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In the model thread, I would disagree. The models and their nomenclature are the first things a new gamer is going to notice; and it’s all sausage all the way down.

In terms of the lore, especially for long term fans who are more into the background than the minis, yes, Boyz is an indicator of status or function and not gender. But a new player wouldn’t pick up on that and even an older player has to care enough to put in the thought time about ork background to notice.


And then if you go deeper, like looking at the old homophobic terms you alluded to, you see that orks are intended to be identified as a particular masculine-coded stereotype in 80’s British culture, and you sigh and shrug and start playing Stargrave with your Buzz Lightyear dropships instead.

From a hobby perspective, the Orks are the single most heavily male-coded faction in 40K. They are as manly and macho as you can get. They are referred to as boys and they behave like a caricature of a bunch of frat boys who had one too many beer.

As far as orks, in universe, are to be understood, they have no gender, though I would guess that since orks have adopted a lot of Imperial customs like weapons, uniforms, imperial language, tactics etc. that they might have gained and understood up to a certain point the concept of gender in humans. I would not be so surprised if orks would rather be viewed as the meanest and biggest kind of macho men by humans. Human-male machismo cultural traits are probably those they find most desirable and men being bigger than women would necessarily mean that, to an ork eye, human men are better than human women in their eyes and Roboute Guilliman rules the Imperium because he is the biggest and meanest man alive. While orks, in universe, do not have a gender, I would almost certainly bet they are misogynists (sure this might be well overshadowed by their raging racial supremacist ideals and general violent stupidity, but it's probably still there).

I strongly argue Orks have no concept of gender. If you’re not an Ork and they can beat you up? You’re just weedy. And you’re weedy because You’re Not An Ork. If you out up a good fight? You’re a challenge and good fun.

Why you can put up a challenge doesn’t matter. Only that you can.

They show no ability or interest in, or awareness of, other species having genders and the dimorphism that can bring.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I strongly argue Orks have no concept of gender. If you’re not an Ork and they can beat you up? You’re just weedy. And you’re weedy because You’re Not An Ork. If you out up a good fight? You’re a challenge and good fun.

Why you can put up a challenge doesn’t matter. Only that you can.

They show no ability or interest in, or awareness of, other species having genders and the dimorphism that can bring.

Yes, I don't think anyone's arguing that Orks don't have a sense of gender.

But we, the OOC people creating, perceiving, and designing 40k, do.

No matter what the fictional race of Orks believe their gender to be, on a OOC level, they are masculine coded.

That's not inherently a problem, but it *is* accurate to say that they are, on an OOC level masculine coded.

I think that Orks are masculine-coded by virtue of their attitudes and actions and less to fact that their core unit is Boyz and their speech patterns dating back to the 80's are male-gendered.

If GW published a new codex that changed Boyz to Brutez and made Orks use Zee/Zer pronouns in all future publications, Orks would be no less masculine-coded than they are today. They believe that violence is a way of life, might makes right, and that bigger/stronger/more is better.

They also have broad shoulders, masculine torsos, Mighty Mouse torso-to-legs proportions, square “lantern” jaws, wide, heavy brows, and baldness. Even ignoring their behavior or motivations, they are coded masculine.

Currently, I am using some female savage orcs I found on Myminifactory as stand-ins for Snagga Boyz Gurlz.:

They're more WoW-ish, but even in Azeroth, the Females stand up straighter than males. I figure MY enjoyment is worth more than being 110% lore accurate. If pressed, it's because Waagh! energies backlash vs. Slaanesh Daemonettes and warp-magic-plot-shenanigans.
Also plan on making at least one squad of "Shortstack" grots, leaning towards TwinGoddessminis, again on Mymini:

And again, more for my enjoyment. We could dissect the whole "objectification of women" and standard of beauty or w/e, but when it comes down to it, it's resin. I'm not objectifying women; I'm women-ifying objects!!

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
Currently, I am using some female savage orcs I found on Myminifactory as stand-ins for Snagga Boyz Gurlz.:
[IMAGE]
They're more WoW-ish, but even in Azeroth, the Females stand up straighter than males. I figure MY enjoyment is worth more than being 110% lore accurate. If pressed, it's because Waagh! energies backlash vs. Slaanesh Daemonettes and warp-magic-plot-shenanigans.
Also plan on making at least one squad of "Shortstack" grots, leaning towards TwinGoddessminis, again on Mymini:
[IMAGE]
And again, more for my enjoyment. We could dissect the whole "objectification of women" and standard of beauty or w/e, but when it comes down to it, it's resin. I'm not objectifying women; I'm women-ifying objects!!

You know what I say to this?

Neat. I really like the Snagga Lasses.

epronovost wrote:
From a hobby perspective, the Orks are the single most heavily male-coded faction in 40K. They are as manly and macho as you can get. They are referred to as boys and they behave like a caricature of a bunch of frat boys who had one too many beer.

As far as orks, in universe, are to be understood, they have no gender, though I would guess that since orks have adopted a lot of Imperial customs like weapons, uniforms, imperial language, tactics etc. that they might have gained and understood up to a certain point the concept of gender in humans. I would not be so surprised if orks would rather be viewed as the meanest and biggest kind of macho men by humans. Human-male machismo cultural traits are probably those they find most desirable and men being bigger than women would necessarily mean that, to an ork eye, human men are better than human women in their eyes and Roboute Guilliman rules the Imperium because he is the biggest and meanest man alive. While orks, in universe, do not have a gender, I would almost certainly bet they are misogynists (sure this might be well overshadowed by their raging racial supremacist ideals and general violent stupidity, but it's probably still there).

I don’t think they would be misogynist. I'd say Orks are speciesists to a point they wouldn't even realize/recognize the differences of human men and women.
I mean, we know Orks eat humans. And probably they don’t eat them with their clothing and armour. (Approaching warhammer horror territory now). So it's possible to have two orks being like: "Ha, look, yours looks different there." "Funny dat. Go on, both taste like chicken." And that's the end of an Orks' case study. In the same way Orks would see different skin colors and shrug about it. They might wonder if the darker Ones' are nobz. But as we are told they wouldn't deeply analyse it. All they know is they're not Green and accordingly they're all weak.
But they migh think Ogryns are nobz because they're bigger. An Ogryn mob with an attached Kommissar would be seen as a mob of Nobz that brought their funny pet with a shiny hat.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

I don’t think they would be misogynist. I'd say Orks are speciesists to a point they wouldn't even realize/recognize the differences of human men and women.
I mean, we know Orks eat humans. And probably they don’t eat them with their clothing and armour. (Approaching warhammer horror territory now). So it's possible to have two orks being like: "Ha, look, yours looks different there." "Funny dat. Go on, both taste like chicken." And that's the end of an Orks' case study. In the same way Orks would see different skin colors and shrug about it. They might wonder if the darker Ones' are nobz. But as we are told they wouldn't deeply analyse it. All they know is they're not Green and accordingly they're all weak.
But they migh think Ogryns are nobz because they're bigger. An Ogryn mob with an attached Kommissar would be seen as a mob of Nobz that brought their funny pet with a shiny hat.

I'm waiting for the echo of what I said...

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
It's kinda discussed in the Ghaz book- Meanwhile, "Bites face of that before it bites his face" ("Biter") is a Bloodaxe and 'as the kno-wot's of humies- so he refers to self as "He/Him". They ask if he knows about gender in humans and he states yes, and it is hilarious.