The current Kerbals are explicitly gendered. They have male names and are presented as male. Some of them are open nods to real historical male figures. And anyone who doesn't realize that inclusion in video games is a huge topic at the moment, and has been for several years now, should feel deeply embarrassed by their lack of attention. And the idea presented about Kerbals being aliens having one gender, that just happens (amazing coincidence!) to perfectly mirror the traits that our culture uses to designate males is pure sophistry. This is a game designed by human beings for human beings using human frames of reference. Gender norms are not accidental any more than using north South East and West for the compass rose is accidental. Funny, turns out the Kerbals use our compass too. What a coincidence! At this point in our culture, and in video game culture specifically, the inclusion or not of female characters to go along with the male characters is a deliberate choice. Either way is a deliberate choice. The ships of 'We forgot' or 'It never occurred to us that is might matter' sailed a decade ago. And should the developers deliberately choose not to give half the human race characters to identify with it would be a massive slap in the face on at least two levels. On the first level is the absurd ease involved in adding the feature. The grand total investment needed would be a few dozen names added to the random name generator, and perhaps a couple close cropped hair styles that would not interfere with the current EVA suit models. They wouldn't even need to make sure the name generator and hair have any relationship to each other. In my opinion there would be something particularly Kerbalish about them being mixed up every which way. By in my opinion the far bigger insult would be to the ideals that this game celebrates. The history of space flight has always involved pushing boundaries and celebrating the best and brightest. This has included people like Sally Ride and Christa McAuliffe and Valentina Tereshkova and Roberta Bondar, as well as people orbiting this planet this very moment who also happen to be female. For KSP to have no place for them and those of both genders who idolize them would be deeply distressing.
