Why aren`t women Siths referred as "lady"?

[Rebamcfan]

Hello.

I don`t know if this has been asked before, but has anyone wondered why aren`t women, who became Sith lords or members of the Dark Council referred as "my lady" instead of "my lord"? I know that Sith Empire is patriarchal society, but it would still be nice if my main female Inquisitor would be called "lady" instead of "lord"

Edited October 1, 2015 by Rebamcfan

[Aeneas_Falco]

So they didn't have to record additional lines of dialogue, which is why female characters are also referred to as 'sir' frequently in the game.

 

I'm fairly certain that in the lore outside the games however that titles do change based on gender. Certainly ma'am is used instead of sir outside the games to refer to female officers in the EU.

 

Interestingly, the game is also a bit inconsistent when it comes to titles. While the Sith all get the lord title regardless of gender, a female Bounty Hunter who marries into one of the noble houses of Alderaan gets the Baroness title.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Aeneas_Falco

[Euphrosyne]

Supposedly, given the wide proliferation of species in the galaxy, not all of which have binary sexualities, and given the wide array of gender identities to which any person might subscribe, 'sir' is given as a universal gender- and sex-neutral term to avoid affront or miscommunication. There's a Codex on the Republic side - and, I think, on Imp side too - that describes this. It's supposedly military-only, because of the regularity with which 'sir' (or, y'know, 'ma'am') is used in a military setting; outside of the militaries, there's no such regulation, so people say whatever they like.

 

Unfortunately, 'sir' is not actually a neutral term in any way, shape, or form. The practical effect of the change is to annoy a subset of the fanbase while possibly saving on VO.

 

A similar reason is behind the use of 'Sith Lord' rather than 'Sith Lady', as far as I can tell. The bizarre thing is that there already were Sith Ladies in the EU, like Lumiya (who quite explicitly took the title).

[SithKoriandr]

Supposedly, given the wide proliferation of species in the galaxy, not all of which have binary sexualities, and given the wide array of gender identities to which any person might subscribe, 'sir' is given as a universal gender- and sex-neutral term to avoid affront or miscommunication. There's a Codex on the Republic side - and, I think, on Imp side too - that describes this. It's supposedly military-only, because of the regularity with which 'sir' (or, y'know, 'ma'am') is used in a military setting; outside of the militaries, there's no such regulation, so people say whatever they like.

 

Unfortunately, 'sir' is not actually a neutral term in any way, shape, or form. The practical effect of the change is to annoy a subset of the fanbase while possibly saving on VO.

 

A similar reason is behind the use of 'Sith Lord' rather than 'Sith Lady', as far as I can tell. The bizarre thing is that there already were Sith Ladies in the EU, like Lumiya (who quite explicitly took the title).

 

No, Sir has been used as both male and neutral term, and you just don't like it. So is the term "Hey, what's up guys." been used as a neutral term. Mankind, same thing. Neutral term, but people don't care for it because they like to think they can get annoyed/offended by language that has been in use a long time as a neutral term.

 

This applies to the title Lord. Why should this galaxy far far away, in a group that respects power over anything, have to titles to refer to men and women instead of just one title to refer to them all together.

 

If they had been called Razzel Vader/Marr/Ravage I'm sure since it's never been used in RL as a title you might like it better, since it doesn't have the connotation of being a male title, but then, it'd sound silly to most.

 

To go along with this, in lit/film they're still called Lord.

Edited October 1, 2015 by SithKoriandr

[Aeneas_Falco]

Supposedly, given the wide proliferation of species in the galaxy, not all of which have binary sexualities, and given the wide array of gender identities to which any person might subscribe, 'sir' is given as a universal gender- and sex-neutral term to avoid affront or miscommunication. There's a Codex on the Republic side - and, I think, on Imp side too - that describes this. It's supposedly military-only, because of the regularity with which 'sir' (or, y'know, 'ma'am') is used in a military setting; outside of the militaries, there's no such regulation, so people say whatever they like.

 

Unfortunately, 'sir' is not actually a neutral term in any way, shape, or form. The practical effect of the change is to annoy a subset of the fanbase while possibly saving on VO.

 

A similar reason is behind the use of 'Sith Lord' rather than 'Sith Lady', as far as I can tell. The bizarre thing is that there already were Sith Ladies in the EU, like Lumiya (who quite explicitly took the title).

 

I wish they had a found a more clever way of going with the 'one size fits all' dialogue, instead of using sir and lord to refer to female characters. As you said, it isn't really gender neutral at all.

 

A good way I think they could have avoided it with the Sith is by giving them some noble honorific in the Sith Empire. For example having non-Sith address Sith as, "Your Grace," or "Your Worship," ect. It might have been unique to the era the game is set on and not have a connection to other EU sources, but I don't see that as a big deal. It would avoid having to worry about using sir or ma'am or lord and lady at least.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Aeneas_Falco

[SithKoriandr]

I wish they had a found a more clever way of going with the 'one size fits all' dialogue, instead of using sir and lord to refer to female characters. As you said, it isn't really gender neutral at all.

 

A good way I think they could have avoided it with the Sith is by giving them some noble honorific in the Sith Empire. For example having non-Sith address Sith as, "Your Grace," or "Your Worship," ect. It might have been unique to the era the game is set on and not have a connection to other EU sources, but I don't see that as a big deal. It would avoid having to worry about using sir or ma'am or lord and lady at least.

 

No, it's not gender neutral to /you/. In the lit/films they do the same thing. It's neutral because they use it as neutral term.

[Spetulhu]

To the Sith in the game Lord is just as neutral as Darth - it's not a reference to gender but status and power.

 

We react to Sir/Mam and Lord/Lady because our language and culture cares about these distinctions, but not every language and culture cares. The ancient egyptians saw no reason to call a female ruler anything else than Pharaoh - she had royal blood and was an aspect of a male god just the same as a man would have been.

[CloudCastle]

Lord/Lady have always been gendered terms. Other than the gendered part, they have the exact same definition (not counting modern slang.) This is the only place where I have seen "lord" used as a neutral term.

 

I get that SW has created a "lore" to explain this, but I suspect the real reason is simple practicality (as in the VO stuff people have mentioned) or the fact that SW as a franchise is already 40 years old and this is simply an outdated issue that no one has gotten around to changing. Wanting to be called by a term that accurately reflects what you are makes sense after all.

 

I would certainly prefer it if my female Sith were referred to as "lady." 'Lord" has always felt awkward to me.

[Diviciacus]

Unfortunately, 'sir' is not actually a neutral term in any way, shape, or form. The practical effect of the change is to annoy a subset of the fanbase while possibly saving on VO.

 

It actually is. "Sir" as an honorific in English comes from senior, which is from the Latin adjective senex, which means old (which also gives us senile, but that's a separate discussion).

 

Lord also is gender neutral; it comes from a compound of Old English two English words which mean "bread/grain keeper/guardian."

 

Both have only been perceived as male-centric because the vast majority of people who were eligible to be called "sir" or "lord" in history were men. That's a social issue, not a titular one, and an issue that just doesn't exist in Star Wars.

[ScarletBlaze]

Hello.

I don`t know if this has been asked before, but has anyone wondered why aren`t women, who became Sith lords or members of the Dark Council referred as "my lady" instead of "my lord"? I know that Sith Empire is patriarchal society, but it would still be nice if my main female Inquisitor would be called "lady" instead of "lord"

 

I don't know why the game doesn't but I do know that a friend of mine has a sith and in our roleplay situations with her, everyone refers to her as My Lady.

[Andrellma]

No, Sir has been used as both male and neutral term, and you just don't like it. So is the term "Hey, what's up guys." been used as a neutral term. Mankind, same thing. Neutral term, but people don't care for it because they like to think they can get annoyed/offended by language that has been in use a long time as a neutral term.

 

This applies to the title Lord. Why should this galaxy far far away, in a group that respects power over anything, have to titles to refer to men and women instead of just one title to refer to them all together.

 

If they had been called Razzel Vader/Marr/Ravage I'm sure since it's never been used in RL as a title you might like it better, since it doesn't have the connotation of being a male title, but then, it'd sound silly to most.

 

To go along with this, in lit/film they're still called Lord.

 

Not all female Sith were addressed as Lord in the literature. I leave out films, because there have been no female sith in the films, and even in the shows, I distinctly remember them saying that Ventress was not a true sith, though that was mostly semantics to avoid having Palpatine/Vader breaking the Rule of Two with the number of "Sith" that they had.

 

Lumiya was addressed as Lady, and took the title Dark Lady of the Sith.

 

However, there is some precedent for female Sith to be referred to a Lord, as well, ie: Githany.

 

Many others never had the Lord Title, especially once the Rule of Two was implemented. Zannah, for example, went from Apprentice to Darth, and while it's been some time since I read the books, I don't recall anyone ever referring to her as Lord or Lady, though that is likely because at the time the Sith weren't exactly advertising their existence to the world.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that there have been several different groups of Sith, often times only loosely related to those who came before.

 

We know that the Sith Empire of this time is not same Empire that was driven back after the Hyperspace War, though it is related to Revan's Empire, due to Revan being under Vitiate's influence. We know that this Empire will fall (not even counting KOTFE here) because this Empire is not the same as Kaan's Sith Brotherhood that existed at Bane's time. Bane then killed the entire Brotherhood, and created the Rule of Two, creating a new Sith order. Lumiya's Sith come after that, and while she studied under Vader and Palpatine, her order was seperate from theirs. Krayt's One Sith was a different order as well.

 

So, with all of these different orders of the Sith floating about, they each have their own customs and forms of address, and precedents for female Sith being addressed as "lord" or "lady" exist in a number of them, so BioWare took the cheaper way out, much like they did with "Sir" with the military characters (Garza, femshep - I mean trooper), and simply recorded a single manner of address, instead of additional lines of dialogue that essentially say the same thing.

 

They may sound awkward to us, but they're not technically wrong, given the history of the words in both the SW universe and our own.

[Diviciacus]

We know that the Sith Empire of this time is not same Empire that was driven back after the Hyperspace War,

 

No, it is in fact the same Empire.

[Kayriel]

From my observations with regards to titles , i can say with a degree of certainty that "Lord" is a ranking just like the "Darth" title or "Major" or "General" are. It is meant to be gender neutral , just like the other examples that i mentioned , and it should be taken as such . I mean , you don't hear of a "Darthess" Lachris on Balmora do you ?!

 

Sure , some Sith choose to go by Lady , instead of Lord , just like Lumyia did , but again , from my point of view this is just a personal preference and bears no importance to its meaning , that being the power and command that that word implies.

 

Then again , as some people pointed out , it is also a cheap way to spare some more money on VO , but personally , i prefer to not think about it like that and just take the title for its meaning , not its wording.

[SithKoriandr]

Not all female Sith were addressed as Lord in the literature. I leave out films, because there have been no female sith in the films, and even in the shows, I distinctly remember them saying that Ventress was not a true sith, though that was mostly semantics to avoid having Palpatine/Vader breaking the Rule of Two with the number of "Sith" that they had.

 

Nope. Not all were, but since it has been done in the literature, that makes it canon so far as the EU goes.

 

In the end, I wouldn't think it matters. The title all Sith strive for is Darth, and that is deffinantly universal, and we stop using the lord title when we finish the class storyline.

[Sangiban]

Nope. Not all were, but since it has been done in the literature, that makes it canon so far as the EU goes.

 

In the end, I wouldn't think it matters. The title all Sith strive for is Darth, and that is deffinantly universal, and we stop using the lord title when we finish the class storyline.

 

Not technically true since the SW goes from Lord to Lord Wrath. So there could be some disagreement over whether a female SW should be called Lady Wrath. And even though no one asked - I personally prefer Lord to Lady for female Sith.

[SithKoriandr]

Not technically true since the SW goes from Lord to Lord Wrath. So there could be some disagreement over whether a female SW should be called Lady Wrath. And even though no one asked - I personally prefer Lord to Lady for female Sith.

 

You're right, I forgot they just hand Warrior the Darth title.

 

My only thought on it is, this isn't RL, this is a galaxy far far away with different rules in place. If the rules had the title Lady then great My SI would use the title Lady over Lord. As it doesn't seem to be a big part of the lore to use the title Lady and rather to use the title Lord, and there doesn't seem to be anything severly sexist in their attitudes ie "A woman can't do that." then I see it not as sexist, as just how language evolved in a galaxy far far away.

 

It's the players and their small mindedness who can't possibly grasp anything outside of their own tiny little world who can't accept it for what it is...a fictional universe.

[MadDutchman]

They refer to female characters as her/she all the time, which requires extra lines. This is just a case of "no one but a feminist gives a ****"

 

Maybe I'm just a little sore after they tried changing the Canadian national anthem to be more politically correct (gag)...

[Euphrosyne]

No, Sir has been used as both male and neutral term, and you just don't like it. So is the term "Hey, what's up guys." been used as a neutral term. Mankind, same thing. Neutral term, but people don't care for it because they like to think they can get annoyed/offended by language that has been in use a long time as a neutral term.

 

This applies to the title Lord. Why should this galaxy far far away, in a group that respects power over anything, have to titles to refer to men and women instead of just one title to refer to them all together.

 

If they had been called Razzel Vader/Marr/Ravage I'm sure since it's never been used in RL as a title you might like it better, since it doesn't have the connotation of being a male title, but then, it'd sound silly to most.

 

To go along with this, in lit/film they're still called Lord.

 

"Guys" and "mankind" are different words than "sir". The fact that other words, which are not "sir", can be considered gender-neutral, does not make "sir" gender-neutral.

 

I don't know if you live outside the English-speaking world or not, but it's pretty much universally accepted that in the real world "sir" is not a gender-neutral term. "Sir" and "ma[d]am" are specifically referenced as gender-specific in basically any primer on English you care to use. This is why the phrases "Dear Sir or Madam" and "To Whom It May Concern" exist: because simply using "Dear Sir" mislabels half of the potential recipients of any general message.

 

Yes, Star Wars is not the real world. Obviously. Basic is also not the same thing as English. But it operates the exact same way as English does, with the same vocabulary and grammar rules. The people that are experiencing Star Wars as depicted are English-speakers who expect English to operate like English does in the real world. Why should everything about Basic work the exact same way as English, except for this one thing?

 

As for "lord", another poster already dealt with that (and, I'd point out, so did my original post, in less specific fashion). To reiterate: there is a history of using "Sith Lady" that dates back to the freaking 1980s in the EU; "Lord" has also been used, and whichever of the two terms is employed seems to depend largely on writer fiat. The fact that, in this case, the writers elected to stick with "lord" as gender-neutral has backing in the EU; that does not make it any less silly, nor does it erase the fact that there is an equally canonical alternative in Lady, nor does it mean that I can't be annoyed about it. Which I am.

 

I wish they had a found a more clever way of going with the 'one size fits all' dialogue, instead of using sir and lord to refer to female characters. As you said, it isn't really gender neutral at all.

 

A good way I think they could have avoided it with the Sith is by giving them some noble honorific in the Sith Empire. For example having non-Sith address Sith as, "Your Grace," or "Your Worship," ect. It might have been unique to the era the game is set on and not have a connection to other EU sources, but I don't see that as a big deal. It would avoid having to worry about using sir or ma'am or lord and lady at least.

 

Yeah. Your Grace might have too many royal connotations to be used for the Sith, but there are a passel of alternatives that would've been quite reasonable. As for the military, it's harder to say.

 

It actually is. "Sir" as an honorific in English comes from senior, which is from the Latin adjective senex, which means old (which also gives us senile, but that's a separate discussion).

 

Lord also is gender neutral; it comes from a compound of Old English two English words which mean "bread/grain keeper/guardian."

 

Both have only been perceived as male-centric because the vast majority of people who were eligible to be called "sir" or "lord" in history were men. That's a social issue, not a titular one, and an issue that just doesn't exist in Star Wars.

 

That's not how etymology works. For one thing, modern words don't mean one thing because their roots had that exact meaning; by that analogy, for example, the German das Gift, which has the exact same roots as the English gift (P-G hypothesis - because everything about P-G is a hypothesis - giftiz via Althochdeutsch in the former case and Old English in the latter), would mean the same thing when in reality das Gift means poison or toxin.

 

For another thing, the way in which words are socially used is inextricable from their meaning. If you want to know what a word means, the roots are an entirely secondary consideration from actual, current usage. And it's fantastically unaware to suggest that "sir" is actually, currently used as a gender-neutral title. The fact that almost all people who use the word in the modern world think it's a male title means that it is a male title.

 

Which is kind of the point. If Basic maps one-to-one to English in every way, except that a word that in modern English denotes a male title, denotes a gender-neutral one in Basic, that's pretty silly. I can accept that yes, that is indeed how the writers intended it; they wrote it as such, and made it specifically clear in a Codex entry designed to explain the phenomenon. I just think it's really stupid, and fairly annoying, and I can see how other people would be rightly offended by it. How much harder would it have been to come up with an actual gender-neutral title? Equivalents have been suggested by plenty of English-speaking queer organizations over the past several decades. Alternatively, why make "sir" and "lord" the gender-neutral titles rather than "ma'am" and "lady"? Why is the term commonly associated with male gender the one to be used, rather than the term commonly associated with female gender?

[SithKoriandr]

And like you said..."In modern world." Star Wars isn't the modern world, it's a galaxy far far away. So our rules only work as far as the writers want.

 

If they wanted to, they could have switched the word male and female between the sexes just because they wanted to and said their basic developed differently than our English and similarities are coincidence at best.

 

Now sure, I doubt we'll ever see that, because it goes back to people being small minded an unable to accept such things. Just like it seems people can't accept that in SW the title Lord, when pertaining to the Sith, is gender neutral. Should they change the title of Darth as well, since all Darth's in the movies have been male, so that must mean it's a male title and not just a title. Think of it as a RANK. Maybe then you can grasp it easier.

Edited October 1, 2015 by SithKoriandr

[OathboundCoH]

They refer to female characters as her/she all the time, which requires extra lines. This is just a case of "no one but a feminist gives a ****"

 

Maybe I'm just a little sore after they tried changing the Canadian national anthem to be more politically correct (gag)...

 

Ironically enough, I would think a true feminist would insist on being called Sir, specifically BECAUSE it's what a man in her position would be referred to as.

 

If both genders are truly equal, there is little reason to draw distinction between them in a situation where they fulfill the exact same roles and duties.

 

(Think of Captain Gates on Castle. She insisted on being referred to as Sir.)

Edited October 1, 2015 by OathboundCoH

[Argonloris]

Supposedly, given the wide proliferation of species in the galaxy, not all of which have binary sexualities, and given the wide array of gender identities to which any person might subscribe, 'sir' is given as a universal gender- and sex-neutral term to avoid affront or miscommunication. There's a Codex on the Republic side - and, I think, on Imp side too - that describes this. It's supposedly military-only, because of the regularity with which 'sir' (or, y'know, 'ma'am') is used in a military setting; outside of the militaries, there's no such regulation, so people say whatever they like.

 

Unfortunately, 'sir' is not actually a neutral term in any way, shape, or form. The practical effect of the change is to annoy a subset of the fanbase while possibly saving on VO.

 

A similar reason is behind the use of 'Sith Lord' rather than 'Sith Lady', as far as I can tell. The bizarre thing is that there already were Sith Ladies in the EU, like Lumiya (who quite explicitly took the title).

 

The title Lady of the Sith was never given to Lumiya, it's just what she called herself after Emperor's hand couldn't apply since there was no Emperor. (She was a hand just like Mara for a time)

 

That being said, I think the only ones who would truly be able to use the title Dark Lady of the Sith would be female Inquisitors. The Wrath would generally forsake other titles just because the way the lore to it would work.

[Cordarn]

So they didn't have to record additional lines of dialogue, which is why female characters are also referred to as 'sir' frequently in the game.

 

I'm fairly certain that in the lore outside the games however that titles do change based on gender. Certainly ma'am is used instead of sir outside the games to refer to female officers in the EU.

 

Interestingly, the game is also a bit inconsistent when it comes to titles. While the Sith all get the lord title regardless of gender, a female Bounty Hunter who marries into one of the noble houses of Alderaan gets the Baroness title.

 

You can marry into one of the noble families on alderaan if your female? That's interesting.

[DarthDymond]

This is a setting where some cultures refer to their elected, limited-term heads of state as "Kings" and "Queens". Having a culture that uses "Lord" as a gender-neutral term isn't that much of a stretch. Edited October 2, 2015 by DarthDymond

[SithKoriandr]

This is a setting where some cultures refer to their elected, limited-term heads of state as "Kings" and "Queens". Having a culture that uses "Lord" as a gender-neutral term isn't that much of a stretch.

 

Especially when it's a rank.

 

Apprentice

Acolyte

Lord

Darth

 

Military doesn't make gender specific rank titles, no reason the Sith wouldn't either.

 

And look at all the Sith who call themselves "Lady" it seems to be more about "Call me something cool!"

[Anysao]

A similar reason is behind the use of 'Sith Lord' rather than 'Sith Lady', as far as I can tell. The bizarre thing is that there already were Sith Ladies in the EU, like Lumiya (who quite explicitly took the title).

 

I was going to mention Lumiya when I saw this thread. However, I can't think of any other "Sith Ladies" we've seen.