I’m making my way through DS9 for the first time (almost finished with season two). For reference, I’ve seen TOG, TNG, all the new movies, Discovery, Lower Decks, and SNW. DS9 season one was a little slow to pick up, but my husband and I are loving season two. As always, Star Trek addresses a lot of hard hitting issues in very nuanced ways. It’s also great continuously seeing fantastic representation in even older episodes (mainly women and people of colour in prominent and varied positions).
But when we get to more women specific issues, things are seriously lacking. Basically, almost any scene with the Ferengis interacting with women are problematic. I understand that they are a highly misogynistic race, but my discomfort and annoyance is with how others react to them. The Grand Nagus sexually assaulting women, especially Kira, is never actually fully addressed. It’s just seen as an annoyance to be put up with. Quark is often seen as aggressively pursuing women, often with unwanted touches and other advances. Even if it’s at first the women in question is disinterested, they relent in some way, either completely or they tell him something flattering/of chances in the future. Thankfully, so far, none of the main women characters have given into his advances, but it’s common for one off and guest characters to somehow be “charmed” by him, even those from more egalitarian civilizations (eg: Vulcan).
I know DS9 was made prior to #MeToo, but it’s still worth pointing out where Star Trek can and have improved (thankfully newer Trek has less of these issues), and when some of the portrayals in the past are rather inconsistent with the philosophies of the Federation. Of course, the Federation operates with a level of cultural relativism, but it still doesn’t make sense to me how the Grand Nagus (and Ferengis in general) were allowed to assault and harass those outside of their culture/species on an interstellar, multi-cutural, Federation run space station. Star Trek in the 90s was trying to a lot of good, but watching it now, there’s definitely quite a few aspects that are unsatisfying.
You gotta remember that DS9 is set in the space version of a third world country. This isn’t Federation territory, and the Federation’s presence is on thin ice throughout the series.
Ahhh 90’s TV… So there was a lot of issues during the 90’s when it came to scripts. One of the issues was that TV Execs now acknowledged the existence of women but they weren’t to sure what to “do” with them. You can see this in many many shows but one of the things that pops up is you might have a strong female character that has a few really good episodes or seasons but at some point the writing flips to they want to get pregnant and married (not saying either is bad but when it comes out of left field a bit it’s clearly just tacked on plot).
The reason I bring the above up is that much of Trek (even TNG) women are treated in many plots as merely props in a narrative to move a story forward not as actual characters. Unfortunately this is also why the Federation seems so blasé to how they’re treated, because they’re not fully treated as a proper character. So, hilariously, the execs of the time (and writers) are somewhat caricatures of their own creations, the Ferengis.
Therein my frustrations with older Trek. I see and appreciate what they were trying to do, but their inherent biases were on full display despite creating a show about a better progressive future.
The insane thing is that even with all that they were exceptionally progressive… in comparison to what else was out at the same time. The issue of doing this sort of social comparison is that you really need to keep it in context with history. Weird example. The Honeymooners regularly had a punchline of threatening violence against one of the wives (The infamous “One of these days Alice! BANG! ZOOM!”), 10 years after the last episode Star Trek The Original Series started which (unless I’m remembering wrong) didn’t use violence as a joke.
Sometimes it takes a while for things to change… Other times it gallops along.
I for certain see the context. It’s just frustrating watching from a contemporary lens, especially as a woman. Many of us, including me, have experienced unwanted advances that escalated into harassment, verbal abuse, assault (an entire range of physical contact). As much as I’m enjoying the show, but this aspect makes me feel uncomfortable and somewhat angry.
On the one hand, watching pieces of History like this can be frustrating on such issues (it is a media History artifact at this point, just as much as a Shakespeare play). On the other hand, I like to think about how much things have changed, even since Next Gen and DS9 aired. It is more common and possible to talk about a lot of social issues now than it was then. FAR fewer young women I know now would put up with the same levels of sexual harassment than older women I know from the Boomer generation saw as a thing they just had to put up with as a fact of life. It is heartening to see the positive changes overall.
I know I’ve already replied to you but I came across this short interview with the actress that played Dr.Crusher in TNG and why she was fired from the show then came back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYsemEvV3-Y Oddly on point to what we’re talking about here.
I always thought the Ferengi attitude towards women was meant to be an extreme parody of existing attitudes, to demonstrate how ludicrous they are.
That’s more effective if other characters treat them accordingly.
That may be so but it doesn’t mean you have others treat what should reasonably be considered sexual assault and harassment as quirky jokes.
The Grand Nagus sexually assaulting women, especially Kira, is never actually fully addressed.
Yeah, that was a weird one. In DS9’s pilot Quark touches Kira and she threatens him (“if you don’t take your hands off my hips you’ll never be able to touch anything with them again” or something like that) but when the Nagus does it in season 2 it’s played for comedic effect. That irked me too when I rewatched the episode recently.
Only on season 2 of DS9? Oh boy, do you have a “treat” in store when you reach the “Profit and Lace” episode. It starts with Quark threatening to fire an employee if she doesn’t sleep with him, and manages to go downhill from there.
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One thing that gets me is that Sub Rosa was a rare episode that portrayed women’s pleasure from a woman’s perspective, yet it doesn’t get proper credit for that. I mean, it’s not a good episode tbf - It reminds me of those old “women’s novels” you could buy at convenience stores, but at least it tried to do something progressive in that way.
