Women in Literature: Star Trek: "I would like to first say that I HATE Star Trek!! So Data, what is his role? I know that he saved the captain and then the captain went back..."
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I am writing a response to the blog post that I linked above. Ignoring the "I hate Star Trek" part, as that's not important, but talking about women's roles in star trek, as well as the important of Data.
To clarify, Data began to have human feelings to an emotional implantation (I believe.) This is important because it is emotions that really make us human. By him having emotion, he can really understand what it means to be human and why the Borg need to be fought -- as well as why his other crew members are important. Without these emotions, to be honest, he would work off of what is logical. And sometimes, saving everyone on board a ship isn't logical.
As to why Lily is always running from the battle, what reason does she have not to? She's not trained in combat, at all. If you came acrossed a battle happening, and you had no training, wouldn't your natural response be to scream and run? I'm pretty sure mine would. I think it's important to think about these things before we immediately declare gender as the reason for something, because there are other factors as well. I hate to say this, but sometimes, it feels as if the gender card is thrown around way too often, and the same with racism. If we really want to promote health gender in society, then we need to stop declaring it so freely without reason.
You bring up many good points in your post. I agree with you that the gender card is thrown around too often. The female characters in Star Trek were not trained in combat so they have no idea what to do in battle. I woudl turn in run too or hide behind someone who did have combat training. I don't feelt hat portrays characters as being weak, they just play a different role. Another eason why Lily would run from the battle is thst it's not really her battle. I mean it is int he way that the Borg want to take over Earth but not in the way she understands it. She has no idea how to fight the Borg or even fully understands wha tthey are. She is simply trying to get back to Earth and the life she knows. From what we know of her character, though, I believe that if given the chance, she would stand up and fight. If the battle had taken place on Earth, I beleive she would have been right in there with the others, with weapons she knew how to use, fighting to save her planet.
ReplyDeleteBut I do think that an important question to ask about Star Trek is why are women not trained to fight? It does seem that only men are the trained fighters.
Good questions, Ellis and Micheal!
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