the overused "medical rape" deviceFollow

Anyone else catch tonight's Battlestar Gallactica?

I've really been enjoying this show. It might even call it the best sci-fi show to hit the airwaves since Babylon 5. But tonight I lost a lot of respect for BSG.

There comes a point in far, far too many sci-fi shows where strong, competent female characters are reduced to being defined by their ovaries, by depicting horrific scenes of medical rape that the character in question either experiences or witnesses and just barely escapes herself. The women are defined as baby makers, and no matter how competent they may otherwise be, they are treated as though this is their ultimate purpose.

It's so very cliched. It was cliched when they did it (TWICE!) to Cordelia Chase on Angel. It was cliched twelve years ago when it happened to Dana Scully on The X-Files.

I keep wondering why these sci-fi shows keep resorting to this same scenario over and over again, and I think it must be because they are being written by men. Somehow the writers think that if they don't have anyone actually sexually assault the woman, she's not in fact being raped. Newsflash: it doesn't work that way. Knocking up, or threatening to knock up, a woman medically is still a sexual violation, i.e. rape.

This insult is further compounded by the fact that Helo and Balthazar were merely "seduced" for their participation in the Cylon's breeding program, which means only the female characters are being handled this way.

I'm highly annoyed by this development.