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star trek - What's the origin of referring to female superior officers as "sir"?


It is well established in Star Trek: The Next Generation that female superior officers are normally referred to as sir. This is applied to Dr. Crusher, Counselor Troi, Cmdr. Shelby, Maj. Kira, Lt. Dax, and numerous admirals. This obviously fits in well with the egalitarian ideals of Star Trek.


This convention is made explicit in "Thine Own Self":



DATA: Counsellor, have you been promoted in my absence?



TROI: That's right. Which means from now on you can call me sir.


DATA: Yes, sir.



In Addition, the first episode of Star Trek: Voyager, "Caretaker" contains this dialog:



KIM: Thank you, sir.


JANEWAY: Mister Kim, at ease before you sprain something. Ensign, despite Starfleet protocol, I don't like being addressed as sir.


KIM: I'm sorry, ma'am.


JANEWAY: Ma'am is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer Captain. We're getting ready to leave. Let me show you to the bridge.




which again establishes that sir is the norm, although Capt. Janeway doesn't prefer it.


Did this usage of the honorific sir start with ST: TNG or does it predate TNG in either sci-fi or the real world?



Related: What's the earliest in-universe reference to a female superior officer as "sir"?



Answer



Professor De Witt Douglas Kilgore, a specialist in English literature and cultural representation at Indiana University, has done significant research on race, gender, and equality in speculative fiction. In his book Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space (2010), he attributes calling females "sir" to Star Trek :



The Star Trek franchise reinforced this idea by the convention of awarding its female officers the honorific "sir". This innovation was established in the second Star Trek film, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, dir. Nicholas Meyer, Paramount, 1982.



Likely, Kilgore is actually making reference to the use of "Mister Saavik" in the film, and perhaps equating it to "sir". At the very least, as "mister" is a male title, it foreshadows the use of "sir" in later Star Trek works. In any case, Kilgore's research suggests that we owe the use of "sir" as a bi-gender honorific to Star Trek, whether it first occurred in The Wrath of Khan or a few years later in TNG, at least as far as science fiction is concerned.



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