She was spring-loaded to act first, then discuss later. If she wanted to push back against Riker’s “safe” decisions, she spoke up. If she saw the need to go down to the planet’s surface before the rest of the Away Team reported for duty, she went. In her two episodes, Shelby didn’t always go by the book. And what she wants just so happens to be Riker’s job. Unburdened and unbothered by any of that, Shelby simply goes out and gets whatever the hell she wants. She needn’t overthink the perfect moment to interject in a meeting without seeming bossy.
Lieutenant commander professional#
She doesn’t need to fear making her professional goals widely known, lest she be seen as “overly aggressively” by her male peers. Shelby, is the embodiment of what a woman can be when not saddled with a pay gap. She’s not forced into the role of ‘the nice girl’ who does all the hard work in the office, yet is repeatedly told to wait for her turn at career advancement. Of course, people are no longer using money in the 24th century, but we’ll take the wins where we can get them. That’s the year 2152, people.īy the time Commander Shelby enters the workforce in the 24th century, women should have (hopefully) been earning equal pay for a while. The gender pay gap is closing at such a glacial pace, the AAUW estimates that the gap won’t fully close for another 133 years. There was also the brief appearance of Captain Jarrett in the beloved episode “ Yesterday’s Enterprise”, but when the season three finale aired in the summer of 1990, Shelby was the ambitious female boss we desperately needed at the dawn of the new decade. We still need her now.Įach April, Americans celebrate “ Equal Pay Day,” the symbolic day when a woman’s earnings “catch up” to a man’s earnings from the previous year. According to the American Association of University Women (AAUW), women who work full-time typically take home about 80 cents for every dollar that a full-time male worker earns. Yes, we had Crusher, Troi, Pulaski, and Guinan on TNG. I had never seen a female character like Commander Shelby (portrayed by Elizabeth Dennehy in a pitch-perfect performance) in the Star Trek universe before.
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