tronvillain

Titanpoint:
So, what you are actually upset about is a man being happy to be second in command to a woman? I fail to see why that is supposed to be incompatible with having been a "fearless rebel leader."

Jagged

Yeah! Yeah!

What tronvillain said. All of it.

ju'iblex

*small round of applause to both tronvillain and Bookman*

Titanpoint, your 'critique' was utter codswallop.

Titanpoint

*sigh* That means we're in for a long slog.

....and there were no others?

So no normal male characters then.

You carefully didn't mention Neelix, a male character happiest in the kitchen and keeping up people's "morale"

These characters were created to be like that.

They were gender reversed. Have you considered how alien that crew is?

For example, well above 99% of all inventions were created by men, which points to a very strong biological asymmetry between the sexes, which cannot be accounted for by environmental factors such as education.

So what happened in the three centuries between now and then?

Oh pulease. I think you were watching the scenery a bit too much. That men are creative, like to joke and backchat, and are pretty self-unaware is a stereotype that happens to be rooted in the different brain structure and hormonal balance of the male from the female. These things are not learned, they are an innate part of the male biological difference.

Gender roles are not created by society or environment, they are elided by biology and bequeathed to the sexes by genetics and evolution.

I had no difficulty with the Captain being female any more than I have a problem with my manager being female. But these characters were created for the purpose of showing what a feminist vision of the future would look like in the Star Trek universe. And bizarre and boring were two good words to describe it.

*ahem* This was supposed to be against my argument?

Never seen. We only know that they had a Queen because of Star Trek:First Contact. The Borg were mostly male. And that means evil.

Yes, the female character you felt sorry for. But when the Vidiians were rampaging through Voyager or someplace else, guess what? They were all male. Funny that. As were the giant race (whose name escaped me for the moment) who lived for "the Hunt". Rapacious and deadly. And male every one of them.

Name a society run by men that was not oppressive. And for another five points name a society run by females that WERE opressive.

Could be a tough question. Take your time.

Yes we noticed They took immaturity to an entirely new level.

Yes, it was fun packed and amusing wasn't it? I thought the dialog between them was particularly believeable wasn't it?

Actually since I'm allowed to have an opinion and since you have simply said you disagree with that opinion, what then?

It was the opinion of the producers that the sweet, shy Kes didn't work as a character (too obviously female) and they brought in Seven of Nine who was given to wearing a silver cat suit to leave the young males in no doubt that Star Trek wanted them to keep watching. The producers even admitted as much.

I think these relationships were all in your head. What relationships? They were all single (temporarily but could have been for the rest of their lives) on the other side of the galaxy and....nothing. Was there bromide in Neelix's tea?

..until she broke up with him for no good reason and then was written out....

Don't remember that one. It must have been a real bodice-ripper.

I remember that one. The hologram kissed her passionately and unexpectedly. She romantically shut the program down and never ran it again.

Ah yes, the Doctor and the Vidiian. Two holograms with no genitals. For one episode. A model couple. They sat in a car. With the radio on.

I remember being on the edge of my sleeping bag for that one.

Call it what you will, there was definitely something in Neelix's tea. You managed to name practically all the relationships that happened in SEVEN years. Were they studying for the priesthood?

The review was written just as Enterprise was beginning and I've only seen the first episode so I'm not qualifed to say.

I'm sorry but I don't accept your analysis. The consensus view was that Voyager was a failure in terms of characterisation, and they attempted to reverse the trend by reverting to type in "Enterprise"

I haven't seen much beyong the first episode. Maybe it sucked for different reasons....

lpetrich

And what, Titanpoint, are those biological differences?

Although I don't think that the sexes are exactly alike in the genetic part of their mentality, I do think that they have much in common. Both sexes use the same language, with the same grammar and vocabulary and phonology and so forth; there is no difference between "male grammar" and "female grammar", and the voice pitch seems like the major difference.

There is even a book called The Mismeasure of Woman on that very subject.

And where there are differences in mentality, there is still a lot of overlap between the sexes. Women tend to be more vain and concerned with appearance and clothing than men; this may be cultural or biological, but even if it is biological, there is nevertheless no shortage of vain men and non-vain women.

As to men being over 99% of the inventors, I wonder what's the precise figure. Women have not performed very well in the past because they were kept from getting started in many fields; when women can enter some profession, they do perform. Consider all the things that women do nowadays that had earlier been thought impossible or unnatural for women to do.

As to biology, titanpoint has a LOT of learning to do. Features of the sexes are often correlated with how much investment they make in their offspring; for that reason, males are relatively competitive and females relatively choosy. But when the tables are turned, as with certain crickets whose females eat the males' sperm capsules, the females become competitive and the males become choosy. Female choice can have interesting effects, like female birds selecting the flashiest-colored males of their species; among birds, it is the male that is the vain sex.

One feature affected by relative investment is body size. Among solitary animals, it is often the female which is bigger; that's because of having a bulkier contribution to the next generation. Female spiders and mantids can be dangerous to their mates, which look like potential meals to them.

But among social animals, males have resources to spare for competing with other males, and males often compete for access to groups of females -- and often become bigger. The males are not necessary "leaders"; they often follow the females around, as is the case for wild horses. Females can also compete, however; wolf packs have an alpha male and an alpha female.

So it's difficult to make any simple statements.

Finally, even though the sexes are much alike, we nevertheless have a strong sense of being one sex or the other. Which may account for the widespread belief that there must be great difference in the sexes' mentalities.

Jagged

I see we have a live one here.Oh gawd, *tell* me you're not serious. Please, feel free to start a thread on this topic. Make sure to provide plenty of links to your scientific sources. Um, you may be convinced of this yourself, but these are not generally agreed-upon conclusions. My own observation is that neither men nor women are usually very happy about being squeezed into little catagorical boxes. I think you'll find those on this board are especially resistant to your efforts.(*cracks knuckles* Ah, I'm glad I'm the first to get to this post ...) Boy, TP I think you've really stuck gold with this question. It's a real stumper, because all I can think of are societies like these: Stalinist Russia, Hitler's Germany, Fundamentalist Islamic nations, Fundamentalist Christian nations--all run by males, damn. Can't think of one example where a female-run society has been oppressive to others. Come to think about it, can't think of one example of a female-dominated society, period. Cleverly-veiled social commentary has always been a hallmark of Trek writing--hard to comment on a phenomenon not present in society, no?

By the way, why have you not concluded that males are in fact INTRINSICALLY oppressive, as it seems such a foregone conclusion from history, your ultimate source of scientific data on the biological makeup of the sexes--it must be rooted in brain structure and hormonal balance.
I've got a question for you, TP: Name a society run by females on Voyager, period. The only female-dominated Trek society I remember was featured on TNG, and it was one episode only. If Voyager is such a feminist endeavor, how do you explain this glaring deficiency?

And what about your theories on the "asymmetry of the sexes"? If males are the creative ones with all the capability for inventing things, how would a female-run society even be possible? According to your own assertions such a society must be absurd--women couldn't dominate very well if they had to depend on men for 99% of their ideas. So can you fault Voyager's writers for being unable to envision a female-led society?
Okay, once and for all TP, how many times have you actually watched the program from start to finish? Because if you didn't see any of the relationships TV pointed out, I think you are incorrect in your belief that you were in fact watching ST:Voyager. It must have been something else. Either that or you are biologically impaired in relational-recognition. Consensus of... ? Would you care to offer a link in reference to this claim? Ah yes, I somehow failed to assimilate the precious gift of my biologically-preordained gender role. Remind me to check the tag on my ass one of these days. Perhaps before I do that you could explain why we should accept your interpretation of the term "gender roles" in liu of that of the Nelson Dictionary of the Social Sciences.(1):
TP, would you care to offer some facts, or do you prefer to continue slinging insults, emotionally-charged arguments, and unfounded assertions... ??

Titanpoint

On sexual asymmetry or not comprehending threads? The thread was about Star Trek, remember?

Science does not depend upon general agreement or popularity, so that's a fallacious argument for a start. The differences between the sexes in regard to abilities, spacial, cognitive and behavioral are well attested to in many standard textbooks on human biology.

The notion of such an asymmetry of the sexes is a completely non-controversial conclusion by scientists specializing in human biology.

The fact that they are not well attested in social science textbooks is not the fault of science but of the social "scientists" and their insistence against a mountain of evidence of the biological underpinnings to much of human behavior.

Don't crack your knuckles in a thread. It makes you look like an idiot.

Are all societies run by males oppressive? Are all societies oppressive?

Even so I was not referring to the real world but to the feminized fantasy universe of Star Trek: Voyager.

Neither can I. But I was making a comment about a cheesy TV series, not about the history of the world.

True, except that the social commentary in this case was an exercise in the philosophy and outlook of late 20th Century post-modern feminism, which was the point of the article.

Well there's a problem. If you've swallowed the PM feminist mantra that all male-led societies are ipso facto oppressive then that would be a natural conclusion.

Perhaps there are quite a few men and women who would object to such a narrow categorization of human behavior.

Certainly. The crew of the Starship, Voyager. Period.

Because the entire series showed a consistent bias towards the feminist analysis of society and viewpoint of men. The plain fact is that the treatment of men was consistently one-sided. They were either evil, superfluous or emotionally immature.

Are the other series biased? Yes. Does that mean that ST:Voyager was not biased as well? No of course not.

I have no idea about whether a female-led society would be possible. I could say that such a society has never been found by anthropologists. But to point out the asymmetry between abilities such as creativity is no more than a statement of scientific fact.

I do not say that women are without great abilities or intelligence or biologically-elided abilities that men do not have.

The point was about ST:Voyager and the (in my view) clear gender reversal of roles. I found it bizarre and I wrote and said so.

I watched most of the episodes from series 1-5. It got boring so I stopped. It may have turned into Shakespeare after that but I'll never know.

I have.

No. That would be you.

Titanpoint

So do I. But men and women do have differing levels of verbal ability that are related to the different structures of the brain and to the different neurochemistries thereby.

By Carol Travis. Yes I know about the book, but it is an exercise in denying biological differences between the sexes.

There are many, many books which deal with sexual assymetry in great detail.

For an example of sexual differences see http://www.polymath-systems.com/inte...v/sexdiff.html

Actually now you're guessing. The differences between male and female brains make for a substantial difference in abilities, behavior and everything else. They are set by biology (and I don't just mean genetics). These differences are measureable. Rather surprisingly (to you) they overlap hardly at all.

Ah yes, the glass ceiling. Perhaps it never occurred to you that perhaps the reasons for the differences are biological in origin.

Actually you have a tremendous amount to learn about biology, not me. The notion that all of these stereotypical behaviors are not related to biology but to societal pressures is a post-modern myth of the 90s which has been solidly debunked.

See The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Stephen Pinker

Oh dear, we've gone to spiders. Are the differences in sizes between spider sexes socially constructed?

By the way, there are lots of solitary creatures where the male is larger than the female, such as tigers, leopards, lions and cheetahs.

Now its horses. Are these behaviors between the sexes socially constructed?

Its not stopped you.

"Even though the sexes are much alike" ? Demonstrably not true.

That widespread belief is science and is the result of many scientific studies.

Jagged

Reference them.

(p.s. Interpretive essays by undegreed heads of commercial think-tanks don't count.)

(p.p.s. We should probably start another thread)

Godless Dave

DNFTT