Women in Boxes
The wickedly funny Molly Sanchez from Red All Over stops by to discuss classics Mudd's Women (TOS S1:E6) and The Perfect Mate (TNG S5:E21). Star Trek imagines women with supernatural powers of...being sexy...being transported as cargo. We ask: why? Exactly?
Fill out our Fan Survey! Maybe win a T-shirt! (3-5 minutes)
Molly Sanchez is the cohost of The Handmaid's Tale recap podcast Red All Over. Listen to it, it's hilarious and insightful. You can follow her on twitter as @SeriousMolly or check her out on YouTube.
Citations:
Nichelle Nichols worked for NASA and inspired a generation of women, women of color and people of color to become astronauts and astrophysicists. via CNN
Star Trek The Original Series has been very good at predicting and inspiring technology. via Quartz
Robert Heinlein was a science fiction writer who had some progressive and permissive ideas about sexuality. via Good Reads and io9
There is real life pressure for women to be "the cool chick," like Kamala. via Mashable.
"The cool girl started out as a stock character born out of male-authored literature and movies. But, the trope has since become so pervasive, the cool girl is now firmly cemented in dating culture, with no sign of disappearing anytime soon. The cool girl is no longer merely a character in a book — she is the acme of female desirability. She is the three-dimensional flesh and bone incarnation of the male fantasy. She is the rejection of the nadir of female behaviour — clinginess. And to many of us, she is a stifling behavioural standard that forces us to hide our true personalities."
"Men always say that as the defining compliment, don't they? She's a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting the world's biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don't mind, I'm the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they're fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl." Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Also check out "I used to scorn the cool girl, but now I see she doesn't really exist," via The Guardian.
And definitely consider reading The Female Chauvinist Pig by Ariel Levy.
Becca loves Rachel Lark's song about fucking Picard. via Youtube
This story about Gene Roddenberry trying to find a war friend by naming his characters Noonian may or may not be true. via Google Books and War History Online
Molly recommends the Road to Nowhere series by Meg Elison. via Good Reads
