Star Trek: Utopians at War

HG Wells, JT Kirk

"This is now a war for peace" wrote the Radium Age scifi master, H.G. Wells, in 1914, "This is the greatest of all wars, not just another war - it is the last war!" In 1932, as if answering Wells directly, but also predicting the rest of the 20th century, the Nazi jurist Carle Schmitt wrote "Such a war is necessarily unusually intense and inhuman because, by transcending the limits of political framework, it simultaneously degrades the enemy into moral and other categories and is forced to make of him a monster that must not only be defeated but utterly destroyed."

Star Trek and Postscarcity Consumerism

James Doohan and Simon Pegg as Scotty

Even if many Americans have lost track of the full promise of the American Dream - the dream that a nation's wealth is measured not simply by how great it is, but how greatly it is shared - our cousins in Scotland have not. I have no idea what they're putting in scotch eggs these days, but between Charles Stross, Ken MacLeod, Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, the Scots have a lock on myth creation at the moment. The Godfather of this second Scottish Enlightenment is Iain M. Banks, who describes his Culture novels as his own "secular heaven". But while Banks says that he "could [n]ever write in someone else's universe like Star Wars or Star Trek, as it would be too restrictive" his Culture series clearly picks up where Roddenberry left off - projecting into a distant future where the United Federation of Planets has grown into a galaxy-spanning civilization of multiple humanoid species and massively powerful artificial intelligences. 

Why is there no misogyny on Star Trek? (Dick 5.1)

Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek crew; The men of Mad Men.

The short answer is: Because it takes place in the future.
My friend Joanne McNeil wrote a fuller answer on her blog Tomorrow's Museum: "There are no sexist men in the 21st century, only stupid men." I read Joanne's post on the heels of posting a piece about my "girl phone" and a very confusing argument I had about feminism recently. It also coincided with some recent stuff I read on the subject of manhood now, and as it is remembered on Mad Men.

For the record, I love carrying a "girl phone." Even as my nephew makes fun of it, I like him to see that I have carried it for three years in spite of the ribbing I receive from him and my other friends. I don't spend a lot of energy 'transgressing gender roles' - its not my bag, but I admire those that do. I am very aware of how much courage it takes for a young man or woman to tell their parents they are trans-gender, and enormous sympathy for parent's struggling to come to terms with that new reality. These are people who have stepped off the map of the known world, they are exploring the future. I have no sympathy meanwhile for the pantsless men celebrated in last winter's Superbowl ads. These over grown boys are stuck in the past. Madison Avenue's answer to the prospect of a world of men without chests are men without pants.