----- Original Message ----- From: Tavia Chalcraft tavia@btinternet.com
Off the top of my head, women in reasonably senior positions in Federation Civil Admin or military include Major Thania, Governor LeGrande, Kasabi, the Arbiter and Alta Morag in The Way Back.
Fair enough, but one also has to take into account the fact that, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. The Way Back), most of the soldiers, scientists, rebels and so forth who one sees standing around the background of Federation-run settings appear to be male.
(1) We mainly see (the military) Space Command not the Earth (civil) equivalent; there may well be more woman in the civil administration compared with military, there may also be more women on Earth cf on space station
This is kind of suppositional; who's to say that men are necessarily seen as more warlike in the Federation, after all.
(2) Servalan may gather men around her as subordinates, for whatever
reason
(liking pretty ones or feeling more comfortable around men?); furthermore, the politcos we see visit S may have been chosen to be ones she would listen to as equals or superiors, again potentially biasing by gender
Again, fair enough, but: a) why *does* she feel more comfortable around one gender than the other, if it's an egalitarian society? and b) dunno about you, but I'm not sure Secretary Rontane fits either the category of pretty boy or someone she'd listen to...
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
_________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com