Talk:Kathryn Janeway
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Caninedoubletake is currently recording or editing an audio version of this article. This notice is dated 2006-12-09. If a significant amount of time has passed, |
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[edit] NPOV
[edit] June 13, 2006
Another indication of gender bias is the use of words to describe the woman such as hysterical, bitch, over-reacts, overly-emotional, tramp, dragon lady, gold-digger, etc.
I can accept that...but if the above are indications of gender bias, maybe you could explain the difference between that and the ad hominem you used on my talk page? This inconsistency merely serves to validate my earlier assumption. Namely, that you indeed are an entirely emotive, subjective hysteric. Feminism's legitimate objectives are no doubt greatly harmed by the presence of such individuals. (And yes, although you've already concluded that I am simply a misogynistic bigot, I do believe that feminism has numerous legitimate objectives)
Petrus4 03:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC) (Because unlike some people, I actually have the spine to take responsibility for what I write)
[edit] June 9, 2006
[edit] Steps to stop a possible edit war
I think I am going to have to step in here and make a comment. I Have been following this artile for a little bit now. I'm not going to agree with the idea that the article was written with Gender Bias, as with most articles I give the benifit of the doubt and presume the editors POV isnt based on that. BUT there is a POV issue here. Petrus4, You have openly admitted to having an Axe to grind and thus should't be editing this article. BUT I must concurr that this hasn't been helped by inflamatory comments which have immediately presumed gender bias, AND posted comments/made changes without a signature/account name. Please, if you want to be taken seriously, let us know who you are, and don't make comments like "A woman in command might be threatening to teenage boys" it just makes things more heated!
To sum. Petrus4's additions, allthough welcome, suffer from serious bias against the character itself. Thus I have to support some change. The anonymous user who allthough says is for NPOV, makes changes such as
"There is also some controversy as to whether the character of Janeway was harder to accept in a position of authority by male viewers"
should cease and disist as well. Thus I am supporting the revert but Removing the majority of the comments in the Controversy Section. --DennyCrane Talk 00:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] June 7, 2006 evening
According to the National Organization for Women:
- Gender Bias - Unfair treatment or denial of rights because of gender or sex; a failure to treat both parties equally because of a prejudice based on gender or sex. For example, there is a common view, propagated by fathers’ rights organizations, that mothers usually get custody (and therefore fathers are being discriminated against and deserve more favorable treatment). In fact, mothers lose a majority of the time when custody cases are contested. While in uncontested cases the parents often agree that the mother should be given custody, when the parents disagree and the case is contested, the father is more often awarded custody by the court. Another indication of gender bias is the use of words to describe the woman such as hysterical, bitch, over-reacts, overly-emotional, tramp, dragon lady, gold-digger, etc.
See the The California National Organization for Women document here: http://www.canow.org/documents/court_watch.pdf
[edit] June 7, 2006
Personally, after looking at the Memory Alpha version of this article and the one presented here, I thought this article was pretty negative too. Is it sexist? Maybe, but only because it points out emotional behavior in the female captain while ignoring it in her masculine counterparts.
As far as abuse of power... What is abuse? Abuse of power is probably in the eye of the beholder. It is subjective and varies with frame of reference. IIRC, before Troi could be promoted to command rank, she had to be ready to order a suboordinate to his death against his objections. If that is Starfleet's test for command rank, I suspect that captains may exert quite a bit of authority without it being abuse.
Captain Archer stole a warp drive from an alien vessel, Kirk threatened to use ship's phasers on a planet that would not provide a vaccine, and Sulu was ready to fly his ship apart to assist Kirk while he was a fugitive from justice. Compare Captains Kirk, Sulu, Picard, Archer, and Janeway to the British navy on which the series is based (ala Horatio Hornblower) and abuse of power becomes much more difficult to prove. (Especially, when comparing Janeway to her fellow starfleet captains.) What might be abuse of power on the Loveboat, is perfectly acceptable on a British Naval vessel. Like I said, I think that it is opinion rather than a proven fact.
IMHO, none of the captains are "consistent" either. I think there are too many writers to make that charge stick. The most "consistent" was probably Archer, but he wasn't as popular as Janeway was and he made some morally gray decisions in the 3rd and 4th seasons of Enterprise during the Xindi conflict. (I personally was a bit dissapointed with Archer's decisions during those seasons.)
Was it a "sexist rant". No, but it wasn't what I would call a fair article either. Janeway couldn't have been too bad. She was nominated for a Saturn award three times and won one in 1998.
Sincerely, Destreza TRP
June 7 - Hello petrus4
just looking at the two revs of the article you seem to have a bias and you admit that you despise janeway. maybe it would might be better to let someone else write the article. calling females "emotional" is bound to trigger angry from female readers. maybe that was not your intentions, but it could look like that.
trkfan
[edit] June 6,2006
I *have* seen Shatner's acting, but I'm not sure what your implication is. A lot of people have said that Shatner's ability (or lack thereof) as an actor is simply attrocious, which is a position that I don't entirely disagree with myself. He has also been accused of narcissism on at least one occasion by people he has worked with.
In terms of me having an axe to grind, I'll admit it quite openly. I despised Janeway for the most part, and no, her gender was not relevant to the reason why. Abuse of authority is abuse of authority, regardless of which side of the gender line you're on. I've known any number of males who've behaved in a similar way.
As for offering examples of what I'm talking about, I've already done so. In numerous episodes she is shown putting the lives of subordinates on the line in order to persue her own agenda; it's actually one of the major themes of the series. Watch the pilot, and then disagree with me.
Your accusation of gender bias on my talk page to me says a lot more about your own area of focus, (gender equality) than it does about me...the gender issue wasn't something I was thinking about at all. I also actually consider your largely anonymous edit of my talk page cowardly...if it wasn't for Wikipedia's history feature, I wouldn't have been able to reply at all. I'm not making a sexist statement here either; cowardice or the lack thereof are also things I've seen exist on both sides of the gender line.
Petrus4 13:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Edit:
I've actually reverted the page to the last previous version, because this isn't the first article where I've contributed, only to have all of said material wiped because of the disagreement of a single person. If there's a group consensus on this, then I'll accept it and move on...but I suspect this is simply an issue being had by a single reactive hysteric...so for the time being, I'm going to revert it.
[edit] June 4, 2006
This article is probably the most bogus attempt at character assassination I have found in Wikipedia to date. It is clear that the revising author (Petrus4) has an axe to grind and NPoV is politely tossed to the dogs while sexist stereotypes and bias are perpetuated within the text of the article.
If you have ever seen Shatner's acting, calling Janeway an "emotional personality" and "inconsistent" is almost laughable and smacks of a gender-based stereotype. Shatner's performance and the rampant sexism in Turnabout Intruder is enough to make any Star Trek fan breath a sigh of relief at seeing a female captain in command of her own series. I invite anyone that wants to see the Prime Directive trashed and authority abused to watch Kirk in action.
A woman in command might be threatening to teenage boys or to sexist old white men, but for a modern viewer it is long overdue and Janeway takes the series into new ground. (Remember, we didn't see a female captain until the fourth film.)
The comments in the discussion area only confirm what I suspected. My advice is to get over yourselves and move on. For an example of what a NPoV article looks like, take a look at the article on Memory Alpha. It is superior in every way (without the sexism).
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Kathryn_Janeway
I agree completely with this statement, the acts upon which captain janeway performed that saved the crews life many times have gone unmentioned and the admiration and inspiration the character captain janeway has generated have gone unmentioned!
[edit] Earlier
I found this statement in the Janeway article this evening,
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- "Captain Kathryn Janeway is the foundation of the Voyager Crew and is the most generous and selfless person that there ever was"
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As that's not a statement that conforms to principles of NPOV I removed it from the page.
JesseG 04:03, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)
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- It's just a fictional character :) - that sort of statement is the kind you might find in a casting call Dowew 20:21, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Promotion
"How a captain known for her inconsistency and dis-regard for protocol during the seven years USS Voyager was missing was promoted to such a high level, bypassing several ranks, has never been explained."
Well I've got a pretty good idea.
JesseG 00:35, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
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- I've added in Janeway's promotinos to RAdm (lower half), RAdm (upper half) and Vice Admiral, if anyone has any opinons on this move, please let me know. GoodDay 17:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Birthdate conflict
There seems to be a conflict about her birthdate: In ST:VOY episode Year of Hell, Part 1 it is day 65 which is on stardate 51268.4. That translates to August 30, 2374, however, it is mentioned in this episode that the date is May 20th! SD6-Agent 00:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
- Stardates don't map exactly to real-world dates. They're a mathematical convenience created so the crew of a starship (from possibly hundreds of planets with as many different biologies and as many different systems for time) can all be on the same scale; there is no simple integer ratio for any of them. Or at least, that's how they handwave it away. Almafeta 21:56, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Lead
Webishtar made a similar edit to the Benjamin Sisko article. In that article's edit summary, s/he said, "By definition, if you appear in the opening credits, you are a lead character, which the characters of Geordi and Uhura both did". Whose definition? Wikipedia'own definition of lead (which, granted, doesn't say TV series): "A leading actor, leading actress, or simply lead, plays the role of the protagonist in a film or play. The word lead may also refer to the largest role in the piece...". Janeway's role seems to fit this definition. But, anyway, I've already reverted that other article three times and don't feel like going back and forth on this one, too. If the hang-up is on the word "lead", then let's find another way to rephrase it, as Janeway being the first female [whateverthehellitis] is significant. --EEMeltonIV 14:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
- I would explain my point further, but I did so in the Benjamin Sisco article, and this one seems to have been edited to a significant compromise. --Wabishtar 15:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Controversy section
Can anyone offer any substantiation to the weasely claims in this section? The tag has been atop the article for a while now and no one's touched it. The most meaty part of that section -- the specific Tuvix example -- seems no more a shade of gray or controversial than Sisko's actions in In the Pale Moonlight, yet I don't see anyone hopping over on that article to point out those foibles. Ditto Archer jacking some aliens' warp drive in the Expanse. Certainly there's material to back up Moore's assertion -- I remember reading the interview at TGL and other sites after he left the Voyager staff -- but the rest of that content is...well, not really content. --EEMeltonIV 03:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
It's always bad practice to say "well nobody has done nothing about article A so therefore it must be OK in article B" - all that means is that nobody has gone around to it (and it you ARE concerned about the Sisko or archer articles - get stuck in!).
The controversy section as it stands as it stands is chuff. I have deleted the whole thing and have moved it here. Find sources for the statements and then put it back in that can be supported. Remember it's NOT my job to provide evidence why those statements are incorrect but for editors who want them to be included to provide supporting evidence.
This is the section as it currently stands, find supporting material and then re-add it. --Charlesknight 20:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
- I think you misread the tone or point of my earlier post -- it's more along the lines of "Well, nobody has put something like this in article A, so it's *not* okay in article B." Regardless, it's secondary to the fact that none of the nonsense in the controversy section was substantiated. I put the tags in as flags for anyone who wanted to offer some meat to back up the various claims; you just beat me to excising the whole section since no one has stepped up to the challenge.--EEMeltonIV 21:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Italic text
[edit] Controversy copied from artice for editing and agreement from editors
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The neutrality or factuality of this article or section may be compromised by weasel words. You can help Wikipedia by improving weasel-worded statements. |
Janeway was a controversial character among many fans throughout much of the Voyager series' run[citation needed]. Occassionally, this criticism was dismissed as merely sexism.
Part of the controversy was percieved character inconsistancies. Janeway's command style is occasionally high-handed, although not significantly more so than any of the other Star Trek Captains. An example of this is the episode "Tuvix", in which a transporter malfunction merges Tuvok and Neelix into one sentient and distinct individual, Tuvix. Although Tuvix refuses to undergo a procedure to separate him into Tuvok and Neelix, Janeway forces the separation. Many fans felt that Janeway "murdered" Tuvix[citation needed] while others considered Janeway justified in doing what she thought was best for the majority[citation needed].
DS9 co-executive producer and short-time Voyager writer Ronald D. Moore criticized what he considered to be Janeway's inconsistent command style[citation needed]. While Kate Mulgrew's acting on the show was often regarded as superb and generated much critical acclaim[citation needed], there were those who felt that her regal mannerisms too closely paralleled those of Jean-Luc Picard[citation needed], lending credence to assertions that Voyager became little more than a TNG knock-off during its final three seasons[citation needed].
The move to feature a female captain was met with criticism from some elements of fandom, who resented the series' strong female characters and the emphasis on "feminine" values like cooperation over more aggressive, action-oriented storylines[citation needed]. While Janeway was generally a more democratic and empathetic captain than the Trek norm, she was also quite capable of aggression when the occasion demanded and was very definite about maintaining her authority when other characters overstepped their bounds[citation needed].
Along with Picard's baldness and Sisko's shaved head, Janeway's hairstyle was the subject of much talk among fans[citation needed].
Janeway also prefers to be called by the gender-neutral "Captain" (or "ma'am" "in a crunch") even though Starfleet officers, regardless of their gender, are generally addressed as "sir" by their subordinates (Voy: "Caretaker, Part 1").
[edit] Rank Inconsistencies
I should like to note that during at least one ST:TNG episode (which I'm currently searching for), Janeway (played by Mulgrew) appears on a screen talking to Picard. At this point she has the rank of Admiral (of some sort at least). So I'm not sure how she went from Admiral to Captain to Admiral again. Once I find the episode I shall post it. - Shipton
- Hey Shipton - that wasn't a TNG episode, it was the final (probably) TNG movie, Star Trek: Nemesis. Janeway gave orders to Picard to go to Romulus. Before Voyager, Mulgrew had never been on Trek before. --Mnemeson 21:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes it's the film and please sign your posts. --Charlesknight 21:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
