You know, the first time I watched this whole scene, and the preceding one where Kaylee gets shamed by a bunch of rich ladies for not having the ‘right kind of dress’, I thought it was GREAT!
It’s FEMINIST, right? It’s about a girl who can DO THINGS, LIKE ENGINES, YEAH!
Except it’s not about that.It’s about myth of the girl, who is not like other girls.
She’s better than them.
She’s allowed to like pink dresses, okay, but she’s not allowed to *really* care about fashion. She likes dresses, sure, she’s enough of a girl to be attractive, but she likes MAN THINGS, too! If she really just cared about fashion, she’d be vapid, and also totally deserving of being slut-shamed.
This isn’t subtext, the guy she’s talking to literally shuts down the woman bullying her by making a crack about how the other woman has too much sex.Kaylee has to be the one who leaves the other women to go join the guy’s club, where they RESPECT her, and treat her like a REAL person, and value her opinions!
(Which, honestly, if you believe that’s how large groups of men react to a woman with more knowledge than them, in a ‘traditionally male’ field, try talking to literally any woman in STEM)
There can’t be a single other one of the pretty, fashion-conscious woman, (who, by the way, literally have to maintain that standard because of their social class & situation), who comes over and joins the conversation about ships, or expressed any kind of solidarity with her.
Because that’s not the point of the scene.
It’s not about proving women can do things, it’s about proving that One Exceptional Woman, Who Is Cooler Than All the Other Vapid Women Who Enjoy Sex and Clothing, Ew™, can do those things.
And honestly the harder I look at any of Joss Whedon’s so-called ‘feminist moments’, the quicker they tend to fall apart like a wet napkin under a pressure washer.
Those other girls are literally slave-owners, though. The only reason they’re in those pretty dresses is because their slaves made them for them. “What a vision you are in your fine dress. It must have taken a dozen slaves a dozen days to get you into that getup.”
(I just feel like that should get a mention. Their ‘social class and situation which they have to maintain’ is keeping slaves.)