Gender Is No Object / Live-Action TV

• On The 100, the Ark and Grounder societies appear to be gender equal, with women acting alongside men as leaders and warriors (including female commanders-in-chief), and there being no shame in a man staying home from war to serve as a non-combat medic. This is in contrast to the Mountain Men, whose soldiers and political leaders seem to be exclusively male.
• In Andromeda, the High Guard was largely gender-equal, as demonstrated by Dylan's superior, the no-nonsense Admiral Constanza Stark. Averted by the Nietzscheans, whose pragmatic worldview means that women serve as breeders (and run damn near everything but combat and inter-clan politics; the leader is an alpha male, but the old women can depose him). Most prides kill sterile females. Surprisingly, the only pride that doesn't are one of the bad guys. The Drago-Kazov Pride instead sends sterile females to the military, where they can prove the genetic superiority of their relatives.
• In Babylon 5 the government and military of the Earth Alliance is gender-equal, with women serving everywhere from ground pounders to fighter pilots to battleship captains, sinister psychic spec-ops and political powerhouses. Two out of the four EA presidents who appear during the series were women, and a third appears in the Expanded Universe. The expanded universe also has female telepaths frequently take their mothers' last names, as the telepathic gene is stated to be passed down from the mother.
• Battlestar Galactica: The rebooted series eats, sleeps, and breathes this trope. There are women in every major role of life, from "knuckledraggers" like Cally all the way up to President of the Colonies Laura Roslin. Men, likewise, often fill traditionally "female" roles like religious leader, diplomat, and secretary. All living quarters for the rank-and-file soldiers are unisex as well, including bathrooms. Also played for a bit of Fanservice, both in-universe and out.
• Doctor Who: The new series has numerous references to Time Lords shifting genders during regeneration, and the Time Lords themselves do not care.
  • "The Doctor's Wife": When recalling an old friend of his, the Corsair, the Doctor switches between male and female pronouns seamlessly.
  • In "Hell Bent", for instance, there's a rank-and-file soldier who sees his superior officer, the General, regenerate from a white man into a black woman. All he does is change pronouns. However, the General states that it was the only incarnation so far where she'd been male, which fits with most of the past where the Doctor, Romana, Borusa, etc. had always regenerated into the same gender. This would indicate that gender identity has an influence over the process.
  • In "World Enough and Time", the Doctor says that fixed gender is a "petty human obsession", and the following episode has the Saxon Master express surprise at eventually becoming Missy, but it is mild surprise. He's soon calling her "lady version" and he's more upset about the possibility of her (and thus him) turning good.
  • The multi-Doctor episode "Twice Upon a Time" suggests this may be a recent development. The First Doctor constantly drops sexist Stay in the Kitchen comments (appropriate to the time his series was made), which utterly humiliates the Twelfth. As he was yet to ever regenerate himself and strongly considering not doing so at all, he may simply lack the proper perspective others have shown. The story ends with Twelve regenerating into the first female incarnation.
  • In "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", Thirteen has a brief Ma'am Shock when her gender is pointed out, asks "does it suit me" and then goes back to investigating the Monster of the Week without waiting for an answer.
• Farscape: Peacekeepers practice a lot of Fantastic Racism and are usually played as kinda evil, but sexist they are not. Aeryn was a pilot, Grayza a Commandant, Xhalax a Senior Officer, etc. and whenever large groups are shown there are always plenty of females in the ranks. Aeryn does mention "female units" when explaining their Fantasy Contraception, but there are far more examples of mixed units throughout the series.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Wildling spearwives like Osha and Ygritte are just as welcome to take part in warbands as men.
  • The Faceless Men, despite their name, also don't seem to place any distinction on gender, with both Arya and the other trainee shown being women. Of course, since they can change identities on a whim, it rather makes sense.
  • Later, Jon declares that the girls of the north will receive the same combat training as the boys—the army of the dead doesn't discriminate, and they can't afford to either.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: The creators of the show aimed at this trope by intentionally having more lead women than exist in the material source.
  • Numenor's armed forces are unisex. Both women and men are shown wearing armors and fighting side by side.
  • Despite being next to impossible to distinguish female from male among the Orcs, Adar implies that females exist among their ranks too when he refers to the Orcs as "brothers and sisters" in his Rousing Speech about turning the Southlands into their homeland.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: There are no visible gender restrictions in this society, with most witch soldiers being female (including the Army chief Alder, who founded them) and the US' current President is a women as well. If anything they seem slightly matriarchal.
• Being a member of the Power Rangers is usually pretty gender equal, with women making up usually 30-40% of a team. And the powers even help ensure people of all backgrounds can fight on equal terms. Now as for leading..that's another story.
• In the Star Trek franchise, Starfleet is supposed to be purely integrated; with gender no hindrance to attaining any position. However, the shows themselves often didn't quite meet this lofty principle.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series suffered from Fair for Its Day, featuring female crewmembers who had as much authority as the writers thought they could get away giving them.
    • "Number One", Majel Barrett's character in the original Star Trek pilot, was the ship's first Executive Officer before being replaced. Gene Roddenberry claimed this was because studio executives pressured Roddenberry to tone this trope down because they insisted that Viewers Are Morons and couldn't handle women in any role other than secretaries and love interests. Barrett herself confirmed that even women viewers did not like the character. Other people involved at the time insist it's because the studio considered it unprofessional for him to cast his lover (and later wife) in the role; they had no problem with the character, only with the choice of actress.
    • The villain in the episode "Turnabout Intruder" says at one point that women cannot be starship captains. She has since been retconned into an Unreliable Narrator.
    • There was also a female Romulan Commander in "The Enterprise Incident."
    • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country takes things a step further towards integrating genders than the Original Series, by revealing that crew berths aboard Enterprise and Excelsior are co-ed, with both men and women in the enlisted crew sharing the same bunk space (though not actual bunks).
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation slightly improved this with female security chief Tasha Yar. Of course, this meant she was prone to The Worf Effect and thus generally came off as incompetent. They eventually Dropped a Bridge on Her at the request of Denise Crosby, the actress who played Yar, who had grown disillusioned with her role because of the "Uhura-like" status of her part. The only other lead female roles were in the caregiver roles of Doctor and Counselor. Later she regretted her decision and returned as Tasha's half-Romulan daughter Sela (who looked exactly like her) from an alternate timeline.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featured Major Kira as the station's second in command, but she wasn't actually a member of Starfleet. Lieutenant Dax, on the other hand, was the station's science officer and second officer (meaning, she supposedly was in command when Sisko and Kira weren't around).
    • During the war, when Sisko received a new assignment, Dax became commander of the Defiant.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: It wasn't until here that one of the Trek series actually reached this lofty principle with a leading female character as Captain (although female captains and admirals did appear in minor one-shot background roles from Star Trek: The Next Generation onward). There was also the first (regular) female Chief Engineer, and a woman in the role of a prominent scientist.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise has T'Pol, resident Ms. Fanservice and Number One at the same time. There are also a number of women in the security division and MACOs, plus the captain of the Columbia, Starfleet's second Enterprise-class starship.
  • Star Trek: Discovery gave us Captain Philippa Georgiou of the Shenzhou (who is also of East Asian descent, commanding the first ship with a non-Anglophone name). Plus of course, there's Michael Burnham, who was First Officer under her before mutinying (she is notably the first black female of this rank portrayed).

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