Sex in Star Trek (A Jessie Gender Video Series)

[TGLS]

Are they though? The whole point of the aliens in Left Hand of Darkness is that the very concept of gender is one that never developed on their world. Guinn wanted to study what would happen if people from our world; so driven by sex, gender, and all of the sexism and homophobia that goes along with that met people who found all of those things confusing and silly. All of the terms we use today are based on a world of gender and therefore are terms designed to make sense of a world based on gender.

Was "silly" her word? Because I find that a bit smug to be honest. If those aliens had different sexes on their planet (in different species), or experience with encountering them, they'd either be arrogant or just view it as another difference. Doubtless some humans would find some of their behaviour silly in return.

She doesn't use ''silly'' as such. But I have reached for my copy of Left Hand of Darkness off the shelf and I thought I would give you a segment of the foreword that she wrote.

''I decided that my wintery world would be unique in one aspect: it would be a world that had never had a war. The Gethenians would have the full complement of human aggressiveness. They'd have feuds, forays, squabbles, murders, all that - but they would not organise their aggression. They would have no armies and no wars.
''My mind, trying to imagine such a world without war, arrived at a world without men - without men as such - without men who always had to be men. So, could they sometimes be women? And vice versa?''

The implication here is pretty blatant. The Getheians (otherwise humanlike in thought and feeling) brought about world peace of a sort by not having gender. If that is the case, I kind of think that they would think we are silly for such divisions in our society.

They're still just as violent as humans but without men they're just too disorganized to fight wars? I don't think "too organized" is a negative stereotype of men I've encountered before.

She has some ''interesting'' views i'll give her that. Doesn't paint women in a good light either. ''We've attained world peace because women lack the ability to run an army.''

Maybe it was meant to be more like: "There's no war because the ebbing and flowing of maleness doesn't allow for sustained enough aggressiveness to produce warfare. You'd need like all the governmental leaders (possibly both governments) to go into male mode at once, and stay that way for an unbelievably long time. Also, just forget about Boudicca, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Zenobia, Cleopatra, Maria Theresa, Wu Zetian, Jean D'Arc and Margaret Thatcher."

[clearspira]

Are they though? The whole point of the aliens in Left Hand of Darkness is that the very concept of gender is one that never developed on their world. Guinn wanted to study what would happen if people from our world; so driven by sex, gender, and all of the sexism and homophobia that goes along with that met people who found all of those things confusing and silly. All of the terms we use today are based on a world of gender and therefore are terms designed to make sense of a world based on gender.

Was "silly" her word? Because I find that a bit smug to be honest. If those aliens had different sexes on their planet (in different species), or experience with encountering them, they'd either be arrogant or just view it as another difference. Doubtless some humans would find some of their behaviour silly in return.

She doesn't use ''silly'' as such. But I have reached for my copy of Left Hand of Darkness off the shelf and I thought I would give you a segment of the foreword that she wrote.

''I decided that my wintery world would be unique in one aspect: it would be a world that had never had a war. The Gethenians would have the full complement of human aggressiveness. They'd have feuds, forays, squabbles, murders, all that - but they would not organise their aggression. They would have no armies and no wars.
''My mind, trying to imagine such a world without war, arrived at a world without men - without men as such - without men who always had to be men. So, could they sometimes be women? And vice versa?''

The implication here is pretty blatant. The Getheians (otherwise humanlike in thought and feeling) brought about world peace of a sort by not having gender. If that is the case, I kind of think that they would think we are silly for such divisions in our society.

They're still just as violent as humans but without men they're just too disorganized to fight wars? I don't think "too organized" is a negative stereotype of men I've encountered before.

She has some ''interesting'' views i'll give her that. Doesn't paint women in a good light either. ''We've attained world peace because women lack the ability to run an army.''

Maybe it was meant to be more like: "There's no war because the ebbing and flowing of maleness doesn't allow for sustained enough aggressiveness to produce warfare. You'd need like all the governmental leaders (possibly both governments) to go into male mode at once, and stay that way for an unbelievably long time. Also, just forget about Boudicca, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Zenobia, Cleopatra, Maria Theresa, Wu Zetian, Jean D'Arc and Margaret Thatcher."

The irony is that many psychologists believe that the only reason why women are statistically less violent than men is due to opportunity rather than ''design''. In that, most women cannot just punch a man out, or most women throughout history have not been allowed to be leaders or generals. A society that was matriarchal since the beginning would find far more women in prison than we have in ours.

In fairness, I do think that this theory does discount the effects of testosterone a bit too much, but it really is not as simple as ''remove the men, stop war.''

[Madner Kami]

Just having a fair and sex-unbiased justice- and social-system would already end Up with more women in jail.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Oh hai Leon Thomas, fancy meeting you here.

[McAvoy]

Just having a fair and sex-unbiased justice- and social-system would already end Up with more women in jail.

And a slight decrease in males in jail too.

[Madner Kami]

Oh hai Leon Thomas, fancy meeting you here.

?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Oh hai Leon Thomas, fancy meeting you here.

?

He's one of the voiceovers for the quote exerts. Among other recognizable voices.

I wonder how betrayed it must have felt for him and/or others to realize they weren't the only ones doing voiceovers for the video.

[CmdrKing]

Part 2!! This time looking at TNG, starting with the ways latter-day Gene impacted the tone of the show going forward and later focusing on the unfortunate gaps in how different characters’ sexuality were employed

https://youtu.be/j1Q8FUT_bz8

[King Green]

*lights a cigar and puffs out for stress* Oh boy, here's another poor practice-habit from the development team during that time.

Honestly, this was really good to show the mundanity of a progressive crew-ship while making easy-to-change main-plots, which are actually side-plots, but the directors refused to admit to such a mistake, for first-time audience to see and immediately canonize. I'm all for Horndog!Riker to stride around the ship seeing who wants to go around making the next bunch of bastards for Starfleet to abandon on some recently colonized death-world, yet having his character arc rubberball to uncanny levels makes later-view audiences think the directors where high on something clearly not for human-consumption?

[Frustration]

Just having a fair and sex-unbiased justice- and social-system would already end Up with more women in jail.

Based on what, exactly?

It would be a ridiculous canard to simply assume that, in a fair and just system, men and women would have exactly the same levels of accomplishment. In completely sex-blind competitions, in fact, performance in many fields is notably NOT equal between the sexes.