Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 71 The Mark of Gideon
You know as I get into each episode in depth I’m coming to realize how much misogyny was flowing off the screen. I can saw that TNG forward Star Trek was a major contributor to gender equality and women’s liberation, but in TOS it seems every non crewman female is a liar or has some secret agenda.
When you think about it the villains in Star Trek can be broken into two types. The first is the overtly evil and powerful ones. 
These are inevitably male and include Khan, Apollo, Gary Mitchell, Bele, Colonel Green, Parmen, Proconsul Claudius Marcus, and Commander Kor (Bele image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category). The second is the sneak, subversive villain and those almost all are female. Janice Lester, Mira, Deela, Dr. Miranda Jones, Kara, and Leila Kalomi are good examples of this. They are also the villains most likely to change allegiance once faced with the sexual magnetism of Kirk.
The only exceptions I can think of are Mudd, who is a sneaky, conniving man (and also the only male Trek character to wear an earring) and Elaan of Troyius. In both cases the antagonist seems to have exhibited the strength or deviousness normally reserved for the opposite gender (of course Elaan was essentially sold into marriage in what today might be seen as human trafficking).
I don’t know what point I am really making. This episode bugged me. The population of the planet lives for centuries and suffers from massive overpopulation. Have they never heard of condoms? How about if they can build a replica of the Enterprise can’t they use that ship to find other worlds to colonize? This is one of those situations where you have a hard time imagining a technologically advanced society not being able to come up with a solution. I know there were religious and medical considerations mentioned, but if you are packed ass to elbow with billions of other people I think in time that might erode your belief that birth control is a bad thing.
Not a top show and fairly typical of the half assed writing that season 3 seemed to suffer from. Still better than some but not one that I would seek out and specifically watch unless I were watching the whole series sequencially.
Dave
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