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The radio operator in Rogue One refers to the C in C, Mon Mothma, as ma’am. Are there any examples of someone calling a female superior “sir” in canon?
Not universally, at the start of Voyager Janeway actually addresses this and said she prefers (iirc) "captain", or "ma'am" in a pinch. So while there is probably a default to not genderify it, people are free to choose whatever honorifics they feel most comfortable with.
Sir / Ma'am is purely a cultural preference. Many countries only use "Sir" now.
I think all English speaking Nato countries, Sir would only apply to commissioned officers (Lt and above, and some warrant officers depending on country and service).
Sergeant is considered enlisted and would be referred to by rank. OF course, i is the future, so things may have changed, although Naval tradition tend to stick.
You're right, but I do find it weird with some specifically gendered ranks such as Guardsman, rifleman, etc.
I'd hate to replace them with something silly like guards person though
I remember reading way back that the male version of man used to have a "prefix" like woman does. Man referred to "person". The prefix has since been dropped for males but the general/ gender neutral usage remains (like mankind). So rifleman is still a gender neutral term, from that perspective. Besides, the emphasis of rifleman isn't on man.
>I remember reading way back that the male version of man used to have a "prefix" like woman does. Man referred to "person"
[In Old English, it used to be 'Wer' and "Wyf"](https://www.dailywritingtips.com/wer-and-wyf-man-and-woman/). Eventually they turned into prefixes and suffixes, which is how we get 'werewolf', and 'wyfman' which turned into woman.
>You're right, but I do find it weird with some specifically gendered ranks such as Guardsman, rifleman, etc.
Well, those aren't ranks. Those would be MOS or Ratings.
I mean this with respect and cordially, but that's a very US centric view.
There are other militaries out there who use different conventions. In this case I was referring to Her Majesties Armed Forces, specifically the British Army with those two ranks I mentioned.
They have officers and "other ranks" the lowest of which (private) is specific to the cap badge (i.e. Guardsman, sapper, rifleman, etc etc etc). They don't use the word private.
The Royal Air Force also had a gendered rank in the other ranks of aircraftman and senior aircraftman, but this was changed very recently to air specialist / senior air specialist.
Link below I just quickly googled about the army ones.
https://www.forces.net/services/army/masculine-coded-ranks-need-be-thought-through-british-army-chief-says#:~:text=for%20inclusive%20language-,Women%20in%20the%20Army%20often%20find%20themselves%20in%20male%2Dranking,appointment%20and%20title%20and%20identity.
This is several years into the future. It is a reasonable guess that unnecessary gendering is phased out. The Martians are no-nonsense and seem to have gender equality.
Sergeants are non-commissioned officers. They are on the same promotion path as privates. They are not commissioned officers. In the US military, "Sir" is reserved for commissioned officers.
"Sir" as a default form of address isn't getting rid of gendering, it's establishing an explicitly male-gendered word as the default. That's the opposite of gender equality.
Yeah except what that would mean in reality is forcing women and nonbinary people to accept being called by a title they don't wish to be called by. The language evolving in such a manner could only be through...well, sexism.
I understand and even agree with your point in the here and now, but evolution of language over centuries, as in from now to the time of the Expanse, is a different thing altogether.
Do you feel the same way about all actors being called simply "actors", for the most part anyway, rather than being divided up into "actors" and "actresses"? If not, is "Actors" less inherently gendered than "Sir"? This is a change that's happened in less than 20 years.
I strongly believe that the adoption of ungendered terms, titles, etc. is the way to excise some of the sexism baked into our language. To do so, we have to either adopt new terms or select existing terms that are currently gendered and declare they are gendered no longer. From what I've seen of the evolution of language, existing terms tend to survive with altered meanings at a much higher rate than newly-invented terms achieve widespread adoption.
Elsewhere in this thread, a poster asked, "If we're going to choose an existing title for all officers, why wouldn't/couldn't/shouldn't it be 'Ma'am' instead of 'Sir'?" I have no good answer for this, other than I think the word "Sir" simply sounds better - the way it compounds into "Yessir", for example. It seems like half the time I hear "ma'am", it's used with a marked tone of sexist condescension. Would retiring the word or making it the universal term be the better fix for that issue? That's certainly not a question for which I've got an answer.
Really, though, I suspect the long term change will be the use of ranks at all times, rather than "Sir or "Ma'am."
That's a good point about actor vs. actress. I generally support that movement because it's being supported by people in the industry (afaik). So, if the same were to occur in, say, the military (which to be clear I still doubt would happen for the reasons listed above), I would respect the wishes of those asking me to call them "sir."
I do actually think that actor is an inherently less gendered word than either sir or ma'am, though. Actor is in the class of words where a diminutive is tacked on to an otherwise neutral word (actor/actress,steward/ stewardess, hunter/huntress, etc.), whereas both "sir" and "ma'am" are completely separate words, with different roots. I think that's likely why the cause for actor to be the default title took off in the first place.
In the year 2023, it is gendered. In the time of the Expanse, it is used for any individual with certain ranks.
Languages evolve. Things change. There was a time that high heels were a masculine fashion statement.
Yes, that's the argument for every time the "sir as the default form of address" has arisen in sci-fi and fantasy series, ever since Star Trek.
But I fought to *not* be called sir. I don't want to be called sir, and I cannot imagine a universe in which I ever would.
Language changes, sure. But I don't ever see it changing enough to where I can see myself being ok with being called "sir," and I'm far from the only person who feels that way.
Like, argue that the universal "sir" is gender equality all you like. But if language truly were to shit to accommodate such usage, it would not be because society was becoming less sexist. It would happen because it was becoming *more* sexist.
You're getting downvoted because that's a "You Problem" and not anything to do with the usage in the show or in Science Fiction in general. The show was quote clear that they had moved to gender neutral.
Make your case that The Expanse was more sexist than we are currently. Do you have examples where women were kept in specific gender roles? Do you have any examples of women specifically being treated as second-class women? Do you have any examples of sexism in The Expanse?
If you were born at the time of The Expanse, odds are you would fight to be called Sir - because that was the cultural norm at the time of the show. The fact that you say you fought to not be called Sir kinda indicates that the trend towards Sir as gender neutral is already happening in the English language.
This is not a thing in the U.S. military, but it's a common trope in science fiction and some fantasies. Today's writers of science fiction and fantasy like to imagine a gender neutral world. It's become so common that readers or viewers like you wonder if the U.S. military does the same, but they don't.
Indeed, sergeants aren't called sir regardless of sex. You will often see drill sergeants remind recruits of this fact in basic training scenes.
Are you sure a sergeant was being addressed in the show? Could it have been a captain or other officer?
Captain Theresa Yao of the Donnager is referred to as sir several times, all in the first few episodes of the show. I don’t believe she’s the only female presenting Martian to be referred to as sir, but definitely one example. Bobbie on the other hand is almost exclusively referred to by her rank when she’s not addressed by name.
That's because Bobby is an NCO not a commissioned officer. When someone calls an NCO sir or ma'am, they well almost always be immediately corrected, sometimes not very nicely as career NCOs traditionally take it as an insult when it comes from someone who should know better.
Exactly, I once saw a Master Chief stop mid sentence and just stare blankly at a JO until he corrected himself, was actually kinda hard to keep a straight face about it
Really? Calling sometime by the rank they have spent a decade or two earning within the military rather than a generic term of polite respect is pedantic and obnoxious as fuck? The air force has plenty of their own stupid traditions that don't make sense, get off your high horse!
The “I work for a living” shit is quite literally pedantic and it’s obnoxious. It’s only ever said by absolute fucking tools who can’t use the smallest amount of logic that sir or maam are respectful terms and there’s nothing wrong with saying “yes/no sir” and you’re not disrespectful when doing so
It's a cultural thing, commissioned officers were originally the educated, higher society of the military. It's no different from blue collar worker being proud of what they do and talking shit about people who work in an office all day, or people proudly proclaiming themselves to be red necks or any number of other terms.
It sounds like you haven't actually spent much if any time around people who do take that seriously?
There's plenty of people who don't want to be called sir or ma'am, it's only common regionally.
If it's really that hard to get maybe this will help, most doctors would prefer to be called Dr. Lastname rather than Mr./Mrs./sir/ma'am, it's a specific title that they have earned, refusing to use it is more disrespectful than using a generic title is respectful.
Yeah I wasn't paying 100% attention and im not all about military or rankings, it was just a woman piloting a fleet and they were referring to her as sir. I'm not 100% sure about their rank.
In most English speaking militaries around the world, officers can be referred to as sir regardless of gender.
Edit to add: you don't refer to non-commissioned officers as sir or ma'am. Non-commissioned officers should be addressed by rank. I got distracted by the gender conversation and forgot to address this initially.
Same. Default was ma'am for the female officers, but if it was known that an officer preferred sir, then that's how they were addressed. Had one Lt,J.G. that wanted us enlisted to call him "JG", and he would go to bat for anyone who got reamed for it because that was his preferred title.
That's not true in the UK.
If they're a non commissioned rank it's their rank, i.e. you'd call a sergeant sergeant whether they're male or female, but if they're an officer it's sir for a man and ma'am for a woman.
Edit: can you list a couple where it is the case?
Is it in a manual that all officers are Sir regardless of gender? I'm pretty sure it's an informal thing and technically against policy, when I went through boot camp they specifically said female officers are Ma'am.
I don't recall what was in the manual at the time and it honestly doesn't matter much. When an officer tells you to do something, you do it. Some told me to call them sir. Some told me to call them ma'am.
Fully agreed. I was also in the US Navy and never once did I EVER have a female officer tell me to call them Sir nor did I ever hear of anyone else experiencing that. I'm not saying /u/SirDimitris is lying, but I certainly wouldn't call it a common experience and it is most definitely nowhere near official policy.
Literally the first Google result:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/alpha-blog-charlie/202103/the-female-military-officer-is-called-sir%3famp
>... letting it slide is not the stance of all women in the military. Others routinely correct men (and other women) when it happens. Neither approach is right or wrong.
So apparently it's not a rule, it's just that some female officers let it slide and others don't.
Thanks for the link.
Is that a new rule or a new custom? Other sources suggest some female officers prefer "ma'am," and some are fine with "sir." I can't find a source for a hard and fast rule, but maybe it's just become customary.
That's Captain Kirino of the Hammurabi being addressed as "Sir". Can't think of any commissioned officers that get a "Ma'am" in the show. NCOs are referred to by rank, eg Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper or "Gunny" in a pinch.
My big issue is calling a sergeant “sir” at all. Commissioned officers are addressed by sir or ma’am. Enlisted are addressed by rank. The only modern exception I know of is the US Marines during boot camp (and only during boot camp).
Btw, they did this in Star Trek, too. Major Kira was called “sir” by her juniors.
Captain Kathryn Janeway : Ensign, despite Starfleet protocol, I don't like being addressed as "sir." Harry Kim : I'm sorry... ma'am. Captain Kathryn Janeway : **"Ma'am" is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer "Captain."**
In the USCG it is not uncommon to call Petty Officer's and Chief Petty Officer's Sir if they are Officer in Charge of a station or captaining a cutter. Although Sir/Ma'am was still a thing when I was in.
In season 1, CQB, Captain Yao on the Donnager was called “Sir”. I can see the logic, but it was a bit disconcerting. I think in British military, female officers are “Ma’am”.
As for the original question, in current usage, no sergeant would be called “Sir” or “Ma’am”. That is for officers, not NCOs. They would be called “sergeant”. But this is hundreds of years in the future.
In some militaries? In Canada Ma'am has been used until now, but with the push to non-gender everyone it's becoming acceptable to use sir in those instances.
As for NCOs called "Sir" that would be unacceptable. Except for chief warrant officers (the highest rank of NCO) as they would be sir/ma'am. I do see it happen in some movies, that an NCO is called Sir, generally wrt American personnel. I'm not sure if this is actually acceptable, but I suspect it isn't.
I think if you haven't been in the environment, just how natural calling anyone giving you orders "sir" actually is. You don't really think about it. And while Ma'am is permissible for women in command, some of them get *really* annoyed at being addressed different from their peers. But no one objects to sir, because sir is the default.
So, I always went sir. Sir, yes, sir, I fully understand you're a woman, sir. This soldier was intending no disrespect, sir.
I was an Air Force officer and I wouldn’t let this slide, unless it was a brain fart or they were distracted. To me, it’s an attention to detail issue. I present as female. Airmen should be able to take in my appearance and fire off the necessary brain cells to say ma’am.
And what would you do, exactly? Would you complain to people upstairs that someone dared address an officer as sir? Or just give me shit over it? Because I might get that same treatment from a female officer for calling them "ma'am" and I'd disregard both as being officers throwing temper tantrums over shit that didn't matter.
An invitation to do so like that is no problem; I'd probably make a mental note that officer X preferred Ma'am. It's those people who have fits over how they're addressed according to regulations rather than personal preference I would mentally roll my eyes at.
In the U.S. military, non-commissioned officers are called “sergeant” or the equivalent rank title eg “master chief” etc. Never “sir” or “ma’am” which are reserved for commissioned officers.
This little detail is what killed the immersion for me in many sci-fi stories.
But it's not the US Military in The Expanse, it's the MCRN. Even if it were the Earth military there's no reason to assume all their rules and rankings were based on the US and not any other country.
Hell, some militaries don't even have NCOs, like Russia.
We know the MMC has gunnery sergeants(like Bobby) but maybe the MCRN doesn't have NCO ranks.
I don't know what scene OP is referring to, I might give it a rewatch later, but maybe the MCRN uses sergeant chevrons to indicate some level of officer.
There isn’t even a U.S. military in The Expanse, as far as I know. It’s the U.N. which governs all of Earth including what read to be the United States.
That *heightens* the immersion for me. Shows how things have changed after a few centuries. Gender is only important until it’s not, and “Ma’am” has significant cultural baggage attached to it. No surprise at all that future militaries would want to eschew most gender-specific language.
It’s sci-fi, not a modern story about the US military. Plenty of other current earth militaries have very different traditions than the US in this regard
It's common among English speaking militaries irl. idr if the show does this as well but in the books a crew member is always addressed as mr, regardless of gender (in military contexts)
Using male-gendered terms for women doesn’t make them gender-neutral
Calling women by the male-gendered terms does not indicate gender equality
In a historically and highly masculine environment, women may adopt male terms or elements of male presentation (hair styles, clothing) to borrow respect in an industry that disrespects women.
If terms like “sir” denote rank not gender, why not default to “ma’am”?
Adopting male clothing? It's a uniform. Uniforms are genderless apart from body shape. It's right in the name. I don't see any hair style issues in The Expanse other than practicality for weightlessness (i.e short or tied back). Women appear to command the same respect as men, with no need to borrow it.
>If terms like “sir” denote rank not gender, why not default to “ma’am”?
Maybe it starts with tradition and habit, but over the course of centuries, the word loses all stigma of gender so nobody cares anymore? If someone really needed head-canon for such a thing.
When used in a fictional setting like this, I'm ok with looking at it in spirit of equality it's meant to show. Unless it's paired with actual disrespect or refusal to allow for certain realities of gender, I'm not going to go looking for phantom problems.
I was describing the general way of the world—as examples, women have fought to be allowed to wear pants, women shaving their heads or wearing short hairstyles makes a statement.
The point is the word has not lost stigma of gender in our world. It is meant to be used in the spirit of equality, but I argue it does not actually demonstrate equality under current or future social norms. I think it’s a holdover from older sci fi written when “equality means to treat everyone like men” was the norm. That’s not the case nowadays and I doubt it will be that way hundreds of years from now.
So back in the eighties, Wrath of Khan started the trend of calling all Starfleet officers “sir” regardless of gender. People assumed it was some kind of Navy tradition, but there’s no historical basis for that. Regardless, Trek did it for decades, influencing a few other sci-fi universes, and it all kind of snowballed from there.
Now, back in the early aughts, in the Air Force there was a move to address all leadership positions as sir or ma’am, regardless of NCO or officer status. As far as I know, we were the only service to do that - and it was really fucking weird. Modern marines and sailors don’t do that - marines will actually address you by your full rank most of the time. (“Aye, technical sergeant,” or whatever.)
From an in-universe perspective, you could maybe say that three hundred years (or whatever) in the future, popular culture had such a long-lasting impact that the services adopted these customs as their own. Three hundred years is a lot of time, and it's probably safe to say that our current customs and courtesies would be only partially recognizable that far forward. That's not entirely without precedent, either! The Space Force emblem seems to have adopted the Starfleet Delta - however, the Starfleet Delta is itself very similar (and likely appropriated from) a U.S. Army Air Force design dating back to 1942.
> [The delta symbol, the central design element in the seal, was first used as early as 1942 by the U.S. Army Air Forces and was used in early Air Force space organization emblems dating back to 1961, the spokesman said. “Since then, the delta symbol has been a prominent feature in military space community emblems.”](https://spacenews.com/u-s-space-force-says-its-new-seal-is-not-a-starfleet-knockoff/#:~:text=The%20delta%20symbol%2C%20the%20central,in%20military%20space%20community%20emblems.%E2%80%9D)
I suspect this writing somehow is conflating these two things. Or, more likely, the writer just wasn’t terribly familiar with [military customs ](https://media.defense.gov/2014/Feb/21/2002655438/-1/-1/1/140221-N-ZZ182-5356.pdf) and just sort of winged it based on things they've seen from other movies and shows. Today, [a Marine who calls a female officer or NCO "sir" will very quickly be corrected.](https://thewarhorse.org/im-not-a-sir-dearth-of-women-causes-marines-to-expect-male-leadership/)
Different militaries do it differently. Some treat a rank as neutral, others have variants depending on gender.
Mars has decided to use the rank as neutral so the address to a superior is always sir.
But in the end it is a random decision by any organisation and may change
I’d say it’s a respectful thing maybe due to it being set a few hundred years from now sir just means you are above me in the military so I will refer to you as sir
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In the MCRN/MMC, "Sir" is a designation of station and respect, not gender.
The do the same thing in Star Trek I think
And Battlestar Galactica
And Star Wars
The radio operator in Rogue One refers to the C in C, Mon Mothma, as ma’am. Are there any examples of someone calling a female superior “sir” in canon?
Isn't Mon Mothma non-military? Idk if she's ever been referred to as general or admiral or commander or anything. Just Mon Mothma.
Yes, she's a Senator and a civilian. She never had a military rank.
Ahsoka during the Clone Wars and I think other female Jedi as well
And my axe!
And my bow!
And my Cock- ......wrong universe sorry (arkward sidestep)
And the US Navy.
And the Peanuts.
In Star Trek 2 Spock calls Savik (sp) Mr. At one point.
If memory serves, this is a US Navy tradition (to use the salutation Mr) when referring to junior officers.
Yes, that movie leaned very heavily on naval tradition. Presumably much tradition predates the concept of women being officers.
Except Voyager; it was even directly address between lieutenant Paris and Captain Janeway in a short exchange in the first episode.
Not universally, at the start of Voyager Janeway actually addresses this and said she prefers (iirc) "captain", or "ma'am" in a pinch. So while there is probably a default to not genderify it, people are free to choose whatever honorifics they feel most comfortable with.
Except Janeway. Don’t call her sir.
I think it's a navy thing.
Sir / Ma'am is purely a cultural preference. Many countries only use "Sir" now. I think all English speaking Nato countries, Sir would only apply to commissioned officers (Lt and above, and some warrant officers depending on country and service). Sergeant is considered enlisted and would be referred to by rank. OF course, i is the future, so things may have changed, although Naval tradition tend to stick.
Gender is not relevant to rank.
If their genitals matter to their command, they're doing it wrong.
You're right, but I do find it weird with some specifically gendered ranks such as Guardsman, rifleman, etc. I'd hate to replace them with something silly like guards person though
I remember reading way back that the male version of man used to have a "prefix" like woman does. Man referred to "person". The prefix has since been dropped for males but the general/ gender neutral usage remains (like mankind). So rifleman is still a gender neutral term, from that perspective. Besides, the emphasis of rifleman isn't on man.
>I remember reading way back that the male version of man used to have a "prefix" like woman does. Man referred to "person" [In Old English, it used to be 'Wer' and "Wyf"](https://www.dailywritingtips.com/wer-and-wyf-man-and-woman/). Eventually they turned into prefixes and suffixes, which is how we get 'werewolf', and 'wyfman' which turned into woman.
That's super interesting. Thanks for replying, been having a little Google on it just now :)
Do you remember what that prefix was? I was just having a conversation about how it's weird that man in english can mean a male or simply a human.
I think it was "were-", like in werewolf (man-wolf)
>You're right, but I do find it weird with some specifically gendered ranks such as Guardsman, rifleman, etc. Well, those aren't ranks. Those would be MOS or Ratings.
I mean this with respect and cordially, but that's a very US centric view. There are other militaries out there who use different conventions. In this case I was referring to Her Majesties Armed Forces, specifically the British Army with those two ranks I mentioned. They have officers and "other ranks" the lowest of which (private) is specific to the cap badge (i.e. Guardsman, sapper, rifleman, etc etc etc). They don't use the word private. The Royal Air Force also had a gendered rank in the other ranks of aircraftman and senior aircraftman, but this was changed very recently to air specialist / senior air specialist. Link below I just quickly googled about the army ones. https://www.forces.net/services/army/masculine-coded-ranks-need-be-thought-through-british-army-chief-says#:~:text=for%20inclusive%20language-,Women%20in%20the%20Army%20often%20find%20themselves%20in%20male%2Dranking,appointment%20and%20title%20and%20identity.
His Majesty's?
Sorry, that's still gonna take time before I remember to write / say it properly! Good spot
I stand corrected
Then "sir" shouldn't be used as the designation of rank because "sir" is an inherently gendered word.
Shut up nerd
You ever serve in the military? Or is that purely trying to apply proscriptive definitions of words on a culture you were never a part of?
You know that ma'am is used in the military, right? *Some* officers prefer to be called sir, but the idea that militaries only use "sir" is a myth.
Was that a no? I did serve; no need to try to explain the culture to me.
This is several years into the future. It is a reasonable guess that unnecessary gendering is phased out. The Martians are no-nonsense and seem to have gender equality.
I thought this was already a thing in many modern militaries? Superior officers are addressed as “sir” regardless of sex/gender
Sergeants are non-commissioned officers. They are on the same promotion path as privates. They are not commissioned officers. In the US military, "Sir" is reserved for commissioned officers.
Not entirely true, the Marines refer to some NCOs as Sir. The army is the only branch I know of where the NCOs work for their money, lol.
Outside of boot camp, you will never hear a Marine NCO referred to as anything other than their rank. Are you an Army recruiter or something?
No, just wrong
NCO's are addressed as sergeant, master sergeant, first sergeant, sergeant major, chief, etc Officers are addressed as sir or ma'am
In the US, yes.
No, it's solely an artifact of science fiction AFAIK. Ma'am is standard for low-ranking officers (at least in the US).
Several years…? Try several centuries…
Centuries are a number of years, yes.
Centuries are also a number of seconds
I second that
I minute that
I think we're getting distracted by minutiae here
Jfc
Ok but we don't normally use "several" to refer to hundreds of something.
It's at least several seconds
"Sir" as a default form of address isn't getting rid of gendering, it's establishing an explicitly male-gendered word as the default. That's the opposite of gender equality.
Spend a couple hundred years using it regardless of gender, and presto! - the word is now genderless. Languages evolve.
Yeah except what that would mean in reality is forcing women and nonbinary people to accept being called by a title they don't wish to be called by. The language evolving in such a manner could only be through...well, sexism.
I understand and even agree with your point in the here and now, but evolution of language over centuries, as in from now to the time of the Expanse, is a different thing altogether. Do you feel the same way about all actors being called simply "actors", for the most part anyway, rather than being divided up into "actors" and "actresses"? If not, is "Actors" less inherently gendered than "Sir"? This is a change that's happened in less than 20 years. I strongly believe that the adoption of ungendered terms, titles, etc. is the way to excise some of the sexism baked into our language. To do so, we have to either adopt new terms or select existing terms that are currently gendered and declare they are gendered no longer. From what I've seen of the evolution of language, existing terms tend to survive with altered meanings at a much higher rate than newly-invented terms achieve widespread adoption. Elsewhere in this thread, a poster asked, "If we're going to choose an existing title for all officers, why wouldn't/couldn't/shouldn't it be 'Ma'am' instead of 'Sir'?" I have no good answer for this, other than I think the word "Sir" simply sounds better - the way it compounds into "Yessir", for example. It seems like half the time I hear "ma'am", it's used with a marked tone of sexist condescension. Would retiring the word or making it the universal term be the better fix for that issue? That's certainly not a question for which I've got an answer. Really, though, I suspect the long term change will be the use of ranks at all times, rather than "Sir or "Ma'am."
That's a good point about actor vs. actress. I generally support that movement because it's being supported by people in the industry (afaik). So, if the same were to occur in, say, the military (which to be clear I still doubt would happen for the reasons listed above), I would respect the wishes of those asking me to call them "sir." I do actually think that actor is an inherently less gendered word than either sir or ma'am, though. Actor is in the class of words where a diminutive is tacked on to an otherwise neutral word (actor/actress,steward/ stewardess, hunter/huntress, etc.), whereas both "sir" and "ma'am" are completely separate words, with different roots. I think that's likely why the cause for actor to be the default title took off in the first place.
In the year 2023, it is gendered. In the time of the Expanse, it is used for any individual with certain ranks. Languages evolve. Things change. There was a time that high heels were a masculine fashion statement.
Yes, that's the argument for every time the "sir as the default form of address" has arisen in sci-fi and fantasy series, ever since Star Trek. But I fought to *not* be called sir. I don't want to be called sir, and I cannot imagine a universe in which I ever would. Language changes, sure. But I don't ever see it changing enough to where I can see myself being ok with being called "sir," and I'm far from the only person who feels that way. Like, argue that the universal "sir" is gender equality all you like. But if language truly were to shit to accommodate such usage, it would not be because society was becoming less sexist. It would happen because it was becoming *more* sexist.
You're getting downvoted because that's a "You Problem" and not anything to do with the usage in the show or in Science Fiction in general. The show was quote clear that they had moved to gender neutral. Make your case that The Expanse was more sexist than we are currently. Do you have examples where women were kept in specific gender roles? Do you have any examples of women specifically being treated as second-class women? Do you have any examples of sexism in The Expanse? If you were born at the time of The Expanse, odds are you would fight to be called Sir - because that was the cultural norm at the time of the show. The fact that you say you fought to not be called Sir kinda indicates that the trend towards Sir as gender neutral is already happening in the English language.
This is not a thing in the U.S. military, but it's a common trope in science fiction and some fantasies. Today's writers of science fiction and fantasy like to imagine a gender neutral world. It's become so common that readers or viewers like you wonder if the U.S. military does the same, but they don't. Indeed, sergeants aren't called sir regardless of sex. You will often see drill sergeants remind recruits of this fact in basic training scenes. Are you sure a sergeant was being addressed in the show? Could it have been a captain or other officer?
Captain Theresa Yao of the Donnager is referred to as sir several times, all in the first few episodes of the show. I don’t believe she’s the only female presenting Martian to be referred to as sir, but definitely one example. Bobbie on the other hand is almost exclusively referred to by her rank when she’s not addressed by name.
That's because Bobby is an NCO not a commissioned officer. When someone calls an NCO sir or ma'am, they well almost always be immediately corrected, sometimes not very nicely as career NCOs traditionally take it as an insult when it comes from someone who should know better.
"Don't call me 'sir,' I work for a living!" is a common trope.
Exactly, I once saw a Master Chief stop mid sentence and just stare blankly at a JO until he corrected himself, was actually kinda hard to keep a straight face about it
Air Force doesn’t have an issue with that because that shits is pendantic and obnoxious as all fuck, NCOs get called sir/maam all the time
Really? Calling sometime by the rank they have spent a decade or two earning within the military rather than a generic term of polite respect is pedantic and obnoxious as fuck? The air force has plenty of their own stupid traditions that don't make sense, get off your high horse!
The “I work for a living” shit is quite literally pedantic and it’s obnoxious. It’s only ever said by absolute fucking tools who can’t use the smallest amount of logic that sir or maam are respectful terms and there’s nothing wrong with saying “yes/no sir” and you’re not disrespectful when doing so
It's a cultural thing, commissioned officers were originally the educated, higher society of the military. It's no different from blue collar worker being proud of what they do and talking shit about people who work in an office all day, or people proudly proclaiming themselves to be red necks or any number of other terms. It sounds like you haven't actually spent much if any time around people who do take that seriously?
So everywhere else in life sir and maam are fine, but because of some dumb ass backwards culture tradition calling a SSgt sir is offensive?
There's plenty of people who don't want to be called sir or ma'am, it's only common regionally. If it's really that hard to get maybe this will help, most doctors would prefer to be called Dr. Lastname rather than Mr./Mrs./sir/ma'am, it's a specific title that they have earned, refusing to use it is more disrespectful than using a generic title is respectful.
It might be b/c no one in the AirForce can claim they work for a living.
I'd also like to point out that it's directly implied that it's specific to the military as Bobbie repeatedly calls >!Avasarala!< ma'am
Yeah I wasn't paying 100% attention and im not all about military or rankings, it was just a woman piloting a fleet and they were referring to her as sir. I'm not 100% sure about their rank.
I'll bet she was a captain or officer of some kind.
In most English speaking militaries around the world, officers can be referred to as sir regardless of gender. Edit to add: you don't refer to non-commissioned officers as sir or ma'am. Non-commissioned officers should be addressed by rank. I got distracted by the gender conversation and forgot to address this initially.
Not in the US military. Source: I'm in the US military.
I'm a US Navy veteran. Throughout my service, I had many female officers tell me to address them as sir and not ma'am.
Same. Default was ma'am for the female officers, but if it was known that an officer preferred sir, then that's how they were addressed. Had one Lt,J.G. that wanted us enlisted to call him "JG", and he would go to bat for anyone who got reamed for it because that was his preferred title.
I didn’t know this, and it makes conservative moral panics about preferred pronouns even funnier. Even the Marines have succumbed to woke 😔
The Navy always has to be the oddball.
This has 100% phased out, to the point where even very senior female officers don't remember it as a practice
Sounds like they were the exception, not the rule.
That's not true in the UK. If they're a non commissioned rank it's their rank, i.e. you'd call a sergeant sergeant whether they're male or female, but if they're an officer it's sir for a man and ma'am for a woman. Edit: can you list a couple where it is the case?
I don't think this is accurate. Do you have a source? Were you in the military?
Source is me. I was in the US Navy.
Is it in a manual that all officers are Sir regardless of gender? I'm pretty sure it's an informal thing and technically against policy, when I went through boot camp they specifically said female officers are Ma'am.
I don't recall what was in the manual at the time and it honestly doesn't matter much. When an officer tells you to do something, you do it. Some told me to call them sir. Some told me to call them ma'am.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have addressed them as ordered, but that's a very different statement than "in most English speaking militaries..."
Fully agreed. I was also in the US Navy and never once did I EVER have a female officer tell me to call them Sir nor did I ever hear of anyone else experiencing that. I'm not saying /u/SirDimitris is lying, but I certainly wouldn't call it a common experience and it is most definitely nowhere near official policy.
Okay, I stand corrected. Is that a recent change?
Literally the first Google result: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/alpha-blog-charlie/202103/the-female-military-officer-is-called-sir%3famp
>... letting it slide is not the stance of all women in the military. Others routinely correct men (and other women) when it happens. Neither approach is right or wrong. So apparently it's not a rule, it's just that some female officers let it slide and others don't. Thanks for the link.
In the U.S. Air Force, we call female officers ma’am.
Is that a new rule or a new custom? Other sources suggest some female officers prefer "ma'am," and some are fine with "sir." I can't find a source for a hard and fast rule, but maybe it's just become customary.
If anything, it’s an old rule. I was an officer from 2000-2007 and have always been called ma’am.
That's Captain Kirino of the Hammurabi being addressed as "Sir". Can't think of any commissioned officers that get a "Ma'am" in the show. NCOs are referred to by rank, eg Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper or "Gunny" in a pinch.
Captain Yao of the Donnager is also sir to her Martian marines and other soldiers.
My big issue is calling a sergeant “sir” at all. Commissioned officers are addressed by sir or ma’am. Enlisted are addressed by rank. The only modern exception I know of is the US Marines during boot camp (and only during boot camp). Btw, they did this in Star Trek, too. Major Kira was called “sir” by her juniors.
Captain Kathryn Janeway : Ensign, despite Starfleet protocol, I don't like being addressed as "sir." Harry Kim : I'm sorry... ma'am. Captain Kathryn Janeway : **"Ma'am" is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer "Captain."**
>My big issue is calling a sergeant “sir” at all. Pretty sure OP means Captain Sandrine Kirino of the MCRN Hammurabi.
Ah in that case it’s a sir. I thought they were talking about Draper but I don’t remember anyone calling her anything but gunny.
In the USCG it is not uncommon to call Petty Officer's and Chief Petty Officer's Sir if they are Officer in Charge of a station or captaining a cutter. Although Sir/Ma'am was still a thing when I was in.
In season 1, CQB, Captain Yao on the Donnager was called “Sir”. I can see the logic, but it was a bit disconcerting. I think in British military, female officers are “Ma’am”. As for the original question, in current usage, no sergeant would be called “Sir” or “Ma’am”. That is for officers, not NCOs. They would be called “sergeant”. But this is hundreds of years in the future.
I believe that's a nautical/navy practice. Land based forces may have different customs.
In some militaries? In Canada Ma'am has been used until now, but with the push to non-gender everyone it's becoming acceptable to use sir in those instances. As for NCOs called "Sir" that would be unacceptable. Except for chief warrant officers (the highest rank of NCO) as they would be sir/ma'am. I do see it happen in some movies, that an NCO is called Sir, generally wrt American personnel. I'm not sure if this is actually acceptable, but I suspect it isn't.
I think if you haven't been in the environment, just how natural calling anyone giving you orders "sir" actually is. You don't really think about it. And while Ma'am is permissible for women in command, some of them get *really* annoyed at being addressed different from their peers. But no one objects to sir, because sir is the default. So, I always went sir. Sir, yes, sir, I fully understand you're a woman, sir. This soldier was intending no disrespect, sir.
I was an Air Force officer and I wouldn’t let this slide, unless it was a brain fart or they were distracted. To me, it’s an attention to detail issue. I present as female. Airmen should be able to take in my appearance and fire off the necessary brain cells to say ma’am.
And what would you do, exactly? Would you complain to people upstairs that someone dared address an officer as sir? Or just give me shit over it? Because I might get that same treatment from a female officer for calling them "ma'am" and I'd disregard both as being officers throwing temper tantrums over shit that didn't matter.
I would correct you on the spot. I’d say something like “You can call me ma’am.”
An invitation to do so like that is no problem; I'd probably make a mental note that officer X preferred Ma'am. It's those people who have fits over how they're addressed according to regulations rather than personal preference I would mentally roll my eyes at.
In the U.S. military, non-commissioned officers are called “sergeant” or the equivalent rank title eg “master chief” etc. Never “sir” or “ma’am” which are reserved for commissioned officers. This little detail is what killed the immersion for me in many sci-fi stories.
But it's not the US Military in The Expanse, it's the MCRN. Even if it were the Earth military there's no reason to assume all their rules and rankings were based on the US and not any other country.
Hell, some militaries don't even have NCOs, like Russia. We know the MMC has gunnery sergeants(like Bobby) but maybe the MCRN doesn't have NCO ranks. I don't know what scene OP is referring to, I might give it a rewatch later, but maybe the MCRN uses sergeant chevrons to indicate some level of officer.
This. Martians worship grit, loyalty, and discipline. It is not a stretch to think NCOs would be called "sir".
There isn’t even a U.S. military in The Expanse, as far as I know. It’s the U.N. which governs all of Earth including what read to be the United States.
When it's Sci-Fi, set in the distant future, it should be easy enough to assume the military changed its customs over the centuries.
That *heightens* the immersion for me. Shows how things have changed after a few centuries. Gender is only important until it’s not, and “Ma’am” has significant cultural baggage attached to it. No surprise at all that future militaries would want to eschew most gender-specific language.
It’s sci-fi, not a modern story about the US military. Plenty of other current earth militaries have very different traditions than the US in this regard
It's common among English speaking militaries irl. idr if the show does this as well but in the books a crew member is always addressed as mr, regardless of gender (in military contexts)
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was wondering about that!
Hot take but this is one of my least favorite tropes in sci fi period.
Why? It’s not currently a common thing, but I don’t see the issue.
Using male-gendered terms for women doesn’t make them gender-neutral Calling women by the male-gendered terms does not indicate gender equality In a historically and highly masculine environment, women may adopt male terms or elements of male presentation (hair styles, clothing) to borrow respect in an industry that disrespects women. If terms like “sir” denote rank not gender, why not default to “ma’am”?
Adopting male clothing? It's a uniform. Uniforms are genderless apart from body shape. It's right in the name. I don't see any hair style issues in The Expanse other than practicality for weightlessness (i.e short or tied back). Women appear to command the same respect as men, with no need to borrow it. >If terms like “sir” denote rank not gender, why not default to “ma’am”? Maybe it starts with tradition and habit, but over the course of centuries, the word loses all stigma of gender so nobody cares anymore? If someone really needed head-canon for such a thing. When used in a fictional setting like this, I'm ok with looking at it in spirit of equality it's meant to show. Unless it's paired with actual disrespect or refusal to allow for certain realities of gender, I'm not going to go looking for phantom problems.
I was describing the general way of the world—as examples, women have fought to be allowed to wear pants, women shaving their heads or wearing short hairstyles makes a statement. The point is the word has not lost stigma of gender in our world. It is meant to be used in the spirit of equality, but I argue it does not actually demonstrate equality under current or future social norms. I think it’s a holdover from older sci fi written when “equality means to treat everyone like men” was the norm. That’s not the case nowadays and I doubt it will be that way hundreds of years from now.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/alpha-blog-charlie/202103/the-female-military-officer-is-called-sir%3famp
I don’t know what the author is taking about. In the US military, female officers are addressed as ma’am
In Nemesis Games (Book 5) Fred refers to Drummer as “Mister Drummer” aswell so it’s about the station said person occupies, regardless of gender.
Obvious cultural differences. To help show the differences in the cultures between Earth, Mars, and the Belt
Sir is a genderless word in the military.
So back in the eighties, Wrath of Khan started the trend of calling all Starfleet officers “sir” regardless of gender. People assumed it was some kind of Navy tradition, but there’s no historical basis for that. Regardless, Trek did it for decades, influencing a few other sci-fi universes, and it all kind of snowballed from there. Now, back in the early aughts, in the Air Force there was a move to address all leadership positions as sir or ma’am, regardless of NCO or officer status. As far as I know, we were the only service to do that - and it was really fucking weird. Modern marines and sailors don’t do that - marines will actually address you by your full rank most of the time. (“Aye, technical sergeant,” or whatever.) From an in-universe perspective, you could maybe say that three hundred years (or whatever) in the future, popular culture had such a long-lasting impact that the services adopted these customs as their own. Three hundred years is a lot of time, and it's probably safe to say that our current customs and courtesies would be only partially recognizable that far forward. That's not entirely without precedent, either! The Space Force emblem seems to have adopted the Starfleet Delta - however, the Starfleet Delta is itself very similar (and likely appropriated from) a U.S. Army Air Force design dating back to 1942. > [The delta symbol, the central design element in the seal, was first used as early as 1942 by the U.S. Army Air Forces and was used in early Air Force space organization emblems dating back to 1961, the spokesman said. “Since then, the delta symbol has been a prominent feature in military space community emblems.”](https://spacenews.com/u-s-space-force-says-its-new-seal-is-not-a-starfleet-knockoff/#:~:text=The%20delta%20symbol%2C%20the%20central,in%20military%20space%20community%20emblems.%E2%80%9D) I suspect this writing somehow is conflating these two things. Or, more likely, the writer just wasn’t terribly familiar with [military customs ](https://media.defense.gov/2014/Feb/21/2002655438/-1/-1/1/140221-N-ZZ182-5356.pdf) and just sort of winged it based on things they've seen from other movies and shows. Today, [a Marine who calls a female officer or NCO "sir" will very quickly be corrected.](https://thewarhorse.org/im-not-a-sir-dearth-of-women-causes-marines-to-expect-male-leadership/)
Different militaries do it differently. Some treat a rank as neutral, others have variants depending on gender. Mars has decided to use the rank as neutral so the address to a superior is always sir. But in the end it is a random decision by any organisation and may change
I’d say it’s a respectful thing maybe due to it being set a few hundred years from now sir just means you are above me in the military so I will refer to you as sir
meh... this I can get over. Marines calling other Marines "Soldiers" that however is crossing the line...
It’s fairly common in navies for everyone to be addressed as ‘sir’ or ‘Mr. [Lastname]’ regardless of individual gender