[NOT suggestion] Maxmaps and Girlbals

[pxi]

Seems like you really didn't get what i was talking about.

Perhaps not. Feel free to elaborate. However it seems to me, that statements like:

i don't get why its so important to make a distinction there anyway. Let the Kerbals be Kerbals and not "KerMEN" and "KerWOMEN" let alone Girlbals which sounds horrible.

Would imply you would like to minimize any differences between the Kerbals, which I fell quite strongly would be a step in completely the wrong direction, given that the Kerbals themselves are quite likely a large part in KSP's success. I would be in favor of doing more to differentiate one Kerbal from another - not less.

But beyond this, I think the following is an excellent point:

I'm not female, so I don't want to speak for them, but I can imagine a scenario where a teacher or a parent are showing a young girl the game (its a great educational asset, I wish I had it when I worked as a teacher's adjunct in the past) and she asks why she can't be a girl kerbal, and when she finds out she can't, that it might negatively influence her interest in space, science or technology. This would be bad.

To reiterate the point I made in my first post. The lack of female Kerbals is often one of the first things I have to explain to anyone I show this game to. It is highly significant in my opinion that 100% of women I have shown this game to have pointed it out.

Edited November 17, 2013 by pxi

[regex]

I'm not female, so I don't want to speak for them, but I can imagine a scenario where a teacher or a parent are showing a young girl the game (its a great educational asset, I wish I had it when I worked as a teacher's adjunct in the past) and she asks why she can't be a girl kerbal, and when she finds out she can't, that it might negatively influence her interest in space, science or technology. This would be bad.

This is probably one of the best arguments for female kerbals being in the game (from a father's standpoint, at least). One of these days my 18mo. old is going to be old enough to wonder what I'm doing all the time; it'd be great to have an easy "hook" to spark interest into space and physics, and it'll also be nice to have a video game I can share with her that doesn't represent women in an over-sexualized secondary role.

[LtKraftKrackers]

Honestly, I prefer the kerbals stay in their Genderless State, They're just more Innocent that way..

i totally agree with this guy here. not everything has to be defined by genders and bringing this issues will only make things bad.

[pxi]

i totally agree with this guy here. not everything has to be defined by genders

If the intention was to represent the kerbals as being asexual beings, that has failed.

bringing this issues will only make things bad.

How? What exactly would be the negative fallout of simply including female kerbals? The current status comes with issues of its own.

[jwenting]

Keep in mind this is more of an announcement than a suggestion, I just want to discuss it.

yeah, just using the tag "discussion" rather than "suggestion" suddenly means you're no longer suggesting it be added, we get you and see right through you.

[allmhuran]

The inhabitants of planet earth are, in general, still not ready to accept the idea that gender doesn't matter, so I guess we're going to need to add female kerbals for female players.

[boomerdog2000]

If the intention was to represent the kerbals as being asexual beings, that has failed.

Agreed, so now our alternatives are to remake the kerbals into some un-relatable asexual being, or just add female kerbals. Personally I prefer the latter.

[Whirligig Girl]

yeah, just using the tag "discussion" rather than "suggestion" suddenly means you're no longer suggesting it be added, we get you and see right through you.

It's not a suggestion because it's already being added. Also, that's kind of mean.

[xvdBanksbvx]

I guess if others are adding anecdotal evidence to this thread, so shall i. Outside of this forum i have never seen anyone bring up the gender of Kerbals, they have just played the game and enjoyed it. Even for myself, the only time that i thought about the Kerbals gender was when i saw it on this forum.

But i guess it makes sense that some want female Kerbals, people will humanize pretty much anything with a face.

[vexx32]

In my opinion, every argument -- both for and against -- regarding female/gendered Kerbals is fundamentally flawed. Why? You are first assuming that they are all male to begin with. Kerbals are not humans. There may well be zero outwardly noticeable physical differences between male and female Kerbals, whether they have gender or not. You are applying human standards to them in order to say that they are male or not feminine enough to begin with. Just as it's impossible to judge whether a jellyfish is male or female using human standards, so is it entirely impossible to make the arguments so many of you are making here. It remains absolute truth that all current conceptualisations about the Kerbal race, except those directly backed or postulated by the development team, are purely fiction. We know nothing. And we will continue to know nothing until Squad makes an executive decision on the matter. Until then... well, feel free to speculate, but there is no basis of logic or fact that you can base any sort of argument on, so please just stop arguing. I can see this getting ugly really soon.

Pretty much every point of discussion that's been raised is so fundamentally flawed in terms of logic that it's entirely invalid. You can't argue about something you have zero knowledge of by applying standards that may or may not even factually apply. Everything on the gender is speculation till someone confirms it. I've heard a thousand odd claims that some developer or other has said, on this topic or a million others, but until there's an official statement rather than some offhand comment, it remains pure speculation.

Please remember that.

EDIT: Also, the same applies for Kerbal names. They may be mostly masculine from a human perspective, but to be quite frank, that is only our perspective of them. It does not then mean that they in fact are masculine names by necessity.

Edited November 17, 2013 by vexx32

[JoCRaM]

they're aliens. just add "Jane Kerman", who is space crazy in a orange jumpsuit and increase the name generator dictionary to include names that we might associate with hujman females.

I'm thinking Alex, Bill, Chris, Drew, Emery, Frankie, Gale, Harley, Irma, Jackie, Kasey, Loren, Marion, Nikita, Ollie, Pat, Quinn, Robin, Sidney, Tracy, Urma, ?, Whitney, ?, ?, ?

[boomerdog2000]

In my opinion, every argument -- both for and against -- regarding female/gendered Kerbals is fundamentally flawed. Why? You are first assuming that they are all male to begin with. Kerbals are not humans. There may well be zero outwardly noticeable physical differences between male and female Kerbals, whether they have gender or not. You are applying human standards to them in order to say that they are male or not feminine enough to begin with. Just as it's impossible to judge whether a jellyfish is male or female using human standards, so is it entirely impossible to make the arguments so many of you are making here. It remains absolute truth that all current conceptualisations about the Kerbal race, except those directly backed or postulated by the development team, are purely fiction. We know nothing. And we will continue to know nothing until Squad makes an executive decision on the matter. Until then... well, feel free to speculate, but there is no basis of logic or fact that you can base any sort of argument on, so please just stop arguing. I can see this getting ugly really soon.

While this is all true, unfortunately it doesn't matter what people know, it matters, for a game, what they think. While it may be true that kerbal genders are indistinguishable the current ones will be applied human characteristics by new players, since that's what our brains do. Based on the current model our brains pick out more male characteristics.

[vexx32]

I am aware of that. My point is that it's folly to be arguing about it, so I said so. It doesn't matter if people have an excuse to be arguing over it; they are perfectly capable of rational thought. I'm not outside the realm of humanity to be able to process that thought. It's merely that people don't realise that they're imprinting aspects of themselves or other representatives of humanity onto that which is very much not themselves. Merely because they have an excuse to be doing so does not mean they will endlessly do so, which is why I bothered to actually respond in a logical fashion. Rather than simply accepting that people are going to argue, I think it best to show them how silly the argument is, really. People do love arguing, but I'd rather they argue over something a bit more worthwhile than pure speculation.

[Canopus]

To reiterate the point I made in my first post. The lack of female Kerbals is often one of the first things I have to explain to anyone I show this game to. It is highly significant in my opinion that 100% of women I have shown this game to have pointed it out.

I don't know who you show KSP too.

I can't talk for girls either as Tiberion already said but i see my sister play KSP from time to time. She is not the best at it but she is very interested in the game. She thinks Kerbals are cute and doesn't like to loose them in Accidents. Never has she asked why all Kerbals look male nor if female Kerbals will come to the game someday. She plays KSP for its concept and gameplay not for the Characters.

[LLlAMnYP]

Emilynn and Hellou in Brotoro's Laythe missions are just too awesome not to have female Kerbals.

[Superfluous J]

This is the first thing I thought of when I saw this post :

I seriously need professional help.

You think YOU need help? I can't put a picture of what I first thought up, or a mod would take it down.

As to the [Discussion] that is totally not a [suggestion], I'm frankly surprised anybody is against this enough to actually oppose it. The only way it'd be okay to make them genderless is to redesign them so they are actually genderless and not OBVIOUSLY male.

You can argue all you want that maybe that's just the way they look, but these aliens didn't evolve on this planet. They were designed by humans. To resemble humans. To resemble MALE humans. Named Bob. Yeah. Totally genderless.

[regex]

In my opinion, every argument -- both for and against -- regarding female/gendered Kerbals is fundamentally flawed. Why? You are first assuming that they are all male to begin with. Kerbals are not humans.

Sorry, but your entire argument against arguing is fundamentally flawed because this is a game made by humans for humans, Kerbals have obvious human male cues (the Tom Hanks widow's peak, square jaws, etc...), and humans are well known for anthropomorphising pretty much everything, up to and including toasters.

As almhuran points out, humans have a very long way to go before gender doesn't matter, and that applies to women, men, Americans, Europeans, Afghanis, feminists, MRAs, the indifferent, etc... In fact, I doubt gender will ever stop being an issue with humans. That is why these sorts of arguments will always crop up and why they are relevant, whether you are for or against, or whether you think they're silly.

I, for one, am happy the devs are at least talking about it.

[vexx32]

Simply because it is created by humans and/or for humans does not necessarily mean that any characters within the game will conform to standard human perceptions

It just means it's likely. Not necessary. So this argument is still quite silly

[regex]

Simply because it is created by humans and/or for humans does not necessarily mean that any characters within the game will conform to standard human perceptions

Unfortunately they do. For quite a few of us. In the names most especially, especially for the Americans out there. I have yet to run into even four Kerbals in all my time playing that have what would be considered a "female" name, and yet every other Kerbal I get has a name with a very obvious American English male root: Gus, Mit, Thom, Tom, Tim Sam, Bill, Jeb, Bob, the list goes on. It is very hard, IMO, to make the "asexual" case (or the "this argument is silly" case) when I am faced with obviously male names for all of my Kerbals every time I open the game.

[vexx32]

That is not a case for the entirety of humanity. It is merely your perception. A valid one, but not the only one.

[regex]

That is not a case for the entirety of humanity. It is merely your perception. A valid one, but not the only one.

Thank you for acknowledging that the argument is not a silly one for me.

[Dunbaratu]

You are applying human standards to them in order to say that they are male or not feminine enough to begin with.

And everyone who makes THAT argument is making a flawed argument because if they aren't meant to have any analogies to the human form we're familiar with, then Kerbals wouldn't look like cartoony short humanoids at ALL. They'd be weird and alien. People have been spoiled by the limitations of sci fi TV and movie special effects budgets into thinking putting forehead wrinkles or funny ears or weird makeup on a human is what an alien would look like. No. If it was truly alien it wouldn't look human at all. A tentacle thing like a squid perhaps, or maybe a floating gasbag with arms, or something with 3 limbs, or something with eyes in its hands, etc.

The fact is that Kerbals *ARE* designed by artists to appeal to us humans, to make them evoke emotional responses in humans that make humans think "cute".

So the claim that analogies to human expectations of appearance are off limits in the discussion are hogwash.

These Kerbal aliens are aliens *designed by* a game company to be understandable and familiar to their human customers. Just think about the work that went into the facial expression driver that when the craft is tumbling to its doom causes Jeb to grin joyously while Bill is screaming in terror. Truly alien facial expressions wouldn't be decipherable to a human playing the game. A lot of work went into making darn sure Kerbals are similar enough to humans for us to empathize with them.

So make it so the girls playing the game have characters they can empathize with too.

[J.Random]

Why is noone petitioning Firaxis about adding female mutons or sectoids, yet the same topic reappears every month or two here?

[regex]

Why is noone petitioning Firaxis about adding female mutons or sectoids, yet the same topic reappears every month or two here?

Because every version of X-COM had humans of both sexes battling an obviously alien enemy; there was never a need for anyone to identify with the aliens. Meanwhile KSP uses obvious human analogues ("little green men" in the parlance) with obvious English male human names and features as the protagonists we are meant to empathize with; it's only natural to want to anthropomorphize them further.

[Trux]

I find it interesting that people are having a hard time finding "female" Kerbals. I've had a Rosy Kerman, Jenny Kerman, Annie Kerman etc.