Though various yeomen appeared over the course of Star Trek: The Original Series, subsequent Star Trek series have rarely featured crew members with that title. The most prominent yeoman character was Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), who served as the yeoman for Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) aboard the USS Enterprise. After Whitney's departure from TOS following eight episodes of the first season, various young women filled the position of yeoman for the rest of the series. Though Star Trek: Strange New Worlds introduced Captain Pike's (Anson Mount) previous yeoman, Zac Nguyen (David Huynh) in "Among the Lotus Eaters," Pike does not seem to have a yeoman anymore.

In the original unaired pilot for Star Trek: The Original Series, Yeoman Colt (Laurel Goodwin) was offered by the Talosians as a potential mate for Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter), and Pike himself commented on the strangeness of having a woman on the bridge. In the TOS episode "The Corbomite Maneuver," Captain Kirk made a similar comment about Yeoman Rand. It was a trope in the media of the 1960s for men in positions of power to have young, attractive women as their secretaries, and the yeoman position played into this trope for Star Trek, but modern shows have done away with it for a very good reason.

What Is A Yeoman In Star Trek?

The position of yeoman, like many of the Starfleet officer positions, comes from the US Navy. In the Navy, a yeoman works in an office setting, seeing to administrative work. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a yeoman is defined as "an attendant or officer in a royal or noble household" or "a person attending or assisting another." The yeomen of Star Trek combine the Navy version of a yeoman with this more general definition. On a typical starship, a yeomen served as assistants to the Captain, attending to various duties and seeing to the Captain's needs, much like a secretary.

Yeomen could hold various ranks, from enlisted crewmen to junior officers. For example, Yeoman Rand on Star Trek: The Original Series was a non-commissioned Starfleet officer who sometimes accompanied the Captain on away missions in addition to her duties aboard the ship. On TOS, women rarely served as high-ranking officers, so the position of yeomen allowed there to be more women among the show's cast. In fact, the yeomen of TOS were almost exclusively attractive young women, and this sometimes led to inappropriate comments from male officers. In many episodes, the main purpose of a female yeoman was to be an object of desire for the surrounding men.

Why Star Trek Abandoned The Yeoman Rank

In an organization as advanced as Starfleet and a society as supposedly utopian as the United Federation of Planets, the need for yeomen on starships makes little sense. With the computers and data PADDs available on the ships and technology like food replicators, the position of Yeoman feels like an unnecessary one. Much of the administrative-type work a yeoman in the Navy does, for example, could be automated with the technology of the Star Trek universe.

After Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek shows would have ensigns or other lower-level officers perform any necessary functions of a yeoman. By the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation, starship captains even have food replicators in their quarters, meaning no one needed to bring them meals or coffee. While the roles of yeomen, and the way they were treated, could have been updated for the modern era, the advancements of Star Trek's far future render the position obsolete.