User blog:ChocoMingo/Countryball's Gender Issue

'''Whew! This is gonna be a hoot to explain!''' (*Reference to cartoon featuring an Aussie expat in  America).

Well, I have seen that people have been changing the genders of countryballs, such as Syriaball,  Greeceball or  Finlandball and feminizing those countries. There has been many other countries that have been "feminized" as well.

Unfortunately, when I reverted those "feminization" edits, users revert my edit, saying that they are female without justification. Example, in the case of Finland, I told the user who feminized Finland that Finland is male because Finland's married to Estonia, who is female. Most people would have Finland and Estonia be a married couple, but not as a gay couple. However, this user kept on feminizing Finland, even though I gave a reason why not to. This has caused a sort of "gender edit war" in the page. Thankfully, this has since stopped for now.

Another example is Syriaball, which I had to change gender to male 3 times since I first edited there on June 5th, because there is no reason why Syria should be a girl. This feminizaiton however, was done by 3 different fandom users. This was also a place where there was a "gender edit war".

I understand some feminizations don't belong on pages, like Austriaball,

What we need in the wiki, is some way to stop these "gender edit wars". We need to make countryballs genderless, but for one thing, I don't know how to do that. Gender neutral terms, such as spouse (for marriage relations), sibling, or parent can be used. Individual gender neutral terms, however, I don't know. Whatever anyone can come up with, we need a solution to stop or reduce these "gender edit wars". There may not be a silver bullet, but at least we can try and reduce the number of unneccessary "feminizations".

Feminized Countries (as of July 9, 2017) Keep in mind, that this may change, due to users "feminizing" some countries. Also, some countries may have been reverted back from being "feminized" by other users. Other countries use male and female words (he,him,she,her, etc.) interchangeably on the same page.

Key:

Countries that are male (according to their page) or genderless are not on this list.

Countries that are female (according to their page) are on this list.

Countries with strikethrough means that they have been fixed and have been "un-feminzed".

North America & Caribbean

 * Antigua and Barbudaball
 * Arubaball
 * ​ Bahamasball
 * Costa Ricaball
 * Grenadaball
 * Saint Luciaball
 * Turks and Caicosball
 * Louisianaball (USA)
 * Marylandball (USA)
 * Virginiaball (USA)
 * West Virginiaball (USA)

Europe

 * Austriaball
 * Belarusball
 * Crimeaball
 * Cyprusball
 * Estoniaball (gender status is most likely fine, as Estonia is female most of the time)
 * Franceball
 * Finlandball (this page always keeps on getting feminized)
 * Greeceball (this page always keeps on getting feminized).
 * Icelandball
 * Latviaball
 * Lithuaniaball
 * Maltaball
 * Moldovaball
 * Slovakiaball
 * Sloveniaball (I mean, I can see why, because of Melania)
 * Spainball
 * Swedenball*
 * Switzerlandball
 * Ukraineball (this page was feminized)

Africa

 * Egyptball
 * Equatorial Guinesball
 * Lesothoball
 * Réunionball
 * South Africaball

Middle East

 * Syriaball

Asia

 * Chinaball
 * South Koreaball
 * Taiwanball
 * Thailandball*
 * Vietnamball (this page was feminized)

Oceania
* - The asterisk means that Sweden and Thailand's gender is...well...¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Sweden is bisexual and can be called any gender, while Thailand's gender system can be a bit confusing...
 * Fijiball
 * Vanuatuball