[Lore Discussion] Commanders' Genders and the use of "He".

HAH I meant fictional misogynists. UBER are lovely! I'm certain they didn't realise (I mean, I only did very recently) that all the Leaders are dudes.
I refer you to my expanded OP. They're referred to as masculine, according to the dictionary
Also if you play a game because they're only referred to as "he" (and not because that game is AWESOME) then you're a sexist, bro.
That or you really enjoy the company of other men.
Besides which, if you argue that gender representation helps us identify with these characters, you're effectively excluding female players from identifying with the Lore by only having characters referred to as masculine.

Woah, player. So many baseless assertions, so little time. First of all, keep your superlatives to yourself - if you truly, literally cannot believe how stupid my posts have been, fair enough - otherwise, there's no need for histrionics. "The people in this thread that understand how the world works..."? What an exceptionally arrogant thing to say. I don't see where anyone you seem to be disagreeing with has claimed that your perspective is not how the world works. I certainly don't claim that your perspective is not the way the world works; it most definitely is. That's the point of the thread - it's about how "the world", that is cultural norms, currently function, and is questioning those norms.

Also, no one has accused you of saying that it's correct or just, so there's no need to be defensive. We're all in agreement here: what you've described is the norm, but it's a norm that some find objectionable, hence the discussion.

"This is the way it is, and if you can't see that, you're unbelievable stupid. Also, to want the prevalent norms to change, or to think they can, is unbelievably stupid." Is this your perspective? Because that's all this thread is about. This thread couldn't exist without recognizing that the world works as you say it does. This thread is about someone questioning whether or not culture should be the way it is.

Are there any cultural practices anywhere in the world that you find disagreeable? Are there any of our own cultural biases that you find disagreeable? Any that you find disagreeable AND also find yourself to be affected by? If not, I congratulate you on living in blissful coexistence with our cultural norms. If yes, how would you change things, both for yourself and culture at large? Or would you simply be satisfied that you're one of those very perceptive people who "understand how the world works", and leave it at that?

No kidding. In fact, before you even said something about it, I always considered them bots and did not care either way.. but, since you insist on this being an issue, then let's make it an issue, because this type of pettiness and stupidity is so prevalent in society that it is really no wonder we can't focus on things that are far more important..

I play games where the characters are only referred to as "he" just to piss you off..

If Uber chooses to make them male, then they are male.. and if they are all male, then so be it.. If they were referred to as female, I could give one damn… except for the fact that you have to inject political correctness into the matter. That's when I have something to say..

[quote"eroticburrito, post: 906063, member: 1878252"]

While I have complete faith in your deep thinking on gender, I would like to point out that, it is indeed a concept. It's a culturally constructed idea which we are conditioned to believe in.
Sex, on the other hand, refers to the physical differences. Thus a male can identify as a woman, and a female can identify as a man. Truly revolutionary concepts, I know.

That Commander is Humanoid. It's got arms and legs and a head and an eye.
What makes it a "he" that doesn't make it a "she" other than your own, culturally determined assumptions about what we should call it?[/quote]
Oh.
I always just saw sex and gender as synonymous anyway.

Beside that, though, okay, fine, it's humanoid.
But it's still not human.
Actually, now that I think about it, the lore mentions how the robots are sentient, but what defines artificial sentience in the first place?
Amongst other things, cultural ideologies.
And what are the wars between commanders based around?
Cultural ideologies.
And why are commanders called male?
Cultural ideologies.
Haha, but seriously.

Just because something resembles a human, it doesn't make it human, in actuality labeling some as male and some as female would actually be a bigger mistake than calling them one or the other.
Because calling them both would indicate sexuality.
But there is no sexuality.
Because they're robots.

Actually, yes, I believe cultural biases where I live to be unjust.
But the difference is, where I live, people are shunned for speaking a different language in fascist-like hatred.
What this thread is talking about is sexual distinction between ******* ROBOTS.

So excuse me if I find this thread to be nothing more than overreaction.

Look, I hate Political Correctness. It's a BS term used to tell people how to think and act; to tell them what's acceptable. I'm not doing that.

I'm talking about Gender Equality and the representation of women and men in the Lore. There are women who play video games too. They might like to have a Female Leader.
Having both genders might open up new avenues for characterisation.
Do I hear Robot Romance?
"I want to give you the moon... let me go and put some Engines on it!"

Also I don't think it's a coincidence that the Dev team are all dudes and chose to write male Commanders.

I like to think here at Uber we're fairly gender agnostic, though I admit we're mostly a group of dudes (hi mkrater!). Internally I don't feel like we assign specific gender to the commanders, I generally refer to them as "it" or "commander". I do think the lore is based around an ancient race who built these robots to wage war against each other with their ideals encoded in to them ... and if your ideals are to obliterating everything in the pursuit of dominance that seems like something that would go hand in hand with misogyny.

Look out everybody.. The Bureau of Gender Equality is here. Uber might want to consider hiring more female commanders. Just saying..

If Uber wanted there to be females in the Lore, there would be females in the Lore, but there isn't. And if any chick gamer has an issue with that, then they can either accept the game as is, or go play The Sims.

There are lots of fruitful avenues for exploration. I'm just interested in why they're referred to as men if - as we both agree - there isn't any sexuality.

I know we're talking about the Lore of a Video Game but this is a Forum about a Video Game so really I think if there's a place to talk about Video Game Lore, this is it.

So if they were all referred to as 'She', you would have no problems with that? And if you did, you'd be comfortable being told to 'go play The Sims'; I.e. **** or GTFO?

You're not even trying to go beyond yourself in your perspective. If the roles were reversed then you'd have something to say, I guarantee it.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

This makes some sense, thank you bgolus.
Misogyny might be less efficient in a case of total war though - women in WW2 helped the war effort and got better rights as a result.
No reason there couldn't be competing ideologies regarding gender across the factions though

I wouldn't have had a single issue with them being female, because first of all, it's a game subject to whatever direction the designer decides to take it. If Uber decided to make them all female, and I didn't like the fact that they were all female, assuming there was no other substance about the game, then I would most likely lose interest and not play it, instead of trying to ensure everyone makes way for my own beliefs about gender equality. I expect others to do the same. If they don't like the way it is, then find something else to do. I don't play games and think "oh, there's not enough men in this game, or not enough tits.. " or whatever.. because that's just fricken retarded.

Then we're all on the same side, essentially - and you understand perfectly well the arguments that are being made questioning gender roles in culture, and as en extension of culture, in this game. As I said earlier, I'm not making an equivalency between what we're talking about here, and more grave examples of social repression. HOWEVER, you're saying that you care about the social inequities that you find important, because they're obviously important. Obviously. And I'm not saying they aren't. But that doesn't mean that other people aren't being allowed to care about other things. Some people are passionate about the plight of homeless animals - is that as important as the social injustice that you experience in your country? Arguably not. Does it mean they shouldn't get to care about that cause? Again, arguably not.

And as eroticburrito just said above, this is forum about this game, so is it not appropriate to have a discussion about the manifestation of cultural biases in this game here? It's just that some people, myself included, will see gender biases in this game (as anywhere) as a microcosm of the larger cultural trend. It's not as important as fascist repression in your country, but this isn't a forum about politics and culture in your country.

Anyway, I think we understand each other quite well - what we're talking about now is just a matter of degrees. Some people are going to see culture represented in minutiae, like gender assignment in this game, and thus every topic becomes potentially relevant and important. I tend to be one of those people. Others will see the same and not extrapolate the same sense of consequence, and I think that's where a lot of the disagreement in this thread comes from. If we were to all discuss the repression you're referring to from your country, we would probably agree on quite a few principles.

You're right. Gaming should be a sausage-fest.
You don't notice because you're a dude and don't seem to care about cultural norms shaping the way you think.

You said it, not me..

I'm not expecting anybody to get out of the way for my beliefs. By beliefs do not dis-empower you, they don't even affect you. Yet you argue vehemently in deference to authority and in defence of the status quo. Why?

Because you make a big deal out of nothing, that's why.

You have a terrible reading comprehension..

"I don't care about this issue, but I'm inexplicably angry that you're bringing it up!" is the most bemusing standard response to gender debates. It's only a forum thread, like a thousand others here. Either contribute to the discussion or move on to another thread that is more to your liking.

But there's a difference between talking about the lore, and talking about something that, in the long run, doesn't even effect the story in any way beyond "o-m-g the invisible narrator said the word "he" and shizzle".

If Uber had made a female faction, and then said something along the lines of "(commanders name) was the leader of (faction name) this faction, led by the only commander type programmed to be female, is actually against all the fighting and just wants peace between all, making her the leader of the only passive faction." Then yeah, that'd definitely be something to talk about, but they didn't do that, they just gave them labels.

And that's all the "he" is in this case, really. A label.
It doesn't mean anything because there's no sexuality, I hate to go back to culture, but that's what it is, a label made by culture.
But calling them both male and female removes the label status and implies sexuality.
Once again, robots.

It wasn't a big deal. I made a three-line post and got a flamewar.