Starfleet Ladies' Auxiliary and Embroidery and Baking Society

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Community
Name: Starfleet Ladies' Auxiliary and Embroidery and Baking Society," also "Starfleet Ladies' Auxiliary and Embroidery/Baking Society ("SFLAaE/BS")
Date(s): late 1992-about 1999
Founder: Janis C.
Type:
Fandom: Star Trek
URL: Wayback link to home page; Wayback link to fic archive
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Starfleet Ladies' Auxiliary and Embroidery/Baking Society was a private electronic forum.

the community's icon

It, along with Quantum Leap Ladies Club and estrogen brigades, was one of the first all-female electronic mailing lists.

It was created in late 1992 and had seven members. By June 1993, it had twenty-one members. Membership peaked at forty-eight.

One member's description: "The Starfleet Ladies' Auxiliary and Embroidery/Baking Society, which is composed of 48 women from all walks of life who chat about matters from politics to sexism and other social issues, to whether or not pantyhose were invented by men to have something to pull over their faces during bank robberies." [1]

It stopped accepting new members in 1997: " Due to pressing mail quota problems from some members, we have been forced to stop accepting new members... If you are interested in womanspace mailing lists (or just general coed mailing lists), don't be discouraged by the above! The Ladies' Aux has already spawned a new group, and we hope to do so many more times to come. After the group appeared in Newsweek, we got several applications for membership that sent us over our cap." [2]

FAQ/About

Last upsdated in 1999:

Last Modified on February 18, 1999.

WHO ARE YOU? We are a unifying force of women who like Trek! Well, actually, that is old news. The group originally coalesced around a shared affection for all things Trekkish (see below), but has since evolved into a community of women from different backgrounds, different locations, and different ages who have found unity and friendship in sharing their lives online.

WHAT DOES THIS GROUP DO? The primary form of interaction in the Auxiliary is our email list, on which we share just about everything and anything that is significant about our lives, and many things which aren't significant at all. We support and counsel each other and help each other out when help is needed, like in any community.

We also meet in person whenever possible, sometimes a daunting task because of our different locations.

WHY DID YOU FORM? Way back in 1992 or so, a group of women who were Trek fans found that while there were plenty of online Trek forums, the demographics of 'Netters were so heavily slanted towards men that the newsgroups were bogged down by posts comparing Troi's breasts to Crusher's. Online reviews of TNG episodes had heavy male slants. In an effort to have conversations which did not involve women's secondary sexual characteristics and to give a female viewpoint in online reviews, some of these women began a very loose association and began to post as a unified group, the SFLAaE/BS.

The idea of a womanspace Trek mailing group quickly attracted women from all over the 'Net and the original "Core" group began to get requests from others to join. When applications for membership were accepted, the ranks of the group quickly swelled. A real mailing list was set up, and the group phased into an organization. At one point, we topped out at around 48 members. Since then we have shrunk a little, and many members have left the mailing list from time to time. We have about 30 active members now.

WHAT IS WITH THE NAME? We are a sarcastic bunch. We are women. We come from every background, and include gourmet cooks and people who are afraid of boiling water, accomplished seamstresses and people who can't thread a needle.

Anyone who takes our name seriously should be given a pair of Tribbles.

DO YOU ACCEPT NEW MEMBERS? No, we don't. We do encourage women to create their own spin-off groups, but after so many years (some more turbulent than others), we have finally settled down into a stable community where each personality is more or less a known quantity. If you like our idea, you should definitely create a group of your own. (We can't emphasize this enough.) We have found that our group gives us a sense of cyber-community, strength, and knowledge, that is just amazing. With online chat rooms and cyber-clubs and ICQ, it is very easy now to create a new association of your own.

The Star Fleet Ladies' Auxiliary and Embroidery/Baking Society: A woman's place is in the Captain's chair. [3]

A 1994 Description

From an article in 1994: "AS A LONGTIME "STAR TREK" devotee, [J C] was eager to be part of the Trekkie discussion group on the Internet. But when she first logged on, [J C] noticed that these fans of the final frontier devoted megabytes to such profound topics as whether Troi or Crusher had bigger breasts. In other words, the purveyors of this "Trek" dreck were all guys. Undeterred, [J C], a physicist at California's Loma Linda University, figured she'd add perspective to the electronic gathering place with her own momentous questions. Why was the male cast racially diverse while almost all the females were young, white and skinny? Then, she tossed in a few lustful thoughts about the male crew members. After those seemingly innocuous observations, "I was chased off the net by rabid hounds," recalls [J C]. Before she could say "Fire phasers." the Trekkies had flooded her electronic mailbox with nasty messages-a practice called "flaming." [J C] retreated into her own galaxy by starting the all-female Starfleet Ladies Auxiliary and Embroidery/Baking Society. The private electronic forum, based in Houston. now has more than 40 members, including psychologists, physicians, students and secretaries. They started with Trektalk, but often chose to beam down and go where no man had ever wandered before-into the personal mode." [4]

The Community's Fanworks

See Bibliography.

See Links to Archive Works.

Members

See The SFLAaE/BS at a Glance.

See Travel to the home pages of the Star Fleet Ladies' Auxiliary Choose Your Destination.

Similar Groups

External Links

References

  1. ^ Mailing Lists
  2. ^ Mailing Lists
  3. ^ FAQ
  4. ^ Men, Women & Computers/WebCite, from The Daily Beast, posted May 15, 1994, accessed March 10, 2010
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