1. Women's Studies in Communicalion Volume 27, Number 2, Summer 2004
Borg Babes, Drones, and the Collective: Reading Gender
and the Body in Star Trek
Mia Consalvo
This article studies how representations of the Borg challenge as well as reinforce
traditional ideas about gender and the posthuman body. The Borg demonstrate that while
traditional ideas about gender are hard to shake, there are some clear challenges to old
stereotypes. The article examines the embodiment of the Borg at both the individual and
collective level, and how current concerns about posthuman bodies, gender, and liberal
individualism are dealt with in this regard.
A s a dedicated Star Trek viewer, I was intrigued when Seven of Nine
(played hy actress Jeri Ryan), the ex-Borg drone, was added to the recently
concluded series Voyager. Brought on to hoost ratings, the spandex-clad
actress initially inspired love and hate among diehard fans, hut grew to
hecome one of the most interesting characters on the show. Seven of Nine
has never heen easy to "pin down" with regards to a simple reading—
should we focus on her Barhie-like figure or her sexless personality? Is her
intelligence and rationality a step forward for traditional female represen-
tations, or does her ambivalence about femininity bespeak a valorization
of masculine norms of behavior? Questions tike these arise when watching
that creation. Easier to pick apart is the Borg Queen (Alice Krige)—
initially appearing in the film First Contact hut then hecoming an occa-
sionally recurring character in Voyager—as a foil to Captain Kathryn
Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and a competitor for Seven's loyalty. But be-
yond the enjoyment of watching these visual spectacles, what do the
media representations Seven of Nine and the Borg Queen, and the Borg in
general, reveal about ourselves as we potentially become posthuman? Are
they harbingers of our future selves—the results of biotechnological and
robotic development mixed with the human and gone awry?
Mia Consalvo is an assistant professor in the School of Telecommunications at Ohio
University. Portions of this manuscript were taken from her dissertation, "The Best of
Both Worlds? Exploring Bodies, Technologies, Gender and the Borg of Star Trek,"
completed in 1999 at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the
University of Iowa, and directed by Professor Sue A. Lafky. The author would like to
thank the reviewers of this piece, Marcyrose Chvasta and Douglas Thomas, for their
insightful comments and thoughtful consideration of her manuscript. Their suggestions
and ideas made this piece much stronger.

2. 178 Women's Studies in Communication
If current titles of academic and popular books are any indication, there
is a growing anxiety about contemporary developments in biotechnology
and technology generally. The titles of recently published books such as
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (Brooks, 2003), Our
Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
(Fukuyama, 2003) and Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
(McKibben, 2003) point to a heightened attention to matters of the human
and its accepted boundaries. These boundaries are also usefully (and
sometimes prophetically) explored in science fiction. As Inness (1999)
points out, science fiction is a useful harometer for exploring how far ideas
about gender and women have progressed, as it presents "future possibil-
ities" for the human race, but must still be acceptable to contemporary
audiences. Theorists such as Hayles (1999) and Graham (2002) argue that
these cultural representations are bound up with scientific and technolog-
ical discourses more than ever before. Hayles, for example, shows how
ideas about cyborgs and cybernetic systems developed in scientific con-
ferences, yet also infiuenced popular accounts of what it means to be
"human" in everyday life. These authors argue that science fiction repre-
sentations are important not just for their embodiment of popular fears and
excitements about technologies and futures, but also for how they help
mutually constitute life today, and areas of scientific inquiry in the future.
It has been well documented, for example, how watching Star Trek while
growing up influenced many future scientists and astronauts to go into
those particular fields (Penley, 1997). Likewise, science fiction has fa-
mously directed science fact, as attempts to create spaces such as Star
Trek's famous "holodeck" are now part of serious scientific study (Krauss,
1995).
Viewing Seven of Nine work through her struggles with a technolog-
ically altered hody to regain her "lost" humanity hecomes oddly prescient,
and critical to analyze, as we now grapple with the developments that Star
Trek has prophesied as a future possibility. And as 1 will argue, the struggle
between technology and "the human" or the "posthuman" and how that
struggle is configured, is always gendered.
Past analyses of Star Trek have provided complex interpretations of
how the show constructs and comments on related cultural barometers—
including gender, race, economic systems and political ideologies. For
example, researchers have examined how the political ideologies of the
show (non-interference in less-developed worlds, unless of course it's a
plot necessity) have mirrored U.S. foreign relations from the 1960s

3. Mia Consalvo 179
onward (Collins, 1996; Worland, 1988, 1994), and have also studied the
role that technology plays in the evolving series (Braine, 1994). Most
central for this article, gender has been a consistent focus of research, as
studies of characters from the motion pictures, original series. The Next
Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager have investigated how an
allegedly "utopian" show (as defined by creator Gene Roddenberry)
portrays male and female characters, their relationships, and how gender
informs power relations and drives show narratives (Ferguson, Ashkenazi
& Schultz, 1997; Henderson, 1994; Projansky, 1996). For example, fem-
inist researcher Robin Roberts (1999) has found that although female
characters in The Next Generation were portrayed as equal to male
characters, and were given more attention than in the original series, they
were constructed in stereotypical fashion, (such as the nurturing doctor
and empathic ship's counselor) and were subordinated to the male char-
acters in the show's hierarchy as well as in the storylines of the series.
The later show Voyager challenged many of these traditionally gen-
dered representations, featuring the first regular female captain (Kathryn
Janeway), as well as a female head of engineering (B'Elanna Torres). The
show went further in its fourth season with the addition of Seven of Nine.
As mentioned above, the character is complex and contradictory, being
given some typically feminine traits (portrayed as a blond bombshell in a
catsuit), but avoiding others (the character did not become romantically
involved until the end of the last season). In contrast, the Borg Queen is
largely a monolithic creation, a techno-bodied femme fatale.'
I examine these two central characters as well as the larger Borg
collective, to determine how the "utopic world" of Star Trek has pro-
gressed in representing gender, as well as the posthuman body, in the
twenty-fourth century. The Borg are an excellent candidate for this study,
as they were initially introduced as a genderless cyborg species, with
bodies extensively augmented with technology and biotechnology. How
the Borg became gendered is explained below, as is the history of the
Borg. This study asks, "How do representations of the Borg challenge
and/or reinforce traditional ideas about gender and the (posthuman) body,
and what they should be in contemporary culture?" In undertaking this
analysis, I use a feminist media studies framework, and also include and
integrate body and disability theory, as how bodies are represented is
almost always a gendered process, and in examining these intersecting
axes of identity, more can be uncovered about the ways that Seven of Nine

4. 180 Women's Studies in Communication
and the Borg Queen challenge and reinforce, in complex ways, contem-
porary ideas ahout gender, bodies, and technology.
Feminist Media Theory
Research concerning previous Star Trek series has reported that previ-
ous portrayals of women have remained secondary to male leading roles
and have contained traditional feminine traits. Roberts (1999) in particular
examines female characters on The Next Generation. She critiques the
central female characters Dr. Beverly Crusher and Deanna Troi, finding
that although these characters are presented as figuratively equal to the
men on the crew, they possess traditional female characteristics and are
contained in gender-appropriate jobs. The one female character that broke
out of this mold, weapons officer Tasha Yar, was killed off at the end of
the first season. Roberts concludes that these portrayals and constructions
can he both progressive and restrictive. Other researchers have echoed
these findings, suggesting that even as women characters have progressed
heyond the "space receptionist" role of Lieutenant Uhura, they must still
adhere to traditionally feminine ideals of heauty, and are continually
relegated to subordinate status (Ferguson, Ashkenazi & Schultz, 1997;
Henderson, 1994; Projansky, 1996).
While feminist media research has provided a relevant portrait of how
women are represented in entertainment television, that approach mostly
considers how gender is socially constructed, and how and whether these
constructions change over time. What is largely absent from that line of
theory, however, is a consideration of body theory. Representations of
women are "embodied," and are usually judged on how closely they
conform to social and cultural bodily norms of female attractiveness. Body
theorists, and particularly feminist disability theorists, have argued that
how society constructs "acceptable" and "unacceptable" bodies is critical
to understanding who is and is not given power in social systems, and how
worth is ultimately judged (Wendell, 1996). That has particular ramifica-
tions for women, who are judged on their bodies on a regular basis. How
their bodies measure up—or fail to—is an important consideration, and in
response feminist disability theorists explore cultural constructions of
normally functioning bodies, and what the disabled body is alleged to
represent in contemporary culture.
Feminist theorists have also explored how technology has been repre-
sented in relation to the body, and what potential "incursions" of technol-

5. Mia Consalvo 181
Ogy into the body might mean for the human, as well as the gendered,
body (Balsamo, 1996). More recently, Hayles (1999) argued that the
integration of technologies into the body has led to a questioning of what
it means to be human, and the "potentially revolutionary . . . idea that the
boundaries of the human subject are constructed rather than given" (p. 84).
While Graham (2002) does not go as far as Hayles in arguing that we are
already posthuman, she also believes that "technologies are not so much
an extension or appendage to the human body, but are incorporated,
assimilated into its very structures. The contours of human bodies are
redrawn: they no longer end at the skin" (p. 4). Both authors also believe
that popular culture "should therefore be considered as a significant site of
the contemporary 'genealogy of subjectification'" (Graham, 2002, p. 13).
And, one of the hest areas to investigate this "genealogy" is popular
science fiction. Anne Balsamo (1996), for example, has studied how
feminist sci-fi novels critique early technophilic dreams of a disembodied
future lived in a "matrix" of information or cyberspace. Yet it is also
important to deconstruct more popular images, such as those found on
television. Such constructions are developed to be commercially viable,
and therefore give a useful barometer of more "mass" pop culture than the
more restricted area of feminist sci-fi novels.
Representations such as Seven of Nine and the Borg Queen are impor-
tant, because they point to a potential future for humanity—read through
discourses of gender, technology, and the body. If Hayles (1999) argues
that we are already posthuman, while Graham (2002) brackets the ques-
tion and asks what are the effects we would prefer from technologies,
images such as those of Seven and the Queen pose potential answers, with
different consequences. The images also, importantly, re-center the im-
portance of gender in defining this "post/human" potential existence. That
move is critical, as neither Hayles nor Graham fully develop gender as an
element of the "posthuman" or "post/human" body that is tenuously tied
to technology. These representations, then, argue for the continuing im-
portance of taking gender into account in figuring bodies. Balsamo's
(1996) insistence on the articulation of bodies, technologies and genders in
ways not usually beneficial to women is critical here in understanding
these representations, and how the figure of Seven in particular, may offer
hopes for re/defining these configurations.
In the following analysis I examine gender and the body as both
primary and secondary mediators of experience. First, gender is high-
lighted for how it produces particular bodies, and then bodies are inter-

6. 182 Women's Studies in Communication
rogated for how they construct gendered identities. To conduct this re-
search, all appearances of the Borg from the seven seasons of Tiie Next
Generation, the first four seasons of Voyager, and the film First Contact
were textually analyzed. Stuart Hall (1982) argues that in examining a
text, exploring the language used and not used, the stories told and
suppressed, finding the ideologies embedded within and perpetuated by
the text, we gain a better understanding of our current social and cultural
system, which is ultimately responsible for the production and reproduc-
tion of these particular images. The polysemous nature of the language in
the text allowed for—at times—multiple, sometimes contradictory under-
standings of the text. These contradictions and multiple layers of meaning
are central to the text, and must be acknowledged. This article explores
these multiple meanings by first examining the gendering of the individual
Borg body, focusing on the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine. This section
explores how an initially genderless species come to be gendered, and how
different Borg "individuals" are represented as gendered beings. Next, the
gendering of the collective Borg body is examined, as the article explores
how representations of the Borg comment on public and private realms
and how gender is figured into these spaces. It questions how the Borg
potentially throw these gendered divisions into flux, yet ultimately make
moves to recuperate and preserve them. Finally, I study the embodiment
of the Borg at both the individual and collective level, and how disabled
bodies, gender, and the concept of liberal individualism are dealt with in
this regard, I conclude by showing how these representations may pre-
serve some traditionally gendered/embodied notions of women, but
through characters such as Seven of Nine, powerful, challenging and
popular representations of the posthuman can also be found.
History of the Borg
But first, a brief history of the Borg is needed. The Borg (derivative of
cyborg) are a cybernetic race appearing in Star Treic: The Next Generation,
Star Trek: First Contact, and Star Trek: Voyager. They have been central
antagonists in many plotlines, and are very popular as villains. They are
portrayed as having managed to integrate technology into their organic
bodies to such an extent that they cannot exist without either. The Borg are
also presented as a collective society, meaning that Borg "drones" do not
register as individuals—they are a part of a group mind, which controls
each drone's actions. Their priority through most of their appearances has

7. MiaConsalvo 183
been "assimilating" unwitting individuals into their collective. In the
beginning the Borg functioned as a true, leaderless collective, but with the
film First Contact they were given a leader—the Borg Queen, The Queen
was especially relevant as previously, Borg drones were said to be gen-
derless, but were played by all male actors. The new "Queen" served as an
organizer of Borg experience, much like a central processing unit. Later,
in Voyager, the Borg drone Seven of Nine (named for her role in a small
work unit: worker seven of nine total members) was introduced as a
regular character when she was severed involuntarily from the collective
and became a reluctant member of the Voyager crew. She was portrayed
as living her adult life as a drone, and was unwilling to become an
individual or embrace her humanity. Over the course of the show, that
slowly changed. Her regular status as well as the recurring character of the
Borg Queen in Voyager allow interesting comparisons to be made between
these two characters and their varying constructions of female bodies.
Gendering the Individual Borg Body (The Borg Queen and
Seven of Nine)
With the introduction of the Borg, Star Trek had an opportunity to
depict in depth a species with no gender, and the kind of existence that
would entail. However, images of the Borg have not lived up to that
promise. As told in the Voyager episode "Unity," when a person is
assimilated into the Borg, all knowledge of her ethnicity or race is
suppressed. Whether that suppression occurs with gender is not (explic-
itly) revealed. While the construction of the Borg as a genderless species
was never officially changed, the Borg drones initially shown in The Next
Generation were played by male actors, and pronouns used to refer to the
Borg were masculine. But more importantly, characteristics used to define
the Borg were largely gendered masculine. For example, the Borg were
often described as cold and logical. They had no use for emotion and were
not shown nurturing or caring for each other. They were highly skilled in
dealing with technology, and were not interested in the arts or humanities.
Advancement (both technological and organic) was presented as the
Borg's reason for being, and everything else was sacrificed in the quest for
that goal. These are all stereotypical masculine traits, applied to a sup-
posedly genderless species. With no "official" gender, the Borg defaulted
to masculine stereotypes.

8. 184 Women's Studies in Communication
That gendering (or re-gendering) of the Borg is most obvious through
one exception—the character of the Borg Queen, Her gender is manifest
from her first appearance in First Contact. The Queen is overtly sexual,
tempting the android officer Data with her own flesh. Her costume is a
skin-tight body suit that does not have the standard Borg arm, hand, or eye
prostheses that would disfigure her or detract from her appearance. Rather
than working as part of the Collective, the Queen is cast as a temptress,
using her sexual power and prowess to achieve her ends. Her role as
"queen bee" to the collective is stereotypical in that she is the leader of the
hive, responsible for the perpetuation of the species, using sex or sexuality
to attain her goals. At one dramatic moment she asks Data, "You are
familiar with physical forms of pleasure?" The narrative reveals that the
Borg Queen is lonely and wants a consort equal in stature to herself. The
Queen is a throwback to the original series' depictions of women—as
limited to using their bodies to achieve their goals (which are many times
to find a man). Thus, it is telling that she considers sex and the flesh her
best means of "persuasion," which, however, fail to bring about the
desired result.
The Borg Queen is presented as a strong leader, able to "bring order to
chaos" for millions (maybe billions) of Borg drones. Her role as figure-
head for the billions of Borg that she commands with (apparently) a single
thought is impressive, as is the significance that these billions are accept-
ing of a female leader. But ultimately she is reduced to a sexual being,
relying on her techno-femme fatale body to achieve her ends. Her power
is shown as lying in her femininity, and when others resist her wiles, her
strategies collapse.
Seven of Nine stands in counterpoint to the Borg Queen, scorning
mating behavior as irrelevant and showing little interest in social skills,
sympathetic behavior, and displays of affection or emotion. The character
Seven of Nine provides an alternative view to the gendering of women in
Star Trek. Seven of Nine is depicted as both the stereotypical "tomboy"
and the sexiest member of the crew. She is unparalleled in her knowledge
of technology, and her expertise is often called upon to save the day in
Voyager. Her body is feminine in the excess, yet her personality lacks
many traditional feminine markers (e.g. deference to men, interest in men,
and a nurturing—or even caring—manner toward others). The character's
central mission is to "overcome" her Borg assimilation, yet she resists
becoming fully human,•^

9. MiaConsalvo 185
The pull to become human (and re-engineer her posthuman body)
necessarily entails the taking on of (a) gender, Lana Rakow (1992) argues
that gender is an activity or process, not a static identity. Gender is
something to be performed or acted out, not a given, immutable part of our
being. As a drone. Seven of Nine was not constructed as a gendered
creature, and so was not required to "perform" a gender, or engage in
gendered activity, Judith Butler (1993) theorizes that each day we call
ourselves into being. We are never fully formed, but constantly reinvent
ourselves, and each day we become more completely what we are sup-
posed to be. And as we continually do that work, we are also reminded by
others of our usual or proper role—either our own particular gendered
performance, or perhaps a more socially acceptable version. That activity,
of hailing or interpellating individuals, " 'transforms' ., , individuals into
subjects" (Althusser, 1971, p, 174), Thus, even as we do the work of
creating and enacting gender, others also help us (or discipline us) in the
ongoing work of subject creation and maintenance.
The character Seven of Nine has not had to "call herself into being" as
a gendered person, she has not had to enact gender (at least since before
she was assimilated as a young girl eighteen years ago). As a (posthuman)
drone, gender was overtly denied, as was the interpellation of drones as
individuals or subjects. Thus, "gender work"—both from within and from
the expectations of others—is presented as a new and required task, if she
is to become more fully human. Although Graham (2002) argues that
Seven's primary goal is to redevelop her humanity, and that "being
human" is always a work in progress (pp, 151-153), 1 would argue that for
Seven, redeveloping her humanity is accomplished through the appropri-
ate gendering of her body and self. And critically, that is a central
component of what the character resists in regaining or finding her
humanity. Although Seven moves away from the horrors of the Borg's
posthuman bodies, she must struggle to redefine what humanity means for
her, and how she can balance her remaining cybernetic implants, a
gendering process, and reclaim some form of humanity. Her struggle
demonstrates that the posthuman takes many forms, but that to deny the
importance of gender leads to a disappearance or devaluation of the
feminine.
For example. Seven is not portrayed as a feminine person, which has its
relative advantages. As a female, she would be encouraged to develop
more feminine behaviors, as even in the fictional twenty-fourth century,
masculine traits have been valorized over feminine ones,^ Yet, in the

10. 186 Women's Studies in Communication
character's refusal to take on the traditionally gendered behavior of a
human female, behaviors that are typically considered masculine are
valorized. Seven of Nine is presented as cold and brusque, businesslike
and contemptuous of small talk. When she was still a member of the
collective and Janeway asked her about her past life, she (as the Borg)
replied "do not engage us in further irrelevant discourse" ("Scorpion Part
II"), The character is not interested in showing emotion, and has little time
for creating or maintaining interpersonal relationships. She is depicted as
physically strong and technically proficient. In a rare move. Seven is
shown as uninterested in the opposite sex, and in developing relationships
with them. When Ensign Harry Kim awkwardly expresses interest in her
(in "Revulsion"), she asks him, "Do you wish to copulate? Take off your
clothes," It is not sexual desire she is shown as displaying, however, but
only curiosity about human mating rituals, Kim's subsequent embarrass-
ment and refusal of her offer also indicate she was not performing gender
as well as she could have, because Harry Kim was obviously attracted to
her. About dating or foreplay she comments in another situation "I fail to
see what is accomplished by all the talk" ("Unforgettable"), The charac-
ter's lack of interest in men or relationships in general provides a chal-
lenge to standard representations of women as almost exclusively hetero-
sexual and extremely interested in pursuing the "ideal heterosexual
romance" (Rich, 1997, p, 85), Seven is instead depicted as uninterested,
but also alone, without friends. While the lack of interest in "finding a
man" is refreshing, the character is also shown as solitary, unable to
connect with any individuals for friendship or solace. Her singular nature
does isolate her, yet the character is not shown as wishing to overcome any
supposed social "deficit,"
Although Seven is clearly shown as unwilling to gender her behavior in
a feminine way, her appearance works against this unwillingness and
undermines her claims to an ungendered existence. The character is
dressed in a skin-tight jumpsuit, has long blond hair and fair skin. She
wears high-heeled boots, and has a thin body and large breasts. Whether
she consciously enacts gender or not, her body is a marker, delineating
precisely what gender she "should" become. Indeed, her hair, a common
marker of feminine beauty, is worn in a tight bun/French knot for the
majority of the show. In key episodes where Seven is "experimenting"
with developing her humanity, she is often shown taking down her hair,
and letting it flow in a "softer" style. As Inness (1999) and others have
argued, hair is a significant signifier of sexuality, and for women, the

11. MiaConsalvo 187
display of long, loose hair is coded as very feminine (p, 116). Likewise,
toward the end of the series there are more episodes where she comes to
"embrace" her humanity, and begins wearing dresses that underscore her
now more traditional female appearance. Her body is clearly marked as of
the female sex, and provides the map for determining "which" gender
"she" must enact as an ex-Borg "human" person.
Gender is alleged to be unacknowledged terrain for the Borg. While
they are not given an official gender, their behaviors give them away as
defaulting to the masculine. The Borg Queen is the exception that proves
the rule. While the Queen is gendered to excess as feminine, Borg drones
take on the more subdued tones of rational, reasoning masculinity. And
when Seven of Nine is separated from the Collective, her gendering
process must begin. However, even though Seven's resistance to this
gendering process is futile, and her struggle re-asserts the dominance of
masculine traits, her resulting mix of strength, boldness, and technological
skill in a female body does refute the belief that women cannot embody
these traits. Seven contradicts the belief that females must possess femi-
nine traits or they will be considered unattractive—she certainly does not
have that problem. A dualistic gender system is reinforced along the
traditional lines. However, a challenge is offered to the system when we
observe that Seven manages to retain some Borg characteristics and not
suffer the consequences because she is a female. Further, her need to
gender herself as she reclaims her humanity points to a concern over the
future of the posthuman body and the role gender will play in its consti-
tution.
Gendering of the Borg Collective Body (Public/Private
Realms)
Just as gender plays a role in defining the individual Borg body, it is
also constituted within the collective body of the Borg—even as that body
is posed as without gender. While the connections are not as obvious as the
surface sensuality of the Borg Queen, the actions of the Collective point
to, critique, and in some ways, recuperate, gendered models of public
space in contemporary society. Just as the Borg's supposed genderlessness
both questions and reinvokes gender, the confusion the Borg create sur-
rounding ideas of public and private spaces also relates back to ideas
concerning gender. Many feminists have argued that patriarchal, advanced

12. 188 Women's Studies in Communication
capitalist conceptions of the world have fashioned for society a split
between the public and private realms. While it is debatable when this split
occurred, capitalism is said to have expanded or exacerbated the split,
leaving women confined to the private realm, while giving men the
privilege of the public realm.
As much as this public/private split has been challenged, remnants of it
remain, or have been refashioned. For example, Sylvia Ann Hewlett's
book Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest For Children
(2002) argues that many successful businesswomen are childless by "ac-
cident," as they prioritized careers and left having children until it was too
late. Hewlett suggests that women who want to have families should
(among other things), search strategically for a husband and plan to have
children earlier, rather than letting their careers take precedence.** Again,
it seems, as women make strides in the public sphere, they are encouraged
to (this time "strategically") return to the private sphere.
Representations of the Borg both challenge and uphold that public/
private divide. On one hand, the Borg do not appear to have any private
realm at all, suggesting that the distinction is a false one. On the other
hand, the default masculine gender of the Borg and their appearance in
public space demonstrates that once again, public place is the domain of
men, best left in their hands.
The Borg are shown to operate in a social system far removed from
Western society. On their ships, they have no bridge or engineering
sections. No cafeterias or mess halls are shown, and though the Borg's
regeneration units could be interpreted as living quarters I would assert
that they are not, as the Borg are shown performing work while in their
units, in addition to engaging in regeneration sequences. There is no
marked public or private space depicted on a Borg vessel. It is all
public—even within the minds of the Borg drones. The sharing of
thoughts suggests that even that most personal of spaces is really political,
or social, as all thoughts are shared, all decisions are mutual. The fictional
Borg challenge the notion that any action or thought is truly private, that
it does not have public or social ramifications. The Borg also question the
idea of originality or originary ideas. If everything is public, there are no
thoughts in isolation, no ideas produced from one mind, even'
In addition to their lack of private space, the Borg are not shown
engaging in activities that would be considered private. The Borg don't go
on vacation, or engage in recreation. They aren't shown as having families
requiring individual, or personal, attention. They do not participate in what

13. Mia Consalvo 189
is described as "pointless" activities such as creating or consuming art or
music. Everything they do, and perhaps conversely nothing that they do,
is work. The Borg are portrayed as seeking to enhance their quality of life.
That is their work, and all of their activity is directed toward advancing
that goal,- which calls into question the notion of work, and what it
constitutes. Is work the opposite of something else? Must we have leisure,
to engage in work? The Borg would argue no. Their posited existence is
tied to one goal—seeking perfection—and every activity they engage in is
directed towards that goal. Thus, for the Borg, any split in activities makes
no sense. They are all striving for one goal, in one way. All of, or none of,
their activity is a challenge to an assumed differentiation in our sphere of
existence.
On the other hand, while the fictional Borg do challenge the existence
of distinct public and private spheres, they also help in perpetuating
notions of the present divide. As mentioned before, the supposed gender-
lessness of the Borg results in a default gendering of the Borg as male or
masculine, due to the qualities and traits they are shown to value. If we can
read them all as men, and their world permits no private sphere, once again
a public/private split is recuperated, with the men claiming the public
sphere for their own. Seven of Nine justifies that split herself when she
describes her own assimilation, "and then the men came for me" ("The
Raven"), Even a former Borg drone acknowledges that the Borg are a
masculinized race, and it is the men who do the work of assimilation. In
the Borg world, women do not exist to challenge that divide. While the
Borg Queen is female and an exception to the system, I believe she is just
that—an exception. Her appearance is largely ceremonial (she is the
Queen after all), and her statement that she brings "order to chaos" reveals
that while she may be important, she is not a primary actor, but a processor
or organizer of experience. She does not engage in activity, but refiects
upon it and organizes it.
Thus, more contradictions about the Borg surface when examining the
public and private, which relate directly to gender. The Borg challenge the
divide between public and private. The Borg ask, "What is the reason for
this division?" I believe that division is breaking down, yet as Susan
Faludi (1991) argues, we continually strive to keep that divide a reality.
And the reality of the division lies in society's continued need for some
distinction between the proper roles and places for men and women. While
the Borg are an important critique of the constructedness of the divide
between public and private, they also continue to help maintain this divide

14. 190 Women's Studies in Communication
in a traditional sense, preserving the public sphere for the male, and
omitting the female. If the public sphere is to remain the place of men,
where does the work of women go? In this system, women do not perform
work—they don't even exist. Seven of Nine defies her female body, and
the Borg Queen is denied productive work. The male drones do the real
work, and perpetuate the belief that the public sphere is a male sphere after
all.
Embodying the Individual Borg
The previous sections foregrounded gender as a category of analysis,
with references to bodies being important in understanding how, for
example. Seven of Nine and the Borg Queen are depicted, and whether
their characterizations challenge gendered norms of (body) behavior and
appearance. This section reverses that logic, asserting that when the
concept of "the body" is taken as primary, alternative understandings of
the Borg will also emerge. Here, "the body" is understood as embodying
a set of assumptions about what constitutes a "normal" body, and how
bodies are defined and treated. Taken from this angle, scrutiny of the Borg
shifts to exploring how depictions of their individual drone bodies signify
gender, construct ability, and lead to further understandings of how bodies
help define selves.
As Nancy Mairs (1996) argues, we cannot conceptualize the body as a
thing apart from ourselves. As Mairs writes, "I am in every way, in my
dreams as in my waking, the creature of my biochemistry. The body alone
conceptualizes the body, conferring upon it, among other dubious endow-
ments, a 'mind'" (p. 42). Yet for the Borg, with no individual self in an
individual body, that distinction does not exist. For the Borg, the ungen-
dered body is just a thing, to be repaired or healed, or if damaged too
extensively, discarded. For the Borg, bodies are expendable, they are the
raw material of the Collective, and nothing more—organic as well as
technological parts, they will never add up to what constitutes the whole.
The Borg treat the body as alien matter divorced from (the one) mind,
creating the perfect Cartesian dualism.
While the Borg are depicted as viewing bodies as (truly) "alien matter,"
some critics argue that this dualism is also prevalent in contemporary
gendered society. Susan Wendell (1996) contends that alienation from the
body is a process that many people, especially women, engage in daily,
and is a process that is becoming widespread. Contemporary culture (and

15. Mia Consalvo 191
media) encourages viewing bodies as things, apart from individual selves.
And with that split comes the urge to perfect or idealize individual bodies,
refashioning them as desired. Thus bodies are viewed as pliable, com-
pletely under the individual's control, Wendell argues that practices such
as dieting, cosmetic surgery, and compulsive exercising, all targeted
mainly at women, are evidence that Americans believe bodies can be
(re)fonned to better suit visions of "our true selves," These pliable bodies
reveal a certain contempt for the unworked, natural flesh, a contempt that
has specific gendered roots. How women view their bodies, and how
women's bodies are viewed by others, are political constructs informed by
ideologies such as the pliable body, which is able to withstand manipu-
lation and undergo transformation provided the individual's "will" is
strong enough. Failure to achieve bodily conformity has come to signal a
failure of individual strength and worth.
The Borg represent the ultimate alienation from the body and have
taken that notion to its logical extreme. They are depicted as having
literally refashioned their bodies for centuries, accomplishing a fusion of
the organic and the technological. When they assimilate other species,
they adapt, retaining what is useful and discarding what is not. And the
collective mind is truly separate from the individual bodies of the drones,
which do not register as individuals. It is also learned in "Q Who" that
Borg drones do not emit individual life signs, or read as individual. Thus,
when "scanning" a Borg ship for life signs, it is shown as impossible to
know how many drones are aboard, as they do not qualify as bodies in
their own right.
This alienation from the body reduces the body to matter divorced from
consciousness. However, there is a further split for the Borg, the organic
and the technological. The Borg are scornful of those species that are fully
organic, believing them to be weak and imperfect, lacking in "harmony
and cohesion." Echoing the words of the Borg Queen, the flesh is weak.
Again, the Borg express contempt for the body, and elevate the mind. The
Borg are in fact true mind, as they can exist in almost any-body. Their
bodies are also truly alien (and posthuman), stolen from other species,
used and discarded as needed. The Borg's scorn of bodily flesh also signals
contempt for the feminine, traditionally associated with the body as
opposed to the mind.
Along with alienation from the body comes an idealization of it
(Wendell, 1996). Usually, that is expressed in aesthetic fashionings of the
body, culturally constructed ideas about beauty and what constitutes

16. 192 Women's Studies in Communication
attractiveness and a correspondingly preferable body, in particular for
women. For the Borg, aesthetics are a non-issue. Rather than strive for
aesthetically pleasing bodies, the Borg are intent on fashioning the ulti-
mately functioning body, which leads to the practical result of male Borg
bodies, even for an ungendered species. The lack of pleasing aesthetics
seems to "logically" exclude the feminine body, which when denied
pleasing attributes, fail to fully "materialize" or "matter" as female.
The resulting (male) body is the antithesis of an aesthetically pleasing
body. Tubes and hoses sprout from parts of their bodies, eyes are removed
and enhanced eyepieces are attached. Often, one hand and arm are
removed, and the addition of a machine-like servo-mechanism is shown
added to the body. These enhancements are portrayed as terrifying to
non-Borg, Yet, they are the functional apex for the Borg, and so no
modifications for aesthetics are needed. Their value lies in their function-
ality, rather than in how they appear. Their lack of beauty signifies their
actual gender—true "women" need bodies to signify their femaleness, and
if denied, they cease to exist,* Thus, the posthuman body—although not
explicitly gendered—defaults to the masculine yet again.
The Borg are a challenge to contemporary views of acceptable male
and female bodies. They represent the ultimate alienation from the body,
and indeed suggest that the mind/body split is real as well as desirable.
The term "individual Borg" is actually a misnomer, as drones are not
individuals at all, instead merely functioning matter, available for upgrade,
modification or recycling. Flesh and technology coalesce in a posthuman
figure that is denied individuality, yet the posthuman figure apparently
finds this arrangement desirable. And their biologically male appearance
further defines women out of existence, as women are traditionally defined
by their bodies, and these drones are grotesque male bodies. While the
mind of these drones could be that of the Borg Queen, her own body
signals her limitations, and the eventual disembodiment of women in the
Borg world.
Embodying the Collective Borg
The Borg's collective body raises different issues concerning public
spaces for the body, as well as the rights accorded to bodies within this
sphere. Just as the gendered dimensions of the public/private split are
important yet implicit, so too the debate about individuality, rights and

17. ^ Mia Consalvo 193
notions of collectivity contain deeply gendered roots. Those concerns are
addressed here.
Rosemarie Thomson (1997) argues that Americans have a strong faith
in the ideology of liberal individualism, Thomson believes that this
ideology creates an American Ideal, which is structured by a self-concept
consisting of "self-government, self-determination, autonomy, and
progress" (p. 42), Each of these elements rests on the assumption of a
normally functioning body, one that assimilation by the Borg would
destroy or suppress,
Thomson (1997) elaborates, "egalitarian democracy demands individ-
ual self-government to avoid anarchy. A system in which individuals make
laws and choose leaders depends upon individuals governing their actions
and their bodies just as they govern the social body" (pp. 42-43). Bodies
that fall outside of the norm challenge that notion of self-government. If
one's own body cannot be controlled, how can one assume larger respon-
sibilities for government? The disabled body, as well as the assimilated
body, call that belief into question. Similarly, self-determination "requires
a compliant body to secure a place in the fiercely competitive and dynamic
socioeconomic realm" (p, 43), This references the belief in the self-made
"man" that has been a large part of the American dream. This requirement
places great pressures on individuals to assume responsibility for their
own social and economic situations. Again, if they cannot determine or
control the actions of their own body, their failure in other situations seems
assured. However, even as Americans place great emphasis on self-
determination and autonomy, conformity to certain established norms is
also expected. As Thomson quotes Tocqueville, (writing in 1835, but still
relevant today) "all of the minds of the Americans were formed upon one
model, so accurately do they follow the same route" (p, 43), All of these
paradoxes are played out, and exploited, in the figure of the Borg.
Perhaps most terrifying about the Borg Collective (body) is their
destruction of the individual and the self. As numerous Star Trek charac-
ters have testified, the Borg destroy freedom of choice, and any ability to
act independently of the collective mind. That alteration is allegedly worse
than death for the individual involved. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick
Stewart) puts it best in "Family" while talking to his brother about his own
brief experience as part of the Borg: "They took everything I was; they
used me to kill and to destroy and I couldn't stop them, I should have been
able to stop them, I tried, I tried so hard. But I wasn't strong enough, I
wasn't good enough, I should have been able to stop them," Picard's

18. 194 Women's Studies in Communication
lament of his dis- or in-ability to fight back reveals many of the implicit
assumptions about individualism in contemporary Western society.
For the Borg, self-determination (as well as self-government) is quite
literally irrelevant. In the Borg collective, there is no concept of a self
operating within drones, only within the group mind is there a collective
self. That collective self has no use for individuals who can think and act
on their own. It is the antithesis of their civilization. Conformity is not
only expected, it is desired. It is the state of harmony the Borg are in the
process of achieving, infinite voices functioning as one, Tocqueville
(1835, in Thompson, 1997) argued that early republican America was
characterized by forces favoring conformity and the regulation of norms.
It could be suggested that such forces are even stronger today. Thus, even
though the Borg represent a nightmare vision of the loss of individuality,
reality asserts that such American individuality has largely been a myth. In
that way, we are not too far from Borg conformity. In a sense, the Borg
represent the ultimate achievement of conformity carried to its logical
conclusion. This represents something to be feared and (perhaps) desired.
Just as the Borg present a complete loss of individuality they also point out
a limitation in contemporary society, where individuality is not as indi-
vidual or particular as American beliefs would suggest. The Borg, then,
could be a deliberate commentary about the imminent dangers concerning
the disappearance of individuality and the growth of conformity, in addi-
tion to their commentary on technology's incursion into and creation of a
posthuman body.
According to Herbert Marcuse (1978), the concept of individuality or
individualism has indeed changed over time. That is partly in response to
the increasing technologization of the world and the requirement to
respond rationally to it. Previously, an individual was defined as "the
subject of certain fundamental standards and values which no external
authority was supposed to encroach on" (p. 139). Technological progress
and the development of mass production changed what it meant to be an
individual. Now, individual achievement has been turned into standardized
efficiency. The result is that "the efficient individual is the one whose
performance is an action only insofar as it is the proper reaction to the
objective requirements of the apparatus, and his [.sic] liberty is confined to
the selection of the most adequate means for reaching a goal which he did
not set" (p, 142), Marcuse's description of the contemporary individual
does not sound that different from the represented life of a Borg drone.
Worse still, the human individual in question is not supposed to question

19. Mia Consalvo 195
his/her fate—to do so would be utterly irrational: "All protest is senseless,
and the individual who would insist on his [sic] freedom of action would
become a crank. There is no personal escape from the apparatus which has
mechanized and standardized the world" (p, 143), If Marcuse's interpre-
tation of individuality today is accepted, Americans are quite similar to the
Borg after all.
In addition to highlighting fears about loss of individuality, the way the
Borg assimilate a person also speaks to another great fear, the loss of
bodily integrity. The Borg not only wreak havoc on the mind, but also on
the body, Thomson (1997) says:
The disabled figure profoundly threatens this fantasy of auton-
omy, not so much because it is seen as helpless, but rather
because it is imagined as having been altered by forces outside
the self,., autonomy assumes immunity to external forces along
with the capacity to maintain a stable, static sense of being ., ,
physical alterations caused by time or the environment—the
changes we call disability—are hostile incursions from the out-
side, the effects of cruel contingencies that an individual does not
adequately resist. Seen as a victim of alien forces, the disabled
figure appears not as transformed, supple, or unique but as
violated, (p, 45)
The Borg, in their process of assimilation, are actually dis-abling
individuals if these ideas of liberal individualism are taken into account.
Picard echoes the exact words Thomson (1997) uses, claiming that he did
not "adequately resist" the Borg, and so felt violated in the extreme. The
Borg are the quintessential force "outside the self that destroys a belief in
autonomy, as the Borg cannot be resisted. Their assimilation process
includes the vampire-like injection of nanoprobes into the bloodstream,
often through the neck, as well as the replacement of specific body parts
with additional technology. That process, provided it can be reversed,
gives the de-assimilated individual feelings of violation and a profound
loss, because the belief systems operating within the individual were
wiped away much more easily than current myths (or beliefs) suggest is
possible. And the Borg once again do double duty here, not only assim-
ilating an individual's body but her mind as well. The Borg goad belief in
the mind/body split that is often perpetuated in Western thought, both with
their assimilation technique and with their lived reality, the ultimate

20. 196 Women's Studies in Communication
mind/body split, with bodies not even registering as having individual
minds. The Borg force us to question many dualisms, as Donna Haraway
(1991) claimed cyborgs might or should. The Borg question our ultimate
future—will it be collapsing dualisms, or the imposition of a final grid of
control over our planet?
Even as the Borg challenge these beliefs, and are presented as pure evil,
I believe there is something redeeming about them, something desirable
about their way of life. As mentioned before, while lip-service is paid to
ideas of self-determination and autonomy, controls over the body and
limits on individual choices are also prevalent in Western society. As
Foucault (1975) has argued, power relations shape bodies, making them
culturally and historically specific, and responsive to ever-present rela-
tions of power. The ultimate goal is the creation of docile bodies that are
easily controlled as well as tracked and placed in space, self-patrolling
rather than needing direct guidance and coercion. If the system functions
well, Foucault believes, everyone does the job of correctly policing our
bodies and actions, rather than letting others do it for us, Foucault's model
of power and discipline over the body has been criticized for its rendering
of the body as fully docile, without the power to rebel (McNay, 1992),
Here the Borg drone body is truly docile, disciplined successfully by
forces now inside the body, overwhelming the self.^ There is no fear of an
ultimate power or dictator with individual quirks and whims. Instead there
is a body ruled collectively with each voice having equal input.
In the beginning of the fourth season of Voyager, Seven of Nine suffers
greatly due to her separation from the collective, and demands to be
released to rejoin them. Captain Janeway herself echoes back to Seven
what is appealing about living in the Borg collective. "You were part of a
vast consciousness. Billions of minds working together. A harmony of
purpose and thought. No indecision, no doubts. The security and strength
of a unified will. And you've lost that" ("The Gift"). Here, the collective
nature of Borg life doesn't appear as horrific as previously imagined. And
while the Borg may not question an individual about her choice to be
assimilated (or not), "real" humans are not so enlightened either. In an
exchange between Seven of Nine and Janeway, the limits of Starfleet's
(and our own) system.are evident, Janeway refuses to allow Seven to leave
Voyager and rejoin the Borg, claiming she is human and needs to re-
develop her individuality, which the Borg stole from her. Commenting on
her fate. Seven states, "You would deny us the choice. As you deny us
now. You have imprisoned us in the name of humanity, yet you will not

21. Mia Consalvo 197
grant us your most cherished human rights—to choose our own fate.
You're hypocritical, manipulative. We do not want to be what you are!"
Janeway responds that "You lost the capacity to make a rational choice the
moment you were assimilated. They took that from you. And until I'm
convinced you've gotten it back, I'm making the choice for you. You're
staying here." Seven aptly responds, "Then you are no different than the
Borg," Seven's response to Janeway reinforces Tocqueville's (1835, in
Thompson, 1997) and Marcuse's (1978) comments about the uniformity
of the American mind. For Janeway, Seven's choice to rejoin the collective
is unimaginable. This choice is not a choice, but a result of programming
from a species that would seem to resemble a cult. Seven's ability to
choose freely has been compromised, and before she can be re-accorded
rights within human society, she must be deprogrammed and led to
renounce the pernicious ways of the Borg collective.
In exposing the limits of liberal individualism. Seven's statements
suggest that the Federation (and humans) operates on the same moral
plane as the Borg, Other theorists have made similar arguments about
the Borg, suggesting that American societies' beliefs in individualism
are as dogmatic and narrow-minded as the Borg's belief in a collective
society (Boyd, 1996; Hastie, 1996), Both believe they are saving the
world from the other. In placing both systems in counterpoint, if only
briefly, the narrative suggests that all belief systems are relative. A
collective society may be no more terrible as a lived reality than an
individualist society. By making that move, the Borg world is made
more accessible, more understandable, for the viewer, Borg society, the
very definition of a collective or community, offers a picture of another
way of life. Americans are increasingly alienated from one another,
building gated communities, sitting on the back deck rather than the
front porch, and more likely to be living far from relatives and
childhood homes. According to authors such as Robert Putnam (2000)
of Bowling Alone, America has become a nation of strangers who are
fearful and suspicious of each other. The Borg, in some ways, perhaps
encourage an abandonment of that individualistic way of living. Put-
ting aside their conquering tendencies, the Borg live as one—all voices
are equal, all work is shared. Isolation is not an option, discord is
unknown. For human society struggling with increasing alienation,
rage and fear, this way of life may be tempting, at least on some levels.
The Borg offer another way of doing things.

22. 198 Women's Studies in Communication
Conclusions
I began this paper by asking the question "how do representations of the
Borg challenge and/or reinforce traditional ideas about gender and the
posthuman body, and what they should be in contemporary culture?" I
focused on the characters Seven of Nine and the Borg Queen, and then
expanded to the Borg collective. In doing so, interesting ideas emerged.
While the Borg Queen, from a gender perspective, is a powerful female
leader, managing billions of Borg drones, her power lies mainly in her
sexuality, and thus her character is no different from stereotypical female
characters in past Star Trek series. Seven of Nine is a different story,
however. While she does exemplify current standards of physical female
beauty, her character is much more complex than the Queen, or other
female Star Trek characters. In line with many of Inness' (1999) "tough
girls," Seven of Nine is often the character called on to "save the day" in
the show, and has a powerful intellect, rational and cool demeanor, and
forceful personality. While it would be easy to conclude that the character
simply ends up valorizing male personality attributes, that would be too
simplistic. It sometimes seems that much of feminist research on female
characters is caught in a bind (recalling the bind of interpellation-.—even as
we seek to define ourselves one way, we are hailed and disciplined in ways
not of our own choosing)—if the character exhibits typically "feminine"
traits such as nurturing behavior, we dismiss the character as a throwback,
or at minimum lacking in some regards. If the female character shuns
these traits and acts in a more typically "masculine" fashion, we instead
claim the character is dismissing feminine traits that are always devalued,
and instead valorizing the primacy of male traits. What position is left to
take? It would seem that female characters are damned either way,^
I believe that the character Seven of Nine is a bold female presence, and
a strong character in entertainment television. While the physical dimen-
sions of the character are hardly transgressive, it is important to remember
that this is the current standard for practically all female actors presently
working in the entertainment industry. What is more exceptional is the
way Seven of Nine is given intelligence, boldness, rationality and a
remarkable lack of interest in the opposite sex. These characteristics place
her far beyond other female characters currently appearing, and perhaps
for the foreseeable future. Additionally, Seven's work to (re)gender herself
asserts the (current) importance of that identity marker for humanity—and
posthumanity as well. It also suggests that without more careful thought

23. MiaConsalvo 199
and attention, the concept of the posthuman will remain ungendered on the
surface, yet reassert an implicit assumption of masculinity as primary.
I also explored how gender materialized in the collective body of the
Borg, as the species redefined the public/private sphere as either a mean-
ingless divide, or an all male space. Both of these readings have particular
implications, including the suggestion that there is no more real "private"
sphere, for good or ill, or that the public sphere is again being contested
as a place for both men and women in which to co-exist.
A focus on the body also proved useful. By examining the individual
Borg body, concerns about alienation from the body in contemporary
society, and damaging attempts to perfect the body emerged. In the Borg,
notions about the pliability of the body and the transcendence of mind
from the body are taken to their logical extremes. Here, the Borg paint an
ugly picture of what Western views of bodies could become. The Borg
also suggest that when aesthetic fashionings of the body are dismissed,
women tend to disappear as well, as women are in large part defined and
judged by their bodies. The all male drones demonstrate how important
aesthetics are for the female body, as the Borg Queen's body is devoid of
the external, disfiguring prostheses so indicative of the Borg body.
I explored how the Borg collective body could be understood as a
counterpoint to the American ideal of liberal individualism. Examining the
Borg showed how deeply held beliefs concerning the "self made man"
[sic] and self-governance must rest on the foundation of a normally
functioning body. Further, the body is supposed to be free of incursion,
and those who cannot "resist" such invasions are generally seen as not
having the "will" to fight successfully. The Borg suggest a possible future
where individuality is wiped out, one where America may currently be
heading. The Borg are also a possible alternative in their collective system,
offering a way out of solitary existence, at least in the imagination.
Finally, the Borg and Seven appear to be harbingers—calling us to
consider one potential future as we start to shape our posthuman potential,
Graham (2002) and Hayles (1999) rightly argue that science fiction and
science fact are increasingly informing one another, and so the importance
of the Borg cannot be dismissed. Their vision of one posthuman future as
functional, masculine and collective should give us pause, and lead us to
more carefully consider our hopes and goals as we move toward fuller
integration of biotechnology and technology within our gendered bodies.
The Borg have thus demonstrated that while traditional ideas about
gender are hard to shake, even for a "genderless" species, there are some

24. 200 Women's Studies in Communication
clear challenges to the stereotypes of old. They also reaffirm the impor-
tance of looking at larger systems to determine the infiuence of gender and
the body—as these identity markers are found to be critically important
when considering public/private life, and ideals such as liberal individu-
alism. Thus, popular culture is important in helping us see how far
visionary ideals can comfortably extend, at the current moment in time.
While Star Trek is still no real Utopia, Voyager did make some strides in
that direction, at least through Seven of Nine's (high heel) shoes.
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26. 202 Women's Studies in Communication
f^otes
'The Borg Queen is depicted as having no external prostheses beyond metal-
looking hoses sprouting out the back of her head. However, in the film First Contact we
learn that her skull and spinal vertebrae are made of a titanium-like material. And like
all Borg, she has microscopic technological nanoprobes in her blood,
^tt is important to point out that in the marketing of the show, it was primarily the
"sexy" side of Ryan/Seven that was promoted. As David Graver (1997) points out, we
can never entirely submerge the identity of the actor into the character she plays. One
way of retaining the identity of the actor is through seeing the actor as a celebrity, and
that image then competes with the visibility of the character (1997), And in doing so, the
actor's image is fetishized, as well as seen as an image linked to particular stereotypes
and discourses of the culture. Thus, the marketing of the show and of Seven plays off
the "blonde bombshell" sexiness of Ryan's body (as perhaps compensation for her
sexless personality) as a way to generate interest in the character and the show. For
example, my own local television station at the time ran promos for late night reruns of
the show with an image of Seven appearing out of a flash in space, with the graphic
above reading "a star is bom," Much attention was given to the introduction of Ryan to
the show, and many of the plotlines from then on focused on Seven, to the detriment of
other characters' development. That "star power" seems to have continued for Jeri Ryan,
interestingly enough. After the conclusion of Voyager she joined the cast of the already,
successful high school drama Boston Public. Initially one character in an ensemble
show, she now shares top billing with the star, principal Steven Harper (played by Chi
McBride), and many of the plotlines (again) revolve around her character,
•'We see that in the way that feminine qualities such as empathy and caring are
useful in professions such as medicine and psychology, rather than diplomacy and
leadership. In The Next Generation Deanna Troi, the stereotypical female, is the ship's
counselor, Dr, Beverly Crusher, the other woman lead character, is a doctor, a person
who heals and cares for others. In Voyager, a woman with stereotypically feminine traits,
Kes, is recruited to be a nurse. Women in Voyager are also in leadership positions,
notably Captain Janeway, but she is often portrayed as duty-bound and cold, if she is not
put into a motherly type relationship. Notably, she is denied any romantic involvements,
suggesting a woman in charge must give up her sexuality. In contrast, both male
Captains Kirk and Picard were given some (if not many) romantic involvements,
•"Hewlett's book has been met with great publicity, as well as a significant backlash
to its message,
^Although the Borg Queen is the "leader" of the Borg, and she is supposed to have
the ability to make decisions based on the input of the collective, her thoughts too are
public, and likewise her decisions are not the product of one mind, but the product of
a collective process of gathering information and weighing the implications of that
information,
^Again, the exception of the Borg Queen proves the rule. The Queen needs her
body in order to seduce Data—technological prostheses would render her less attractive,
and also less distinctive from the drones. Her (relatively) unchanged body is a coun-
terpoint to the drones—signifying her status, as well as her gender. And when Data (and
the Captain) reject her offers, they also show the danger (or foolishness) of relying on
a (female) body to achieve one's goals,
'McNay (1992) goes on to argue that Foucault later revised his thinking on the
totalizing nature of discipline over the body, in response to criticisms that individuals
can and do make choices about which actions to take, even in the face of disapproval or
imminent discipline, Foucault's later work on "practices/techniques of the self started

27. Mia Consalvo 203
to theorize how individuals could choose, from available cultural contexts, actions and
beliefs in alignment with their own ethics and morals, A later story arc in Voyager has
a minority of Borg drones able to virtually travel to an alternate world during their
body's sleep cycle, where they are their pre-assimilated individual selves. They then
work to begin resisting the pull of the collective mind during their waking hours.
Although this arc comes very late in the series run, it seems that even the totalizing
discipline of the Borg collective power can yield occasionally to the practices of the self,
*One alternative would be androgyny, where female characters could be evaluated
for their portrayal of the "best of both worlds" of both male and female traits or
behaviors. While initially an intriguing attempt at working through the contradictions of
feminist research, I believe this position ultimately falls into the same sets of problems.
For example, who would determine which are the "best" feminine and masculine traits?
At what level would they be acceptable? Feminist theorists differ on what feminine traits
to valorize such as nurturing behavior. Should that even be considered a feminine trait?
I believe that the debate over how images are interpreted cannot be overcome by
attempting to use a category such as androgyny.