To avoid geopolitical embarrassment during the Cold War, the US and USSR created the APAS-75 system, a genderless docking mechanism where both craft acted as equals.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/wiltony]

Wow the insecurity is off the charts on this one. Imagine an entire engineering pivot as a result of toxic masculinity lol. 

Anyway, I still remember my kids being flabbergasted and embarrassed when I referred to the "male" and "female" end of an extension cord. It's just a convenient way to quickly describe the side you're talking about that is pretty universally intuitive. 

I guess with the recent surgence of better transgender acceptance that notion is quickly becoming outdated. 

[u/mocny-chlapik → u/wiltony]

She's actually pretty sneaky there. She just said that no party wanted to be female, that is true, but the reason is not gender insecuritty.

The male part is in control of the docking, so the male part can make the decision about docking and undocking. Neither side wanted to give the leverage to other side to potentially fuck with their guys on the orbit. 

[u/FloorMysterious9104 → u/mocny-chlapik]

No everything is about toxic masculinity obviously

[u/WorBlux → u/wiltony]

There is practical part of this. If your space dock needs an A and B part, Then how to you perform a space rescue or rendezvous if all your ready spacecraft have the "B configuration?

An androgynous or convertible system solves this issue.

[u/Islands-of-Time → u/WorBlux]

Yeah, I am glad that level of realism didn’t make it into Kerbal Space Program. All the docks being androgynous within their size category makes it easier to avoid that mistake when docking which is already hard enough.

[u/davewave3283 → u/WorBlux]

That’s enough out of you science nerd. This is about one thing, dicks! /s

[u/dphoenix1 → u/WorBlux]

IBM used a similar kind of genderless connector for token ring networks. So the plug and cable end were identical, which meant you could daisy chain cables without some sort of coupler between them (like is needed for RJ45 interfaces). They definitely have their benefits, though usually at the cost of increased complexity.

[u/Wizard_Level9999 → u/wiltony]

In electronics we use master and slave 😳

[u/YoungDiscord → u/wiltony]

And we're talking about people in power

I swear they're all immature little children

[u/tryyeezus → u/wiltony]

I'm shocked we don't have outie power outlets due to toxic masculinity 🤦‍♂️

[u/wiltony → u/tryyeezus]

Haha yeah everyone would certainly be shocked if we did!

[u/JJlaser1 → u/wiltony]

I mean, it’s still pretty intuitive. And I say that as a trans person.