In this paper, I intend to examine how Battlestar Galactica deals with gender and gender roles. In particular, I will focus on Starbuck and Gaius Baltar’s expressions of gender and how the show treats each character as a result. Starbuck in the original series was a man, but for the revival the character was reworked as a woman, while still retaining most key character traits. Thus, Starbuck is a gambling, hot-headed, rebellious ace pilot, who also happens to be a woman. While she is all of these things and no less a woman, she exemplifies a certain type of gender expression that Battlestar Galactica approves of. She excels through her masculine behaviors, which highlights a key fact. The world of Battlestar Galactica is not, in fact, a utopia in which gender is no longer an issue; it is a world saturated in masculinity, where the most valued traits are associated with men and strength, and things considered feminine are looked down upon. In order to show how this standard runs both ways, I want to contrast Starbuck, a masculine woman praised by the narrative, with Baltar, a feminine man shamed by the narrative. Though several critics have focused on what Starbuck’s character reveals about gender in Battlestar Galactica, what I found most interesting was how Baltar is condemned in the narrative for expressing more feminine traits. As Matthew Jones discusses in “Butch Girls, Brittle Boys, and Sexy, Sexless Cylons: Some Gender Problems in Battlestar Galactica,” Baltar does not fit in with the ideal of a brave, physical manly man, and is thus considered lesser in some way. Between Starbuck and Baltar, I can explore how a very specific gender ideal is being pushed in Battlestar Galactica. I also am considering working in an analysis of how Cylons view and express gender, but I am not quite sure what to focus on within that or how to approach the topic in a way that will fit with my work.