Curious about this one scene in Empire:

What is this one guy doing in a pilot briefing?

Could be in charge of loading the transports?

I always figured he was the officer in charge of flight operations.

The real question is what is leia doing there. She really wouldn't be involved with fighter operations.

She was briefing them obviously.

Ground control officer I reckon. Co-ordinator between army and navy maybe?

Could be a wannabe pilot?

In "reality" a loadmaster or a ground liaison officer I'd proffer.

Main question is...no female pilots??? 30 years ago, of course. Females need positive action politics in the Rebel Fleet !!!

Main question is...no female pilots??? 30 years ago, of course. Females need positive action politics in the Rebel Fleet !!!

Perhaps more notably no females at all with the Empire...

Perhaps under the Royal Guard red robes... Your Gin is ready, Excellence

Main question is...no female pilots??? 30 years ago, of course. Females need positive action politics in the Rebel Fleet !!!

The rebels are sexist pigs unlike the glorious empire who's imperial navy welcomes female pilots.

That's Major Derlin iirc. Played by John Ratzenburger who has been in every Pixar movie. Also played Cliff Claven on Cheers. He was also be one to tell Leia that the shield doors needed to be closed when Han and Luke were playing hide the farm boy in the taun taun. I dunno if Leia was the top ranking military commander, or just the political leader and happened to be a big part in coordinating the evacuation due to be super smart and also someone the audience would listen to in an otherwise kind of boring scene.

He's there for extra credit

Main question is...no female pilots??? 30 years ago, of course. Females need positive action politics in the Rebel Fleet !!!

The rebels are sexist pigs unlike the glorious empire who's imperial navy welcomes female pilots.

This is actually funny because the Navy has just about the lowest percentage of female characters of ANY branch of the Empire.

Run a category intersection on Wookieepedia sometime, it's interesting.

Most of the rebel soldiers for Hoth were played by a reserve military unit and women weren't allowed in combat roles at the time. Its one of those things no one considered a big deal back then but we do now.

Kind of like how in Star Trek the original plans for Enterprise to have a female XO were scrapped because the network claimed no one would consider a female as XO of a ship believable, and how they later forced a re-write of a script where Uhura was left in temporary command of the ship while most of the main cast was on a planet to put a male bit character in command.

1980 was well before Pvt. Judy Benjamin's time... At least a couple years.

(And if you get that reference then you are getting old)

And I don't remember any female characters for the Empire at all in TIE Fighter, which is the most canon source of all. If it was t for one cutscene I don't think there would be any female characters at all in that game, save the occasional player actually being female.

Curious about this one scene in Empire:

What is this one guy doing in a pilot briefing?

Likely a maintenance officer, ordinance crew, flight director, ect. Maybe a crew chief, though they usually wear flight suits as well. Every day there are maintenance meetings where representatives from each shop and a maintenance officer meet to discuss what needs to get done, when, and how. Its important we know what the mission is and what is required. The pilot's job is to sit in the seat and fly, everyone else handles all the logistics to make flying possible. Source: I work avionics in the Navy.

Yep, Stilgod has it right. He's just all bundled up because he's cold.

Everyone knows the infantry gets the best cold weather gear buwahahahahaha! I'm sure he traded some tauntaun meat for a good jacket.

I know I'm a Star Wars nerd because I said to myself "oh, that's Major Bren Derlin" as soon as I saw that picture.

Yep, Stilgod has it right. He's just all bundled up because he's cold.

Everyone knows the infantry gets the best cold weather gear buwahahahahaha! I'm sure he traded some tauntaun meat for a good jacket.

Err those pressure suits can withstand the cold of space pretty sure that trumps -61c.

Main question is...no female pilots??? 30 years ago, of course. Females need positive action politics in the Rebel Fleet !!!

The rebels are sexist pigs unlike the glorious empire who's imperial navy welcomes female pilots.

It actually makes more sense for the Rebels to have more females in frontline military ops than the Empire if we are comparing them to Earthican humans.

I was wondering about this topic a while ago, and like all controversial topics there are almost no unbiased sources. (And true unbiased sources may not be believed.)

After much reading and looking I found a source that seemed as unbiased as it could get: a female USMC officer on women in the infantry. Source - https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/2014/09/why-women-do-not-belong-us-infantry

The title leaves little up to the imagination. Her main points were actually not physical, (while human biology favors males for combat, a few females can close the gap with hard work) but instead focused on the ability for squads to focus on combat operations as effectively in mixed-gender units. Read the article if you want to argue against her points, and she makes some pretty good ones.

I'm not sure if the same holds true in the other branches, but it looks like when you have as many volunteers as you have in the U.S. (or the Empire) and can pick and choose who gets to be in frontline units, it makes sense pick the combination with the best combat-effectiveness that is to say: all-male humans (humans are plentiful), supplemented by combat droids (who no-one will approve of since the clone wars), and aliens who are A. physically-superior and/or B. don't have as strong of an attraction to mates 24/7 (whom the Empire will not approve of because of their Humans-First stance on recruits).

Now the Empire does have a characteristic that mitigates the drop in effectiveness for gender-mixing to some extent: The Armor.

< All chicks.

If you keep them in separate barracks; in the field no-one would be able to tell the gender of the trooper next to them. Voice-changers and Plasteel plate mask all of the differences. No sexual tension, no distractions, brotherhood/sisterhood social construct intact: combat effectiveness mostly unaltered.

Otherwise I'd figure that most of the Empire's female military personnel would be A. Disproportionately better than the rest of their comrades so as to negate the squad-effects, (Ysanne Isard) or B. As in the U.S. and most other leading militaries regulated to support positions and command/ops positions that while less "glamorous" than the frontlines would be less disruptive to the missions. (The support ranks do get their moments though. Ruthlessness Elite card anyone?)

The Rebels on the other hand, are more like the Israelis

or Kurds

in the real-world. Always fighting, always in danger of being attacked, and with a smaller pool of recruits to choose from. Without the legions of volunteers or conscripts that the Empire (U.S.) have at their disposal, the Rebels need everyone and anyone to fight. Even if the numbers say that having mixed squads is distracting and can hold up the mission, the numbers say that having fewer soldiers is even worse combat-effectiveness wise.

This is why the Rebel's force is so diverse: the fewer resources you have access too, and the more all-encompassing and desperate your fight is, the less picky you can be when creating your military.

Thus we would expect to see the Rebels have more girls, aliens, and droids on the frontlines than the Empire.

If you read all of that text, pictures or no you get a smiley.

P.S - (While most of the military people I know, (Female, USMC, Based) (Male, U.S. Navy, Engineer) (Male, U.S. Army, Paratrooper) have similar opinions, it would be nice to know what the military people here in X-Wing have to say on it, and how y'all think it would translate culturally/economically/strategically into the Star Wars universe.) (Civvies' like me are welcome too!)

cold of space

"cold of space"

cold of space

"cold of space"

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!

Infantry guy: "Okay, guys! Very funny! Now tell me where you hid my flight suit!"

Pilots: *sniggering*

Leia: "Really, guys? really?"

"Deck Officer! Deck Officer!"

- General Solo

I know I'm a Star Wars nerd because I said to myself "oh, that's Major Bren Derlin" as soon as I saw that picture.

I know I'm a Star Wars nerd AND I grew up in the 80's because I said "oh, that's John Ratzenberger." But I had to check Wookieepedia to confirm who he played, so you had one up on me.