June 1st: Gender issues in Star Trek!

First of all, let's welcome all participants/instructors from the other workshop to join us! First time to have so many people in our workshop venue,exciting!


Next, welcome our beautiful enthusiastic guest for the lecture about STAR TREK:Annette Brauer!
She's a Trekkie and she teaches Native American Studies, Cultural Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Greifswald.


First, a Symbolic Interaction Model was introduced:


Ideas meanings-Symbol codes-Ideas meanings.


As a way we will see how ideas meanings are conveyed by symbol codes in the movie STAR TREK.


Statistic studies in the movie:
Only 1(+3) female characters in the movie while there were 13 male parts?!
Only 1 female in the production crew?!
"What's going on there?!"


We were watching the movie clips along the lecture, to see how women were portrayed through the story.

We had a closer look at the female characters in the movie:

1)Kirk's Mother: Winona Kirk -by the scenes of Kirk's birth


2)Spock's Mother: Amanda Greyson -by the scenes of the mother touchs her logic-only(no emotions) son


3)Uhura-emotional and sympathetic


4)Gaula-sexy and objectification


6)Enterprise (the spaceship!It's regarded as a female character due to its obedient characteristics)






Then we came to discuss about a new term:The Male Gaze.


"Stereotyping and objectification of women on screen comes about through the way cinema is structured around..."


Meaning in a movie made most by male producers, the ways they portrayed women were more from a male perspertive. That's an entertainment for male only, at they get the control.


Later after going through all the female characters and loads of observations, we had a discussion about the women roles in the movie and reflection to the society.

We admited that nowadays women are more frequently regarded as "objects" in this male dominat society, while only few women are involved in the techonology & production areas.
But we don't think women are weak at these certain parts, as we still have our best female director in Oscar Awards 2009 and we see more women are also doing good in sports and else professions.

It was a fruitful day with in-depth discussions and critical thinking!



Reported by Terri (Hong Kong,China)