Sex, Gender, and (Imperial) Titles

[Daeron]

1. Sorry, didn't realise the Elite universe was based in fact.
2. If only a title exists, there is no gender bias. Where it came from isn't relevant if the same title applies to all for a given situation. Title and gender should *not* be related.
3. I'm sure it is an oversight. I didn't realise I was going to be taken so seriously...

Tell you what, why not take half male titles, and half female titles. Happy now?

It is actually based on a possible future under certain conditions. Most of which will never apply, granted. But I would think this is well within the realm of possibilities, and also make the titles, -not ranks-, appear a bit more organic, as is proper in a society not especially fond of cybering with robots.

 

[StayFrosty]

They could have went with an all male world too, you should be glad there's even an option to change your gender.

As you might have noticed, this game is still pretty much unfinished, and tons of things are missing, way more important things. Gender is far from being a huge issue right now, and it generally isn't really one in a video game either: you're playing as someone else, not yourself, and the choice isn't always yours.

 

[RailBalco]

I want to be a boy named Sue.

So far best post here

 

[Star-Hunter]

Help me help you.

How can I be any more clear?

Sex = */Prostate/Testicles or Vagina/Ovaries/Uterus

Gender = Whatever society you live in has different rules/values/mores that you either choose or are forced to abide by determined by your sex.

Simple.

that is not an example, just a different definition.
an example would be:
SEX == FAMALE
GENDER == ??? FEMALE ?

If so i dont understand why are you so hung up on differentiating it.

I really dont understand Feminists/Feminism. You want to be equal, but when you are threated equally you rage because of "unfair" and un-gentleman like treatment. You cant have both you know.

And by the way, i think empire ranks are meant to be gender neutral. All ranks used are shorter than the equivalent other gender variant. (Except LORD, but that actually describes the bearers occupation i.e. You dont have to be A Lord to be lord of your castle)

 

[Crank Larson]

Fact: FD assumed male gender titles for females because of an abolishment of gender bias.

That's your assertion. You don't know it to be true any more than I know it to be false. But let's keep pushing your idea over the one that suggests FD actually missed something.

Senator is now used instead of Senatrix because the world moved away from gender bias?

Yeh, OK then... I'm sure sexual equality was all over that one in the history books.

Keep fighting male power, guys

Assertion? No. Suggestion? Possibly. Or more a light-hearted response which has been taken far too seriously...

As I stated, I'm sure that the actual situation we have in game is nothing to do with my posts in this thread. I am 99% sure that it is an oversight. However, it would be nice to think that in 1300 years these arguments become moot. And in fact, would make no sense in 1300 years because everyone is completely past this equality issue (and the people at that time wouldn't understand what you mean when you say that a title has both a male and a female form).

 

[GluttonyFang]

Alright, I've made Baron and it's time for me to have my fit. It seems no one else cares much so I take it upon myself to vent my frustration into the void and hope someone who cares happens by to see it.

Sex: So, there's an option for "PILOT GENDER" in the game's options. I of course chose "FEMALE" because I prefer to be the LOUDEST kind of princess I can be (or I'm just trying to be funny saying so). I believe the only effect of this to be giving the character model only visible to myself and possibly a slimmer figure. As I expect and handful of you may know, developed are a characteristic of the female /sex/. So, this is wrong.

Gender: Gender, on the other hand, is... /almost/ nowhere. Even players don't refer to my gender unless there's more to them saying "Hey, guys" and the like than just the awkward but understood general usage of "guys." This is /almost/ fine, as I'm fine with the possibility of everyone growing out of fussing over binary gender or gender as a concept within the next thousand or so years.

Imperial Titles: So, you may have noticed that not only is my status as princess not recognised by the Empire (so I'm not a princess /of/ the Empire, surely they're beyond such petty details! (FD please make me a Princess of the Empire. PRCS Riikka (or such) would be fantastic as well ;P)) but my gender is also ignored. This is wrong.

Apparently this isn't an issue for anyone else, but I'm still sick of getting the "probably a man" "i bet ur rly a guy lol" crap everywhere else I go on the Internet. Anywhere else it's just thoughtless or outright hateful people calling me a fraud and a liar (potentially among other things) just for being there, but here the game itself has decided that I'm male. "Lord?" "Baron?" I deliberately told the game that my pilot's /gender/ is female (never mind all of the talk that "the character is /you/;" it's still a setting for the "pilot") yet gender is the thing that it gets /wrong/ the only time it ever uses any relevant (in this case, gendered) language and the option itself actually just affects sex. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Just in case someone thinks this is all a clever "oh, these terms don't have gender association anymore a thousand years into the future" kind of thing I'd like to point out that there's no indication to those of us who're playing in 2015 that this is the case. We just get a rank mission and then suddenly we have a new title once it's done... probably a male gendered one, if we're working on Empire rank. I feel it's plenty fair to ask that Frontier provide at least male and female terms if they must use terms of this type (is a non-binary/agender/third gender/etc. person a Lord, and Lady, or something else?) or use gender neutral/agnostic terms instead particularly for things that are directly labeling players. I can no longer /not/ have a male rank unless I just erase my progress completely. I find this unpleasant.

A bit long-winded, but I feel better now. I hope some people learned some things and I further hope that I've not legitimately offended or irritated anyone myself. I suppose it's probably going too far to hope this doesn't attract hateful types but I'll do that anyway as well. The best for us all, and the best for Frontier exploring new frontiers of respect, decency, and large-scale space adventure! ö/

Was about to dismiss this as a troll bait half way through and begin counter trolling, but I did read it through.

Good points.

I pray for the day of gender equality and cultural traditions reconciliate.

 

[Huita]

Yeah, that's why all armies today have female version of their ranks. Like, lieutenantess, generaless... oh wait.

 

[Daeron]

Yeah, that's why all armies today have female version of their ranks. Like, lieutenantess, generaless... oh wait.

And people reading threads. Sci-Fi is what it is!

 

[Deleted member 38366]

IMHO there's only one "gender" in Space :

The Commander. Short : CMDR.

Fine with me.
When it comes to imperial Ranks, those could (any probably should) be adapted. The female equivalent to Baron is Baronesse - and in the past these titles existed (AFAIK technically still do in a few countries).
Although probably very low Priority, that should be easy to fix, as it's Text-only stuff.

But for that to happen, it would have to be filed either as a Bug Report or Feature Request, so Devs might eventually take note of it.

 

[JughedJones]

that is not an example, just a different definition.
an example would be:
SEX == FAMALE
GENDER == ??? FEMALE ?

If so i dont understand why are you so hung up on differentiating it.

I really dont understand Feminists/Feminism. You want to be equal, but when you are threated equally you rage because of "unfair" and un-gentleman like treatment. You cant have both you know.

And by the way, i think empire ranks are meant to be gender neutral. All ranks used are shorter than the equivalent other gender variant. (Except LORD, but that actually describes the bearers occupation i.e. You dont have to be A Lord to be lord of your castle)

so much anger. nobody is acting threatened or raging here but you.


You're spitting all kinds of venom about something you clearly aren't intellectually curious enough to attempt understanding.

 

[Star-Hunter]

so much anger. nobody is acting threatened or raging here but you.


You're spitting all kinds of venom about something you clearly aren't intellectually curious enough to attempt understanding.

(Facepalm)

 

[GluttonyFang]

IMHO there's only one "gender" in Space :

The Commander. Short : CMDR.

Fine with me.
When it comes to imperial Ranks, those could (any probably should) be adapted. The female equivalent to Baron is Baronesse - and in the past these titles existed (AFAIK technically still do in a few countries).
Although probably very low Priority, that should be easy to fix, as it's Text-only stuff.

But for that to happen, it would have to be filed either as a Bug Report or Feature Request, so Devs might eventually take note of it.

As a fellow male gamer, I do not understand how the female population interact or feel about games being predominantly appeasing to heterosexual male and the idea of masculinity in a cultural sense.

However, it must be pretty crappy to feel like you are playing on a playground you do not belong in, or in an amusement park where most rides deny you of entrance due to your height, or maybe thrown into a video game where you feel disconnected to the figure the game attempts to shape you to be.

But of course, realistically the male audience is much larger, therefore no reason for them to lose sleep over morals when they may very much sleep on the side of the streets pondering why their moralistic campaign provided insufficient funding in their game development.

Oh the humor...

 

[Myrogia]

Fact: FD assumed male gender titles for females because of an abolishment of gender bias.

That's your assertion. You don't know it to be true any more than I know it to be false. But let's keep pushing your idea over the one that suggests FD actually missed something.

Senator is now used instead of Senatrix because the world moved away from gender bias?

Yeh, OK then... I'm sure sexual equality was all over that one in the history books. Senatrix was lost due to there rarely being female senators.

Keep fighting male power, guys

Fact, those aren't male gender titles, they're simply classes of nobility or simple titles that can be used by both genders in many cultures (earl > jarl > jarl elisif). Of course some cultures have relegated one term or another to refer to males/females. It's almost as if the same word can have different meanings in different societies. Perhaps you should suggest completely reworking the Federal ranks as well, considering many cultures have had male only militaries in the past. We wouldn't want to make any pacifistic female players feel moral conflict in this fictional universe with only distant ties to the present, now would we?

You seem to be under the impression that gender neutral titles can not exist, and that in the case of a female specific title, the alternative must be male specific.
The word "Senatrix" was lost because it's Latin, and the English language cherry picks words from many different languages as it needs. Not everything has to be the result of "male power".

Stop saying I asserted things I didn't assert. Either your reading comprehension is extraordinarily poor or you're intentionally spreading falsehoods to press your agenda.

 

[Cougar]

1. Hopefully, in the future no one cares what gender/sex another pilot has.

2. Because no one cares, there's no distinction in rank names based on gender, and it seems backwards to implement one. As gender equality obviously means people of the same profession and rank are called the same regardless of what gender/sex or whatever they are.

3. At some point, people selected the word for the gender-neutral version of the traditional titles (or more likely, it evolved naturally from general use). It seems more likely this happened to be the version which has less clear implication regarding sex instead of a word clearly reserved for females. At least in my native language, this happens to usually be the male version, I'm not sure how strongly a word like "Lord" implies "male".

 

[Princess Riikka]

(snip)

No need to replace them with gender neutral titles. All of the titles that are gender specific have female versions.

Bonus for gender agnostic terms: not everyone is strictly male xor female. This is true whether you take that as a statement about sex or one about gender.

--
Additionally, this is getting quite a bit silly. People are making up all sorts of things and ignoring all that's gone before apparently for the sole purpose of bickering more. I reiterate: it is not made clear anywhere I'm aware of that any of these explanations have any relation to reality. Did FD just not notice that these terms appear gendered? Maybe. Is FD secretly super sexist? Maybe. Is there a lore explanation that they've been as quiet about as they are with so much else? Maybe. Arguing possible explanations as truth is simply ridiculous and leads us nowhere.

My issue is that these titles do look gendered to me and people from now. You know, real live actual people who exist. I've nothing with any basis in fact to tell myself and others that I'm not bearing a male title. It looks exactly as if somebody just forgot or didn't care that women exist because now there are two forms of these terms, one for each of the most recognised genders (the "binary" ones). We have "baron" and we have "baroness." One can sometimes get away with saying something like "Hey, guys!" because it's become understood that the term "guys" has in that context mostly lost its connection to gender. It's something people say, it's awkward and a bit irritating, but saying "you lot" or "people" or such can sound rude and better alternatives just haven't taken over for some reason... yet. One cannot get away with saying "Some guy name Riikka is whining about words on the forums!" because it is currently widely understood that we have a different word that would be more appropriate and that anyone would be expected to use to refer to a woman.

I think this establishes the validity of the issue quite concretely. This is a little thing in terms of the work involved in typing "ess" at the end of "baron" but not a little thing to those of us who're denied basic respect routinely. Like I said, some of us are told we don't exist, told we don't belong, treated with contempt and ridicule most anywhere we go. The devs will always have other things to do. That argument is complete garbage as it will be true of any developing project of this scale (or any nontrivial scale) until they shut it down, remaining bugs/missing features and all. That's no excuse to tell a group of people they're just not "that" important. In effect, that's saying that said group should just sit down and shut up forever. Various smaller, lower priority features are implemented for any project on a continuing basis, including this one. There is clearly no permanent dedication of 100% of all effort to whatever the next big feature is.

To think that some were worried about female gamers not feeling welcome here, pshaw! Though to be fair, this thread has been... fairly civil.

 

[Daeron]

For me this looks to be based on British titles, and they definitely use/used the female form. So the game would feel more genuine, and dare I say complete, if all the valid forms are going in. Obviously this does not apply for the Federation, where they use another system. And I dare say that is the whole point in the end, to embrace the differences here, not to go for more of the same. A point lost in the realm of intentions gone over the hill perhaps. But it is a nice dream to have...

 

[digitalscream]

No opinion here, just musing on it...hold the flames, but...

Have you considered the explanation of the Imperial culture's backstory? If you look at what it's based on, you have to consider how accurate you want it to be in relation to gender choice. For example, women couldn't be squires or knights and could only be born into the higher ranks (despite what Hollywood likes to tell us), so if you want it to be 100% true then choosing your gender would preclude you from ever getting up the ladder from being a lowly serf.

 

[Raptor8009]

I think you make a good point.

 

[Daeron]

No opinion here, just musing on it...hold the flames, but...

Have you considered the explanation of the Imperial culture's backstory? If you look at what it's based on, you have to consider how accurate you want it to be in relation to gender choice. For example, women couldn't be squires or knights and could only be born into the higher ranks, so if you want it to be 100% true then choosing your gender would preclude you from ever getting up the ladder from being a lowly serf.

You know how it goes, players are always more special than everyone in all of the recorded background history combined. The day they follow up on that one, you will have a point. And all those faction-hoppers will be perma-killed. Coincidentally that will also be the day I eat my hat, and choke to death! So it will be both glorious, and a little sad. For me that is.

 

[GMac]

Just thinking out loud here, but is it possible frontier took the decision to not distinguish gender in the game to minimise inappropriate comments or abuse from less evolved players in the community? Not saying a default to male is appropriate (would have gone neutral myself) but if gender based titles are introduced there may be unintended consequences.

Process Rikka, I get the impression you can shrug off such immaturity and see it for what it is but I'd be concerned for other, less confident players.

Neutrality is boring but better than abuse.

Anyways, just thinking out loud here. I hope FD come up with something that works for everyone as the current setup isnt neutral and it would jar me to be referenced with feminine terms all the time. Completely screws with RP and immersion.