From: dvp@oasis.icl.co.uk (Geezer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Female CO for the E  II
Date: 19 Dec 92 13:24:01 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.startrek.current
Organization: The Mountains of Madness
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens) writes:
> 
> .......................................  As for ST:TNG and ST:DS9, I  
> too vote for women captains as long as they aren't bumbling fools (ala  
> Troi when she was "captain-for-a-day" [Sirtis, in a QVC interview,  
> talking about Troi's lack of knowledge of basic ship operations when  
> Troi was the captain of the ship]).
> 
> There's no reason more women shouldn't be good captains of often-seen  
> ships in more than a handful of episodes (so far, there's been one (1)  
> episode with a woman as captain where she is both seen and heard for  
> more than 3 seconds).

Why can't women captains be portrayed as overbearing, power-hungry,
incompotent, unjust, blinkered, sexist or even bumbling? Moving away
from the arguement as to people like that wouldn't get the job in the
first place, my point is, why can't women be portrayed with all the
failings that men are often portrayed with? Are they some endangered
species, are their egos so fragile that portraying them as anything
other than nobel, strong, headstrong perhaps but basically stand-up
characters is deemed to be sacrilige? Come on man, stop placing women
on pedestals, they're human beings for Christ sake!

All this smacks of Positive Discrimination. I mean, why not go all the
way and work out quotas for :-

	Women - White
	Women - Coloured
	Women - Asian
	Men   - White
	Men   - Coloured
	Men   - Asian
	Women - White, Handicapped
	Women - Coloured, Handicapped

	etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.......

I mean no disrespect to any party mentioned above, it's the quota nuts
that never seem happy unless an arbitrary deemed minimum of their
chosen 'group' is represented in a POSITIVE light that I'm having a
pop at. People like you lot probably go to the movies or watch TV with
a little notebook in your hand, making notes about how this lot are
under represented, or that lot are represented in a bad light (Christ,
look at all those gay nuts that hit the streets when Basic Instinct
was released). And before you retort that I'm homopohobic, I will add
that someones sexual orientation makes no difference to me, it's when
that person starts using it as a political platform that pisses me
off.

Why can't you lot just accept that men, women, gay men, gay women,
coloured men, coloured women etc. etc. are all just human beings and
can be as good or as downright nasty, as smart or as stupid, as
strong or as feeble, or as honest or as devious as the next person?

Well, that's Trekkies, The Women's Movement and Gay Pride all
pissed off at me now. Hey Kevin, I'm as popular as you now and
it's only taken me about 10 minutes! (Saturdays at work always brings
out the best in me). 

> -- 
> -- Jeff (jeffo@uiuc.edu)
> -- NeXTmail welcome

Dave
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