Feminizing Imperial Ranks

[Erei]

I addressed this in my post, yeah. Adapting words and changing language is a slow and complicated process. It's also one which doesn't have a lot of easy answers. You being this categorical about it despite seemingly not being aware of a large segment of feminist debate on the topic is evidence of this.


The example of actor and actress has already been given, it's probably the most publicised example. Many female actors ask for the -ess to be removed. The -ess being an additional gendered suffix.


I actually went into that in a post too but it seems like you just skimmed it. Maybe read it again, I'll also try to get some article links from feminist writers on the issue. As I've said, it's a complex issue and really deserves a deeper analysis than a few paragraphs on a game subforum. One reason though is that male nouns are 'where the power is' systemically, and grammatically where the root is in many cases (due to ye olde systemic sexism, see?)

Completely changing to a new word is technically the fairest thing to do but also the hardest as it requires adoption from a whole society, many of whom are behind the curve.

First time I heard about it.

Considering this thread had female(s) participating, I would tend to think they know better though.

We're discussing ranks in Elite. Military ranks
And my point is military ranks are gender neutral

Federal ranks are military.
Imperial are mixed military and nobility/feudal titles. As it happens, feudal society like the Empire doesn't make a distinction between nobility title and military title. It's the same. A military leader is also a noble, and vice versa. Despite being honorific, the players is submitted to the same rules.

King and Duke were ALWAYS military titles. Duke come from "Dux" in latin, which mean "general". Didn't stop feudal people to make a female name out of them and use them.
Who do you think lead medieval armies ? Random peasants promoted to the rank of general ? Even mercenary company leaders and officers were nobility, the vast majority of the time.

Even now, they're gender neutral
Jude Terry is Rear Admiral
Before being promoted to Rear Admiral, she held the rank of Commodore

Sharon Nesmith is Major General in British Army
Before being promoted to Major General, she was a Brigadier.

Unless I'm mistaken, those are not the feudal titles Imperial navy uses.

And this is before we get into feminist stuff and politics.

King is the male title.
Queen is the female one.

It's not politic, it's English language.

Example, this is a queen.

This, however, is a King :

Anyone else looking forward to shooting Thargoids in an Alliance Chieftess?
I'll get my coat.....

I'm really confused, not only I know better English than some people, apparently, but I can also give lesson in English ! My old school teacher would be so proud !

Alliance Chieftain is a proper noun, that's why it's capitalized ! As such, it can't be changed depending on gender and number. IE, if I see a wing of Alliance Chieftain, I'm not going to say "the Chieftains are attacking us", I'll say "the Chieftain are attacking us". However, instead of saying "the ship are attacking us", I'll say "the ships are attacking us".


Hope this help, I was never a really good teacher.

 

[GJ51]

Do we know if Zer even cares?

 

[Fake Newts]

First time I heard about it.

This surprises me, given the confidence with which you're posting about this topical feminist issue.

From a brief Google dive: https://fortune.com/2018/03/02/oscars-2018-best-actor-actress-metoo/ for example.

Considering this thread had female(s) participating, I would tend to think they know better though.

Which women know better? They don't all think the same thing. Are they better versed in the complex sociological stakes by being in the elite discord? How do you know I'm not a woman? Newt is gender neutral.

Also language is political, that's why this is a debate. It shapes how we think about the world in ways we can barely perceive, it's also used knowingly to exert power. One of the ways in which women are treated unequally is through having been ascribed different and often 'diminutive' titles.

Why are you waving an anachronistic monarchy tradition around as if anyone's genuinely confused as to what king and queen means? You're missing the point, I'm afraid. The debate is not 'do unequal gendered titles still exist today', it's 'could/should it be done better/differently'. I think your heart's in the right place, and I'm not even saying you're wrong... like I've said a few times, it's part of an ongoing debate. It's just not 'obvious' as you seem to be claiming.

 

[SoanoS]

As a woman I can only say that there is absolutely nothing "political" in me wishing to be addressed by appropriate nouns and pronouns, and being addressed by proper rank and title. In the context of the game itself it would make the game feel more immersive for us ladies. That's really all there is to it, plain and simple.

 

[gorankar]

“Lore” is one of my least favourite words that gets used more and more in the gaming communities. As if using some fancy word makes it more than just “story” or “stuff made up by the people who invented tje game” …

Adherence to established game lore is what sees to it that we do not have a game world that contradicts itself too much. Excessive contradiction, or lore breaks, can certainly spoil the sense of immersion in a game world. It may not matter to you, but it does to others. I don't think it really gets in the way of feminizing titles/ranks though.

 

[Ian Phillips]

This is a game. This forum is for discussions ABOUT the game.

Please leave current life issues OUT of the discussion.

Thanks.

 

[Alien]

Surely a better request would be to make the rank titles non-gender specific? Surely that would please everyone, and instead of alternate names you would simply be asking Frontier to rename the current ones, which to my non-programmer brain seems a bit easier, but hey, what do I know?

 

[Rubbernuke]

I only remember Marlin being killed, I don't remember anybody else. And that was only because she held the "title".
The throne was contested by aisling and ALD, both female. The only male in the line was not considered. Indicating the succession is gender agnostic.

Thats her- she 'had an accident' and the male Duval line established quite brutally, at the same time throwing out her ideals and instead making it what it is. ALD only got there because there was no other choice by blood, until now where ALD and AD have a male heir to contend with. So unless they produce male heirs then the story ends for them.

And we have 2 non duval senators for PP, one is female the other is male. When galnet news came with senators having kidnapped the Emperor, one of them was female. Indicating female senators are not an isolated case.

Which is true- but, the Empires history (have a read of it in the game) has been driven for hundreds of years via a patriarchal slant. All of it is based on kings and male heirs which then set assumptions for everyone else. Like I said above, ALD is a blip in all this- you can see the internal division if you look at another Imperial side issue of slavery, where Aisling sharply divides opinion as she goes against tradition.

As for anybody lower than senator, there doesn't seem to be any kind of prejudice. Imperial factions mission givers don't seem to be mostly male, Hadrian wife rise through the rank to the top with apparently no gender issue, and so on.

Its not about prejudice, because (my reading at least in game) female Imperial citizens just accept it and stop seeing it- they accept male ranks as being 'the' rank. Now this could be an oversight in design for the game, but it could also be the lores influence.

Correction, Hadrian has been kinda pardoned, and his son is literally the only heir the entire Duval line seems to have at this point. His gender is totally irrelevant in that case. They would nominate a thargoid if that was his son,at this point.

His gender is important, as I outlined above. ALD and Aisling have no heirs, unless they produce male heirs (or change the law, upending hundreds of years of ingrained Imperial history) their 'line' has no legitimacy because the Empire has not changed the underlying patriarchal dynamic.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Surely a better request would be to make the rank titles non-gender specific? Surely that would please everyone, and instead of alternate names you would simply be asking Frontier to rename the current ones, which to my non-programmer brain seems a bit easier, but hey, what do I know?

My problem in all this is: I am grown up enough to understand this is a game and that it can diverge from reality for the purposes of story. Obviously this has limits, but at the same time making everything the same as reality is, well, dull. ED is set in a crapsack galaxy where morality is malleable and no-one is good or bad. For me the trifecta of s.powers is great because they act as a way to physically embody the values of those imperfect organisations.

 

[Fake Newts]

There is absolutely nothing "political" in me wishing to be addressed by appropriate nouns and pronouns

I'm sorry but there absolutely is. Political and sociological stakes don't disappear just because an individual is unaware of them.

Please leave current life issues OUT of the discussion.

It's literally impossible to have a meaningful discussion about this without talking about real life issues.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

It's literally impossible to have a meaningful discussion about this without talking about real life issues.

Erm. Did you mean to suggest that the topic can't be discussed without saying something that will get the thread locked?

Way I see though is that the game doesn't give us a gender. We assign the appearance of one on the Holo me (like we would any ship paint job) but there's nothing that ties that in to anything else. So right now we can all be Kings, or we can all be Queens. Personally as there's no gameplay value other than Courier/Clipper/Cutter unlock ranks they can call them what they want so long as I can still access the ships. If Imperial Comms recognised you as your rank I'd see a stronger argument, but it's only contribution to gameplay is just as a word that sits in a sub menu dictating what ships you can buy.

Do I think FDev will want to take the time put something in the game to define a proper gender for the sole purpose of choosing a male/female Imperial rank? I sincerely doubt it after the delays the Odyssey fixes have caused. There's other titles on the go and ED must have taken up a lot of resources that probably wouldn't have been planned for.

 

[Northpin]

Imperial are mixed military and nobility/feudal titles

What makes you think that?

You are not gaining any nobility tiles, you are getting a rank in the Imperial Auxiliary Navy.
It's not even the Imperial Navy, it's the Auxiliaries - you are not an Imperial Citizen, you are still an Independent pilot gaining a honorific rank in the the Imperial Auxiliaries

So again, it IS about military ranks.
NOT about nobility ranks since players are NOT part of the Empire and will never be.
King in Imperial Navy Auxiliary is NOT a nobility title, is a military rank.
It is the equivalent of Admiral in the Federation Navy (also Auxiliaries)

TL: DR: the player is not gaining nobility titles since they are not Imperial citizens.
They are gaining military ranks

 

[Rubbernuke]

It's literally impossible to have a meaningful discussion about this without talking about real life issues.

Well it is, since its a work of fiction. The problem is some people want fiction to mirror real life and to do so have to talk about real life, when the fiction stands apart because its made up. EDs world in the 3300s is not some enlightened place, its a technologically regressed pit of conflict where human life is cheap- and as such the various Powers and Superpowers act as prisms for that.

I mean, lets take a look at what else happens in ED: slavery, 're-education', widespread public manipulation (i.e. manipulating politics of local factions via various means, not all good), grave robbing, murder, narcotic smuggling, war, financial / information / propaganda control.....should those be written out, because some people have issues with them, even though it forms part of the lore?

 

[Fake Newts]

Did you mean to suggest that the topic can't be discussed without saying something that will get the thread locked?

I understand the mods' desire not to have every thread jammed up with off-topic political arguments (and more generally for everyone to get on well on the internet it's best to follow a don't-ask-don't-tell policy as far as political or sociological views go)... however, art and media aren't created in a vacuum and inevitably some topics can't be adequately explored without talking about real life.

Joking aside, maybe they should just lock the thread as I'm sure all the Frontier reps who are ever going to read it have read it already, and their decision as to how to proceed with a hotly debated issue will (or has already, or should, or should have) depend(ed) more on scholarly debate. You'd hope a conscientious developer would've thought about it, and that the results would be a measured reflection of that process. I know Frontier aren't known for being particularly conscientious, but the omission of feminised Imperial ranks does not seem accidental and many feminists would accept that.

Well it is, since its a work of fiction. The problem is some people want fiction to mirror real life and to do so have to talk about real life, when the fiction stands apart because its made up.

My dear Rubbernuke, again fiction isn't created in a vacuum. Don't mistake this as a call to political correctness in all fiction (the precise nature of which is also up for debate even among its advocates), it would absolutely be frontier's prerogative if they wished to present a sexist future society.

What's important from an audience's perspective is that they appear to have actually thought about it and presented their fictional world a certain way intentionally.

As much as you may wish to completely separate fiction from society... You can't. Ask anyone studying social sciences, history, art history or literature. Every story is a product of its time and every writer either consciously or unconsciously decides the ways in which their work differs from or mirrors the real world. If they're not thinking about it on some level, they're probably not a great writer, but are not exempt from context.

 

[Fake Newts]

They could explain why there are no feminine Imperial titles in-universe in the codex, or indeed add them in if it were simply an omission due to laziness (along with an 'our bad' memo, preferably). Either of these options would be acceptable simply by allaying doubts that they made a conscious artistic decision in context.

 

[metatheurgist]

Erm. Did you mean to suggest that the topic can't be discussed without saying something that will get the thread locked?

It is apparently impossible to suggest that the term "queen" is already differently gendered though....

 

[Fake Newts]

It is apparently impossible to suggest that the term "queen" is already differently gendered though....

According to whom? I must've missed that post.

 

[metatheurgist]

According to whom? I must've missed that post.

No you didn't. It was deleted.

 

[Rubbernuke]

My dear Rubbernuke, again fiction isn't created in a vacuum. Don't mistake this as a call to political correctness in all fiction (the precise nature of which is also up for debate even among its advocates), it would absolutely be frontier's prerogative if they wished to present a sexist future society.

What's important from an audience's perspective is that they appear to have actually thought about it and presented their fictional world a certain way intentionally.

As much as you may wish to completely separate fiction from society... You can't. Ask anyone studying social sciences, history, art history or literature. Every story is a product of its time and every writer either consciously or unconsciously decides the ways in which their work differs from or mirrors the real world. If they're not thinking about it on some level, they're probably not a great writer, but are not exempt from context.

I don't really get your point, because I'm arguing the Empire is deliberately patriarchal, its lore is set that way (go read it), and these ranks reflect that in lore view. So for me at least, it all makes sense and if you want to support the Empire thats the price you pay.

The other point is that in the end fiction can be anything, while it can be influenced from real life its not held to the same rules.

In game the only gender neutral superpower is the Alliance, because it has no ranks, followed by the Feds- two spowers who don't have an overarching monarchy that for a thousand years has been run by men and set up via force.

 

[Fake Newts]

I'm arguing the Empire is deliberately patriarchal

Sure, that's fine if it's intentional and not an unconcious reflection of latent sexism in today's society.

The other point is that in the end fiction can be anything, while it can be influenced from real life its not held to the same rules.

Yes, it can, if you read my post again I agree with this. It would be absurd to try and make it so every work of fiction be an extrapolation of a particular 21st Century western idealised model of society. The part I disagree with is that it the fiction itself can be considered to be isolated from real life - whether or not it literally models real life is moot here.