Well, Star Trek has come a long way since the 60s.  We've gone from Uhura (who don't get me wrong, was very cool) as the basic radio operator to the ass-kickin' women of today's Star Trek.  Now, the other shows are great (though I could never forgive TNG for killing Tasha Yar), but I watch Voyager, so this page is about that.  Anyhoo, why was Voyager so hyped?  It was the first show to feature a female captain (Captain Kathryn Janeway).  Hence the excitement way back in Season 1. However, Voyager has gone on to provide us with two other strong female characters, namely B'Elanna Torres and the former Borg known as Seven of Nine. These women hold their own with the men, and I'm happy to report that Voyager has no hint of sexism on the bridge (sexual tension, however, abounds :)  Anyway, here's a quick rundown of why I think each woman is really darn cool (or jump directly to the links ) Enjoy!

Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew)
Janeway is interesting to me, because while on one hand she doesn't take any crap from her crew, it's not at the expense of her womanhood.  In the past, in order to have a strong female character (especially one in a leadership position) writers felt obligated to make her completely sexless, and she was usually a hardcore biatch.  Janeway, however, breaks that stereotype. On one hand she's a caring captain (several Star Trek sites describe her as "Mama Bear") but on the other, she's not afraid to pick up a big ole' rifle and kick some serious alien hiney.  Mulgrew was really the perfect choice for the role, and she continues to turn in stellar performance after stellar performance ("The Q and the Grey" is one of the best).  In a recent interview with Mania Magazine, she said that they were getting away from the warm and fuzzy Janeway in the new season, and instead focusing on the burdens of being the only Starfleet Captain in the Delta Quadrant and so forth.  I say, it's about time.  I look forward to seeing Janeway continue to grow as a strong female lead character.

Seven of Nine  (Jeri Ryan)
Hmmm...Seven is a tough one to get a handle on.  She is fun in the way that Spock was fun, since she's always getting great lines like "You are irrelevant. Resistance is futile" and so forth.  She does a marvelous job showing a creature that is for the first time learning what it means to be an individual.  Plus, since she was a Borg, she's one smart cookie. Science geeks everywhere swoon in admiration. On the other hand, her skin tight uniform is a little ridiculous.  Fortunately, while it may be that she was added with the intention of having her be window dressing for the 18-49 demographic to drool over, Jeri Ryan has shown us that she's actually not a bad actress.  We witnessed several good episodes now where Seven has contributed greatly to the plot, instead of just standing around looking pretty.  I'm just hoping they'll get her into a standard Starfleet uniform soon.
 

B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Biggs Dawson)
What do you get when you cross a Klingon and a human and a starship stranded 70,000 light years from home with some serious engine problems?  You get one spunky, resourceful Voyager chief engineer.  From the first episode we see that B'Elanna is definetely not afraid to kick a little butt when she wants her way.  The third episode began with B'Elanna breaking another crew member's nose, because he wouldn't listen to her.  She's matured a lot since then, though she still lashes out now and then.  She's probably one of the smartest people on Voyager, which is cool, since you can never have enough strong intelligent women on television, in my opinion.  Right now, she's involved with the chief conn officer, the recently demoted (gasp!) Ensign Thomas Paris (who, ironically, is the requisite dumb blonde on the ship).  I am a huge fan of this relationship, which has been developing nicely.  Thankfully, B'Elanna wouldn't give Tom the time of day until he stopped acting like a sexist pig and instead showed that he could treat a woman as more than just a sex object.  I guess he realized what we already knew: B'Elanna is a kick ass character and a great example of a strong and independent woman.
 

GOD, I JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH VOYAGER! (links to some great Voyager pages)

•  The Official Paris/Torres Collective Archive A great source of fan fiction, centered around Paris and Torres of course.  Recommended reading: anything by Julie Evans or the P/T Collective
•  The Definitive Guide to Voyager Fan Fiction on the web  If you're craving fan fiction of any sort, this is the place to start.  It has links to hundreds of fan fiction pages, with just about any romantic combo imaginable.
•  Heather's Paris and Torres page A page with lots and lots of P/T pictures. A great site to visit, especially if you're a P/T'er like myself.  While you're there, read the fan fiction by Amy Player and the Revelation series by Caitlin.
•  Jim Wright's Delta Blues Somewhere, Jim Wright found the time and energy to review and summarize every Voyager episode ever made.  This is a great page to check up on missed episodes. It's updated weekly, with links to next week's episode trailer.  This page is fantastic, and his summaries are hilarious.
•  USS Voyager This page is beautifully done.  It's got a little of everything, plus some wacky links in Holodeck 2, like the top 40 reasons why Janeway is better than Picard.  Funny funny funny.   :)
•  Voyager News and Rumors If you're like me, and you always want to skip to the ending of a book because you can't wait to find out what happened, then this site is for you. Updated just about every week, it's a good place to find out what happening on upcoming episodes
•  La-La Land  Ummm...just check it out and see for yourself. It's too odd to describe.