Recently, since we started subscribing to Netflix a few months ago, I started watching DS9 from the very beginning. Since I really hadn’t watched it much during the original run and it wasn’t in re-runs here in the US, it was almost like watching completely new Trek for me. I’ve been fascinated with the drama of it all…kind of like those cheesy, overly dramatic soap operas I used to watch back in high school. Except it’s set in outer space, with characters that were at least vaguely familiar to me.
The two characters I’ve come to like the most on DS9 are Major Kira Nerys and Jadzia Dax. I’ve always admired strong female characters and I have to admit, Kira and Dax are two of the strongest, most badass women I’ve ever seen. They’re really tough, but for totally different reasons.
Dax has seen seven lifetimes as a Trill symbiont who’s had the fortune of being both in male and female hosts. So she’s seen both sides of the coin, which I find quite interesting. I’ve wondered myself, what would it be like to be a man? Is it easier or harder to be a man than a woman? If I were suddenly to find myself in the body of a man, how would my perspective change, or the way I view myself?
I also think that Jadzia is very, very wise, and that wisdom is hard-won from her life times of experience in both war and peace. Throughout most of DS9, we see her in war time, making decisions on the fly, handling situations that would’ve made a lesser officer curl up into a ball and just cry their eyes out. She works hard and she plays hard, taking on a handful of Ferengi in Tongo (which seems to be the equivalent of poker, but much more cut throat). She even loves hard, falling for Worf who is pretty closed off, very much the strong silent type until she somehow manages to find a crack in that hard Klingon exterior of his. And just when the romance is getting off to a good start, she has to go and die which presents another problem.
What happens to the symbiont? Well, we all know that it gets transplanted into young Ezri, who takes over where Jadzia left off on the station more or less. But Ezri is so different from Jadzia that I’m not sure at this point if I’m going to like her or not (I just finished the episode where Ezri is introduced). I guess I’ll just have to keep watching to see if I like her as much as I liked the fun, fierce, feisty Jadzia.
Then there’s Major Kira Nerys, a Bajoran ex-terrorist who manages Ops with an iron fist gloved in velvet. I admire her toughness, because she had to go through hell and come out the other side more-or-less intact. I know about being baptized by fire… I went through it myself, growing up very poor and having to defend myself against bullies who made fun of me for wearing clothes that were at least a decade out of date, for not having the latest and greatest technology at my fingertips, for simply being “weird” in their eyes. It made me tough, and like Kira I often try to hide my soft inner core with a shell of iron that nobody can penetrate.
Both of these women are admirable in their own ways, and both give me things to think about. Is it really okay for a woman to be THAT tough, and can she do so without compromising her femininity? Is it okay to compromise being feminine if it means that the guys around you will respect you more?
These are questions raised in my head when I’m watching these two characters on screen, and I still haven’t found the answer yet. I guess I’m working on it because these are things I’ve struggled with myself. I’ve been a tomboy all my life, partly out of defense against the girls who made fun of me for not being girly enough, and partly out of a need to be tough so that boys would take me seriously instead of brushing me off because I was “just” a girl.
As much as I want to be soft and feminine and girly, I often find that I have to be tough for my son. It’s a cruel world out there, especially if you’re different in any way from what’s considered “normal”. I have to be tough so I can teach him to be tough, and I think sometimes I need a tough woman to look up to. I find that Jadzia and Kira are good examples because of the situations they’re thrust into, yet they don’t lose their heads or go crying off in a corner somewhere, the way I’m often tempted to do when I’m presented with a particularly hard challenge. They’re strong and they make me want to be as strong as they are. I admire the way they handle things without really seeming to give in or surrender, even when the going gets tough.
So thanks Jadzia and Kira. Thank you for giving me something to look up to, and an example to lean on when I’m feeling a little down, a little weak. I’m not nearly as tough as you are, but maybe someday…I will be.
