Use more Gender-neutral Language

[amorymeltzer]

I'm looking forward to seeing Squad integrate Valentina into the starting pantheon, but one thing I think would pair nicely with her introduction would be some slight language changes. Specifically, I'm suggesting changing "crewed" to "crewed" and "robotic" to either "uncrewed" or "robotic". There are also some uses of him/his/he (usually referring to a CEO or "brilliant engineer") that could be changed, either to include a few her/hers/she or to do away entirely with gendered pronouns.

The following is a list of parts and tech nodes where I've found gendered language, using a simple grep call. There are definitely more, though - I know "robotic" shows up in contracts, for example. If anyone can pinpoint others or ones I've missed that would be great!

Crewed/Robotic

Tech Node names:

roboticTech

advUnmanned

TechRequired entries in part.cfgs (refers to above, obv):

Mk2DroneCore

probeCoreOcto2

probeStackLarge

probeStackSmall

Part descriptions:

probeCoreHex

probeCoreOcto

GrapplingDevice

Him/His/He pronouns

Part descriptions:

hitchikerStorageContainer

Mk3CargoBay/long

Mk3CargoBay/medium

Mk3CargoBay/short

liquidEngineMk55

roverWheelXL3

dockingPortInline

Edited March 9, 2015 by amorymeltzer
Remove inaccurate text

[Mitchz95]

I'm pretty sure "manned" encompasses both genders. Replacing it would be kind of redundant.

[r4pt0r]

manned

mand/

adjective

(especially of an aircraft or spacecraft) having a human crew.

Its already neutral

granted kerbals arent human so... un-kerbed?

[klgraham1013]

Perhaps, at one point, mankind or manned were gendered terms, but I think they've become more generalized at this point.

[Daze]

I don't this problem really. It's already neutreal terms and i don't know why it should be genderized at all the cost.

For example in italian the word "human" sound very similar to "man". (Umani/uomo) and it's normal to consider "umani" neutral, so again i think that there's a problem that doesn't exist.

[samhuk]

Like the posts above, the definition of manned is neutral - ' ...of having human crew'

As for the gender-specific words 'his', 'him', and 'he', I'm not sure you know what you want. You are basically wanting to remove all notion of gender and a whole chunk of English language away from the game.

But I'm sorry to inform you genders exist.

Although I do not play career mode, if Squad indeed only refer to males through-out the game, I believe that it wouldn't hurt to infuse some balance on this since KSP has such an inspiring role with youngsters and I would hate for a female youngster playing KSP to get the idea; 'hmm, maybe males are only good at physics/engineering'. Although using heavily-male-specific language is reflective of reality (engineering and physics = vastly male-dominated for some reason), I still believe Squad should portray a false reality where this doesn't actually happen to encourage female youngsters.

I believe all games like these will have to portray a false-reality on gender balance for a while, so eventually, in the future when genders a more balanced, they won't have to portray the false-reality any more

'Cause science is great and for everyone, just so sad that the past has such inertia

[Kibble]

I agree, OP! I already say "piloted" like Russians do, instead of "manned" - English really should be more gender-neutral, imagine if we had separate pronouns for other characteristics, like a different pronoun for black people. That's clearly racist, and I think the he/she dichotomy is sexist, and inherently excludes all the other genders.

[Kerbart]

I have a hard time understanding how "probeCoreOcto2, hitchikerstoragecontainer, grapplingdevice and roverwheelxl3" to name but a few listed by the OP could be described more gender neutral?

[LABHOUSE]

I agree, but it may be hard because English makes no sense and has very few neutral words that are not sometimes male. Very few languages (if any) are gender neutral in everything being neutral unless said otherwise (esperanto is in a way... but not really [-ĉo is sometimes male, -ino is female, -o is nothing]).

[Daze]

I agree, OP! I already say "piloted" like Russians do, instead of "manned" - English really should be more gender-neutral, imagine if we had separate pronouns for other characteristics, like a different pronoun for black people. That's clearly racist, and I think the he/she dichotomy is sexist, and inherently excludes all the other genders.

Comparing the difference between 2 genders with the racism or with sexism is something that... Well i really hope that you are trolling

[sal_vager]

I already use "Crewed" personally, not due to gender but due to it being a more appropriate word as capsules contain crew and Kerbals aren't human.

I'll be honest, this suggestion is beyond the scope of a mere computer game, I'd not expect to see it implemented.

[Kibble]

Comparing the difference between 2 genders with the racism or with sexism is something that... Well i really hope that you are trolling

It's profiling, even if its not explicit. In English, you can't talk about somebody without saying "he" or "she" or "Mr." or "Ms.", and so gender immediately becomes the first trait the listener knows of said person. When things are passed along in everyday conversation, they become important to public perception, subconsciously or not.

When the first trait anybody knows of anybody is gender, it feels like you don't know the person until you know their gender! ​And that is sexism.

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

"Manned" already encompasses both genders when it comes to spaceflight, no need to try to stir something up.

[Wallygator]

If there is one thing which will stunt further human social and emotional development it is the never ending panic surrounding the use of gender pronouns. We need to get past the concept of gender in favour of individual (and pay no attention to pronouns).

Whenever I read "him" or "her" I infer "a person" who can align themselves to whatever gender centric pronoun they prefer - or not. Having very close friends who in the past have gone through hell because of their own gender alignment and associated social stigma, I can say that they never considered a "written" pronoun to be the root cause of anything.

On Topic - I think we should just get over this and move on.

[Bill Phil]

It shouldn't be manned anyway. Their race is called Kerbals, not humans. So, kerballed flight vs unkerballed?

(I saw this thread earlier but when I clicked it said I didn't have permission to enter it...?)

But manned is gender neutral, as it stems off of human. So... Want to change human to a more gender neutral word?

Edited March 9, 2015 by Bill Phil

[Kibble]

We need to get past the concept of gender in favour of individual (and pay no attention to pronouns).

You can't just pay no attention to pronouns. Its a unit of information conveyed in a sentence that is absorbed by the person hearing the sentence. Because of the way the brain works, if you hear about something all the time, that thing becomes important to you - it carries connotations.

Which socially polarizes us into two distinct groups: male, and female. But those "groups" are less than distinct, and indicate very little about a person - physically, or psychologically!

EDIT: I didn't mean to derail the thread! The point is I am in favour of using only gender-neutral terminology in the context of the game. "Manned" can be replaced by "piloted", "crewed", "populated", or any other word you can imagine. Avoiding gendered pronouns in game descriptions shouldn't be hard either.

Awhile ago somebody proposed "Kanned" as an alternative to "Manned" which I think is pretty funny, like with lander cans.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Kibble
sweetie belle-lel-lel

[Bill Phil]

You can't just pay no attention to pronouns. Its a unit of information conveyed in a sentence that is absorbed by the person hearing the sentence. Because of the way the brain works, if you hear about something all the time, that thing becomes important to you - it carries connotations.

Which socially polarizes us into two distinct groups: male, and female. But those "groups" are less than distinct, and indicate very little about a person - physically, or psychologically!

It's just information. How it's used, on the other hand...

[syfyguy64]

Orbit isn't safe.

I must go deeper. Space engineers has a community that hasn't fallen into the left?

Also, there are two sexes, and a stereotype for each. Stereotypes are not bad, and shaped our culture today, which isn't bad, or good, but is what it is. And frankyl, I don't mind it. It's nice to be part of a culture that is still based on competition, as it is only human in nature.

Edited March 9, 2015 by syfyguy64

[Creeping]

My initial reaction : Wow, people care?

Use of the word "man" in contexts such as "One small step for man", manned, and "one giant leap for mankind", are completely gender neutral. Look up a definition of the word man and you'll find that man doesn't only pertain to the male .../gender. It pertains to the entirety of our species. I don't care about terminology in KSP (how to pronounce "Mun," what is the name of the sun/Kerbol, etc.), however I think that we shouldn't use manned when we have Kerbals. Oh wait, there it is. Kerbal. So, by what we already know, kerballed could be our replacement for manned.

[Kibble]

Stereotypes are not bad

I disagree. Didn't you watch The Iron Giant? You are who you choose to be, not what other people expect you to be! Stereotypes make people feel like they have to fit into those stereotypes, cause they are a social animal.

[codefox]

It's profiling, even if its not explicit. In English, you can't talk about somebody without saying "he" or "she" or "Mr." or "Ms.", and so gender immediately becomes the first trait the listener knows of said person. When things are passed along in everyday conversation, they become important to public perception, subconsciously or not.

When the first trait anybody knows of anybody is gender, it feels like you don't know the person until you know their gender! ​And that is sexism.

But you know the English language uses almost no gender for words? I don't really understand why this bothered no one until now. Also, I don't know where that should be sexism as long as you don't explicitely exclude a specific gender.

For example, I couldn't even find the word "crewed" in any dictionary I have here, although it lists the word "manned" without referring to any gender. As RobotsAndSpaceships stated, I also don't really understand why we need to stir something up.

Does anyone really feel offended by that? I don't know anyone in-person who is offended by this stuff.

Edit: nvm, "crewed" seems to be a new word.

[Kibble]

*snip*

Just noticed - nice avatar!

[Bill Phil]

Most other languages do have genders for specific nouns... English doesn't.

[codefox]

Most other languages do have genders for specific nouns... English doesn't.

That's what I wanted to point out with my post. Yet, I think it'd be perfectly okay to rename this stuff but I don't really see any urgent reason to do so. I like gender equality/neutrality, but I don't know why a word like "manned" should be changed.

I understand (and support) if people want to change things like "he/his" in the descriptions, now that there will be female Kerbals, but I don't understand why (per definition) generic words like "manned" should be changed.

Edit: somehow, regarding things like this, I always have to think about a German professor who wants to be called "Profx.", as in "Sehr geehrtx Profx. [..]" (which would be like "Dear Mx. [..]" instead of "Dear Mr./Ms.") instead of "Sehr geehrter/geehrte Prof. [..]".

Edited March 9, 2015 by codefox

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Most other languages do have genders for specific nouns... English doesn't.

And that's good. That means that "manned" doesn't mean anything.