Switching between Voyager & TOS rewatches, I find myself struck by how far gender discourse hadn't come in 30 years. *So* much reductive thinking: about women, about relationships, about masculinity.
But it's the writers, not the generation. (TNG & DS9 were between them, & much better!)
Every generation has had people who see us all as people... and people who can't imagine drama outside crude stereotypes.
Who was the first writer you remember really *getting* a different human point of view?
@MLClark It strikes me as what was considered progressive at the time versus what is considered progressive now. A few years ago I rewatched "Designing Women" and was struck by plots and dialogue that just weren't as progressive as they could have been, but were certainly progressive for the time.
Good example.
I think about that a lot for Roddenberry. He was acutely aware of how negatively some men reacted to seeing women in positions of authority, so he'd have women on the bridge but temper their authority by routinely giving them speech for the male characters to correct, or by centring their action around flirtation.
I don't think it would have occurred to him not to write defensively. Always an option! But not one we're always able to perceive that we can take.