Do you guys see the parrallels between this and the TOS ep “Elaan of Troyius”? Of course, in that ep the woman was spoiled and bitchy.
She is one of only 2 women characters in this episode (Dr Crusher being the other), and Crusher appears to criticize the situation. Functionally, here she represents my entire gender. 
(the first time I saw this I heard metamorph and I thought it meant something like being a hermaphrodite. Definitely not)
When I think about it, would I really want to be with a woman who just wanted to please me all the time? How soon would that get clingy and oppressive. I’d prefer an individual.
It worked for Vash.
Yeah I think BishopMontanha made a comment in the thread about being an educated black man being another limiting condition.
Only in the last few hundred years. Racism, while not unheard of, certainly was far different before the institution of race-based slavery.
For that reason, I’d want to either a) be able to be in someone else’s body (though that’s a bit squicky) so I could pass as a privileged class, or b) go to the future.
No guarantee that the future would be better. In fact, considering the past, it’s quite likely to be better in some ways and far worse in others.
She’s both. We’re all conditioned by our culture - sometimes we can fight back against it, though
Cultural roles don’t have to define anyone, but accepting them shouldn’t necessarily be considered a bad thing.
How could a female counselor possibly be useful in this situation? :rolleyes:
You’ve got to be kidding. Dude’s like 120. :eek:
When would you go, then, Badger?
The problem for me with this episode is that sure we have the Prime Directive, we consider alien cultures etc but in reality they’re all related in some way to the culture from which we come. So while it shows a certain sweetness with Picard, the way it shows female sexuality is, for me, deeply problematic.
Pschaw, that’s nothing! lol
Not at all. I think that was done on purpose. They’re two opposing viewpoints of the same issue. She represents accepting traditional gender roles, while Beverly represents choosing a different path, not defined by cultural expectations. Both are valid choices, assuming that they are, in fact, choices.
Nope. I’m judging. Beverly’s choice is valid. Jean Grey’s is invalid.
The excuse of “it’s just their culture” is a weak one.
Yeah and I think at the start of the episode Kamala wasn’t able to really to make a choice - she was taken from her mother at the age of 4, and groomed to this. By the end of the episode, she makes a conscious choice to “do her duty,” which I can live with. But that doesn’t mean that the portrayals earlier in the episode don’t make me grind my teeth.
oh, 200 years old!
It’s something that’s complicated because while yeah, stuff in other cultures is totally oppressive to women, and many women participate in it (and in our own culture, in keeping other women down), where do we draw a line between “our culture knows best” imperialism and complete relativism that raises serious ethical problems?
(welcome to my world, lol)
Patrick Stewart has said that, sometimes when you’re acting you have to rely on the audience to “read into” what they see on your face. I think we see that here. Picard is heartbroken inside, but, true to his character, Stewart doesn’t reveal it explicitly. Well done.
oh, Sir Patrick. He does an excellent job in this episode (though I’m hard pressed to think of any one in which he is not excellent).
He’s a real boon to the series, and franchise.
Oppressing an entire gender is just wrong. And it’s pervasive throughout the world. But American society is pretty high up on the list of countries treating women well compared to the rest of the world. Though we’re far from the best.
Agreed. Hard to imagine TNG without him.
And that, my friends, is part of why spouse and I decided to live in the US and not in South America.
Ancient Greece, obviously. 
The problem for me with this episode is that sure we have the Prime Directive, we consider alien cultures etc but in reality they’re all related in some way to the culture from which we come. So while it shows a certain sweetness with Picard, the way it shows female sexuality is, for me, deeply problematic.
Clearly, that was the intention. How many women still choose to be wives and mothers and “homemakers”, despite the availability of non-traditional gender roles? The point is, those are still valid choices, nevertheless. Kamala certainly had options, but she also understood that exercising any other choice would have meant war. Her choice to imprint upon Picard was the rebellion available to her — she became the kind of woman that she wanted to be, not what Ulrich would have wanted. For a metamorph, that’s pretty huge.
Is it pretty bad there in that aspect?
And that’s where the Prime Directive comes in. We can disapprove all we want, but their culture is their culture. What about Angel One, where women rule with an iron fist, and men are sexual playthings? Is that role reversal any more valid?
I still don’t buy the idea that she had any choice in the matter, until she imprinted or whatever on Picard and chose to do her duty marrying the guy with the funny hair.
I wouldn’t want to raise daughters there. Also, women with professional degrees make only about 30% of what men with the same qualifications do for the same job. So… meh.
Ah but this case is complicated, in that these cultures are using the Federation as an intermediary and thus making them complicit in what amounts to human trafficking.
And no.