So, it occurred to me that I never did get around to typing up the second half of my rant here: [link] where I mentioned that "Note: At some point I'll probably rant about the other thing that majorly bugs me: namely that there's a number of TF fans who hate the idea of fembots even though IMHO they're perfectly justifiable within the narrative and also open up interesting design space, but this entry is long enough as it is..."

Now, the question of what exactly gender means to a robotic species, and TFs in particular, is one with varied and occasionally thorny answers. But IMHO the question of how fembot TFs could exist, period, has some pretty straightforward ones, depending on which "species origin" you buy into:

1. Sunbowverse: The Quints made 'em: If the Quints are going to make "humanoid" (organic-oid?) robots to begin with, then it makes sense to have a "specialty line" with feminine looks/traits. Some customers would like them for aesthetic reasons, others because they want the workers for roles in which people still feel more comfortable having females perform them. It also answers the question of why there's so few (specialty line) and why there's no Decepticon females in the Sunbowverse (very few military roles where having a woman do them is the preferred choice).

2. Marvelverse: Primus made 'em: Let's face it... considering that the humanoid form is not an optimal form, instead being the best compromise between several biological needs based on millenia of convergent evolutionary steps (not to mention that some TFs have humanoid features that are just downright useless to them, period), the idea of an Almighty Robot God creating his pet robotic species as humanoid is pretty wacked to begin with. The idea that "he" might want to make some of them female for whatever reason isn't that much more of a stretch to me.

Especially since it would have negated the need for that bizarre "budding" for reproduction and the resultant nasty Monster of the Week that resulted from it. But anyhoo. (Can you tell this is my least favorite TF origin? It causes so many logical inconsistencies that it tanks my suspension of disbelief, and that's just for starters...)

Note: The Movieverse Allspark more or less falls under this reasoning as well. It helps that Movie Arcee - the figure, at least - is one of the more subtle female TF designs, more a factor of slimness than anything. Makes sense that a fast scout would favor a body design that's small and slender in both size and mass. One could argue she's not really "female", just in a specific body class that we organics associate with being female.

3. IDWverse: Possibly they're an "upgraded" organic race: While we have yet to get a concrete origin for the IDW TFs, there's been several clues that point in the direction of this one. In which case, it's perfectly possible that whatever organic race it was simply started out as keeping their original forms, but shaped from metal instead of flesh, so they'd still have "gender".

If we go by Furman's apparent intention of Arcee being the only fembot, then the various further upgrades that race made eventually modified out any real traces of gender. However, it could have easily been played as gender being another of the humanoid vestiges that were kept over time, if a writer really wanted to go that route.

And in a charitable moment from me... it could even explain why in Arcee's Spotlight the other TFs could designate/recognize a difference even though there's no particular reason they should be able to. A "race memory" of sorts. It could even explain why Jhiaxus was able to turn her into a "female" in the first place. (Personally I still think the whole reason given in the Spotlight why Arcee was female was dumb to begin with, but like I said, I'll be charitable here.)

4. And if none of those reasons are acceptable, how about this simplest idea: Considering that TF body structure seems to be much more mutable/modifiable than our own... maybe some TFs who've had contact with other worlds adopt feminine forms because they like 'em for whatever reason. And TFs who've never seen other worlds might still adopt said forms because they like the look of them on those TFs who have visited other worlds and changed.

To sum up... I always want to facepalm whenever someone thinks it's weird that fembots exist or that it'd be too complex to explain or something. Especially when it's pro writers who really ought to have no problems coming up with some simple, logical explanations if a lowly amateur writer (namely, me) can do it.

I mean, it's not that I'm bothered about fembots existing or not existing... I think fembots are cool, but if a writer doesn't see a need for them in a thematic/story-telling sense, I'm not fussed about them being left out. It's leaving them out based mainly on the notion that they're somehow too illogical to exist that I find silly.

Side note: It'd have been so much easier to post this if DA wasn't being all weird for some reason...