Like every other former sci-fi geek in NYC, I (sorry) trekked out to see the Star Trek movie on Friday night. My assessment? J. J. Abrams has turned out a well-made B movie: The film moves along at a crisp pace, hits all the key retro-nostalgia moments, and is designed to be pleasing to many audiences—old and young, boys and girls. It’s less hard-core sci-fi than pleasing pop kitsch. While the movie contains a lot of references to Captain Kirk’s unredeemed womanizing, it takes them utterly casually. The real focus here, as in the original TV series, is on the dynamic between young Kirk and young Spock.

But that relationship might appeal more to women than to men, even. When you think about it, for all Kirk’s off-ship womanizing with nubile young female types on new planets, the original show always contained some funny gender-bending in it. You could read Spock and Kirk according to traditional male-female roles, with Spock playing the ur-rationalist (Men are from Mars/Vulcan) and Kirk the heart-on-the-sleeve emotionalist (Women are from Venus/Earth). Kirk was always risking what he shouldn’t risk because of a feeling or an intuition. It’s interesting that in a galactic space, as more species crept in, our vision of a leader was allowed to be more stereotypically feminine in some ways, even though Kirk’s physical type, stocky and solid, had not a little John Wayne to it. Interestingly, as Newsweek reminded us, Star Trek has spawned tons of so-called “slash” fiction about Kirk and Spock’s homosexual love affair. More interestingly, someone at the Huffington Post noted a few years back that most of that fiction was written by women. So, gals just like this friendship. Is that because it messes with our traditional role in a way we find pleasing—because we get to roll our eyes at Spock’s emotional density while identifying with the masculine captain too? Or do we actually identify with Spock, who always seems so oddly vulnerable in his difference from others? Or neither. It seems to me, in the end, that it’s the messiness of the dynamic between the two, the way that the roles can’t be neatly divided along chromosomes, that appeals to female (and male) viewers tired of being pigeonholed by gender.

Tags: captain kirk, J.J. Abrams, movies, mr. spock, sci-fi, Star Trek

Meghan, I too was at my local cineplex on Friday night, ready to indulge in some Star Trek goodness. I may be more of a fangirl than you—I was primed to love it, and I did!—but I agree that the Kirk/Spock dynamic was the richest in the film. But there's another key relationship that I thought was even more fascinating—the one between Spock and Lt. Uhura. First off, it's fantastic that Uhura finally feels like a major character, even though she still hasn't graduated to wearing pants, and even though much of her role here is to provide romantic relief from the bromance and the action scenes. But pairing her with Spock is kind of brilliant. As you point out, Meghan, Spock has always been "oddly vulnerable," and in this film he's also sensitive and sexual (in a very reserved sort of way) and, well, kind of a mama's boy. Do you remember how, in the Simpsons, Lisa was always reading "Non-Threatening Boys Magazine"? I can imagine Lisa with a pull-out centerfold featuring our favorite Vulcan—which is just to say that nerdy teen girls (and, she says raising her hand, the women they grow into) are far more likely to swoon over Spock than Kirk. He's our very own Mr. Darcy!

And Meghan, to respond to your other hypothesis—that Spock is the rational male in the Kirk/Spock pairing, while Kirk is the emotional female—you might be interested in this journal article by Francesca Coppa, on women and early Trek fandom. She points out that, in the original Star Trek pilot, the first officer was actually a woman—a woman who was "aloof, unemotional, and tactically brilliant," not unlike the Vulcan who would eventually replace her. In Coppa's words, the character of Number One offered "a 1960s picture of an unnatural—for which read: strong, highly rational, technologically minded—woman," not unlike the female scientists who were some of Trek's first, and most devoted, fans.

Tags: captain kirk, J.J. Abrams, lt. uhura, mr. spock, romance, Star Trek

Women haven’t been hit with job losses quite as hard as men during this downturn, in part, it's thought, because they’re more likely to take jobs in recession-proof industries like health care and teaching. Kerry Howley, writing on XX Factor, doesn’t think playing it safe is necessarily occasion for applause.

Her beef: “Must an article on gender and the recession immediately go all Mars/Venus on the subject? Since the start of the credit crisis we've seen this kind of pseudo-feminist drivel all over the place. The crash itself was supposedly "testosterone-driven." Women, on the other hand, "might have been able to temper the excesses that led to the current financial crisis." Women could have prevented the whole thing, apparently, by playing prudent schoolmarm to their cowboy colleagues. It's not a particularly inspired vision of the future of women in business.” (Read the rest on XX Factor.)

Tags: gender, Kerry Howley, mancession, recession, stereotypes

Does the idea of a candy bar with pink girlie wrapping, a sexualized name, and a marketing promo urging women to "pleasure yourself" by eating said candy bar seem annoying as hell to anyone else?

When I heard this piece on NPR yesterday about the new Fling candy bar, also known as a chocolate finger, I thought it was a joke. When I realized it was a real news story, it made me so mad that the only finger I thought about was the middle finger I'd like to give to the person who came up with the idea. I so hope it wasn't a woman.

A few lines from the NPR piece:

The Snickers bar has a new sibling, and it's a girl. She's sexual, uninhibited—and only 85 calories. The Fling is the first new chocolate bar Mars has introduced in more than 20 years. Wrapped in a shiny pink and sliver package, this delicate chocolate finger is intended for women. The word finger is an industry term for a long, slim confection, Mars spokesman Ryan Bowling says, but with ads that invite you to "Pleasure yourself" in pink lettering, consumers might come to other conclusions.

The tag line on the package is "Naughty, but not that naughty." A TV spot starts with what looks like strangers having sex in a store dressing room. Currently the candy bar can be bought only in California and online, but if all goes well, Mars is hoping women will be having Flings all across the country.

What's up with this marketing trend that rests on the assumption women will buy anything wrapped in pink or that has an implied orgasmic result? It seems so retro and reminds me of these once very popular shampoo commercials?

Funny how the marketers of Viagra and Cialis didn't similarly see fit to promote their products as self-pleasuring tools for men. Seems to me they could have wrapped these erectile dysfunction products in manly dark blue packaging and named them Hump or Tryst, or simply marketed them as the "ultimate man-handle," the medical antidote for the busy man who has no time for dating and needs to handle his business by himself.

Tags: chocolate as sex-substitute, gender, pink marketing

Does the idea of a candy bar with pink girlie wrapping, a sexualized name, and a marketing promo urging women to "pleasure yourself" by eating said candy bar seem annoying as hell to anyone else?

When I heard this piece on NPR yesterday about the new Fling candy bar, also known as a chocolate finger, I thought it was a joke. When I realized it was a real news story, it made me so mad that the only finger I thought about was the middle finger I'd like to give to the person who came up with the idea. I so hope it wasn't a woman.

A few lines from the NPR piece:

The Snickers bar has a new sibling, and it's a girl. She's sexual, uninhibited—and only 85 calories. The Fling is the first new chocolate bar Mars has introduced in more than 20 years. Wrapped in a shiny pink and sliver package, this delicate chocolate finger is intended for women. The word finger is an industry term for a long, slim confection, Mars spokesman Ryan Bowling says, but with ads that invite you to "Pleasure yourself" in pink lettering, consumers might come to other conclusions.

The tag line on the package is "Naughty, but not that naughty." A TV spot starts with what looks like strangers having sex in a store dressing room. Currently the candy bar can be bought only in California and online, but if all goes well, Mars is hoping women will be having Flings all across the country.

What's up with this marketing trend that rests on the assumption women will buy anything wrapped in pink or that has an implied orgasmic result? It seems so retro and reminds me of these once very popular shampoo commercials?

Funny how the marketers of Viagra and Cialis didn't similarly see fit to promote their products as self-pleasuring tools for men. Seems to me they could have wrapped these erectile dysfunction products in manly dark blue packaging and named them Hump or Tryst, or simply marketed them as the "ultimate man-handle," the medical antidote for the busy man who has no time for dating and needs to handle his business by himself.

Tags: chocolate as sex-substitute, gender, pink marketing

Surely it’s auspicious that the weekend after Double X launched, a filly won the second leg of the Triple Crown—the Preakness Stakes—for the first time since 1924. That’s right: a girl by the name of Rachel Alexandra—a girl’s name if there ever was one—held off all the boys, including Derby winner Mine That Bird, in a stunningly dramatic race. She did so against great odds: Breaking from a bad position (she was 13 in a field of 13) she scrambled to the front of the pack and led from pole to pole—meaning at every point of measurement she was in front. When Mine That Bird made a hard run at her in the stretch (he does have heart, it turns out) she steadily held him off, flicking her ears back at him and at the crowds. Her jockey, Calvin Borel—who rode Mine That Bird in the Derby—said she was the best horse he’d ever been on (see for yourself in the clip below). Take that, gender essentialists.

In her front-running style, Rachel Alexandra reminds me of another great filly, Ruffian, who never let another horse get in front of her, and who became a symbol of 1970s feminism.(I wrote about Ruffian and another Triple Crown-winning filly, Rags to Riches, for Slate.) Ruffian had to be put down after she took a bad step in her first race against a colt, a famous match race with Derby champion Foolish Pleasure. Afterward, Moody Jolley, father of Foolish Pleasure’s trainer, declared, "First time they throw some speed at that bitch, she comes unbuckled." Never mind that she’d been pulling ahead when she broke down. Ruffian must be nickering in her grave; no one can say that about Rachel Alexandra. On Saturday, the girls got their own at last.

Tags: gender, preakness stakes, rachel alexandra

The Preakness Stakes is not a particularly gender-neutral event. The second leg of the Triple Crown is, in fact, one of the last places where men dress like men of a certain era (waistcoats, wingtips, fedoras), and women dress like women as we grew up imagining them: in crisp yet feminine suits, low-cut, brightly colored dresses and high, high heels. I’ve been to the Preakness three years running, and I gave up on the dress-and-heels approach long ago. (Unless you book a limo to and from your box seat, the amount of walking and stair climbing required by Pimlico’s layout demands comfortable footwear.) On Saturday, I noted with empathy the strained expressions on the faces of some of the gorgeously decked-out women as they teetered on the arms of their fast-walking male companions.

In the infield, women usually seem to fare worst, maybe because they’re physically smaller. I usually see them after the races, most in their teens and early 20s, their flip-flopped feet and calves coated in muck as they stumble drunkenly along Baltimore’s not-so-friendly streets in their tiny tank tops and shorts. But this year, there were far fewer of them—the economic downturn and new restrictions on racegoers bringing their own liquor emptied the infield—and as I screamed my head off watching Rachel Alexandra outrun a scrum of male challengers, it seemed that, for whatever reason, much was changing in Pimlico and the world. “We have a black president,” a friend remarked after the race, “and now a girl wins the Preakness.” And what a girl! A gorgeous, eager, big-hearted horse with a princessy name, who seemed to genuinely enjoy her run along the storied track where only five fillies have raced since the last female Preakness winner, the perfectly named-for-her-era Nellie Morse, in 1924.

The next day, I gobbled up news stories about the race, savoring the admiring comments from other jockeys as they gave the winner her due. Then there was her owner, Jess Jackson, comparing Rachel Alexandra in notably human terms to Curlin, who won the Preakness in 2007 and whom Jackson called “a big, strong strapping boy.” Jackson sounded like a proud father when he said of Rachel Alexandra: “She just wants to run. Gender doesn’t matter. A thoroughbred wants to run, and if a filly is as good as the colts, they ought to compete.” I was particularly struck, after reading Meghan’s post on Rachel Alexandra, by the contrast between Jackson's words and the language with which Ruffian, another champion filly, was slighted and dismissed in 1975. Some troubling conventions, like the expectation that female racegoers will stick out a long day in mile-high hot pink heels, are still with us. But watching Rachel Alexandra reminded me what it feels like to take off your shoes and run as fast as you can. It was a great day to be a woman at the races.

Tags: gender, preakness stakes, rachel alexandra, sports

There's a fascinating piece in The Star about a manuscript discovered by a Canadian researcher that appears to be ... a medieval women's magazine. It contains content about "cinnamon," an excerpt from Chaucer, recipes for making sealing wax, and more. As the Star puts it,

The anthology, dedicated to female readers, is known today as Biblioteca Nazionale. Written in Middle English, it predates by centuries many modern women's magazines such as Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan and Redbook. But just like modern women's magazines, it offers advice aplenty—everything from ways to ease childbirth to how to lure a rabbit out of its warren.

What's fascinating is the mental picture that emerges of a medieval woman sitting by the fire, reading Chaucer and recipes just as a 1960s American woman would have flipped in Ms. from fiction to fashion spread. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Tags: medieval ages, women's magazines

In the wider world, Oprah Winfrey is vastly more influential than Ashton Kutcher. But Ashton trumps Oprah in the male-dominated Twitter-verse, where men have 15 percent more followers than women do. New research from Harvard Business School has shown that not only are men more likely to follow other men on Twitter, but women are also more likely to follow men. According to the study:

These results are stunning given what previous research has found in the context of online social networks. On a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around women—men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and women follow content produced by women they know. [bold is theirs] Generally, men receive comparatively little attention from other men or from women. We wonder to what extent this pattern of results arises because men and women find the content produced by other men on Twitter more compelling than on a typical social network, and men find the content produced by women less compelling (because of a lack of photo sharing, detailed biographies, etc.).

Unlike the authors of this study, I don't wonder whether there is a major difference between the type of content created by men and women on Twitter when compared to other social networks. I think the difference is due to the sorts of people who use Twitter frequently. As the study also notes, 10 percent of Twitter users account for 90 percent of Tweets, and I would imagine that Twitter-lovers disproportionally come from the tech field, which is notoriously male-dominated.

I checked the people whom I follow on Twitter, and apparently I am an equal-opportunity follower: Of 98 individuals I follow, 48 are women (I follow 102 Twitter feeds in total, but because four are gender-neutral organizations like Newsweek, I didn't count them). How many women are you following? If you follow more men than women, why do you think that is?

Tags: Ashton Kutcher, gender differences, Harvard Business School, men, Oprah Winfrey, twitter, Twitter habits, women

An interesting new study reported on by Science Daily suggests that evolutionary psychologists might be wrong to speculate that women are choosier than men about mates. In the study, 350 undergraduates participated in a speed-dating situation in which women as well as men moved from prospective partner to partner. In typical speed-dating scenarios, the men move while the women stay put. This simple change had a profound effect on how women rated the desirability of their prospective dates. As the article puts it,

Regardless of gender, those who rotated experienced greater romantic desire for their partners, compared to those who sat throughout the event. The rotators, compared to the sitters, tended to have a greater interest in seeing their speed-dating partners again.

"Given that men generally are expected—and sometimes required—to approach a potential love interest, the implications are intriguing," Finkel [one of the study's designers] said.

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm skeptical of most evolutionary psych explanations of "why" women are a certain way and men another, and it doesn't surprise me to find that what ev psych types want to see as "essential" behavior (women are choosier about partners because having a child involves more risk and investment for them) doesn't entirely hold up. It may be that women tend to be choosier and more passive about approaching mates for just this reason; but that is hardly a cut-and-dried social quality, as this study suggests.

Tags: dating, gender roles, sex