, and Dax, the alien who isn't "really" a woman any more than she's "really" a man. Sisko even consistently refers to her as a male, perhaps the ultimate "just one of the guys" woman ever.

In Voyager we had B'Elanna, the Angry Klingon, we had Kes, the Weird Alien, replaced with 7 of 9, The Borg. The closest thing to a real actual female person was Janeway... who the writers handled horribly, but at least they didn't have her develop magic powers or anything.

In Enterprise we got Hoshi, the Scared One. Hoshi did grow into a much more real person later on, admittedly. We also had T'Pol, the Uptight Vulcan One.

Contrast this with the guys. How many guys in Trek are just ordinary, if exceptionally smart and capable? Kirk was, Bones was, Scotty was, Sulu was, Chekov was, Picard was, Riker was, Jake was, O'Brien was. Bashir and Sisko started out that way, but both got to become "magic men" later on. In Voyager it was Kim and Paris. In Enterprise we hit the average Joe goldmine, because almost everybody is - Archer, Mayweather, Reed, Trip - Trip is possibly the most "everyday guy" ever, next to O'Brien. Many of these had an angle of some sort - dead parent for Archer, Boomber for Mayweather, etc. But basically they are just ordinary guys.

It's like the writers on Trek don't really have any idea how to write a female character without giving her some weird angle. God forbid that they should acquire actual interests and quirks and personality traits... why bother when you can just make them empathic or part Borg instead? I'm not suggesting that they ONLY do this with women at all - I mentioned Sisko and Bashir, but you could also throw in Quark, Garak, Odo, Spock, Tuvok, Phlox and others. But with the female characters, it's almost ALL of them that are like this.

In fact it's so marked that when we get a decent female character on a show, even briefly, she tends to stand out starkly. Remember how many people jumped for Sonia Gomez or Robin Lefler to be recurring characters? They were two perfectly ordinary women, nothing weird or alien about them. Same for Ensign Jetal on Voyager, who seemed like a genuinely interesting character. So they killed her. So did Lyndsey Ballard for that matter... and they actually turned her into an alien right before our eyes.

I stumbled across an uber-feminist website once, and although I found a lot in it that I thought was absurd, they did point something out that's long stuck with me. It was a simple test you could apply to any piece of TV or film. There are three steps. 1) Are there two or more women in it? 2) At some point, do they have a conversation with one another? 3) Is that conversation about something - anything - other than men?

It's startling how rarely this happens in Star Trek. Try it for yourself and see, next time you watch an episode or movie. Women in Star Trek exist, for the most part, to provide an "alien outsider" point of view.

So am I right? Is this obvious to everyone? Or am I reading waaay too much into something harmless?

[Nickswitz]

Your reading a little deep into it. But it's correct, it's sadly true that all the female characters seem to be flat rather than round characters, in the literary term at least... None of them actually have a normal role to play, the most normal are those that seem to die off or disappear.

I think that the Trek writers were all males, about 40, and mostly chauvinistic. Does anyone else see this?

[Tyyr]

I think you're reading a little too much into it from the perspective of them all having a "thing." Most characters on the show had a thing going on. Now I'll admit that its more obvious with the females and a few males were the only ones really lacking a thing and just being normal. I think its less chauvinism and more just being hacks. The women didn't get a fair shake but neither did most of the characters.

[Lazar]

Uhura - the classic "token black". She was indeed a normal Human, but the show almost never used her. Even the actress herself admits she did so little on the show that she considered quitting.

I did get the impression in STXI that with her, more than anyone else, they were trying to build a characterization that didn't previously exist. For example, they retconned her into a xenolinguistics expert (which, although blatantly stolen from Hoshi, makes perfect sense and gives her a more significant role among the officers), but we see even as late as TUC that Prime Uhura had no facility with alien languages. I remember some comedian joked that the black woman just got to answer the phone.

In TNG, there was Troi. She was made "the empathic one", and most everything about her resolved around that.

Having the "ship's psychologist" seated in #3 position and basically just using her to sense people's emotions was one of the more cloying / saccharine aspects of the show. Then there were the ridiculous outfits that she wore, which I never understood.

Anyway, I agree with Tyyr that it's mainly a case of the writers being hacks. One thing that struck me was the shallowness of the original casting calls (found on Memory Alpha, excerpted from the ST:TNG Companion):

LT. DEANNA TROI - An alien woman who is tall (5'8-6') and slender, about 30 years old and quite beautiful. She serves as the starship's Chief Psychologist, Deanna is probably foreign (anywhere from Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Icelandic, etc.) with looks and accent to match. She and Number One are romantically involved. Her alien "look" is still to be determined.

...

BEVERLY CRUSHER - Leslie's 35-year-old mother. She serves as the chief medical officer on the Enterprise. If it were not for her intelligence, personality, beauty, and the fact that she has a natural walk of a striptease queen, Capt. Picard might not have agreed to her request that Leslie observe bridge activities; therefore letting her daughter's intelligence carry events further.

[thelordharry]

My God, can you imagine another Crusher child on board???

[thelordharry]

I also thought that old Ensign Sexpot herself, Ro Laren was a HUGELY wasted opportunity for a really interesting female character (I think I remember reading somewhere that Kira was kinda based on her?)

[Graham Kennedy]

Originally Ro Laren was going to be DS9's executive officer. When Forbes refused the role they turned the same basic character into Kira.

I'm not calling this all as some grand conspiracy, by the way. It's pretty much just that the mostly male writing staff can't seem to write for female characters worth a damn, so they hang something odd on them as a way to give themselves something to write about.

[Mikey]

Again, I think it's lack of personal experience on the part of the writers, rather than any particular (even unconscious) chauvinism. As Tyyr pointed out, many of the same generalizations could be applied (if you wanted) to most of the male characters as well. Even the great James T. Kirk can be described as less of a character in his own right and more of a construct comprising McCoy's passion and Spock's logic, or as the superego to McCoy's id and Spock's ego.

[Sionnach Glic]

How many members of the writing staff were female? I'd imagine very few, which would probably explain the female characters. In fact, the only female writer that I can think of off the top of my head is Jeri Taylor.

[Tyyr]

Believe me, writing for the opposite gender is hard. It's easy to fall back on stereotypes or quirks.

[Nickswitz]

Believe me, writing for the opposite gender is hard. It's easy to fall back on stereotypes or quirks.

I know it is,I've tried, and I get input from women about the characters if I want them to be believable. In a writing staff they should be able to hire a few female writers at least... It can't be that hard...

[SomosFuga]

I agree with the fact that it seems Trek treats its female characters poorly, in the way you describe, but i have to point out TOS is known for being the first show to portray women working alongside men in military service and throughout the different series we have gotten to see women captains and admirals (not only in SF). I think if they were treated poorly is because of the writers' (and maybe others like directors and producers) neglect.

Some female characters i would like to see more are Robin Lefler, Lt. Jenna D'Sora, Commander Shelby (she doesn't even have a canon forename), a couple ENT girls like Amanda Cole and Talas.

[Mark]

Elisabeth IS her canon name

[SomosFuga]

Elisabeth IS her canon name

Acording to Memory Alpha the name Elizabeth Paula Shelby comes from New Frontier. Or are you talking about the actress' name?

[Captain Seafort]

Memory Alpha is wrong. Although Selby's first name was never mentioned in BoBW, "Elizabeth" (which is derived from Elizabeth Dennehy), first turned up in Vendetta - six years before New Frontier, albeit also written by Peter David.