I found these reddit posts that I thought gave great insight into what it was like for women in the 1960s who enjoyed Star Trek. Very eye-opening, in my opinion. I hadn’t realized the extent to which women enjoying science fiction was frowned upon. Source: X
[–]Aynielle 6 points 11 months ago: I often wonder if our mothers pined away for members of the og star trek crew like this? William Shatner was a fine man, back in his day. http://www.culch.ie/images/Shatner001.jpg
[–]thecla 8 points 11 months ago: Yes, we did. And we wrote fanfic, though there was no internet to share it on.
[–]Aynielle 2 points 11 months ago: Was it just passed amongst friends? Or were there publications that featured them? Thanks for posting! I find this wildly interesting. 🙂
[–]thecla 5 points 11 months ago: Ok, if you don’t mind a bit of a story…
So, I feel like this is an important part of our history. Our history as women, our history as geeks, our history as writers, and all our histories as people.
It would be great to know the name of the school, maybe the dates. So we could say something like – this history was kept from you, because wider society discouraged girls from telling people they liked science fiction, but this is what the girls of St Catherines (say) were doing, beginning in September 1966 and going onwards…
Never forget: secret histories ARE histories. And they chart not only things you didn’t know about, but the reasons why they were secret and the resistence of those who were told to keep them quiet.
Also: I love how none of this stopped the girls from having fun.
And for added up-to-date context: only last night I had to turn The Now Show (a weekly satire of news on BBC Radio 4) off in disgust, as they began yet another skit on Game of Thrones – one of the most popular television shows of all time; the most pirated show EVER – being something that only unattractive male ‘basement dwellers’ watch that they seemed somehow surprised and resentful that they had to treat as news. The skit was about how that dude that challenges Dany in Low Valyrian was actually saying translated lines from Monty Python’s Holy Grail French Knight sketch. You know, the one we were all utterly charmed to read about. Because Monty Python was also a worldwide phenomenon loved by a wide range of people.
Men who resent being characterised as unattractive basement dwellers really need to understand that it is not women who are doing this. Actually, it is worse for us. We are being told that we don’t like the things we love. We are discouraged from talking about them. We are discouraged from entering safe spaces where geeks can talk to each other and find communion.
And before you start saying that the way women enjoy these things is different – after all, these girls were lusting after the male characters – I just… like you never had a thing for Seven of Nine? Didn’t enjoy Uhura’s short skirt? All those Klingon ladies with push-up boob-holes in their armour? None of that was part of your enjoyment? Yes: teenage hormones and sexy gentlemen were a part of these girls’ enjoyment. But when they wrote their fanfiction it was about imagining themselves as a part of the crew of the Enterprise. Going into space. Seeking out new life and new civilisations.
It makes me so angry that evidence of sexual interest in the fan activities of girls and women is seen as a reason to discredit them, but the rampant sexual interest of men, going to extremes to objectify women, both in their fan activities and in the texts themselves (as men dominate the media) as archived in projects like Escher Girls, is seen as only natural.
Your double-standards are obscene. We exist. We have always existed. And our fan activities are just as valid as yours.
I went to a private girls’ high school in the mid-late 60’s. I was already a geek, though that wasn’t a term we used. Anyway, I’d already watched the first season of ST by the time I got to school, and was freaking out a bit, ‘cause the dorms had only one TV per dorm; each dorm had about a hundred girls in it.
Star Trek was on Friday nights, so I figured there was no way I’d ever get to see it (it was not as popular at first as everyone seems to say it was). I found out, though, that the first person to sit by the TV after dinner got to say what would be watched! It wasn’t really as much of a race as you’d think, because before Star Trek came on, there was Wild, Wild West, and Robert Conrad with those very, very tight pants (Conrad). Everyone watched that! Actually, it wasn’t till I showed up that anyone bothered leaving the TV on after that.
I watched Star Trek alone for the first couple weeks, then a couple girls stayed with me, then more, and soon it was everybody settling in for two hours of quality coughcough TV.
By sophomore year we had it down to a science: who would make the popcorn, who would bring the drinks, and we would sit there with our hair wrapped around juice cans and coffee cans to get just the right amount of straight vs. curl, in our robes and bunny slippers to watch the best looking guys on TV run around, hopefully without shirts on.
Sophomore year brought us an additional student who was really good at writing. She could write phenomenal satires on whatever literature we were reading, and could translate them into Latin or Greek while she was doing it. Her stories always got passed around (remember, no computers, she wrote them out longhand, then typed them with two sheets of paper and a carbon in between. Some of the stories were a hundred pages or more.)
This girl did a full-length take-off on The Rape of The Lock by John Donne, (which is already a satire) that had us all in stitches, ended up being read by the staff (and it was about them…). We could hear the teachers laughing from rooms away!
Anyway, this is the girl that started writing the Star Trek fanfic. She wrote one for herself and asked me to proofread it (we were roommates), and I begged and begged for one about me till she finally gave in and wrote it. Then another girl found out, and another, and then someone else started writing them. And yes, they would make the rounds, so everybody got to read them all. All written longhand, then typed, collated, stapled, and hopefully treasured by the recipient. I wonder sometimes how many of them still exist.
By the way, when I was at home (school in New York State, home in the Chicago area), I never met another girl who watched Star Trek. Science Fiction was so frowned upon as reading material or watching material for girls, you have no idea. My parents were very upset when they caught me reading my brother’s copies of Asimov, or Clarke. Yeah, I had to hide them under the mattress during the day and read under the covers with a flashlight at night. Even at college, it was rare for me to find another girl who liked science fiction.