I think it’s a major flaw and is in fact killing the series and keeping it from being what it could be. This is because well rounded characters and varying personalities and perspectives gives stories depth, people complain about lack of love in 40k but how can you have love when every female character is a pious sexually repressed nun, a snobbish aristocrat, or a sex slave captured by the dark elder. Often those who make fun of the sisters of battle are accused of misogyny and often the accusation is correct but again what do you expect, they've been set up to be Sci-Fi snuff, with dd's and beads and a "device", that looks like a chastity belt around their crotches along with matt wards bizarre fantasies mixed in the sisters of battle are obviously not meant to be taken seriously and for the most part their not.

The Solution: Include normal female characters that aren't getting chopped up or sexually enslaved. I believe ADB has done a great job with this in his books particularly in Soul Hunter where he actually had a love story, and had female characters that played non sexual roles such as Octavia’s servants and female members of the bridge crew. I think Chaos would be the best place to start with this introduction, the Imperials have already been fleshed out pretty will and it’s easier to add new material than to change material already in existence. Where lacking fluff on the mortal servants of Chaos, this seems like a great place to add normal female characters, partisans and resistance leaders fighting the Imperium, or captains leading the warmasters ships(their not all commanded by Chaos Marines after all), maybe some that got tired of the old boys club in the Imperium and did'nt want to be either a nun or the wife/plaything of an Imperial officer/gangleader/noble. This is a blunt and honest post and I demand blunt and honest responses. No sugarcoating. I'm making a poll of whether you agree completely, somewhat, or disagree completely so I can gauge overall opinion.

ZSO, SAHAAL wrote:
they've been set up to be Sci-Fi snuff, with dd's and beads and a "device", that looks like a chastity belt around their crotches along with matt wards bizarre fantasies mixed in the sisters of battle are obviously not meant to be taken seriously and for the most part their not.

I think a lot of people get suckered into their own trap with this one. Space Marines are also sexually inactive and monastic in EXACTLY the same way that Sisters are... and I'm not seeing the chastity belt thing if I'm honest. So why is it ok for Marines to be repressed and not Sisters? Sexist. (I jest of course.)

Number two include normal female character that aren't getting chopped up or sexually enslaved.

Now THIS I can get behind. It would be nice to see more female models mixed in with males in normal units, and Dark Eldar (and to a lesser extent Craftworld Eldar) go some way to redressing this. Imperial Guard would be nice to have next. I think a big problem has been experience in modelling the female form, but there have been some great recent examples that indicate the skill is now there in GW's sculptors.

An extra point to make, too - I know 4 female gamers from my local store. And 3 of them, fickle as it may seem, pick their armies based on the models being female (my girlfriend for example collects Slaanesh Daemons and Dark Eldar). The remaining one paints her Space Wolves bright pink with rainbow logos.
There's a market here that GW might not crack with their more traditional marketing methods, but are certainly missing out on part of.

So my favourite book series are the Cain and Ghosts series, both of which have strong female characters. Similarly the Path series has a variety of decent eldar females and the Eisenhorn series is pretty good too. Not read much of the ravenor books but I imagine they 're pretty good too.

The over-sexualised side of 40k is there as it is in any sci-fi franchise, especially one that specifically targets teenage boys, but I think there is also a lot of good stuff too.

So why is it ok for Marines to be repressed and not Sisters?

I always found alot of the space marine fluff to be pretty wierd as well, like them being gay but macho self hating gay.

So write in a normal couple, problem solved.

There is alot of strong females in the cain and gaunt books.

I don't know I kind of like where women are in 40k, I mean whats the point of 40k if all women were like Ripley? We need moar hot women or else the series will fall apart

In most IG books I have read, there are mixed regiments. But they arn't the most common setup.

The Imperium takes the pragmatic stance that women are best left on the home planet to bear more children, who can then be recruited into the IG. Excess women get recruited into the IG as well when avaliable.

Cadia has 100% conscription rate regardless of sex. But reproduction is seen as a duty for everyone to maintain the population. And this is true for the Imperium as a whole and not just Cadia.


Is it Sexist? Yeah, but then again this is the Grimdarkness of the Far Future.





And I agree the models could use more diversity. Include a couple female heads on the IG sprues.

Of course this could backfire. GW has shown they have issues sculpting female bodies with the few they have done, and combine with an unflattering paintjob for extra stupidity.

Then, there is that if the Imperium is making one size fits all body armor you arn't going to be able to readily tell if a Guardsmen is male or female from a distance.

That guardsmen with the gas mask on could be a women for example.


And about body size, well, maybe the Imperium has a uniform fitness test for recruits that women are less likely to pass than men are. A man of average fitness can pass it, but a women would need above average fitness to pass. So most of the women in the force have larger than average muscle mass and bone structure.

This is not a subject that a simple poll is going to provide sufficient options for.

There are several female characters in the setting (several of the named characters of the Gaunt's Ghosts series are females, after all, including some of the unit's Scouts and Snipers). As mentioned in other threads, there's Inquisitor Amberly Vail. Shia Calpurnia, of the Enforcer series, is a female Arbiter, and the protagonist of the series. The Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader RPGs have plenty of female NPCs at all levels of society within the scope of each respective game.

The Ravenor and Eisenhorn series are filled with female characters, both protagonist and antagonist, as well as populating significant portions of the background. All of these characters are unique, separate, individual characters that are largely integral to the plot.

The Sisters of Battle? Yeah, they're an all-female religious order with gear that is reminiscent of various real-life examples of BDSM fetish-gear. Guess what? That real-life BDSM gear is reminiscent of religious attire, strongly centered around Catholicism. To accuse the SOB of being "leather nuns" is kind of putting the cart before the horse.

Remember that the Ecclesiarchy has female members on some worlds, and not on others. Not every woman in the Ecclesiarchy is a member of the Adeptus Sororitas. This is also true of the Imperial Guard, the Arbites, the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Adeptus Terra, and almost every other Imperial organization you can name, with the exception of the Adeptus Astartes and, it can be argued, the IST.

However, to flip the coin...

If a female character is depicted as being exactly as good as, in exactly the same ways as, a male character... what does the character's gender matter? Is something gained by the character having a pair of X chromosomes? Is this character not, really, just a male character "in drag"?

Why is it that male characters can get chopped up, but female characters cannot? That's a form of sexism in and of itself, though it can be in the other direction as well. I think you're overstating the case of Dark Eldar slave-victims, and missing the point of the Adeptus Sororitas entirely.

Good points

Hm. Looking at the original post, I see a few problems from a feminist perspective-- namely, the post seems to suggest that the only way to include women is to include them in love stories.

Why not include women in a way that passes the Bechdel test?

edit: The Bechdel Test:

1: Story has two women, preferably named women.
2: Have at least one conversation...
3: ... that doesn't involve a man or men, or the male population in general.

tl;dr, not everything a female character would talk about in 40k has to do with loving men.

Also, don't include female characters just because you feel you need to to be politically correct. Or go out of your way to try and make the story politically correct on this issue.

Many a good story has been ruined by that.

You might be surprised at how many stories fail this simple, easy to pass test.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Many a good story has been ruined by that.

Not really. When the author tries to include women but can't write women worth a damn, THAT has ruined stories. But the solution is to encourage better writing and bring in more competent writers, not to exclude women.

Yeah, but I would say that most guys, and many girls, would not be interested in a story with 2 girls talking about work or something like that.

The consumer says what they want and votes with their pocket book.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, but I would say that most guys, and many girls, would not be interested in a story with 2 girls talking about work or something like that.

Load of crap, nothing more. The sample size of movies that pass the Bechdel test is so small as to be not a statistically relevant sample for the purposes of such a conclusion. You're working entirely off of the biases of an age of misogyny where it was viewed that women were worthless unless they were accompanied by / talking about / compared to a man. This is increasingly less and less the case.

So I ask you-- why would you be less interested in two wounded guardswomen talking about how war is hell compared to two wounded guardsmen talking about how war is hell? Hell, the original example of a movie that passed the Bechdel test is one of the most beloved movies in sci-fi history-- a little film we know as Alien. That it had two women talking to eachother about something other than men did not make it a lesser movie, and I defy your to claim otherwise.

What I never liked, was the fact that one in 1000 humans or something similar, are psyker's. And all of them, every single damn one, is male. Hell of a coincidence that.

I mean, I would absolutely adore, a special character for any imperial army whatsoever, who was a female psyker of such power, that they ignored their usual recruiment and rigorous bio-engineering traditions, in favour of harnessing the ability of said psyker.

But apparently, being able to shoot lightning from your hands on a whim, is something you need to be a tank of a man to do. Or, be an eldar, which in my mind, is just a cop-out. You would think the imperium would notice the eldar has a number of incredibly powerfull female psykers and think "Maybe we shouldn't kill every female psyker for having ladyparts.

Then again, I found a way round being a female gamer, with no cool character's (Without being an eldar in spandexarmour, or space-nun's in, again, spandex plate that is), and that was in playing an androginous/genderless race, in daemon's. Nurgle daemon's don't really have a gender, even if they were once men, such as in the case of plaguebearers, khorne stuff is just killy incarnate, gender doesn't come into it, tzeentch is made up of amorphous blob's of warpstuff, so again, genderless, and slaanesh stuff, is a different gender and appearance, depending on who is viewing them.

On a side note, I always wondered if sister's of battle fighting daemonettes, saw something along the lines of these guy's.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2730082a_99120201016_WoCHellstriders01_873x627.jpg

 Melissia wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, but I would say that most guys, and many girls, would not be interested in a story with 2 girls talking about work or something like that.

Load of bullgak, nothing more. The sample size of movies that pass the Bechdel test is so small as to be not a statistically relevant sample for the purposes of such a conclusion. You're working entirely off of the biases of an age of misogyny where it was viewed that women were worthless unless they were accompanied by / talking about / compared to a man. This is increasingly less and less the case.

So I ask you-- why would you be less interested in two wounded guardswomen talking about how war is hell compared to two wounded guardsmen talking about how war is hell?

It entirely depends on how its done like you said.

Maybe it is an indicator that people can't write female characters for gak. But the fact that people keep buying stuff that doesn't pass the test is just confirmation for the producers that we, the consumers, really don't mind stuff that doesn't pass that test.


I really don't know or care much about this. Give me a good show/movie/book dammit. And don't include something you can't write well for the sake of including it.

Of course "normal women" are lacking in the 40k setting, but it goes WAY beyond that. Normal women are hard to find in almost any modern media, so its hard to be all that surprised that 40k is no different. Seriously, try to think of some leading female "heroine" type characters appear in a given form of media who are portrayed realistically (not idealized in personality, appearance, etc), completely non-sexually, strong willed, and capable of thoughts and actions independent of a male characters. It is an incredibly difficult. There are a few, of course - someone already said Ripley ( from Aliens) and I just finished watching Zero Dark Thirty, which also did a good job with Jessica Chastain's character - but they are so few and far between that it is quite frankly appalling. This isn't just something 40k needs to improve on, its our culture as a whole.

Edit:
Wow mega-ninja'd by Melissia while I was writing that, damn.

 Grey Templar wrote:
But the fact that people keep buying stuff that doesn't pass the test is just confirmation for the producers that we, the consumers, really don't mind stuff that doesn't pass that test.

No, it just means that this is all Hollywood is producing so that's all we have to buy . IT's the same in the gaming industry-- it's not that female characters are not popular, it's that the gaming industry as a general rule has convinced itself that games with female primary protagonists-- which on average receive 40% less marketing funding than ones with male-only primary protagonists-- aren't as popular as games which are male-only, and dismisses any exceptions as outliers to justify their own belief system.

Don't talk about this as if it exists in a vacuum. Hollywood has a lot of emotional baggage.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I really don't know or care much about this. Give me a good show/movie/book dammit. And don't include something you can't write well for the sake of including it.

If you don't care, perhaps you shouldn't be objecting as much as you are.

And I ask you, again, was Alien a bad movie because it had two women talking about something other than men?

I hate anything that includes anything that doesn't enhance the story because they wanted to be PC.

I also hate including something just for the heck of including it. Like the Princess in Braveheart or the completely unnecessary baby on a spike in Eragon.


And 2 women talking about something other than men is something I am ok with, but I am not ok with it if it does nothing to enhance the story. just like anything else that doesn't enhance the story.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I hate anything that includes anything that doesn't enhance the story because they wanted to be PC.

And you would say that including women is PC on the basis of it including women, because everyone defaults to male right? What a bizarre and disgusting double standard.

No, but including a women just for the sake of including a women is bad.

If being a women would make the character better and improve the story, hell yeah make the character a women.


Maybe because I've seen too many things where the writing and portrayel has been so bad I just cringe when it comes to female characters. Fear of bad writing I guess.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If being a women would make the character better and improve the story, hell yeah make the character a women.

This "All characters should be male unless otherwise needed" attitude of yours is WHY there's so much bad writing to begin with-- the writers with that attitude only consider women in terms of how they're different from men, instead of considering women as their own characters, as actual people, resulting in bland, unimaginative characters.

It's bizarre and circular logic that's best described as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, but including a women just for the sake of including a women is bad.

If being a women would make the character better and improve the story, hell yeah make the character a women.


Maybe because I've seen too many things where the writing and portrayel has been so bad I just cringe when it comes to female characters. Fear of bad writing I guess.

Wait what? You have to see the double standard in this statement. Apply the same rules to including men in a story, and you should quickly see your logical fallacy. It shouldn't be about what a man or woman has to offer to a story based on their gender alone, it should be what does that character or human being have to offer. A woman is capable of offering the same things to a story as a man because they're both people, capable of well thought out, unique personalities, with independent thoughts. So why is a man just the "default" person for any given story?

The terrifying implication of your attitude, and the attitude of most of those who create media these days, is that men are somehow inherently better, have more to offer, and count for more as people than women do.

Exalts headed your way Melissia.

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, but including a women just for the sake of including a women is bad.

If being a women would make the character better and improve the story, hell yeah make the character a women.


Maybe because I've seen too many things where the writing and portrayal has been so bad I just cringe when it comes to female characters. Fear of bad writing I guess.

The reason that I, and other's object to this argument, is the fact that it principally work's exactly the same the other way around, but it's never seen as that.


"If being a man would make the character better and improve the story, hell yeah make the character a man. Otherwise, just make it a woman and be done with it."

But this, would never happen, seeing as how the "Default" choice for everything in fiction, tend's to be a man. Which sucks.

Ninja'd by munky'z, almost exactly. Spooky.

But to enhance this argument, I will say, every single male character in 40k, could be made a woman with absolutely no change to the storyline, if only it was not for the "Only men can be space marines" Fluff line, which just seemed to be in there to simplify thing's for GW. There is no character in all the imperium, that is male due to anything to do with how being male improves their character. They are male, because it's default.

Now, I get the target audience thing, I really do. The vast majority of players of 40k, are male. But thing's might even out, if the 40k universe was not such a "boy's club."

You forgot somewhat disagree as a response if you want a reasonably unbiased poll you need the same number a weight positive and negative responses (and usually a neutral response for the people that just like to click things).

I do somewhat agree that women need to be brought to the forefront more. The IG would actually be the best place for this as there isn't actually any institutional bias toward either sex.

I cannot believe the word "normal" could even be applied to a follower of the chaos gods. Which god is the normal one?
Nurgle I just want to give you ___ plague/disease?
Slaanesh, yeah...that just gets us right back into the sex object racket.
Tzeench whose "normal" followers are insane gibbering maniacs with hideous mutations?
Or KHORNE, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE, BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, ROAAAAAAR...yes normal person there.

Though the least sexist position in the entire galaxy would be a follower of nurgle or tzeench. I am not sure if they actually have sexual characteristics?

I do agree that the model range is somewhat biased and should probably include more variety (IG is probably the worst offender). However, you should really be polling then to see how many people would buy female models to determine if this is a smart business move. You should look at the dark eldar and eldar model ranges they have female farseers and banshees and the dark eldar come with large numbers of female parts so you can make them whatever you want (sex slave included if you are hung up on that).

BTW dark eldar are not really that into "sex" slaves they are much more into torture anything that can feel pain and see other species women as animals so it is not "rape" to them but rather "bestiality". They are however fairly equal opportunity about everything they do so rejoice they will accept all applicants for all forms of torture.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Also, don't include female characters just because you feel you need to to be politically correct. Or go out of your way to try and make the story politically correct on this issue.

Many a good story has been ruined by that.

I actually kind of favor including female charters just because. The brute force method I call it. If you where forced to make half of your named characters female, then by the odds at least a few will turn out good. In my option it's more annoying not to include women then to make bad women characters.

40k is so male centered that I think it's intentional. GW dosen't even use women in the character types that are dominated by women. Why don't we have a female farseer model? (Or do we, last i checked we didn't.)

 ansacs wrote:
Though the least sexist position in the entire galaxy would be a follower of nurgle or tzeench. I am not sure if they actually have sexual characteristics?

You've actually provided good arguments for why Chaos wouldn't be gender-discriminative.
Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows - case in point, Valkia from WHFB. Slaanesh cares not from whence the... well... you don't need me to finish that sentence for you. Suffice to say that a good deal of his(/her!) daemons are androgynous and/or can change or emphasize gender alongside other sexual characteristics to suit whoever they're trying to seduce.

Whew, hot topic.

My two bolt shells: The setting offers sufficient potential for powerful female characters. We've seen a number of them already, in the fluff, in the novels, and in the comics. But like ansacs pointed out, the model range has "suffered" from being almost exclusively male. And I will add that they could perhaps show up more often in the background, too, even if only as a minor detail. For example, whilst I have read about a number of famous IG officers in Codex fluff, none of them was a woman. And let's not even go into the artwork.

Oh, and I put the paranthesis there because it doesn't even attract much attention, it is just something people are used to / didn't really notice. Which is perhaps the real problem society has. Awareness. That, and the "who cares" attitude. Let's be honest, we're dicussing a bunch of plastic toys. So, I have to admit I don't really think much about it as well - it's just how things are. Only when I see threads like these do I stop for a minute and am like "yeah, that's probably a bit wrong".
And like the famous Professor Maximillian Arturo once said, the best way to judge a society is by looking at the toys it hands to its children.

Super Ready wrote:I think a lot of people get suckered into their own trap with this one. Space Marines are also sexually inactive and monastic in EXACTLY the same way that Sisters are... and I'm not seeing the chastity belt thing if I'm honest. So why is it ok for Marines to be repressed and not Sisters? Sexist. (I jest of course.)

Actually, I think you're on to something here. The Sisters are clearly meant to be the female equivalent to Marines, yet the application of double standards is evident in the amount of criticism leveled against them. Why is it okay for Blood Angels to have "nipple armour", but not for Battle Sisters to have "DDs" on their suits? Why does no one complain about Black Templars and their pain gloves, but whenever the topic of Repentia comes up people act like it's a fetish thing?
On some level it probably even is, but why is it that only one of these groups catches flak for that? Oh, I forgot, for the Marines this is "manly"...

Flinty wrote:So my favourite book series are the Cain and Ghosts series, both of which have strong female characters.

Tbh, whenever I read somebody mentioning the Cain novels, the first thing that springs to mind is the author creating a sexually repressed Battle Sister Vet who can't resist a good flirt.

Grey Templar wrote:The Imperium takes the pragmatic stance that women are best left on the home planet to bear more children, who can then be recruited into the IG.

I dunno about that - actually, I got the impression that the Imperium at large does not care about gender, seeing that we have female street gangs, female Arbites, female nobility, female Inquisitors or even female High Lords. And that's just looking at GW's own material - you will probably find even more examples once you delve into what other authors came up with.

Gender differences come into play locally, and based on an individual world's culture. The Imperium does not care whether a planet sends men or women or both to the Guard, as long as they fulfill the tithe. This may mean that some worlds' governors could implement policies relegating women to breeding machines - but an increase in population would probably only result in the tithe being raised in the next evaluation. Besides, from how the books made it sound like, most planets are overcrowded because of grimdark, so having his (or her!) subjects make even more babies prolly isn't too high on an Imperial Commander's agenda.
Come to think of it, the background of one of the Last Chancers characters even mentioned the "warrior women of Xenan", which sounds like a matriarchal society for a change.

Evileyes wrote:What I never liked, was the fact that one in 1000 humans or something similar, are psyker's. And all of them, every single damn one, is male. Hell of a coincidence that. I mean, I would absolutely adore, a special character for any imperial army whatsoever, who was a female psyker of such power, that they ignored their usual recruiment and rigorous bio-engineering traditions, in favour of harnessing the ability of said psyker.

Isn't that just the minis? Kind of like all Cadians are male, even though the fluff makes it obvious they also recruit girls.

nomotog wrote:I actually kind of favor including female charters just because. The brute force method I call it. If you where forced to make half of your named characters female, then by the odds at least a few will turn out good. In my option it's more annoying not to include women then to make bad women characters.

There's some truth to that. Society right now has a problem in that it's indecivise as to what role women should assume, or be allowed to assume. I think it may actually need a period of "brute forcing" female characters into media just so that people can get used to it, after centuries/millennia of it having been the other way around. The end result should be a sort of balance.
It's why I have no problem with positive discrimination in the real world in general, as long as it is a temporary measure. For people of a historically oppressed ethnicity or gender, making sure they spread through all facets of society will eventually create equality for all.

Ideally, for a story where the gender of a character does not play a role, I think people should just roll dice to have it determined randomly. And you could say the same for ethnicity.

The biggest hurdle is probably that there are still certain clichés that are fairly well established and, most of all, popular. Some, like the "30-something white male" are very obvious and have started to become stale and boring. Others are more subtle.

 Sille wrote:
There is alot of strong females in the cain and gaunt books.

Indeed - Cain might be a womaniser but most of the women in the novels are as or on occassion more capable than he is and are also not one of the tropes you mention. Hell the Cain novels even have women who prefer women (not that anyone "in universe cares", or even really notices, as long as they shoot the enemy and do their job - which is as it should be IMO). Some of them are less capable and thats good too and needed..............

Tbh, whenever I read somebody mentioning the Cain novels, the first thing that springs to mind is the author creating a sexually repressed Battle Sister Vet who can't resist a good flirt.

Ahh but thats one of so many good female characters:
The Commanding officer of Cain's Regiment is a very capable female
His sometime lover (and the one with very much all the control in the relationship) is Inquisitor Vail
Adeptus Mechancius Magos
Several planetary governors - of varying quality - usually better than the male ones to be fair, but thats not difficult in general.
Some of the best troopers are female
Several female Commissars - again of varying actual effectiveness
The various Sisters of Battle are stern, unwaving and effective in battle (no matter what Cain feels about them) (*)

One of the strengths is that no one seems to really care if they are female or not - on the rare occassions its an issue its part of the story rather than a natural reaction.
Of course they do tend to be good looking - at least at first, the Mechanicus Magos has changed quite a bit when he meets her some sixty years later

(*) even ignoring the Celestian which causes so much contraversory although she is extremely effective in battle - much more so than some other BL authors give the Sororitas credit for..............

Gaunts stories have strong female characters - yes some die - but lots of people do in his stories regardless of gender.

The recent Heresey novels have some interesting female characters - the female commander of Angrons flagship is a good example. Also check out Helsreach - the Commander of the Titan Demi- Legion is a very strong character and interesting contrast to the liasion office who has to deal with the fact that basically she is useless in the situation she find herself.

As to models - yeah GW is pretty rubbish at it - but thats why i am looking forward to Raging Heroes kickstarters and use other ranges in my armies.....

I think part of the problem is heroic scale - the men are buffed up beyond realistic proportions, so when they sculpt a female character, they give her massive tit-plate armour to try and fit with the proportions of the males, and this inevitably leaves the impression of a sexist model.

Most of the female sculpts really do suck - female eldar gaurdians are just male ones with two misshapen bumps added. They should try harder, but its not just limited to gw. I'm trying to source models for a mixed sex Albion army. I've started with sword maidens and ill be damned if I can find nice female sculpts with regular clothes. I've bought models from celtos and Raging Heroes, and while the proportions are a bit more anatomically correct, they always seem to be showing acres of flesh. Not particularly practical for swordfighting. If I want flesh, I'll be extra nice to the wife, or watch porn.

Blood angels have nipple armor? Can I see it?

I feel it should be noted that whether or not a movie passes the Bechdel test is in no way shape or form an indication that the film(or in our case, franchise) itself is sexist. Rather, it's a way to measure gender biases in the entertainment sector as a whole. A film can pass the test and still be sexist as hell and visa versa.

That being said, for what it's worth, I think the Dawn of War series had some pretty memorable female commanders. Of course, in that case people were complaining about the fact that Eldar seemingly have no male leaders at all.

I guess there really is no way to please everyone.

The women are there, but not in the tabletop game (unless you play Eldar, Dark Eldar or Sisters). I can think of many female characters in BL novels, and FFG's RPGs allow characters of both sexes (except Deathwatch, because all the PCs are Marines). I don't think it's down to misogyny, just lack of thought.

I do think there needs to be more representation of women in the model lines. It'd be cool to see female models for IG,(all the better to show how they really do represent the face of "normal" humanity in the setting) and the art in the Only War book shows you can have women in IG garb without them being sexualised - but I'm sceptical that it'll ever happen.

I seem to remember a fantastic book about the Adeptus Arbites: "Shira Calpurnia" in "Enforcer". This is how I imagine the future of the game fluff going.

nomotog wrote:
Blood angels have nipple armor? Can I see it?

Not to derail the thread, but I feel I've already added my thoughts on the topic, and these models are always good for a laugh.

 Lynata wrote:
Why is it okay for Blood Angels to have "nipple armour", but not for Battle Sisters to have "DDs" on their suits?

First of all, it isn't okay for the Blood Angels, but mostly because...well look at them, they look ridiculous. Secondly, you're being a bit silly if you're assuming that male and female chests have the exact same standard set for them. There do exist cultures where topless women are more socially acceptable without being thought of in a sexual way. However, in most cultures, we all know that one example (female) is highly sexualized, while the other is not (male). Shirtless men are acceptable in a myriad of places where shirtless women are not. Now if you want to open that up to a larger question about whether that double standard should even exist in out societies, then feel free to make that case, but as it is, I think you know there's a big difference.

nomotog wrote:
Blood angels have nipple armor? Can I see it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_cuirass

... not exactly BA armor, but it's what it's based on, being there, all Greco-Roman.

As far as depicting female characters on the table-top... well, while GW could release a bunch of female troops for all of the armies that would conceivably have them, this area of the hobby is already rather well-served by third-party bits manufacturers or other model lines. Is it worth the expense to GW to produce these models for what will be, essentially, niche sales in an already-niche hobby market, especially when this role is already suitably served by other companies?

Let's also be honest and say that a lot of 40K stories are based on/drawn from/inspired by real-life historical events, and most of those events are, given the setting, various real-world wars and conflicts. While women have served in various military forces throughout history, sometimes openly, sometimes not, the bulk of these stories, especially to the Western world, are about men, in combat, with other men, against other men. While we do get our Joans of Arc and Queen Boudiccas and Helens and such in 40K, they're a relatively small aspect of the totality of the setting... mainly because I think having a Joan of Arc-like character pop out of an Imperial World every other week reduces the impact such a character can have on the setting, which, I think, does no one any favors anywhere, though I would think that we could get more Rambettes out of Catachan than we've seen thus far.

Then again, I'd also like to see an Inquisition-based novel, inspired by the James Bond series, where the Inquisitor in question is required to James Bond/Captain Kirk his/her way through all sorts of heretical nobles, planetary officials, etc etc in pursuit of while being decidedly, openly homosexual. This would, of course, be a novel lighter in tone than most in BL, and will probably never happen in my lifetime.

Seeing the detain in those models makes me no longer buy the idea that nice female modes would be too hard to do. If you can put nipples on a SM, then you can make nice looking female models.

There is also some in-universe reasons for the Sisterhood's armor to be over-emphasizing of feminine traits (the Decree Passive), and also the argument that the armor is relatively mass-produced, without knowing the actual measurements of the woman who will be wearing it, so it's designed with the "one size will (sorta) fit most", within an average range of body-size that the Sisterhood will see (their physical regimen, much like that of the IG, all but ensures that there will be an average range of measurements, without the wide variety of body-types one would see in average society).

Mr Morden wrote:Ahh but thats one of so many good female characters

I admit, I'm probably giving the author too much flak.
Ultimately, I still feel he "devalued" both the Sisterhood as well as the Commissariat by presenting both organisations in such a drastically different and more humane light. Just like the Space Marines, they're not meant to be like "the guys from next door", and if he wanted to write a story like that he should've picked characters from a more ordinary profession.
But yeah, that has little to do with gender.

Eggs wrote:I think part of the problem is heroic scale - the men are buffed up beyond realistic proportions, so when they sculpt a female character, they give her massive tit-plate armour to try and fit with the proportions of the males, and this inevitably leaves the impression of a sexist model.

That's a good point. Especially when you compare it with their 54mm minis from the Inquisitor range.

Fezman wrote:It'd be cool to see female models for IG,(all the better to show how they really do represent the face of "normal" humanity in the setting) and the art in the Only War book shows you can have women in IG garb without them being sexualised - but I'm sceptical that it'll ever happen.

Although that swings a bit too far into the other direction, actually. Female Vostroyans? That regiment was supposed to be "firstborn sons", at least in the studio fluff.

I have no problem whatsoever with misogyny in-universe, where it simply belongs to a culture. As such, all-male IG regiments are perfectly okay (as would be all-female ones). Same thing with the Space Marines and the Sisters of Battle.
It only becomes a problem when misogyny may appear to affect out-of-universe decisions, ranging from the lack of female IG minis to the strange absence of the Sisters of Battle in places where one might expect them (Crusade of Fire just being the newest example).

ragingmunkyz wrote:First of all, it isn't okay for the Blood Angels, but mostly because...well look at them, they look ridiculous.

But how often do you see complaints because of it? And how often do we see comments on SoB armour?
We could even expand this to the design of Space Marine armour in general, which in its dimensions is clearly designed to emphasise their masculinity.

For the record, I actually don't have a problem with any of this. To me, 40k is Space Gothic, which means that stuff like that is okay. I might find it ridiculous elsewhere, like in Star Trek or Star Wars. But for 40k? Here it fits.

Psienesis wrote:Let's also be honest and say that a lot of 40K stories are based on/drawn from/inspired by real-life historical events, and most of those events are, given the setting, various real-world wars and conflicts. While women have served in various military forces throughout history, sometimes openly, sometimes not, the bulk of these stories, especially to the Western world, are about men, in combat, with other men, against other men.

Modern society's understanding of history is twisted, though. Example: it's still regarded as "common knowledge" that women couldn't become knights. How many people know that there were entire orders of female knights around in medieval Europe? How many people know that peasant levies for the War of the Roses included armed women? What about Viking shield maidens? Or how many people are aware of these?

Granted, when 40k is meant to represent human history like we are told, then this is of no consequence. Still pretty sad, though.

Psienesis wrote:While we do get our Joans of Arc and Queen Boudiccas and Helens and such in 40K, they're a relatively small aspect of the totality of the setting... mainly because I think having a Joan of Arc-like character pop out of an Imperial World every other week reduces the impact such a character can have on the setting

But why? Or is this referring to a sort of "oversaturation", in the sense that a higher number of female heroes would make them less special? Whilst I could agree on that, is this really a bad thing? And I feel this could be alleviated by still limiting them based on their profession or the uniqueness of the legend they forge. That Special Enforcer Barbaretta in the image above is an example of what I mean. When it works for the male characters, it should work for female ones as well.

I'm cool with SoB's boob armor. I have a love hate relationship with the SoB in general, but the armor i think I like it. It makes sense that It's exaggerated and a little impracticable because they aren't just fighters they are holy warriors.

 Lynata wrote:
It only becomes a problem when misogyny may appear to affect out-of-universe decisions, ranging from the lack of female IG minis to the strange absence of the Sisters of Battle in places where one might expect them (Crusade of Fire just being the newest example).

This. I understand why there may be complaints about a lack of female space marines (or orks), but its much more understandable, insofar as there is a fluff explanation for why they don't exist. Where it starts to bother me is that we know full well that the female IG, Eldar and SoB are all a part of the background, but they never get quite as much face time as it seems like they should. That goes for both in the fluff and on the tabletop. Then when they DO actually get featured, there are precious few situations (though I recognize they exist), where they are portrayed as people in a strong, non-sexualized way, and without always having to relate them back to males. SoB in particular seem to be frequently featured in fetishized, snuff porn scenarios. It makes me sad, because I'd love to see 40k appeal to a broader demographic, and I believe it could, but with this little effort made to portray women in a positive light, its likely be rare.

 Lynata wrote:
We could even expand this to the design of Space Marine armour in general, which in its dimensions is clearly designed to emphasise their masculinity.

See the problem with this thinking is the same problem that plagues our culture, media, and the sculptors at GW. There is a difference between femininity and sexuality. Space marines are designed to emphasize their masculinity, but NOT their sexuality. What seems to happen far too often is that we equate femininity with sexuality, and then when trying to portray femininity in a woman, we (intentionally or unintentionally) wind up sexualizing her. While there is certainly a link between masculinity/femininity and human sexuality, the two are far from inseparable, and it is very possible to display a woman's femininity without making her a sexual object. For ways NOT to do this see the "armor" on the Sisters Repentia:


The equivalent of that on space marine armor is not the masculine armor they currently don, instead imagine space marines with bare upper thighs and abdomens, and then a vaguely dick-shaped codpiece covering their genitalia, and you should have something close.



...Ok now stop thinking about it. You're creeping me out.

 Lynata wrote:

Mr Morden wrote:Ahh but thats one of so many good female characters

Psienesis wrote:Let's also be honest and say that a lot of 40K stories are based on/drawn from/inspired by real-life historical events, and most of those events are, given the setting, various real-world wars and conflicts. While women have served in various military forces throughout history, sometimes openly, sometimes not, the bulk of these stories, especially to the Western world, are about men, in combat, with other men, against other men.

Modern society's understanding of history is twisted, though. Example: it's still regarded as "common knowledge" that women couldn't become knights. How many people know that there were entire orders of female knights around in medieval Europe? How many people know that peasant levies for the War of the Roses included armed women? What about Viking shield maidens? Or how many people are aware of these?

Granted, when 40k is meant to represent human history like we are told, then this is of no consequence. Still pretty sad, though.

Psienesis wrote:While we do get our Joans of Arc and Queen Boudiccas and Helens and such in 40K, they're a relatively small aspect of the totality of the setting... mainly because I think having a Joan of Arc-like character pop out of an Imperial World every other week reduces the impact such a character can have on the setting

But why? Or is this referring to a sort of "oversaturation", in the sense that a higher number of female heroes would make them less special? Whilst I could agree on that, is this really a bad thing? And I feel this could be alleviated by still limiting them based on their profession or the uniqueness of the legend they forge. That Special Enforcer Barbaretta in the image above is an example of what I mean. When it works for the male characters, it should work for female ones as well.

I think it would reach a point of over-saturation (and the setting is *already* oversaturated with hyper-masculine male characters in this same vein, and thus has grown boring in much of its fiction to me) where, in this fictional future of BL books and Codex: Yet More Joans of Arcs In Spaaaaaaace! (C:YMJoAiS), to the point where, if we got a female character that wasn't Wonder Woman/Rogue/Samus/Joan of Arc/Brienne of Tarth, fans would be like "OMG! This lady.... she's average!1!oneone!!eleven!!". Speaking only for myself, I think I like the fact that a well-done female character, of any kind, in any role, in any setting, is still seen as something "special"... though, granted, a lot of the fiction I read involves female characters in male-dominated societies overcoming such obstacles and working within/around the constraints of their societies, to out-wit/out-fight/out-whatever the men of their eras, which is not exactly indicative of the setting of 40K.

Though, I would be all for this over-saturation if we start seeing threads like "OMG! Sisters are so OP in fluffz compaerd to Space Mureenz!!!11eleventy!!".

 ragingmunkyz wrote:
While there is certainly a link between masculinity/femininity and human sexuality, the two are far from inseparable, and it is very possible to display a woman's femininity without making her a sexual object.

I wanted to pick up on this point in particular. For examples of how to do this properly - rather than with Sisters Repentia - look at the older Bretonnian Sorceresses and the female Vampire Count models. Particularly the ones that are riding their horses side-saddle, which gives a ladylike demeanour.

Regarding ladybump proportions, the most recent Wych and Daemonette models are I feel about right and how they should be. They look fit and healthy, so apt for warriors, but not sexually so - nor are they oversized or misproportioned.

Not all the races do this.

All space marines yes.
Imperial guard yes, and it is a mistake.
Tau, we do not really know how their females look or what passes as masculinaty.
Eldar and Dark eldar: A good represensation of males and females. We could still have more females.
Necroms seems to have a maskuline gender representation but no sex. This is bad. It should be neatral or both.
Orks are also very maskuline gender and no sex. Quite bad.
Tyranids have females (lay eggs) and no males.

ragingmunkyz wrote:For ways NOT to do this see the "armor" on the Sisters Repentia

For some reason, the only thing I don't like is that little bit of leather(?) still covering the nipples. Makes it look like some sort of mini-bra, as if they still need to be ashamed of having teats - when all they'd think about is how to throw away their life in a manner that kills as many enemies as possible. It feels like the designers had an idea, but did not quite "dare" to go all the way because naked breasts are a no-go (look at the new Daemonettes compared to the old ones) ... in essence, modern day political correctness creeping into the setting.

The way I see it, the Repentia's semi-nakedness is not about sexuality, but rather about barenaked violence. The reduction of the human being into a vicious animal, driven only by the need to kill - and thus earn their redemption.
It's actually done better in the artwork, where it's not some sort of leather button but a scroll with holy scripture conveniently covering the chest. The miniature designer should take that as inspiration, imho. Looks less awkward.



But I get what you mean about the difference between masculinity/femininity and sexuality, and I agree.

ragingmunkyz wrote:The equivalent of that on space marine armor is not the masculine armor they currently don, instead imagine space marines with bare upper thighs and abdomens, and then a vaguely dick-shaped codpiece covering their genitalia, and you should have something close.

You mean like the guys in 300? Or many male heroes in any sort of "sword and sandal movie"...
If the Space Marines had something like the Sisters Repentia, I could actually see it work out exactly in that way...

Wouldn't that be the Adeptus Custodes?

Now that you mention it ...

I have no problem with SoB armours. I like them looking like crazy fetish nuns. If it would be up to me they'd even have heels like in Blanche's artwork. The sheer absurdity of it is glorious. (Repentias are still just stupid, though.)

HOWEVER, it becomes problematic when these are pretty much only (human) female models you have. There should be a wide variety of different sorts of female models, like there is wide variety of male models.

I think it might be the lingering idea of 'women and children'. The death of these is considered noteworthy to mention in media reports. Men getting killed is nothing special in our view. But the other two are still placed in the category of shocking. 40k is very dark and gw might think it will turn people off if they write too much about the ''brutal slaughter of the .... female regiment''. Gender isnt really mentioned in the big picture, women die by quite a good amount, but it is almost never mentioned as express as certain male guard regiment.

Although Im all for including more women in the fluff (most of it is military). Currently women in the military isnt really that accepted yet, its still mainly seen as the proffesion of males. GW might not want to take the risk in offending some of their costumers. Id like to end my opinion with an example. If women get fully accepted in the fluff, like 50-50, when is it time to include children or the elderly? The Imperium doesnt make much of a difference (whiteshields) on age if you can fight.

I notice that your poll has two postive and one negative response, with no neutral response. The available answers seem to slate the numbers towards your opinion. Personally, I would have responded with neutrality. There are plenty of female characters who aren't crazy, stupid, fantasy-fetish characters, or red shirts. Not in every author's work, mind, but Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Sandy Mitchell, and Dan Abnett are all very good about keeping the gender balance positive. Kara Swole, Euphrates Keeler, Colonel Kasteen, Bequin, Octavia, and Medea Betancourt are all reasonable female characters (as reasonable as the well-written male characters, certainly). I grant that the setting is a bit male-dominated and male-oriented. I also grant that a series from an author targeted at a female section of the audience might be a good move, but only if it were well done. I could also see it being a ham-fisted failure, depending on who wrote it.

I think that female characters are on the sparse side in the setting, but I don't find the setting to be particularly misogynistic. If the setting has any fault when it comes to gender relations, it's that it's far, far too chaste for my preference. I'm fine with family-friendly entertainment, but when your violence and mature content are at the 'R' and 'NC-17' levels, respectively, while your sexual content is well within 'G' standards, it makes for a rather odd imbalance, I think.

In any event, that's just my opinion. I could, of course, be wrong.

yeah, they could be throwing ladies in with pretty much every army but space marines (since the genetic template only works on men AFAIK apparently)

I do notice a LOT more females in the books and fluff then on the table,

Disciple of Fate wrote:40k is very dark and gw might think it will turn people off if they write too much about the ''brutal slaughter of the .... female regiment''.

Dunno about that ... looking at some of the fluff bits in which the Sisters of Battle play a less glorious role (Sanctuary 101, GK anointment, ...), the writers seem to have little problem with describing the death of female troops.

It may be fear of the customers, as you say. Or maybe it's some abstract idea about an archetypical image of where the soldier = male, where SoB don't really count as they are more like an army of Jeanne's d'Arcs. Not even truly misogynystic but rather just set to a very specific picture of how an IG regiment "should" look like. An unconscious thing.

Similar to what I touched upon earlier when I remarked how media are dominated by 30-something white male action heroes, often with cropped brown or black hair, and three-day stubble. It's not racism either, it's just that this is the first thing that comes to their mind when they try to think of a hero. Which in turn is a result of the image society has managed to instill in them. Kind of like a vicious cycle where people get this idea because that's what they grew up with, so this is what they show the kids, who will grow up with it, and have the same idea, and will show it to their kids, ...

Disciple of Fate wrote:If women get fully accepted in the fluff, like 50-50, when is it time to include children or the elderly? The Imperium doesnt make much of a difference (whiteshields) on age if you can fight.

With the Whiteshields, you already mentioned one example ... Necromunda juves might qualify as another. And Karamazov pretty much looks like a nagging old grandfather. I'd say elderly and children are already present, unless we're talking even older or younger than those? But at that point we'd probably get to a level where they would not be fighters anymore ... or were you looking at civilians? For civilians really do not get much limelight, I fear.

That said, a 40k rulebook did have this line in its description for daily life in the 41st millennium: "[...] Feral children fight over the dead flesh of the fallen, their struggles lit only by flickering luminas set into crumbling masonry. [...]"

Crimson wrote:If it would be up to me they'd even have heels like in Blanche's artwork

Ughh... please, no heels - they can have their place with some of the assassins, but not in the infantry. Battle Sisters are warriors first and foremost, and heels would be a tad too much for my personal sense of realism.


For an example of women being integrated well into a setting, go pick up a Battletech book. It's almost refreshing how gender plays next to no role whatsoever there.

Actually, here's a funny test for y'all:



...

.. so, how many of you noticed that the exotic dancer was her father, and not the mother? I know of several people who missed this, including me during my first read-through of the entire document.
That's how society indoctrinates us when it comes to gender roles / expectations. It's subtle, innit?

 Jimsolo wrote:
I think that female characters are on the sparse side in the setting, but I don't find the setting to be particularly misogynistic. If the setting has any fault when it comes to gender relations, it's that it's far, far too chaste for my preference. I'm fine with family-friendly entertainment, but when your violence and mature content are at the 'R' and 'NC-17' levels, respectively, while your sexual content is well within 'G' standards, it makes for a rather odd imbalance, I think.

There are heaping amounts of sexuality in 40k.

Most of it just happens to be between seven foot tall super soldiers.

 Lynata wrote:

Disciple of Fate wrote:40k is very dark and gw might think it will turn people off if they write too much about the ''brutal slaughter of the .... female regiment''.

Dunno about that ... looking at some of the fluff bits in which the Sisters of Battle play a less glorious role (Sanctuary 101, GK anointment, ...), the writers seem to have little problem with describing the death of female troops.

It may be fear of the customers, as you say. Or maybe it's some abstract idea about an archetypical image of where the soldier = male, where SoB don't really count as they are more like an army of Jeanne's d'Arcs. Not even truly misogynystic but rather just set to a very specific picture of how an IG regiment "should" look like. Similar to what I touched upon earlier when I remarked how media are dominated by 30-something white male action heroes, often with cropped brown or black hair, and three-day stubble. It's not racism either, it's just that this is the first thing that comes to their mind when they try to think of a hero. Which in turn is a result of the image society has managed to instill in them. Kind of like a vicious cycle where people get this idea because that's what they grew up with, so this is what they show the kids, who will grow up with it, and have the same idea, and will show it to their kids, ...

Disciple of Fate wrote:If women get fully accepted in the fluff, like 50-50, when is it time to include children or the elderly? The Imperium doesnt make much of a difference (whiteshields) on age if you can fight.

With the Whiteshields, you already mentioned one example ... Necromunda juves might qualify as another. And Karamazov pretty much looks like a nagging old grandfather. I'd say elderly and children are already present, unless we're talking even older or younger than those? But at that point we'd probably get to a level where they would not be fighters anymore ... or were you looking at civilians? For civilians really do not get much limelight, I fear.

That said, a 40k rulebook did have this line in its description for daily life in the 41st millennium: "[...] Feral children fight over the dead flesh of the fallen, their struggles lit only by flickering luminas set into crumbling masonry. [...]"

Crimson wrote:If it would be up to me they'd even have heels like in Blanche's artwork

Ughh... please, no heels - they can have their place with some of the assassins, but not in the infantry. Battle Sisters are warriors first and foremost, and heels would be a tad too much for my personal sense of realism.

I think its still different in the SoB question (you expect them to die, just like space marines if victory isnt an option). They have been trained most of their lives with good equipment, a bit like stormtroopers (a bit of a stretch but comparable). Im talking about just regular female guardsman(women?). The question is if people would still enjoy a book like 15 hours if it was about an all female regiment for example. I think they are afraid to cross a moral line. That is, large scale description of women and child soldiers (under 18 like whiteshields) in some of the more gruesome fiction. Black Library writes book that can be quite harsh sometimes.
On the question of the idea of a hero is male. Its just a question of history mostly. It has many great women, but as long as they werent hacking and slashing their way across some battlefield (like Jeanne d'Arc who you mentioned) they arent really remembered. War has always been important for humans, but its never been really seen as the area of women. This is why the idea seems strange to us. But if you really go beyond just popular history you can find a lot of strong women behind men. But because they werent rulers (which required an active military/combat role) most of us dont remember them, which is why the concept might seem a bit alien.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I think that female characters are on the sparse side in the setting, but I don't find the setting to be particularly misogynistic. If the setting has any fault when it comes to gender relations, it's that it's far, far too chaste for my preference. I'm fine with family-friendly entertainment, but when your violence and mature content are at the 'R' and 'NC-17' levels, respectively, while your sexual content is well within 'G' standards, it makes for a rather odd imbalance, I think.

There are heaping amounts of sexuality in 40k.

Most of it just happens to be between seven foot tall super soldiers.

The idea that all sexuality is between men and women is intertwined with the very modern notion of feminism. The Ancient Greeks were all for love between men and they (with the notable exception of Sparta) had very anti-female societies. I honestly think there might be something in the notion that mysogony is tied in with repressed homosexuality, being a bi-sexual mysogonist myself

 Lynata wrote:

For an example of women being integrated well into a setting, go pick up a Battletech book. It's almost refreshing how gender plays next to no role whatsoever there.

Battletech is actually really good on that score. Deadlands was pretty good about it too. (Also, remarkably good at avoiding being racist, especially given the setting.)

Well... I *am* waiting for an Inquisition-style novel, in the vein of James Bond, where the main character has to seduce his/her way through the ranks of potentially-heretical Hive nobles, while being demonstrably, and openly, homosexual in their non-professional life.

It would be kinda like HIMYM.... in space.

Disciple of Fate wrote:I think its still different in the SoB question (you expect them to die, just like space marines if victory isnt an option). They have been trained most of their lives with good equipment, a bit like stormtroopers (a bit of a stretch but comparable). Im talking about just regular female guardsman(women?). The question is if people would still enjoy a book like 15 hours if it was about an all female regiment for example. I think they are afraid to cross a moral line. That is, large scale description of women and child soldiers (under 18 like whiteshields) in some of the more gruesome fiction. Black Library writes book that can be quite harsh sometimes.

Hmmh, whilst I see your point regarding SoB, for the books I'd suspect it is less about a moral line and more about expectations from the customers. Even here on dakka we have a number of users who have in the past expressed their disapproval of women in the military, so by making a novel not feature female IG, it ultimately makes the book "safer".

It's a shame, but that's business I suppose. The ones to blame are mostly the fans, or at least a portion of them.

Disciple of Fate wrote:On the question of the idea of a hero is male. Its just a question of history mostly. It has many great women, but as long as they werent hacking and slashing their way across some battlefield (like Jeanne d'Arc who you mentioned) they arent really remembered.

And even when they were hacking and slashing their way across some battlefield, they often aren't.
History is written by the victors - I guess this includes gender.

Let's see if public perception shifts a bit more in the coming decades. At least mankind has begun to uncover a lot of lost documents or artefacts and tombs scratching on what is still common perception. Nowadays, we even know of female mercenary captains. And the only reason this bit of history was preserved was because that particular adventuress (who also served as a soldier in the army of the Papal States for some time) was sued at a court for having tried to impersonate Jeanne d'Arc. No-one would have bothered to write down her story if it weren't for some German-Imperial clerks filing a judicial report. How many more women like her lived and fought, unrecognised and unappreciated by modern history?

Psienesis wrote:It would be kinda like HIMYM.... in space.

lol

Pitch that idea to BL - maybe Mitchell will pick it up

 Lynata wrote:

Disciple of Fate wrote:I think its still different in the SoB question (you expect them to die, just like space marines if victory isnt an option). They have been trained most of their lives with good equipment, a bit like stormtroopers (a bit of a stretch but comparable). Im talking about just regular female guardsman(women?). The question is if people would still enjoy a book like 15 hours if it was about an all female regiment for example. I think they are afraid to cross a moral line. That is, large scale description of women and child soldiers (under 18 like whiteshields) in some of the more gruesome fiction. Black Library writes book that can be quite harsh sometimes.

Hmmh, whilst I see your point regarding SoB, for the books I'd suspect it is less about a moral line and more about expectations from the customers. Even here on dakka we have a number of users who have in the past expressed their disapproval of women in the military, so by making a novel not feature female IG, it ultimately makes the book "safer".

It's a shame, but that's business I suppose. The ones to blame are mostly the fans, or at least a portion of them.

But in the end the moral line is made by us as a society. From here the costumers are brought forth. Remember that altough many might resent the fact of women in the army its also might be a different aspect. GW also gets quite a bit of money from teenagers, with mostly their parents paying. Good luck explaining to a mother of a 12 year old that this book is about the fall of Havenspire, in which the ... female regiment fought a heroic but doomed struggle, being sufficiently graphic. My local gw manager (great guy, this isnt critisiscm) has the worst time trying to explain some darker aspects like slaaneshi deamons, how do you explain such a strange thing to a normal person? Most of those parents give the strangest looks, thats without even seeing their face when looking at the prices Most already find the hobby weird without such details. Remember how they changed the deamonettes, I remember bare nipples, but that seems to be a no go nowadays.

Just to be clear I have no problem with women in the army or anything. Im all for equality as long as it serves purpose, not getting random quotas like they sometimes do nowadays (sometimes you just have to pick the best person for the job regardless of race or gender, even if it might be a male whih already fills 80% of a company).

I liked the female character in Mechanicus. I dare say that after that book, the entire Imperium owes something very important to a woman.

Wow, I didn't think store managers would actually have to face such questions. I could imagine that being a bit awkward.
On the other hand, it also kinda sounds like a challenge in diplomacy, heh.

Disciple of Fate wrote:Remember how they changed the deamonettes, I remember bare nipples, but that seems to be a no go nowadays.

Still makes me angry. Society is getting way too stuck-up.
What's worst is the hypocricy of it all. Porn consumption and sex trade goes up across all fronts, but you aren't supposed to talk about it in the public. "Everyone does it, nobody wants to admit it".

Oldschool Daemonettes ftw!

Disciple of Fate wrote:Just to be clear I have no problem with women in the army or anything. Im all for equality as long as it serves purpose, not getting random quotas like they sometimes do nowadays.

Hmm, like I said, I think that in some cases, temporary positive discrimination may be necessary to "break the ice", so to speak. To be dropped within one or two decades after you had a generation grow up in this new environment.
But I agree, for the military there need to be equal requirements for all, given the risks involved. And besides, else it isn't really equality, is it?

Lynata wrote:

Disciple of Fate wrote:Just to be clear I have no problem with women in the army or anything. Im all for equality as long as it serves purpose, not getting random quotas like they sometimes do nowadays.

Hmm, like I said, I think that in some cases, temporary positive discrimination may be necessary to "break the ice", so to speak. To be dropped within one or two decades after you had a generation grow up in this new environment.
But I agree, for the military there need to be equal requirements for all, given the risks involved. And besides, else it isn't really equality, is it?

Agreed, Im hoping that a great degree of equality will be reached reasonably soon. Im about to finish my uni history and the prospects are about equal for males and females from my study (Im male so its no disadvantage to me in the current society). Males still have a slighter advantage, but not by much, latest was about 10% easier to find a job (if looking at employment after first year).
Wh40k has a lot of equality already, mostly about the same ratio of males and females in the military, except for the 'special' worlds we only get to hear about. It just hit me that it might also be the writers. Most are male and might be a bit reluctant trying to write novels/series with a female lead. With the 'women are from venus, men are from mars' sort of thing. They should try to get some more female writers who might find it easier then the male writers to tackle those issues/books.

I liked Swallow's Battle Sister novels. He should do more of them.

Maybe it's really just a matter of personal preferences and visual association. People just not being interested in female heroes. Andy Hoare was once said to have expressed his concerns about the Sisters of Battle in that he was the only one in the GW studio who cared for them, and with him gone there'd be no-one to pick them up. Given the last couple years, I think that may have been true. And the SoB are pretty much the standard bearers for women warriors in 40k, so lack of females elsewhere is not surprising at all.

Let's see if it changes when "fresh blood" revitalises the franchise. And let's hope that it is revitalised in a positive manner.

It might be a change in generation/focus, as you say. Its a shame, even the HH is shifting away from the human element more to the marine. The first 3 HH books still had a significant female story line with Keeler. This also returned in A Thousand Sons and Mechanicum. But its dissapeared as of late.

Yeah Swallow's books are quite good, but he seems to work on some more Blood Angel books atm. At least that whats the last ending implies.

Ok you know these threads never really solve anything, but lets try that. How could you make 40k a more gender diverse setting? I think you could do it by requiring each codex to have at least two female SC. Even SM and orks would have to follow this rule. It wouldn't be that hard. Necrons would be the easiest because they are robots, you just need to change the pronouns. Orks might be tricky, but if you bring back the idea if imperial advisers you can sneak one in. SMs whould be the hardest unless you dump that silly rule that only men can be SMs.

To a limited degree I agree. Making an oversexualized or wimpy female character is downright stupid. But a female character that is relatable and can drag the readers in is more entertaining than a male character as a male. Strong female characters are usually better than male characters.

I do disagree that the sisters of battle are not overly undone and slaughtered by just about everyone.

But being able to identify females and males through power armor is almost impossible without seeing their body shapes.

nomotog wrote:
Ok you know these threads never really solve anything, but lets try that. How could you make 40k a more gender diverse setting? I think you could do it by requiring each codex to have at least two female SC. Even SM and orks would have to follow this rule. It wouldn't be that hard. Necrons would be the easiest because they are robots, you just need to change the pronouns. Orks might be tricky, but if you bring back the idea if imperial advisers you can sneak one in. SMs whould be the hardest unless you dump that silly rule that only men can be SMs.

Its not about forcing anything on people or codeces. Space marines are fine, being countered by SoB (they need an new codex though). Imperial guard its easy, add another steel legion or cadian character, they are males and females, so just pick out a female commander (enough action around Cadia even though they arent shipped off-world often). Drop a catachan or cadian one, enough of those, you could put harker and pask together on one page for example. But they should provide the models. Necrons, just add in females, the robot bodies proly dont make any difference. Orks are a bit asexual, they are fungus after all. Dark Eldar and regular eldar have quite a decent ratio. But the main point is that even though the above takes time and money, just changing the main character of a novel doesnt. Thats the main point, why dont they bring the female role more to the fore in novels. If you should believe the background females are employed almost as heavily as men, yet Black Library doesnt represent this.

With reference specifically to the models:

 Crimson wrote:
HOWEVER, it becomes problematic when these are pretty much only (human) female models you have. There should be a wide variety of different sorts of female models, like there is wide variety of male models.

This was the point I was making, and I hope that in my posts I was not coming off as anti-sexuality under any circumstances. I don't think sexuality is an inherently bad/shameful thing (I'm in NO WAY socially conservative), it has a place and can be represented in artistically, whether tastefully or provocatively. The problem is the over-representation as compared to more "normal," or at least non-sexualized, portrayals of women. There should be a balance.

I'm all for fully-nude daemonettes, and by all means sexualize them as much as you want, the way their fluff is written its completely appropriate. I like your view of why sisters repentia would forgo any armor, Lynata, unfortunately, the models as they are were clearly designed to sexualize them. I'd actually prefer them more naked to portray an animalistic nature as apposed to some absurd illusion of "sexy" armor. What would help would be toning down the SoB PA a bit, I don't think it's crazy over-the top, just unnecessarily sexual when sexuality isn't called for. Some female guardsman in the same fatigues and flak armor would be an awesome addition as well. If you want sexy female models, at least provide some sensible fluffy background as to why you want to show them that way.

With respect to women as represented in the fluff:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
40k is very dark and gw might think it will turn people off if they write too much about the ''brutal slaughter of the .... female regiment''. Gender isnt really mentioned in the big picture, women die by quite a good amount, but it is almost never mentioned as express as certain male guard regiment.

This, unfortunately, is just outright wrong. GW has a history of murdering off women with disturbing frequency. One of the most famous was the Grey Knights killing a bunch of sisters just for the hell of it and because wearing chick blood is cool. Seriously, if they're as resistant to daemons as every bit of fluff says they are, they should never have needed to do that, it doesn't make any sense unless GW just likes killing SoB.

I am by no means the best source of BL fluff, I've read a bunch of the books, but not even a majority, so I cannot speak entirely to how women are represented in all of the literature. I have seen some cases where the women seem fairly portrayed and others which could have done a much better job. Here its less about sexualization and more about just an accurate presentation of women, as most female characters seem to be rather flat. Far too often women are either overly pious and blandly heroic, or else playing the role of victims. I even agree with Jimsolo that this is an 'R' setting, and as such, theres nothing wrong with including some sex with the violence, and in some cases it might actually do more to add some depth. In the end, I just think it would be refreshing to see some well-round, engaging female "main" characters in an overly male-dominated setting.

As to the question of of whether we, as a society can handle seeing female heros and women in combat, I think that very, very slowly those prejudices are eroding (the US now allows women to serve in combat roles for example). I personally want to see all those barriers fall down, and I would encourage any media source to try and further that goal, and to some degree, I believe all media has a social responsibility to deal with issues of gender, sexuality, race, etc in a fair and balanced way. As much as I get that they want to appeal to a customer base, they're denying themselves a chance at actually expanding their base by not including more women.

My main issue here is, the 40k setting has already established, time and again, that women fight and some are heroes. In a way, its sort of GWs fault for only going halfway with the idea. If you're going to have women in the setting, and establish that many are meant to play important roles, even in the violent bits, then go all the way and have more fleshed out female characters. By having them there, but not really giving them much of a spotlight, it makes it seem more male-biased than if you never mentioned them at all. Women are in 40k, they're just relegated to a second-tier status while the ubermales dominate the lead roles.

ragingmunkyz wrote:With respect to women as represented in the fluff:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
40k is very dark and gw might think it will turn people off if they write too much about the ''brutal slaughter of the .... female regiment''. Gender isnt really mentioned in the big picture, women die by quite a good amount, but it is almost never mentioned as express as certain male guard regiment.

This, unfortunately, is just outright wrong. GW has a history of murdering off women with disturbing frequency. One of the most famous was the Grey Knights killing a bunch of sisters just for the hell of it and because wearing chick blood is cool. Seriously, if they're as resistant to daemons as every bit of fluff says they are, they should never have needed to do that, it doesn't make any sense unless GW just likes killing SoB.

Apologies for not explaining it in my initial post, but I adressed it in the next:
I think its still different in the SoB question (you expect them to die, just like space marines if victory isnt an option). They have been trained most of their lives with good equipment, a bit like stormtroopers (a bit of a stretch but comparable). Im talking about just regular female guardsman(women?). The question is if people would still enjoy a book like 15 hours if it was about an all female regiment for example. I think they are afraid to cross a moral line. That is, large scale description of women and child soldiers (under 18 like whiteshields) in some of the more gruesome fiction. Black Library writes book that can be quite harsh sometimes.
The history of murdering women involves mostly sister of battle, I cant really recall many other stories besides the sister ones. Well not updating their codex might be construed as their attempt to have everyone enjoy slaughtering SoB

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

nomotog wrote:
Ok you know these threads never really solve anything, but lets try that. How could you make 40k a more gender diverse setting? I think you could do it by requiring each codex to have at least two female SC. Even SM and orks would have to follow this rule. It wouldn't be that hard. Necrons would be the easiest because they are robots, you just need to change the pronouns. Orks might be tricky, but if you bring back the idea if imperial advisers you can sneak one in. SMs whould be the hardest unless you dump that silly rule that only men can be SMs.

Its not about forcing anything on people or codeces. Space marines are fine, being countered by SoB (they need an new codex though). Imperial guard its easy, add another steel legion or cadian character, they are males and females, so just pick out a female commander (enough action around Cadia even though they arent shipped off-world often). Drop a catachan or cadian one, enough of those, you could put harker and pask together on one page for example. But they should provide the models. Necrons, just add in females, the robot bodies proly dont make any difference. Orks are a bit asexual, they are fungus after all. Dark Eldar and regular eldar have quite a decent ratio. But the main point is that even though the above takes time and money, just changing the main character of a novel doesnt. Thats the main point, why dont they bring the female role more to the fore in novels. If you should believe the background females are employed almost as heavily as men, yet Black Library doesnt represent this.

I think you would have to force it if you want them to change. I also don't think just changing novels would be enough. Add a character to a novel and they don't have the same fame as a codex unit. A novel character tends not to get out of the novel. They also can be removed rather easily. If they are a full model, then they get font billing on the GW web page, you are practically guaranteed to learn about them, they are also unlike to be removed or killed off. A strong change can only come from a change to the core of the setting.

nomotog wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

nomotog wrote:
Ok you know these threads never really solve anything, but lets try that. How could you make 40k a more gender diverse setting? I think you could do it by requiring each codex to have at least two female SC. Even SM and orks would have to follow this rule. It wouldn't be that hard. Necrons would be the easiest because they are robots, you just need to change the pronouns. Orks might be tricky, but if you bring back the idea if imperial advisers you can sneak one in. SMs whould be the hardest unless you dump that silly rule that only men can be SMs.

Its not about forcing anything on people or codeces. Space marines are fine, being countered by SoB (they need an new codex though). Imperial guard its easy, add another steel legion or cadian character, they are males and females, so just pick out a female commander (enough action around Cadia even though they arent shipped off-world often). Drop a catachan or cadian one, enough of those, you could put harker and pask together on one page for example. But they should provide the models. Necrons, just add in females, the robot bodies proly dont make any difference. Orks are a bit asexual, they are fungus after all. Dark Eldar and regular eldar have quite a decent ratio. But the main point is that even though the above takes time and money, just changing the main character of a novel doesnt. Thats the main point, why dont they bring the female role more to the fore in novels. If you should believe the background females are employed almost as heavily as men, yet Black Library doesnt represent this.

I think you would have to force it if you want them to change. I also don't think just changing novels would be enough. Add a character to a novel and they don't have the same fame as a codex unit. A novel character tends not to get out of the novel. They also can be removed rather easily. If they are a full model, then they get font billing on the GW web page, you are practically guaranteed to learn about them, they are also unlike to be removed or killed off. A strong change can only come from a change to the core of the setting.

Force is never a good way to get them to put out the miniatures, they will drop them at the first possible moment. They still are a business, they see no need in producing these things, even if its as easy as just adding some extra heads to the sprues. The problem atm seems to be a turn away from females in novels. The appearences they are making are becoming less significant. I can understand not producing female models, but not ignoring them in the fluff. This is just their way of thinking, they seem to find women less important, this needs changing. Even at the core of the fluff they still have quite some equality in the Imperium itself... just not inside gw.

Evileyes wrote:
What I never liked, was the fact that one in 1000 humans or something similar, are psyker's. And all of them, every single damn one, is male. Hell of a coincidence that.

I believe it's much more slim that that. Also, one of the stories in the GK omnibus, the female inquisitor is a psyker. She has the ability to speed absorb information in books. This leads her to find the true-name of a daemon, and go crazy, or something.

It's always been my opinion that if you try hard enough, you will find something misogynistic, homophobic, phallic, religious, sacrilegious, insert-cause-here, in any sort of medium should you really want (or not) to.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
(sometimes you just have to pick the best person for the job regardless of race or gender, even if it might be a male whih already fills 80% of a company).

When you have a history of oppression, the oppressed part of the populace is going to have a long history of NOT being skilled, of NOT having the cultural mindset of the dominant social class, and of having lingering values that negatively effect their ability to thrive.

This is the reason behind quotas, behind positive/reverse discrimination, etc. To help develop within various oppressed groups and subgroups the cultural mindset that they CAN get ahead and how exactly to do that.

And, quite frankly, this is (the?) one area where the Imperium is more progressive than modern society is.

 daedalus wrote:
It's always been my opinion that if you try hard enough, you will find something misogynistic, homophobic, phallic, religious, sacrilegious, insert-cause-here, in any sort of medium should you really want (or not) to.

And if you try hard enough to ignore it, it all goes away-- as long as you're a member of the dominant social class. It's quite easy for a straight white heterosexual male to ignore the discrimination that non-straight/non-white/non-heterosexual/non-males receive and act as if it doesn't exist even as they perpetuate it.

 Melissia wrote:
And if you try hard enough to ignore it, it all goes away-- as long as you're a member of the dominant social class. It's quite easy for a straight white heterosexual male to ignore the discrimination that non-straight/non-white/non-heterosexual/non-males receive and act as if it doesn't exist even as they perpetuate it.

And sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. But I'm a fat white middle class guy. I have my head in the sand and pretend I don't see bigotry when it's actually present.

I'll go back to my sitcoms, Family Guy, South Park, and other forms of entertainment designed for my demographic, and continue being reminded of how the white guy is the utter buffoon, whilst the female is the voice of reason and temperament.

Or, more likely, I won't care, because it really doesn't bother me. Obviously, this is because I've had it so well for so long that the fact that I have it so much better than women, being part of the dominant social class.

 daedalus wrote:
And sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. But I'm a fat white middle class guy. I have my head in the sand and pretend I don't see bigotry when it's actually present.

You can be sarcastic all you want, but it's still very much the case.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As an aside, the BA nipple-armor bothers me as well. It's an obnoxious and unnecessary addition to the armor, and I get why they did it, but that still doesn't make me like it any more

 daedalus wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
And if you try hard enough to ignore it, it all goes away-- as long as you're a member of the dominant social class. It's quite easy for a straight white heterosexual male to ignore the discrimination that non-straight/non-white/non-heterosexual/non-males receive and act as if it doesn't exist even as they perpetuate it.

And sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. But I'm a fat white middle class guy. I have my head in the sand and pretend I don't see bigotry when it's actually present.

I'll go back to my sitcoms, Family Guy, South Park, and other forms of entertainment designed for my demographic, and continue being reminded of how the white guy is the utter buffoon, whilst the female is the voice of reason and temperament.

Or, more likely, I won't care, because it really doesn't bother me. Obviously, this is because I've had it so well for so long that the fact that I have it so much better than women, being part of the dominant social class.

Are you being sarcastic or honest?

Reading this thread, I'm reminded of that scene at the beginning of Iron Man where Tony Stark is being talked to by the soldier who's driving the vehicle he's in and responds with "Good god you're a woman." When someone is wearing enough gear, you can barely tell, if at all.

I would personally love to see some subtly-sculpted female models, with heads to go with them. Armies like IG and Tau, for instance, should never have the sort of overexaggerated models so many people seem to want.

 Niiai wrote:
Not all the races do this.

All space marines yes.
Imperial guard yes, and it is a mistake.
Tau, we do not really know how their females look or what passes as masculinaty.
Eldar and Dark eldar: A good represensation of males and females. We could still have more females.
Necroms seems to have a maskuline gender representation but no sex. This is bad. It should be neatral or both.
Orks are also very maskuline gender and no sex. Quite bad.
Tyranids have females (lay eggs) and no males.

At this point you're falling into the trap of wanting female models for political correctness reasons. Look at the fluff, the models are supposed to represent it, not societal views.

Space Marines have a fluff justification, and even if they didn't, female space marines would look no different on the tabletop. Their armor is one size fits all, boob-plate shouldn't ever come into it.
IG could use some many female sculpts, if they were very subtle, with some head swaps.
Tau wear baggy bodysuits and hard body armor--you would literally be unable to tell the difference unless the helmet was off.
Eldar and Dark Eldar I agree are a good mix. We could probably use better female guardians, but even then, they all wear full body armor, and you should barely be able to tel.
Necrons are metal skeletons. Skeletons don't have a visible sex. This is not bad, it would make no sense to sculpt breasts onto them, or to make fembot versions, when their whole theme is "metal terminator skeletons"
Orks have literally no fluff reason to have female models. They don't even have genitals! They reproduce asexually through spores, why would having a single, gorilla-like body type be bad?
Tyranids are mostly genderless. If I remember correctly, many of the foot troops don't even have full digestive systems, just weapons.

 Melissia wrote:
The Bechdel Test:

1: Story has two women, preferably named women.
2: Have at least one conversation...
3: ... that doesn't involve a man or men, or the male population in general.

tl;dr, not everything a female character would talk about in 40k has to do with loving men.

Would a book fail the Berscher test if the main character was a guy and therefore (unless he was dropping some ease in the words of Samwise) would inherently be part of every conversation?

nomotog wrote:

Are you being sarcastic or honest?

Good point. A lot of that is sarcastic. I think claims of misogyny are overblown in 40k, for reasons others have already posted. I could repeat them for you if you want, despite that I do not want to. I AM a fat white middle class guy. I do not think that I'm a misogynist. I hold the door for women. I'll also catch the door for a guy. Over half the people I work with are women, and the majority of them are in positions of power or authority over the men. I think most of them genuinely deserve to be there.

I'm not sure whatever other sanity check I can make to confirm the apparent misogyny I possess from thinking the topic is preposterous.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DemetriDominov wrote:


Would a book fail the Berscher test if the main character was a guy and therefore (unless he was dropping some ease in the words of Samwise) would inherently be part of every conversation?

Eaves. He was droppin' eaves.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
And really, that's still wrong, 'cuz 'e wadn't droppin' no eaves, mista Gandalf sir.

 DemetriDominov wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
The Bechdel Test:

1: Story has two women, preferably named women.
2: Have at least one conversation...
3: ... that doesn't involve a man or men, or the male population in general.

tl;dr, not everything a female character would talk about in 40k has to do with loving men.

Would a book fail the Berscher test if the main character was a guy and therefore (unless he was dropping some ease in the words of Samwise) would inherently be part of every conversation?

I would let it pass if he was a part of a conversation with two women that where talking about a topic that wasn't him or about a man. Like if he was talking with two other women about how lace is so hard to wash. That would pass. It's a very strange test. (Lesbian porn almost always passes.) I find the test works best when used globally rather then on each individual story. If you what to test a story, you can use better measures then the Bechdel test.

I only read the first two pages but I just want to say I am really impressed by the discussion. Very reasonable and even tempered analysis of both sides. Then again I voted straight down the middle so it does match up with my opinion lol. I am honestly shocked GW hasn't cashed more in on sex appeal so I think they get props for that.

nomotog wrote:

 DemetriDominov wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
The Bechdel Test:

1: Story has two women, preferably named women.
2: Have at least one conversation...
3: ... that doesn't involve a man or men, or the male population in general.

tl;dr, not everything a female character would talk about in 40k has to do with loving men.

Would a book fail the Berscher test if the main character was a guy and therefore (unless he was dropping some ease in the words of Samwise) would inherently be part of every conversation?

I would let it pass if he was a part of a conversation with two women that where talking about a topic that wasn't him or about a man. Like if he was talking with two other women about how lace is so hard to wash. That would pass. It's a very strange test. (Lesbian porn almost always passes.) I find the test works best when used globally rather then on each individual story. If you what to test a story, you can use better measures then the Bechdel test.

Correct, it's meant as a test of a genre or media as a whole, rather than of an individual example.

ZSO, SAHAAL wrote:Include normal female characters

Here's your problem. There are no normal characters in 40k, regardless of gender.

It's a problem of the lack of a "straight man", not that GW hates women.

I dunno - just throwing a bunch of women into the Imperial Guard would go a long way, so much so that I'd actually consider the entire topic a non-issue, for the IG is pretty much the flagship of the Imperium when it comes to representing its populace in all the franchise's media.

One of the things the Space Marine videogame did well was Lieutenant Mira. When I first heard about her I thought she's sort of a "token girl" at best, damsel in distress at worst. But even though I have retained a feeling this is at least part of the truth, after actually playing the game I have to say that the character's visual design and personality were very good and fitting.
So, why not have a mini like her in the range? Could've even been used to promote the game, just like GW produced a mini of Ephrael Stern (complete with rules) for the graphic novel.

The Guardsmen, at least many of them, are probably as normal as it gets ... sufficiently so that people can identify with them. I mean, half the regiments are straight rip-offs from Earth's own history.

When I had to make a character for Only War, all I needed to do was think of the war movies I watched, or browse wikipedia for some inspiration. See the trivia section at the end of this page for what I mean.

(Valhallans ftw!)

[edit] speaking of Valhalla, I just remembered this:

"By the sixth week of fighting, the Orks reached the main food chamber with its hundreds of nutrient slime vats. Almost half the Orks had been killed, but the remainder were every bit as determined as ever. The scent of the bubbling green slime assailed their keen nostrils and they licked their scaly lips in anticipation. The Valhallans prepared to put up a final resistance. If the chamber was captured they would starve within a week. Every man, woman and child that could carry a gun crowded into the chamber and its surrounding galleries. The battle would decide which race would survive on Valhalla."
- 2nd Edition Codex: Imperial Guard

That depends on your view of the fluff. As far as I'm concerned, as many women serve in the Imperial Guard/Navy as men, and there are as many female heroes/saints/officers as well. I'm not gonna continue this, but I just want to give my two cents on the matter.

I'm all for strong female characters, not Charlie's angels like but decently written,i am so sick to the back teeth of 104lb woman 1 punching a 230lb man in some stupid ass girl power nonsense.

Or any Angelina Jolie crap, anyone who watches game of.thrones? Take a look at that female knight, she is badass, sisters of battle look like HER to me, all worn, beaten a little disheveled... You know.. Not like they just got out of makeup all perfect after a 40ft rtransformer just blew up half.the city...

Like so?

I guess it's all a matter of experience. Battle Sisters enter active service at the age of ~17, where they'd probably still look somewhat young/pure/intact - fitting for the angelic image they are supposed to project towards the populace. However, the older they get, the more battles they see, and the more gritty they become. The miniatures actually represent this as fairly well, what with the Canoness having a bionic eye and scarred face:

Admiral Valerian wrote:As far as I'm concerned, as many women serve in the Imperial Guard/Navy as men

I think everyone in this thread agrees on that, actually.
You just don't see those women. No minis, no fluff in the 'dex, no nothing.

Women are weak and can't grow beards. That's why they need a strong personality.
Tssk.

Are we all forgetting that Eldar and Dark Eldar have mixed gender forces? I should also point out that Lelith Hesperax (Succubus) and Jain Zar (Phoenix Lord) are some of the most badass characters in 40k


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Formosa wrote:
I'm all for strong female characters, not Charlie's angels like but decently written,i am so sick to the back teeth of 104lb woman 1 punching a 230lb man in some stupid ass girl power nonsense.

Or any Angelina Jolie crap, anyone who watches game of.thrones? Take a look at that female knight, she is badass, sisters of battle look like HER to me, all worn, beaten a little disheveled... You know.. Not like they just got out of makeup all perfect after a 40ft rtransformer just blew up half.the city...

I assume you're on about Brienne of Tarth?

Since when was 40K misogynist?

Misogyny is a hatred of women. There's less an issue of women being represented poorly in 40K and more just a matter of women not being mentioned much at all- which is kind of expected when you consider that the universe's most iconic aspect, Space Marines, are a fraternity in which it's genetically impossible for women to be apart of.

As has been mentioned a couple times already, in the majority of the guard books there's a plethora of well-rounded female characters. Not just the Guard books either. Eisenhorn and Ravenor both have great female characters, with Bequin being one of my favorite women in sci-fi period.

I don't think deviantart helps.

 Lynata wrote:

ragingmunkyz wrote:For ways NOT to do this see the "armor" on the Sisters Repentia

For some reason, the only thing I don't like is that little bit of leather(?) still covering the nipples. Makes it look like some sort of mini-bra, as if they still need to be ashamed of having teats - when all they'd think about is how to throw away their life in a manner that kills as many enemies as possible. It feels like the designers had an idea, but did not quite "dare" to go all the way because naked breasts are a no-go (look at the new Daemonettes compared to the old ones) ... in essence, modern day political correctness creeping into the setting.

I have to agree with the overall sentiment here. Speaking in more general terms: if you're going to go with sex-appeal, or something which contextually involves nudity, you might as well as actually carry it out properly instead of just halfway, because that leaves you with something in many respects as "inappropriate" or low-brow (as the case may be, and based upon those who would oppose the full/proper work), but necessarily weakened by the censorship, and which marks you out as a coward to boot.

And it's not a modern thing; it's an American thing. If that's spreading to Europe, well that is rather bad, but at the same time we are slowly getting better in this regard.

I'm probably giving the author too much flak.
Ultimately, I still feel he "devalued" both the Sisterhood as well as the Commissariat by presenting both organisations in such a drastically different and more humane light. Just like the Space Marines, they're not meant to be like "the guys from next door", and if he wanted to write a story like that he should've picked characters from a more ordinary profession.
But yeah, that has little to do with gender.

Without derailing the thread:

Hmm - one of the recurring themes about the Cain novels is how he makes it very clear that Cain is an exception - so whilst I agree his is drastically different to the normal Commissar - that’s the point.

I don't agree that the Commissariat is changed - indeed they are normally presented as written - indeed again Cain often points out this “normal” behaviour and attitude as a shortcoming - in his view. But again he is the exception, not the rule and few share his views in universe.

Many who he encounter he surprises by some of his decisions - like a recent story where a ranking officer makes a potentially huge mistake that could cost them the city, everyone expects him to execute the man (including several Astartes in the room) but he instead gives him the "you made this mess you sort it out" option.

As I have mentioned before, the darker elements in the mythos are still there – the “nice” characters still find comfort in the images of heretics burning, the routine of prisoners being brought in for weapons practice and interrogation techniques by children at the Schola, etc.

The Sisterhood – I think suffers more from other authors depiction of them as cannon fodder and annoying often as heretics – I note that a new novel is coming out that has a “canoness who had to eradicate her entire order for Hersey” – Really?? The Codexes are little better.

In contrast the Cain novels depict the Sororitas as grim, scary but inspiring warriors who are formidable in battle but importantly don’t always get massacred. The only “in universe” person who has anything bad to say about them is Cain himself and that’s only because he has issues about the Church (despite being a believer) and the Sisters habit of charging into the enemy, although even he has to say its usually effective. We have discussed at length before the Celestain and her actions.

Back OT – GW should produce more female characters for the tabletop – they do turn up in codexes – Inquisitor Valeria is great in the Grey Knights – but no model for her?

They could have done a female Necron Queen as they did for the Tomb Kings (lets face it the Necrons are just Tomb Kings in space in their new incarnation) and it would have given some variety to a somewhat bland collection of character models that is the present range. You don’t need huge boobs for the latter, which sadly is the usual knee jerk reaction by those who seem terrified of female figures – just do a Khalida style character and model.

and so on................

The 40k IoM is based on the early to mid middle ages aka the dark ages and IMO thats why women are portrayed the way they are in the game, which is a quite accurate depiction of women in society at that time.

And also its only human females, the eldar have loads of revered women in their society.

Also.. This threads stinks of hardcore aggressive feminism.... Lets not scorn others on the forum because they don't share our views. This is a friendly discussion about a board game, not a debate about the future of gender equality.

Evileyes wrote:
What I never liked, was the fact that one in 1000 humans or something similar, are psyker's. And all of them, every single damn one, is male. Hell of a coincidence that.
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2730082a_99120201016_WoCHellstriders01_873x627.jpg

I once read about 2 very powerful non curropted pyskers in the Imperium, 2 sisters that are always on the run from the imperial Inquisition. The are going around the Imperium helping people when needed. As i understood it the Inquisition considers them too powerful, and want to kill them. 1 of them destroyed a warhound titan when protecting herself.

I also read about women being in high postions in the mechnium aswell as the Imperial fleet.

Patience Kys from Ravenor is a psyker.

Bequin was a blank, the anti-thesis of a psyker but still. There's actually been two or three female blanks.

I know for a fact that there's been a few women psykers. Don't remember their names but I remember their existence.

- - - - -

From a non-Psyker topic, those of you who've read Only War might have noticed that nearly 50% of the art in the game shows female guardsmen, from various regiments. Even the Commisar art depicts a female commisar.

Quite surprise this thread has lasted this long to be honest, but for what its worth......women in black library books, playable special characters etc. are needed no more or less then male characters, there just simply seems to be more roles that are suitable to male characters (for example any books written about space marines which cover a large percentage of them). The codices where its not feasible to have female special characters (Space Marines and all differing chapters, chaos daemons, CSM, nids, orks) only leaves Imperial Guard missing female characters and maybe it should have a female character but to include one purely because people throw hissy fits online is pathetic.........The psyker thing is bat crap carazy as well by the way, just today I put down a book about an extremely powerful human psyker called Xamagundi (I highly doubt I've spelt that correctly)..........Another thing to consider is that the target audience for new GW publications are pre-adolescent boys and for lack of a better term veterans of the game and whether that is right or wrong is possibly worth discussing but it is the situation we live in........I also don't like the argument that female characters shouldn't be there as a love interest as most male characters in the books have love interests.....also the HH books in particular are littered with characters of the female variety

I'm not looking to start a flame war but people shouldn't open discussions if they don't want to hear differing opinions to their own

As a footnote is it even possible to have a "normal" human of any gender in a fictional universe?

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:

As a footnote is it even possible to have a "normal" human of any gender in a fictional universe?

I think that is the point.
I have read a great deal of BL books, along with most Codex(s) since 2nd edition and some of the FFG RPG books. I have yet to come across a normal anything.

The whole setting is supposed to be caricatural. Space marines are all knights/monks, SoB are fanatic templars, GK are even more a caricature that I care to explain (One of them is spending his vacation in the warp, killing greater daemons and only coming back when someone needs to tale paladins as troops - wich every 2 days).
The only regular armd force is the IG, and by regular I mean permanently watched in the back by fanatical commisars regular. So no, nobody's normal. The most normal I found are the Gaunt novels, in wich the soldier depicted (men and women) can be related to. And you'll notice that most of the stuff they face is completely not normal.

Eldar and DA have (good) female characters, fluff and models. The IoM, in general, is pretty lacking. The only image you can find is the one of the SoB, who from the start are fanatical warrior/nuns/zealots - definitely not normal.

Add a female commisar and a female general in the IG book, add those minis + a few female guards, and everything's sorted out.

BlaxicanX wrote:
Misogyny is a hatred of women. There's less an issue of women being represented poorly in 40K and more just a matter of women not being mentioned much at all.

This. WH40K is Grimdark future battle with huge explosions, people running at each other with chainsaws, aliens attacking with arcane weaponry or huge armor-rending claws. It doesn't matter if a "normal" human is male or female, they're still equally screwed.

As many others already said, many books have a variety of strong female characters, especially the marvelous "Gaunts Ghosts" series.

Although I agree that 40k could need some more women, I don't think it necessarily NEEDS a system of perfect gender equality. Why? Because it's the grim dark future and everything is grim dark and bad. I think it has pretty much been established that the Imperium is mostly a horrid place to live in. So why is it surprising that in this system that is strongly xenophobic, extremely fascist, that employs forceful conscription of entire populations, genocide and a whole palette of insane atrocities, there is also sexism.
This is not to say it's good, but it's kind of the Imperium's thing.

Besides, has anyone ever given it the thought that the fact that the Imperial Guard is mainly made up of men (although as we just established, there are plenty of mixed gender regiments in fluff) is somehow sexist towards men? I mean I wouldn't call being shipped out to foreign planets to fight aliens or fanatics to act as meat shield with less worth than your gun a privilege.
Seeing as plenty of guardsmen don't actually want to join the Imperial guard and are forced into it or coerced by their culture and religion, I wouldn't really consider it a "freedom" to join the Imperial Guard.

You haven't read the Horus Heresy, Purge the Heretic, Gaunt's Ghosts, Commisar Cain, Night Lords or Path of the... eldar series then? Or the Grey Knights Codex?

Hell, the Cain books alone have a very capable lady inquisitor and her mixed-gender kick-ass retinue, a lauded regiment that’s around 50% women troopers, a female colonel who’s a hero, even a character who becomes a Lady General, pretty much the highest rank it’s possible to get in the Imperium.

The Gaunts books have Tona Criid, doctor Ana Curth, Commissar-General Balshin, even the blessed Saint herself.

And saying that Sisters of Battle are portrayed badly misses the point that they’re as strange and weird as Astartes are. Both are at the edges of humanity, be that through genetic enhancement or pious belief.

In the game itself, outside of the Black Library books, we have Inquisitor Valyria, who bested the Necron Tesseract Labyrinth, Commander Shadowsun, the foremost Tau general and warrior and countless mixed-gender Tau units (in the Codex), Wych units for Dark Eldar, Eldar Banshees and Farseers, even Gaunt's Ghosts and Last Chancers have female characters in their units.

Not to mention the largely female Callidus assassins, of course.

There are many, many well written and rounded female characters if you care to look. Both in the books and on the tabletop. There are far, far more female characters than there are in 21st century militaries, let alone in front-line combat units.

Strangely, 40K doesn't lack behind, it actually leads the way in equality with women.

Less so for xenos, who should obviously all be burned.

 Melissia wrote:
The Bechdel Test:
1: Story has two women, preferably named women.
2: Have at least one conversation...
3: ... that doesn't involve a man or men, or the male population in general.

If we apply the test to 40k, we should also count it when the two women battle each other even if they don't talk. Like if you have two female commanders fighting over a guffen. Even though they aren't talking they are still interacting.

This bechdel test always annoyed me when applied to media in general, maybe it had a use when it was applied to films alone as first intended but it wouldn't pass any tv shows even ones which are all about the sisterhood such as sex and the city.......and before I'm labelled anything I want to make it abundantly clear I am not a mysognist.........I hate everybody equally

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
This bechdel test always annoyed me when applied to media in general, maybe it had a use when it was applied to films alone as first intended but it wouldn't pass any tv shows even ones which are all about the sisterhood such as sex and the city.......and before I'm labelled anything I want to make it abundantly clear I am not a mysognist.........I hate everybody equally

Umm TV shows have an easier time passing the test. Most shows will past the test eventually and shows about women do pass easily.

ZSO, SAHAAL wrote:
I think it’s a major flaw and is in fact killing the series and keeping it from being what it could be. This is because well rounded characters and varying personalities and perspectives gives stories depth, people complain about lack of love in 40k but how can you have love when every female character is a pious sexually repressed nun, a snobbish aristocrat, or a sex slave captured by the dark elder. Often those who make fun of the sisters of battle are accused of misogyny and often the accusation is correct but again what do you expect, they've been set up to be Sci-Fi snuff, with dd's and beads and a "device", that looks like a chastity belt around their crotches along with matt wards bizarre fantasies mixed in the sisters of battle are obviously not meant to be taken seriously and for the most part their not.

The Solution: Include normal female characters that aren't getting chopped up or sexually enslaved. I believe ADB has done a great job with this in his books particularly in Soul Hunter where he actually had a love story, and had female characters that played non sexual roles such as Octavia’s servants and female members of the bridge crew. I think Chaos would be the best place to start with this introduction, the Imperials have already been fleshed out pretty will and it’s easier to add new material than to change material already in existence. Where lacking fluff on the mortal servants of Chaos, this seems like a great place to add normal female characters, partisans and resistance leaders fighting the Imperium, or captains leading the warmasters ships(their not all commanded by Chaos Marines after all), maybe some that got tired of the old boys club in the Imperium and did'nt want to be either a nun or the wife/plaything of an Imperial officer/gangleader/noble. This is a blunt and honest post and I demand blunt and honest responses. No sugarcoating. I'm making a poll of whether you agree completely, somewhat, or disagree completely so I can gauge overall opinion.

We don't need any more tumblrfeminists corrupting yet another decent setting. You guys basically already ruined MtG and vidya gaems.

Also, how about we don't have men getting thrown into a nearly literal meat grinder? Why can't we have a couple nice guys in the setting who just relax and have a good time?

Oh yeah because 40k is a nightmare future, not tumblr.

Mr Morden wrote:Hmm - one of the recurring themes about the Cain novels is how he makes it very clear that Cain is an exception - so whilst I agree his is drastically different to the normal Commissar - that’s the point.

All I'm saying is that exceptions like that don't really make sense when you read how the Schola and Commissariat are depicted in Codex fluff, how they pick and teach their young. But I think I mentioned that somewhere else already, too. A character like Cain as a Commissar would be like having a nice Black Templar who has a psyker for a friend. I'm sure someone could write a funny novel about such a pairing, too, but it's just not something the existing background has room for.

I guess it's just one of the many examples where the sources deviate from one another, but it's no secret that I don't like the level of inconsistency between the franchise's different outlets.
That's another thing that Battletech does better, by the way.

Mr Morden wrote:They could have done a female Necron Queen as they did for the Tomb Kings

I don't think a female Necron is in any way needed ...
... but if they really wanted to go that route, I suppose they could have added something like an assassination unit like the Deathmark in a thinner, smaller, vaguely female'ish form (no actual breasts ofc). I think a number of sci-fi media have gone that route for their robot designs.

Thatguy91 wrote:The 40k IoM is based on the early to mid middle ages aka the dark ages and IMO thats why women are portrayed the way they are in the game, which is a quite accurate depiction of women in society at that time.

That's not quite correct, though. The IoM is based on a wide variety of things from all across humanity's timeline, and even the existing fluff already makes it very clear that there should be, for example, female Cadians. The rulebook mentions that birth rates and recruitment are synonymous for many worlds, hinting at mixed regiments (or at least mixed recruitment) not being uncommon.

And even in medieval Europe you had female peasants in army levies, as mercenaries, or even knights. This may not be "common knowledge", but easily accessible information in this time and age for anyone with access to the internet, or just a good library in their town.

BlaxicanX wrote:From a non-Psyker topic, those of you who've read Only War might have noticed that nearly 50% of the art in the game shows female guardsmen, from various regiments.

Oh yes, even the male-only regiments.

(I still think the Commissar is supposed to be Raege, btw)

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:Imperial Guard missing female characters and maybe it should have a female character but to include one purely because people throw hissy fits online is pathetic

I hope you at least realise that this is a fairly controversial point to make.

Seb 510357 wrote:Add a female commisar and a female general in the IG book, add those minis + a few female guards, and everything's sorted out.

This.

Actually, we already have that Commissar. She just was a limited edition handout for Games Day, if I remember correctly.
I think my own three-step program would be female bitz in the Cadian box, a female Lieutenant SC (rules and miniature) like the aforementioned Mira, and a "honourary mention" of some female officer in Codex fluff. That's all that 40k really needs in order to be brought "into line" with its own background regarding this issue.

Fire_for_effect wrote:I think it has pretty much been established that the Imperium is mostly a horrid place to live in. So why is it surprising that in this system that is strongly xenophobic, extremely fascist, that employs forceful conscription of entire populations, genocide and a whole palette of insane atrocities, there is also sexism.

But there isn't. That's the entire point. This is not an in-setting issue, it's a weird out-of-universe absence of what the setting's background already contains.

Fire_for_effect wrote:Besides, has anyone ever given it the thought that the fact that the Imperial Guard is mainly made up of men [...]

Source?

But even if it were - that may be sexist to the men within the setting, but obviously not to the actual players, whose opinion and perception of social issues is forged in large part by media and toys, and this includes 40k. And ultimately, it is the soldier who is seen as the hero, not the housewife or the baby machine.

Complaining about the IG being so gritty and unfair would be like having a Space Wolf player who complains about the Wulfen curse, or a Blood Angels player who complains about the Black Rage. It's why they picked this army, duh.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:


We don't need any more tumblrfeminists corrupting yet another decent setting. You guys basically already ruined MtG and vidya gaems.

...

Are you serious?

Lynata wrote:

Thatguy91 wrote:The 40k IoM is based on the early to mid middle ages aka the dark ages and IMO thats why women are portrayed the way they are in the game, which is a quite accurate depiction of women in society at that time.

That's not quite correct, though. The IoM is based on a wide variety of things from all across humanity's timeline, and even the existing fluff already makes it very clear that there should be, for example, female Cadians. The rulebook mentions that birth rates and recruitment are synonymous for many worlds, hinting at mixed regiments (or at least mixed recruitment) not being uncommon.

And even in medieval Europe you had female peasants in army levies, as mercenaries, or even knights. This may not be "common knowledge", but easily accessible information in this time and age for anyone with access to the internet, or just a good library in their town.

Yeah sure but here's the thing... Both settings are male dominated. Written by males. For what I would estimate to be an at least 85% male audience. So it is to be expected really.. And just because it is male dominated doesn't mean its misogynous.

There are strong, capable female characters in 40k too, just as there has been strong capable women throughout history.

I like to think alot of women in the IoM work as government officials, industrial workers or stuff like that. Unless they are a part of the IG.

Agreed on all points. It's more a case of the miniatures line not representing what the background already suggests - and, of course, people asking what the reason for that might be.

Personally, I'm not suspecting malicious intent. Rather ... hm, ignorance? As you said, men making stuff for men. It's the same thing in the video game industry*. And the whole argument could just as well be made about skin colours in the Imperium, too. But at least that is fairly easy to fix for the average customer.

*: Although there are a lot of cases where certain influential people have a rather obvious gender bias, too.

I think the best pro-female example I can think of in 40k were the tertiary PDF grunts in Titanicus. They weren't shown as anything special but still rose to the challenge and lived. Still not the happiest endings for them either.

It is and frankly I think its a shame. It would be nice to atleast have some forgeworld female cadians or something... I think that is something that could really spice up armies and get them a whole lot of money in the process.

I do agree with you though

 Vladsimpaler wrote:


We don't need any more tumblrfeminists corrupting yet another decent setting. You guys basically already ruined MtG and vidya gaems.

Also, how about we don't have men getting thrown into a nearly literal meat grinder? Why can't we have a couple nice guys in the setting who just relax and have a good time?

Oh yeah because 40k is a nightmare future, not tumblr.

Seriously, 40K is not, and should not be, a boys-only club, either in-setting or on the table-top. You *can* have a couple (or a lot) of folks just kicking back, having a grand time... Paradise Worlds do exist in the Imperium, after all... but that aspect of life is not represented by the table-top game and barely, if ever, touched by BL. More importantly, though, we have references in Codices and BL novels of gender equality in large swaths of life in the Imperium... in fact, there is a far stronger case for it than against it in most aspects... but this is not represented by the miniatures available, by and large, and is generally under-represented in a majority of BL fiction that isn't centered on Space Marines (in which case the preponderance of male characters is a given), and is further exacerbated by the tendency for the various female institutions, notably the Sororitas, to be used only as cannon fodder in order to escalate the on-page conflicts so that another, male force can come in and save the day. Even the recent GK/Sisters kerfluffle could have been written differently that would have permitted the sacrifice of the Sisters to have been depicted as incredibly brave (they were, in fact, more-pure than the supposedly-incorruptible GK), divinely sacrificial, and absolutely critical to the GK's success against the Bloodtide. Instead, while that is... kinda implied, if one can read into the actions, but you kind of need to be reading above the level at which it was written... what we got is basically some Sisters get killed by the GK because GK are better.

 Crimson wrote:
Are you serious?

Yes, he's quite serious. Ignore him, don't let him drag a good topic in to feminist-bashing yet again.

40k is actually already more egalitarian in many if not most regards than IRL is. Female Inquisitors are almost just as common as male ones; their armed forces recruit people regardless of gender; the best unaugmented human soldiers are female, not male; none of the high-ranking human authorities have restriction on gender, from governors, to arbites, to even the High Lords of Terra themselves.

Amusingly, GW really doesn't have to do much to satisfy many of the requests by feminists in this thread-- that is to say, all it really needs to do is make a few miniatures for the Imperial Guard and maybe include a few more notable females (especially primary characters) in its BL books. It's not like anyone's asking for fundamental changes to 40k. 40k is already fundamentaly more progressive than IRL.

When I design characters for fiction (RP, story, etc) I occasionally randomly swap their genders after I'm otherwise done designing them to avoid gender stereotypes.

I think GW still operates from "unless there is a specific reason for a character to be female, it will be male" perspective, which is annoying. This is especially true for miniatures themselves. All the IG soldiers are male, and even all aspect warriors that are not based on guardian models are male, unless they're Banshees where "being female" is part of their thing.

 Psienesis wrote:
This is not a subject that a simple poll is going to provide sufficient options for.

There are several female characters in the setting (several of the named characters of the Gaunt's Ghosts series are females, after all, including some of the unit's Scouts and Snipers). As mentioned in other threads, there's Inquisitor Amberly Vail. Shia Calpurnia, of the Enforcer series, is a female Arbiter, and the protagonist of the series. The Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader RPGs have plenty of female NPCs at all levels of society within the scope of each respective game.

The Ravenor and Eisenhorn series are filled with female characters, both protagonist and antagonist, as well as populating significant portions of the background. All of these characters are unique, separate, individual characters that are largely integral to the plot.

The Sisters of Battle? Yeah, they're an all-female religious order with gear that is reminiscent of various real-life examples of BDSM fetish-gear. Guess what? That real-life BDSM gear is reminiscent of religious attire, strongly centered around Catholicism. To accuse the SOB of being "leather nuns" is kind of putting the cart before the horse.

Remember that the Ecclesiarchy has female members on some worlds, and not on others. Not every woman in the Ecclesiarchy is a member of the Adeptus Sororitas. This is also true of the Imperial Guard, the Arbites, the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Adeptus Terra, and almost every other Imperial organization you can name, with the exception of the Adeptus Astartes and, it can be argued, the IST.

However, to flip the coin...

If a female character is depicted as being exactly as good as, in exactly the same ways as, a male character... what does the character's gender matter? Is something gained by the character having a pair of X chromosomes? Is this character not, really, just a male character "in drag"?

Why is it that male characters can get chopped up, but female characters cannot? That's a form of sexism in and of itself, though it can be in the other direction as well. I think you're overstating the case of Dark Eldar slave-victims, and missing the point of the Adeptus Sororitas entirely.

Fully agree with this. The Ravenor and Eisenhorn series are chock full of female characters that give a good solid representation of strong willful non victimized women.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
We don't need any more tumblrfeminists corrupting yet another decent setting. You guys basically already ruined MtG and vidya gaems.

Also, how about we don't have men getting thrown into a nearly literal meat grinder? Why can't we have a couple nice guys in the setting who just relax and have a good time?

Oh yeah because 40k is a nightmare future, not tumblr.

My, my what a charming fellow you must be! I'll bet you're quite a hit with all the young ladies in your middle school.

 Melissia wrote:
Amusingly, GW really doesn't have to do much to satisfy many of the requests by feminists in this thread-- that is to say, all it really needs to do is make a few miniatures for the Imperial Guard and maybe include a few more notable females (especially primary characters) in its BL books. It's not like anyone's asking for fundamental changes to 40k. 40k is already fundamentaly more progressive than IRL.

This. No one is saying 40k is wildly sexist or inherently misogynistic, simply that females could be better represented, and that if they were, the hobby might be more appealing to the women. We already know that the women are a part of the background (IG, Eldar, DE, SoB), we just don't get to see them featured very often either in stories or in model ranges. DE is the one real exception, with 2 named female characters and options for female sculpts for almost every model. There have just been simple, logical requests over the course of this thread, and none of them would radically change 40k, in fact they would all give the setting greater depth. I agree, some options for female IG troops, and a couple of featured female characters in BL would go a long way. Even better, make a named character in a codex or two; I'd love to see a female Farseer, or a Commissar or Colonel, or even an Inquisitor for GK.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:


We don't need any more tumblrfeminists corrupting yet another decent setting. You guys basically already ruined MtG and vidya gaems.

Also, how about we don't have men getting thrown into a nearly literal meat grinder? Why can't we have a couple nice guys in the setting who just relax and have a good time?

Oh yeah because 40k is a nightmare future, not tumblr.

Seriously, 40K is not, and should not be, a boys-only club, either in-setting or on the table-top. You *can* have a couple (or a lot) of folks just kicking back, having a grand time... Paradise Worlds do exist in the Imperium, after all... but that aspect of life is not represented by the table-top game and barely, if ever, touched by BL. More importantly, though, we have references in Codices and BL novels of gender equality in large swaths of life in the Imperium... in fact, there is a far stronger case for it than against it in most aspects... but this is not represented by the miniatures available, by and large, and is generally under-represented in a majority of BL fiction that isn't centered on Space Marines (in which case the preponderance of male characters is a given), and is further exacerbated by the tendency for the various female institutions, notably the Sororitas, to be used only as cannon fodder in order to escalate the on-page conflicts so that another, male force can come in and save the day.

So? The Imperial Guard is typically only used as cannon fodder in order to showcase the heroics of Spess Mehrens but I never really hear complaints about all that. But it must be because the Sororitas are female and therefore deserve special treatment right?

Even the recent GK/Sisters kerfluffle could have been written differently that would have permitted the sacrifice of the Sisters to have been depicted as incredibly brave (they were, in fact, more-pure than the supposedly-incorruptible GK), divinely sacrificial, and absolutely critical to the GK's success against the Bloodtide. Instead, while that is... kinda implied, if one can read into the actions, but you kind of need to be reading above the level at which it was written... what we got is basically some Sisters get killed by the GK because GK are better.

Grey Knights are the best of the best and basically irreplaceable. Sororitas are good troops but ultimately replaceable anyway. Also how do you get more pure than in-corruptable? Is it in-corruptable (x2)? This is where the whole argument falls apart to me at any rate.

 ragingmunkyz wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Amusingly, GW really doesn't have to do much to satisfy many of the requests by feminists in this thread-- that is to say, all it really needs to do is make a few miniatures for the Imperial Guard and maybe include a few more notable females (especially primary characters) in its BL books. It's not like anyone's asking for fundamental changes to 40k. 40k is already fundamentaly more progressive than IRL.

This. No one is saying 40k is wildly sexist or inherently misogynistic, simply that females could be better represented, and that if they were, the hobby might be more appealing to the women. We already know that the women are a part of the background (IG, Eldar, DE, SoB), we just don't get to see them featured very often either in stories or in model ranges. DE is the one real exception, with 2 named female characters and options for female sculpts for almost every model. There have just been simple, logical requests over the course of this thread, and none of them would radically change 40k, in fact they would all give the setting greater depth. I agree, some options for female IG troops, and a couple of featured female characters in BL would go a long way. Even better, make a named character in a codex or two; I'd love to see a female Farseer, or a Commissar or Colonel, or even an Inquisitor for GK.

There's already a female Inquisitor in the GK book.

Also if 40k is already much more egalitarian towards women, then what's the problem?

Well there was that sororitas in Cain's last stand who did jump around someone elses bed so i guess the sisters weren't all that repressed

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

There's already a female Inquisitor in the GK book.

And she doesn't have a model.

Vladsimpaler wrote:So? The Imperial Guard is typically only used as cannon fodder in order to showcase the heroics of Spess Mehrens but I never really hear complaints about all that. But it must be because the Sororitas are female and therefore deserve special treatment right?

You have it the wrong way around. Is it not "special treatment" if they are the faction that suffer more than the others? Even the Guard is credited with more important victories (understandable due to numerical differences) and less massacres/fails (this is where it gets weird). The IG is the underdog - but an underdog that is ultimately meant to pull through. That is what endears them to many, including me. Few people would like the Guard if they'd be "all fail".

Also, you seem to lack a certain understanding of what the role of both the Imperial Guard and the Battle Sisters is within the setting. The latter are not meant as cannon fodder, and thus also should not be treated as such - just like you would not treat Space Marines, their equals, in this manner.

Vladsimpaler wrote:Grey Knights are the best of the best and basically irreplaceable. Sororitas are good troops but ultimately replaceable anyway. Also how do you get more pure than in-corruptable? Is it in-corruptable (x2)? This is where the whole argument falls apart to me at any rate.

Everyone is replaceable.

Personally, I never had a problem with that particular incident, by the way. I simply rationalised it as the Grey Knights' incorruptability not being a fully innate ability, but rather something that may require paraphernalia to be used to full effect. Paraphernalia like the "blood of the innocent", the lifeforce of those whose faith and conviction had preserved their purity against taint. And the GKs are supposed to employ Warp Sorcery now, are they not?
Also, the incident goes to show that the Grey Knights, or ultimately the Inquisition as a whole, is uncompromising and does not shy back from slaughtering allied forces if it serves their interest. Makes sense to me.

Vladsimpaler wrote:Also if 40k is already much more egalitarian towards women, then what's the problem?

Are you actually reading the thread? It has been pointed out a few times by now.
-> missing miniatures and/or SC representing that which already exists in the background
-> once in a while, dropping a few hints in fluff bits like short stories or communiques found throughout the codices

Viersche wrote:Well there was that sororitas in Cain's last stand who did jump around someone elses bed so i guess the sisters weren't all that repressed

I told you, Mr. Morden!

You know what the problem with the internet is?

It's that you can't see me shaking my head in disgust at the act that I'm dignifying this post with a response.



40k is a hobby. More specifically it is a hobby grounded in fiction. Fictional characters, fictional places, fictional rules.

I know I risk sounding "sexist" by today's standards for saying this, but equality of the sexes is an illusion. I would say that equality in general is as well, but that's another discussion for another time.

I say this not to add fuel to a fire, but because the ONLY reason women are perceived the way they are today, is as a result of specific factors that took place in AMERICAN history in fairly recent history. It wasn't a terribly long time ago that women lived VERY different lives than they do now. And it's not because humanity has "evolved" or "progressed" at all... it's because socially and economically it became necessary for women to work in the place of men in post WWII America. This led to many women having jobs that would not otherwise have had, and after a few years, when the men returned to work the women were simply dismissed. This led to a feeling of abuse, which women rallied behind and started a series of movements that eventually resulted in them being given greater social responsibilities and "rights".

For all intents and purposes, the "equality" of women to men is a political issue. Politics exist in WH40k only as part of the background. It has no place in the spotlight. It would just tarnish the overall experience.

Besides, in a the fictional world of 40k, where daemons ravage worlds, psykers rip reality asunder, and giant hulks of men stride to battle in mechanical suits of space armor, the "norm" is pretty far removed from what it is in our world. What would a "normal" women do in 40k? probably just as the writers have already said that they do, with a few exceptions as noted in the books they appear in.

"nuns" as you so bluntly put it, are perfectly "normal" in that sense. If you try and apply our rules of normalcy to 40k, you'd end up with something like:

Codex: Mothers against drunk driving. (err.... mothers against drunk daemons).

En Excelsis wrote:It's that you can't see me shaking my head in disgust at the act that I'm dignifying this post with a response.

Perhaps you should have read the entire thread first before "dignifying" it, given that half your post was already debunked before you typed it.

Also, lol @ American history. Women have fought oppression for centuries across the world. I'm not sure how many people here actually assume that "men>women" is some sort of natural law or some silly thing like that, but looking at various cultures throughout the history of this planet, the rights of women have expanded and shrunk and expanded again for millennia. Even the division of the sexes in ancient hunter-gatherer society did not exist prior to the late stone age.

The US granted the right to vote to women way before WW2, by the way - and it was certainly not the first country to have done so, having been preceded by various European nations. The Soviet Union did a lot more for equality, too. Much more than the US would do for decades. I have no idea how you get the idea that this is somehow an "American thing".

I choose to ignore the fluff about the female bodies rejecting the geneseed and have added a squad of female marines to my army. I find it more pleasing to see the variety of people represented in my models than just guys all the time. Now if only the story would reflect that.

Does Warhammer Fantasy do a better job? I've only looked at Fantasy for bits, but the Wood Elves have normal looking females. Well normalish since they are elves.

 Lynata wrote:

En Excelsis wrote:It's that you can't see me shaking my head in disgust at the act that I'm dignifying this post with a response.

Perhaps you should have read the entire thread first before "dignifying" it, given that half your post was already debunked before you typed it.

Also, lol @ American history. Women have fought oppression for centuries across the world. I'm not sure how many people here actually assume that "men>women" is some sort of natural law or some silly thing like that, but looking at various cultures throughout the history of this planet, the rights of women have expanded and shrunk and expanded again for millennia. Even the division of the sexes in ancient hunter-gatherer society did not exist prior to the late stone age.

The US granted the right to vote to women way before WW2, by the way - and it was certainly not the first country to have done so, having been preceded by various European nations. The Soviet Union did a lot more for equality, too. Much more than the US would do for decades. I have no idea how you get the idea that this is somehow an "American thing".

I'm not sure why are you taking such a defensive approach to my statement, since it really isn't attacking anyone, and not you in specific to be sure.

Anyway, I don't recall stating anywhere in my post that the United States was the only country to experience a shift in gender roles. However I am an American and NOT a citizen of any other nations, thusly I am not qualified to give a detailed historical account of their cultural evolution and (out of respect) did not attempt to clump them all together. I in fact agree that the genders have gone back and forth a number of times throughout the ages. I'll pass completely on your statement about the Soviet Union and it's version of "equality". You either understand that or you don't. Nothing I can type on a forum will suddenly enlighten you there.

Also no one has debunked anything in this thread. It is a sharing of opinions about what role women could or should have in the fictional WH40k setting. Keyword there being opinions. You can no more debunk my opinion than I can clue you in on the realities of "Soviet Equality".

The world of warhammer 40k is supposed to be sexist. The world of 40k is a mixture of a dark ages/ inquisition era europe with futuristic technology. That odd mix is what makes the setting so unique and compelling. It is the same reason there are very few, if any openly gay characters, or other "minorities" (I really don't like that term, but you know what I mean). By making the setting more progressive, it ruins the dark feel of the setting. Besides, the majority of factions in 40k are portrayed in a mostly negative manner, so their sexism in know way makes sexism seem good, in the same way that their xenophobia or excessive violence is never thought to be positive.

With that said, I do think when it comes to areas of the cannon where sexuality is portrayed, 40k could do a better job with sticking to their canon rather than appealing to teenage boys. For example, Deamonette's, are supposed to be androgynous and yet they are more feminine looking except they are missing a single breast. So yes, in the few situations where games workshop decides to deal with gender, they could perhaps do it slightly better, but I do not think they should make the setting more progressive, as it would defeat the point of it.

En Excelsis wrote:I'm not sure why are you taking such a defensive approach to my statement, since it really isn't attacking anyone, and not you in specific to be sure.

Well, the post came along as somewhat derisive/dismissive. I suppose I can "lose my cool" from time to time on certain issues I have a strong opinion on, so I apologise if I was somewhat lacking in diplomacy there.

En Excelsis wrote:Anyway, I don't recall stating anywhere in my post that the United States was the only country to experience a shift in gender roles. However I am an American and NOT a citizen of any other nations, thusly I am not qualified to give a detailed historical account of their cultural evolution and (out of respect) did not attempt to clump them all together.

Fair enough - from your wording ("...a result of specific factors that took place in AMERICAN history..." ) it sounded like this "political movement" supposedly somehow originated in the US, and that the only reason that sexism/misogyny are even recognised as issues nowadays is a hypothetical pioneering role of the 'States.

En Excelsis wrote:Also no one has debunked anything in this thread. It is a sharing of opinions about what role women could or should have in the fictional WH40k setting.

Opinion based on what? Personal preferences, or what the books suggest? Because the books present a rather openminded society as far as sexuality is concerned, and posts such as these ... ->

smeezilla wrote:The world of warhammer 40k is supposed to be sexist.

<- ... suggest that some people have apparently neither read the previous posts in this thread (which have already discussed this), nor the books whose contents have been pointed out in said posts.

Honestly, it's almost like people are just looking at the Space Marines, and take their "all male" trait as "THE IMPERIUM HATES WOMEN!!"

Admittedly, the very nature of how the fluff in 40k is handled by the company renders everything we read a possibility or interpretation rather than some sort of truth, allowing us to pick and choose or dismiss and ignore as we wish. At the same time, however, deviating opinions should not be presented as fact. Someone might actually believe it. Lots of "urban myths" have spread throughout the community this way.

En Excelsis wrote:

I know I risk sounding "sexist" by today's standards for saying this, but equality of the sexes is an illusion. I would say that equality in general is as well, but that's another discussion for another time.

Oh, wow! Well, if the intent was to sound sexist, mission bloody accomplished!

So do you think things were better a century or two ago? That it was totally OK that women didn't have same rights as men?

 Crimson wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

There's already a female Inquisitor in the GK book.

And she doesn't have a model.

You're moving the goalpost. All the post asked for was a named female character, no mention of a model.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
Also if 40k is already much more egalitarian towards women, then what's the problem?

Because it's not represented very well on the tabletop or in the BL stories, even if it's there in the lore.

Actually, no... the thread *is* about female representation on the tabletop, not just in general fluff. The lack of female models is a significant portion of the thread's contents. As I've highlighted in a few posts, the fluff is not as misogynistic as it can be made out to be, taken in total (yes, SM books have few to no female protagonists... that's expected, SM are an entirely male organization, Sisters novels have few to no male protagonists... that's expected, the SoB are an entirely female organization). The tabletop, however, has few options for depicting the established egalitarian nature of the IoM.

If you're not playing a Sisters army, it can be damned hard to find female miniatures from GW to fit your Imperial armies.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
You're moving the goalpost.

The goalposts haven't been moved. You're just not paying any attention,

The models are exactly the issue!

We know that there are female IG soldiers in the fluff, but there are no models!
We know that there are female Primaris Psykers, but there are no models!
We know there is female Farseers and Warlocks, but there are no models!

I like GWs models, there are so many different kits and bits that you can create stunning variety of characters... except if you want to make a female character, then the options are truly limited.

what about the dark eldar? they seem pretty egalitarian. wyches don't seem too oppressed...

pax_imperialis wrote:
what about the dark eldar? they seem pretty egalitarian. wyches don't seem too oppressed...

Dark Eldar are certainly the best model range regarding the gender diversity.

yes they have the best range of women in the, eherm, workplace. I really like the dark eldar, despite them being "wafer thin". there's something so judas priest about them. when i see the model for the archon i just can't help but start singing "TWISTING, THE STRANGLED GRIP WON'T GIVE NO MERCY! FEELING, THOSE TENDONS RIP, TORN UP IN ME!" \m/

Hahah

I have to say, though, the old Wyches looked cooler than the new ones. More ... acrobatic rather than the new "brute force" design. Maybe I'm just too entrenched in the "elf" cliché, though.

Yeah... the Wytch Elves definitely have that mid-80s "metal chick" thing going on. Worse, though, is that it's mid-80s-Euro-metal-chick".... all fawning over Europeans, with their big hair-dos, instead of giving their money, where it belongs, to a decent American artist...

... er, sorry, fell into some Dead Milkmen there.

Your fault for bringing it up.

Those models are always good for a laugh!

i like where this thread is going. lusty 80's euro-metal babes.

... I need those for my current Fallout: Dark Heresy Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Exterminatus campaign. Like.... seriously.

I like it because it reminds me of Mad Max and Fist of the North Star.

And honestly, can anything that reminds me of either of those be bad?

Well yes, it can, but it has to really try!

Hey, I said fault, not vault...
The campaign sounds fun - are you running a Fallout game with DH rules, or is that more like Dark Heresy with a FO-themed (Warzone/Deathworld) scenario?

On a sidenote, I actually never noticed how detailed those Escher gang minis look like. Maybe it's just the paintjob, but check out the armour from the first gal. Awesome design.

PS: Mad Max ftw!

 Lynata wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:So? The Imperial Guard is typically only used as cannon fodder in order to showcase the heroics of Spess Mehrens but I never really hear complaints about all that. But it must be because the Sororitas are female and therefore deserve special treatment right?

You have it the wrong way around. Is it not "special treatment" if they are the faction that suffer more than the others? Even the Guard is credited with more important victories (understandable due to numerical differences) and less massacres/fails (this is where it gets weird). The IG is the underdog - but an underdog that is ultimately meant to pull through. That is what endears them to many, including me. Few people would like the Guard if they'd be "all fail".

Also, you seem to lack a certain understanding of what the role of both the Imperial Guard and the Battle Sisters is within the setting. The latter are not meant as cannon fodder, and thus also should not be treated as such - just like you would not treat Space Marines, their equals, in this manner.

Ever since their introduction, Sisters of Battle have been fairly Pyrrhic in their victories, it's what defines them. "Order of Our Martyred Lady" sound familiar?

Vladsimpaler wrote:Grey Knights are the best of the best and basically irreplaceable. Sororitas are good troops but ultimately replaceable anyway. Also how do you get more pure than in-corruptable? Is it in-corruptable (x2)? This is where the whole argument falls apart to me at any rate.

Everyone is replaceable.

Personally, I never had a problem with that particular incident, by the way. I simply rationalised it as the Grey Knights' incorruptability not being a fully innate ability, but rather something that may require paraphernalia to be used to full effect. Paraphernalia like the "blood of the innocent", the lifeforce of those whose faith and conviction had preserved their purity against taint. And the GKs are supposed to employ Warp Sorcery now, are they not?

Also, the incident goes to show that the Grey Knights, or ultimately the Inquisition as a whole, is uncompromising and does not shy back from slaughtering allied forces if it serves their interest. Makes sense to me.

Interesting about the first part and warp sorcery. I fully agree with the second part however.

Vladsimpaler wrote:Also if 40k is already much more egalitarian towards women, then what's the problem?

Are you actually reading the thread? It has been pointed out a few times by now.
-> missing miniatures and/or SC representing that which already exists in the background
-> once in a while, dropping a few hints in fluff bits like short stories or communiques found throughout the codices

So really it just boils down to wanting a few models? Trust me, if female models were popular (and not just enjoyed by a radical minority), GeeDubs would've had more of them.

 Melissia wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
You're moving the goalpost.

The goalposts haven't been moved. You're just not paying any attention,

Oh MAN you got me there.
Excuse me for ignoring all of the "BUT MUH RIGHTS" and "B-BUT MISOGYNY" and actually reading the dude's post as it was written.

DH in an FO-like world. Once a Hive world, got infiltrated by Chaos. Liberation Fleet arrives. Seven Imperial Saints (locally considered) arise to defeat Chaos. Chaos causes Hives to nuke one another. Warpstorm breaks out due to having a whole lotta people dying all at once. A thousand years later, Warp-storm is still there, survivors are scratching out a living, shattered remains of normal Imperial Adepti are having a go of it, but are torn by factionalism and in-fighting. One of the Ecclesiarchal factions happens to learn, through their seers, of a way to reincarnate one of the Saints. One of their members is what passes for an Inquisitor on this world... he just needs some Acolytes...

Hey if it helps anyone , Having served in combat with females in the Army , I can safely say, just imagine the stormtroopers or kasarkins with enclosed helmets are female, since in full gear and kit, the only way you can actually tell a male soldier from a female one at a distance is by their face, (and sometimes not even that)

Otherwise carry on.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
You're moving the goalpost. All the post asked for was a named female character, no mention of a model.

No, there was no goalpost moving, if you'd been paying any attention to the discussion and read all of my post, it should have been fairly obvious that I meant that should make the model. I actually even meant to type "the" Inquisitor for GK rather than "an" Inquisitor, but it should have been very apparent regardless. The lack of models has been the point of like half the posts. Please actually read before responding.

En Excelsis wrote:

I know I risk sounding "sexist" by today's standards for saying this, but equality of the sexes is an illusion. I would say that equality in general is as well, but that's another discussion for another time.

I say this not to add fuel to a fire, but because the ONLY reason women are perceived the way they are today, is as a result of specific factors that took place in AMERICAN history in fairly recent history. It wasn't a terribly long time ago that women lived VERY different lives than they do now. And it's not because humanity has "evolved" or "progressed" at all... it's because socially and economically it became necessary for women to work in the place of men in post WWII America. This led to many women having jobs that would not otherwise have had, and after a few years, when the men returned to work the women were simply dismissed. This led to a feeling of abuse, which women rallied behind and started a series of movements that eventually resulted in them being given greater social responsibilities and "rights".

You want to know what the real problem with the internet is?

It gives uninformed bigots a place to spread their nonsense.

Where to start with this? First of all, I wouldn't worry about sounding sexist, it seems pretty clear that you are sexist and you even seem to embrace it. Secondly, way to derail a thread that had been focused on a reasonable conversation on the role women play in 40k, and what roles they could play, by introducing your oh-so-enlightened take on the women's rights movement. Since you brought it there, I feel the need to point out the fallacies in your statement.

En Excelsis wrote:
However I am an American and NOT a citizen of any other nations, thusly I am not qualified to give a detailed historical account of their cultural evolution and (out of respect) did not attempt to clump them all together.

Fair enough, at least you admit that you don't know world history, so perhaps you weren't aware that the fight for women's rights has existed for many, many centuries and has been fought across the globe. Unfortunately, clearly have absolutely zero understanding of American history as well, so I'm afraid you're not really qualified to even speak to the American civil rights movement.

The American women's rights movement or "suffrage" movement, is generally accepted to have begun in 1848, with the Seneca Falls Convention, feel free to wiki that, its kind of a big deal. Note that the movement did not start because women suddenly got jobs in WWII and then when it was over they were all like "Wait, I like working, I want to do that some more." It "officially" started about a CENTURY earlier than that, although the earliest case involving women's rights in America occurred in the 1630's with Anne Hutchinson. They didn't "feel abused" they were abused. They had little control over their lives, almost no legal recourse against men (with regards to rapes, divorce, etc), no representation, and no vote. If they could get a job, they'd be paid half of what a man would get, and they often could not legally own property (contracts, deeds). They were second class citizens. Women wanted fair jobs well before there was economic pressure in WWII making them work, because they wanted independence. So I'm sorry, but your "theory" on how women's rights evolved in America is based in absolutely no facts, only in your own prejudice.

Anyways, back to relevant 40k discussions!

So really it just boils down to wanting a few models? Trust me, if female models were popular (and not just enjoyed by a radical minority), GeeDubs would've had more of them.

Mayhaps you should investigate, oh, I dunno, the *rest* of the miniatures world? Female Figs are very, very, *very* popular in other miniatures wargames, not to mention the figs released for standard RPGs, like Pathfinder or Dungeons & Dragons.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
Trust me

You have not earned that privilege.

 Psienesis wrote:
Mayhaps you should investigate, oh, I dunno, the *rest* of the miniatures world? Female Figs are very, very, *very* popular in other miniatures wargames, not to mention the figs released for standard RPGs, like Pathfinder or Dungeons & Dragons.

Well yes, but GW doesn't really do market research.

 Crimson wrote:

En Excelsis wrote:

I know I risk sounding "sexist" by today's standards for saying this, but equality of the sexes is an illusion. I would say that equality in general is as well, but that's another discussion for another time.

Oh, wow! Well, if the intent was to sound sexist, mission bloody accomplished!

So do you think things were better a century or two ago? That it was totally OK that women didn't have same rights as men?

I think it is very easy for people of this day and age to confuse terms that they personally have formed no associations with. Equality is almost always used in a legal, or political sense and is incorrectly imposed upon the social setting where it doesn't belong. Legally the distinction is perfectly acceptable. I quite like the fact that both genders can enjoy the same liberties and freedoms, but I would be a fool to think that every woman and every man should be the treated "equally" in every situation. Simply put that is a naïve or juvenile point of view. At the very lest it is uneducated.

My region of the country was recently truck by a series of back-to-back blizzards and thunderstorms. We received a large amount of snowfall that literally shut down the city for a day. Some areas were without power, but not for very long. The company that I work for shut down early and sent everyone home about mid day during the first storm. We had already received nearly 12" of snow by that time and it caused a LOT of problems for folks as the scrambled to get home. There were quite a few accidents.

As I was leaving the building and heading my usual parking lot, my workmates and I noticed that a good deal of people had gotten their cars pretty well stuck in the snow, and were not only unable to leave themselves, but were preventing other people from leaving behind them. We quickly banded together and started helping people out as best we could. Some of us helped push the stuck vehicles while others helped drive or navigate the people who were stuck. It took nearly two hours for everyone to leave the parking area before my mates and I left ourselves.

I am proud to say that we were VERY sexist in our approach. We made sure that all the women were given priority. We made sure that they did not have to get out in the snow and get their feet wet in the heavy snow to push heavy cars around. We guided them out first, making sure to give them safety instructions before moving on the stuck men, who in some cases waited over an hour for our help.

I don't feel bad at all that I intentionally drew a line between men and women. That I issued them different treatment. I would do it again if the situation called for it.

This comes back around to that false sense of entitlement I mentioned earlier. I don't recall a single woman complaining that she was given preferential treatment. I don't think any of them bothered to rally behind the men who were clearly being forced to wait longer for help "just because they were men". They happily took the special favors that helped them move along more quickly.

Now, given my social insight to the people I live and work with every day... I can promise you that many of those same women, if they even caught the scent of "sexism" in the office, would literally single a flag and rally behind to defend their gender from "inequality".

It's a double edged sword, and a sharp one. By the social definition, I am quite sexist. I have been, currently am, and will be for the foreseeable future. I will continue to distinguish between the genders and treat them quite differently. Yet at the same time, I have no plans to infringe upon the legal rights of either.

Since WH40k is strictly a social part of my life, and one that I play almost exclusively with my mates. I don't really feel that it needs to conform to any of the rigid legal guidelines regarding gender equality. While I don't personally think WH40k is even remotely sexist, I firmly believe that if it wanted to be it should have every right. It's a piece of fiction, of fantasy. In the real world, I have to put up with LOTS of things that I don't like... in my fantasy I can be as misogynistic I damn well please, and since it's a freakin' fantasy, not a soul out there has a right to complain.

Every honest man has had a fantasy about being with more than one woman (or at least enough men have that this analogy still works). And when you are playing that scene out in your mind you don't round out the figures and think "hey there are 10 women in my room, statistically 1 in 10 of them should be a minority of such and such ethnic decent." That never happens... your fantasy plays out however the hell it does.

However, I am getting off topic.

As it pertains to 40k, I think that the current amount of "sexism" is perfecting fitting given the setting, the characters, and the fact that it's a work of fiction. Also remember that it's a game designed to sell plastic models of fictional toy soldier to men between the ages of 13 and 40 who will "battle" each other by rolling cups of dice back and forth. Think about that. IF GW made any changes to the role females play in their game, it would be to attract more men, and would probably not portray women in a light that they would be particularly fond of. (but it would help sales )

Which is not an argument for the status quo.

En Excelsis wrote:This comes back around to that false sense of entitlement I mentioned earlier. I don't recall a single woman complaining that she was given preferential treatment. I don't think any of them bothered to rally behind the men who were clearly being forced to wait longer for help "just because they were men". They happily took the special favors that helped them move along more quickly.
Now, given my social insight to the people I live and work with every day... I can promise you that many of those same women, if they even caught the scent of "sexism" in the office, would literally single a flag and rally behind to defend their gender from "inequality".

And what does that have to do with gender?

You're not trying to propagate the idea that it is a "female thing" to readily accept benefits yet complain about perceived injustice, do you? Because I assure you, there are many men (even on this very forum) who have voiced their dissatisfaction regarding things like positive discrimination or some courts' autmatic preference for mothers when it comes to child custody, just like there are many men who are quite happy with the continueing (but slowly declining) advantage they have in other sectors of social life and business (also voiced on this very forum).
If you do not recognise that this is a -human- thing, I guess you're really just biased.

En Excelsis wrote:As it pertains to 40k, I think that the current amount of "sexism" is perfecting fitting given the setting, the characters, and the fact that it's a work of fiction.

As has been pointed out numerous times, the Imperium as written in GW's material is not sexist, regardless of how much you would like that to be. It's rather that the current range of miniatures as well as the frequency in fluff do not represent the society well, by omitting the women that the books have already said should be there.

"On the most war-torn planets, the entire population is destined for a military life; the recruiting and birth rates are synonymous."
- 6E Rulebook p.148

The most obvious example of the above would be the Cadians, also the current "default" IG regiment, yet made up entirely of male soldiers if you go by the box.
It is an oddity and inconsistency between how the setting is described in the fiction, and how it is then represented by its miniatures and rules.

En Excelsis wrote:
in my fantasy I can be as misogynistic I damn well please, and since it's a freakin' fantasy, not a soul out there has a right to complain.

Of course people have a right to complain. "But it's just my fantasy" isn't an absolute defense. Imagine if GW decided to release an army composed of a white HQ and a bunch of black slaves to use as human wave attacks and meatshields (complete with chains and a white "sergeant" in every unit). Would this be offensive? Would people have a right to complain? Of course they would.

And no, your fantasy isn't as bad as that extreme example. But it does have consequences. Don't forget that women might want to play the game too, and by insisting on your "fantasy" you push them away from it.

Also remember that it's a game designed to sell plastic models of fictional toy soldier to men between the ages of 13 and 40 who will "battle" each other by rolling cups of dice back and forth. Think about that. IF GW made any changes to the role females play in their game, it would be to attract more men, and would probably not portray women in a light that they would be particularly fond of. (but it would help sales )

GW's insane marketing decisions and complete refusal to consider any other audience is not justification. A sensible company would understand that women are also a potential market and take appropriate action.

 Melissia wrote:
Which is not an argument for the status quo.

I suppose not.

But think of it like this: If 40k were your brain child, and you had envisioned it the way it currently is. Does it even matter that a few peeps would like to see a few more female models?

Hell why stop there. Why not make two versions of every model. One male and one female. That way everyone can arrange their armies in whatever combination of genders they like. The time-tempered concept of supply vs demand be damned right?

 ragingmunkyz wrote:


You want to know what the real problem with the internet is?

It gives uninformed bigots a place to spread their nonsense.

Anyways, back to relevant 40k discussions!

Gosh I forgot what a wonderful and decent place the internet is. I must have missed the memo that went out saying how it's suddenly home to such enlightened fellows as yourself who resolve every conflict of interests by resorting to name-calling. You'll have to pardon my ignorance oh great historically enlightened one.

Honestly... did you just Wikipedia random events involving women and then list them off as though there were all the start of some sort of over-arcing movement? wow... I bow to your superior understanding of history.

Since I am apparently a sexist bigot anyway though, I may as well turn it around on you.

If this topic is really just about how GW should throw the ladies a bone and cast a few new models so they can "fem" up their armies a bit. How do you honestly think that the real world population of females would respond? Does having a few more female models suddenly make the game better? And do the currently existing female models in ANY way embody a sense of gender equality? You'd be literally mad to think so.

Take Lilith Hesperax for example. She's an almost entirely naked elf woman of unrealistic proportions bouncing around a battlefield of oddly modest IG, SM, Tau, and even Eldar.

The female models that currently exist in the game are not marketed towards women in search of gender equality in table top games. They're marketed to 13 year old boys. Any additional female models they cast will probably also be marketed to the same demographic. So while you're think up new an ingenious ways to accuse me of being sexist and unfair to women, think a little bit first about how adding more half-naked Barbie warriors models to the line up is going to improve anything.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


GW's insane marketing decisions and complete refusal to consider any other audience is not justification. A sensible company would understand that women are also a potential market and take appropriate action.

I would like to think that GW's ultimate goal is to make money. And like most companies, they have a shark-like nose for it. If there were money to be made from doing something, they would be doing it. As a company I don't think they need more justification than that

En Excelsis wrote:
But think of it like this: If 40k were your brain child, and you had envisioned it the way it currently is. Does it even matter that a few peeps would like to see a few more female models?

Good question. Is it better to sell more models or to exclude potential customers and sell fewer models?

Hell why stop there. Why not make two versions of every model. One male and one female. That way everyone can arrange their armies in whatever combination of genders they like. The time-tempered concept of supply vs demand be damned right?

Nice straw man. Nobody is arguing for perfect 50/50 equality with every single model having male and female versions. Now can we limit the conversation to the reasonable proposals people actually do suggest?

Does having a few more female models suddenly make the game better?

Sure it does. The fact that it doesn't necessarily make it better enough to offset finecast/insane prices/mistreatment of independent retailers/etc doesn't mean that it wouldn't be an improvement.

And do the currently existing female models in ANY way embody a sense of gender equality?

You realize that's part of the problem, right?

The female models that currently exist in the game are not marketed towards women in search of gender equality in table top games. They're marketed to 13 year old boys. Any additional female models they cast will probably also be marketed to the same demographic. So while you're think up new an ingenious ways to accuse me of being sexist and unfair to women, think a little bit first about how adding more half-naked Barbie warriors models to the line up is going to improve anything.

Yeah, this makes complete sense.

GW wants to add female figures to make the game more appealing to women --> GW completely forgets about women and instead asks what 13 year old boys want --> GW produces more sexist garbage.

What about how a sensible company would do it?

GW wants to add female figures to make the game more appealing to women --> GW asks what women want --> GW produces reasonable female models.

Luckily for the Imperium, there was a woman to create the technology for the Astronomicon.

En Excelsis wrote:
Equality is almost always used in a legal, or political sense and is incorrectly imposed upon the social setting where it doesn't belong.

WOW.

I don't even know how to respond to that one. I'm trying to imagine what the world would look like if people who thought like this made all the rules, and it's pretty terrifying. You realize that all of those things - legal, political and social - are intrinsically linked, right? Or maybe you just think that women should be able to vote, just so long as they stay in the kitchen. I'm going to quote you a little something, brace your self, its from "history times."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Thats the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. Now of course it was poorly applied at the time, as it really meant land-owning white men, but the philosophy with which those words were conceived remains strong. The idea is that equality is so much more than a legal or political notion. Its something which we all fundamentally have a right to. The laws aren't there to impose equality. They're there to protect equality.

En Excelsis wrote:
You'll have to pardon my ignorance oh great historically enlightened one.

Honestly... did you just Wikipedia random events involving women and then list them off as though there were all the start of some sort of over-arcing movement? wow... I bow to your superior understanding of history.

Did I have to wikipedia Seneca Falls? Literally the single most recognizable and historically significant moment in the women's suffrage movement? No. See, I went to this place called a "college," where you can participate in these things called "classes," and there you can learn about a variety of subjects like "History," "Political Science," and "Gender Studies." Maybe if you also took some time to educate yourself you would become a better informed human being and you wouldn't have such incredibly misguided theories on history and civil rights.

It's not like I just randomly showed up and started throwing some facts around, you presented a version of history which literally never happened, and I pointed out how very wrong you were. You got called out, its what happens when you don't know what you're talking about. I love your response though. It essentially sounds like this: "Hey, everybody! Look at this guy! He actually knows stuff! I bet he had to read things! What a loser, amirite!?"

Maybe if you also read, oh I don't know, the first couple of pages in this thread, you would realize that I and several others have already discussed your incredibly clever response on female models. But, boy, oh boy you sure turned it around on me!

En Excelsis wrote:
If this topic is really just about how GW should throw the ladies a bone and cast a few new models so they can "fem" up their armies a bit. How do you honestly think that the real world population of females would respond? Does having a few more female models suddenly make the game better? And do the currently existing female models in ANY way embody a sense of gender equality? You'd be literally mad to think so.

Take Lilith Hesperax for example. She's an almost entirely naked elf woman of unrealistic proportions bouncing around a battlefield of oddly modest IG, SM, Tau, and even Eldar.

The female models that currently exist in the game are not marketed towards women in search of gender equality in table top games. They're marketed to 13 year old boys. Any additional female models they cast will probably also be marketed to the same demographic. So while you're think up new an ingenious ways to accuse me of being sexist and unfair to women, think a little bit first about how adding more half-naked Barbie warriors models to the line up is going to improve anything.

I'll give you the bullet points of the previous discussions, since you haven't even bothered to read anything before responding to a thread because you assumed it was all about how GW was sexist.
- No one is asking them to "fem" up their armies, just make models to represent the women which the fluff says are already in those armies
- I, and several others do think it would make the game better, it would add depth to the game, support the fluff, and give us more fun models to assemble, paint and play with.
- Of the current models, some do and some don't represent gender equality, as covered earlier. Lelith Hesperax's model isn't that bad, DE are supposed to be lean and lithe, and she's also running around amongst other dark eldar men who are shirtless/shoeless/have lots of exposed flesh. Its DE, they aren't modest, it fits.
- We aren't just asking GW to make new female models, we're asking them to make female models that aren't absurdly and unnecessarily sexual.

En Excelsis wrote:
I must have missed the memo that went out saying how it's suddenly home to such enlightened fellows as yourself who resolve every conflict of interests by resorting to name-calling

I don't think it was name calling, in fact I technically didn't even refer to you specifically, though implications may have been made. Either way, it's a true statement. You are uninformed, you've proved it in every post with straw man arguments, wild assumptions, and made up history. You also outright state that you are against social equality, so, yes, I suppose that makes you a bigot.

Please go back under your bridge now.

En Excelsis wrote:
But think of it like this: If 40k were your brain child, and you had envisioned it the way it currently is. Does it even matter that a few peeps would like to see a few more female models?

Yes. Because 40k tabletop having a few more female models would make it more representative of the way it currently is depicted in the fluff. It represents that the Imperial Guard is made up of the masses of humanity, conscripted without care for extenuating circumstances. That the Schola Progenium produces exceptional people regardless of gender, as shown by numerous examples in the lore of female commissars and the like. It shows that the psyker gene doesn't care for gender, just like in the lore-- in fact, some of the most powerful psykers in human history, the most dangerous alpha-plus, were a pair of creepy little girls. It represents that the Eldar are a society where gender is mostly irrelevant save for reproduction. It would represent that the Inquisition takes only those of indomitable will, regardless of background, to defend humanity against threats from within,from without, and from beyond. It would represent in the Tau (even just including more female special characters but NOT making it physically obvious that they are female) that they have an entire caste that is dedicated wholly and utterly to the making of war on land. It would represent in the forces of Chaos that the dedication of cultists, and the insanity of their dedication and belief in their god, is more important than something the chaos gods don't likely even understand or care about in the first place, like gender.

Tell me, did adding new female models to Dark Eldar make that race worse? Hell no, they were some of the most prized models of the new army! The fanbase fething loved it. There's a market out there you know. GW's incompetence doesn't mean that there isn't. And some of us actually give a gak about the lore. You might not, but I certainly do, and I would love to see GW release more models to better represent the massive, and massively interesting, lore that's already there.

Defo be cool to see women guardsmen, like vasquez from aliens. Totally agree with you melissia, only just read ghostmaker as of last night, lelith is freakin badass. Im a bit rusty on lore, but aren't several of the progenoid glands male specific? So no chick marines maybe?

Marines are male-only, but the way GW tried to justify it is lame and unscientific, so I'd really rather not derail; this thread with that discussion

 Melissia wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
Trust me

You have not earned that privilege.

So what do you have to do to earn that privilege?

Like, foot massages?

 Melissia wrote:
Marines are male-only, but the way GW tried to justify it is lame and unscientific, so I'd really rather not derail; this thread with that discussion

To be fair the entire 40k setting is pretty unscientific. It is sci-fi after all.

Well it's science fantasy really, but even 40k has things that make sense in scientific terms. Such as the effect lasguns have on people-- when hot enough, a laser would literally superheat body fluids (blood, etc) on the point of impact, creating massive, nasty wounds and NOT cauterizing the wound, creating a wound as nasty as any high caliber rifle or heavy machinegun. So one can easily see such a nasty weapon killing people in one hit, even marines and Orks.

And while boltguns are silly in some regard, there is actually a good reason to have such a weapon design-- even if it's not utilized by the Astartes. Namely, a two-stage weapon like a boltgun could be very accurate over long ranges and have much longer range than a standard bullet (which is why there's rocket-assisted artillery in the real world, often making use of laser guidance and the like to increase accuracy making it almost pinpoint accurate).

I don't play the TT game so i can't say modelwise but there is no shortage of well written female characters.

As far as BL and fluff goes goes, you normally wouldn't be able to tell the gender of characters without the book saying which gender it was.

Ex. Inquisitor Adrastia, Lieutenant Mira, Tona Criid, Patience Kys.

Nobody who dies in the name of the Emporer dies in vain, be they man, woman, or on death worlds children.

 Crimson wrote:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

There's already a female Inquisitor in the GK book.

And she doesn't have a model.

Neither do Tyranid Mycetic Spores, and they've been around four times longer.

Is 40K also unacceptably biased against 25-ft high chitinous spore pods?

 Melissia wrote:
Well it's science fantasy really, but even 40k has things that make sense in scientific terms. Such as the effect lasguns have on people-- when hot enough, a laser would literally superheat body fluids (blood, etc) on the point of impact, creating massive, nasty wounds and NOT cauterizing the wound, creating a wound as nasty as any high caliber rifle or heavy machinegun. So one can easily see such a nasty weapon killing people in one hit, even marines and Orks.

And while boltguns are silly in some regard, there is actually a good reason to have such a weapon design-- even if it's not utilized by the Astartes. Namely, a two-stage weapon like a boltgun could be very accurate over long ranges and have much longer range than a standard bullet (which is why there's rocket-assisted artillery in the real world, often making use of laser guidance and the like to increase accuracy making it almost pinpoint accurate).

Sorry just a 13F chiming in, but RAP (Rocket Assisted Projectiles) are horribly inaccurate compared to standard, and the copperhead has been replaced by the Excalibur (GPS guided round) and while the RAP rounds do add a considerable boost to a artillery systems range it also makes it dangerous to fire into a danger close enviroment, carry on.

I've always seen 40K as entirely asexual.

 Miraclefish wrote:

Neither do Tyranid Mycetic Spores, and they've been around four times longer.

Is 40K also unacceptably biased against 25-ft high chitinous spore pods?

Possibly, but because there is only one example of a missing model for a chitinous spore pod it is hard to draw definite conclusions. However, there is a really long list of missing models for females that do exist in the fluff.

I do wish that both females and chitinous spore pods would be better represented in the model range.

Ive read through most of this thread and i have to agree there arent enough female models in 40k. Female guardsmen would be gratefully received by most i think. But having said this i cannot agree with the derision that some of the existing/past sculpts have been given, especially regarding SoB and necromunda Escher.

Earlier someone posted a picture of escher gangers. If you have ever painted these models then you will probably know that the sculpting of these models is good and some specific models are fantastically sculpted. A lot of the flak that they get is due to the overly colourful paint jobs that the 'eavy metal team gave them back in the mid 90's. If you take away the garish colours, and replace them with a more up-to-date scheme of neutrals and realistic colours then these models look great. I know they are still not "normal" as they are very punky looking, but that is a taste issue rather than a sculpt issue. There are far far far worse sculpts than these particularly regarding non-armoured "normal" humans (look at the current Catachan range for instance, they are terrible particularly the plastics). Im currently in the process of amassing an all-female IG ally force for my SoB army using, primarily Escher models, with a smattering of other models such as the missile launcher carrying woman from the Last Chancers and from other manufacturers, such as Copplestone Castings.

One thing that the Escher models and the SoB models suffer from is un-dynamic poses due to the casting restrictions at the time of sculpting. The current SoB models are in general 10-15year old sculpts, the Escher sculpts are even older. The standard SoB models have a great level of detail on them and arent as Fetish-y as people let on. Especially if not given a "leather" look paint job. This said, the repentia models are a definite exception, as well at the mistress repentia. Both of which arent great in my opinion as they lack realistic proportions.

I would like to see IG-females sculpted along the lines of the last chancer missile launcher. See below:


She looks exactly how i would imagine a guardswoman to look. Drab, un-remarkable, tough but obviously a woman. Much like a Vasquez-like figure. I dont see woman in the IG being overtly feminine or standing out from their male counterparts. For authority figures or charcters i see sculpts like the female inquisitor with slightly less crazy hair being a nice place to start. Sophisticated looking but not too over the top (except hair as stated):



I think GW have struggled with sculpting female models in the last few years, especially when you look at the old wych models, but the newest female sculpts are much better (new wych plastics, current inquistor above, Valkia the Bloody), so they can produce the models they just arent for other reasons. If the were to produce current technology plastics/finecast for female guardsmen, characters, cultists, inquisition and maybe Tau, then i believe the models could be very good, but from fluff reasons i cant see very many other areas (i am happy to stand corrected) where female models would fit into the fluff and the current army lists.

Escher models are indeed excellent, and a good starting point for IG soldiers or Chaos cultists.

However, I think the main strength of GWs model range is the the multipart plastic kits, as those allow wide array of customisation and mixing and matching bits, and that is the area where the problem is. There just is no plastic human female models of any sort at all.

The other element, of course, is market forces.

There are very few girls, relatively, who play 40K. Potentially adding more female rank-and-file as well as character models would add some, but would it generate enough sales to counter the cost of additional development, sculpting, mould creation etc?

And would those figures/characters sell to male gamers also? Maybe, sure.

It's a bit chicken and egg, the models aren't there, so the demand isn't. The demand isn't there, so the models aren't.

All said and done, 40K is much more equal and egalitarian than 2K, so I don't feel like it's an issue. When real life catches up and exceeds 40K, then it is.

In books about Space Marines, female characters will always be secondary whether as supporting cast or antagonists. The rest of the 40k franchise can easily support female characters. The trouble is that fans think of the franchise as an alternate universe rather than IP. As a fictional universe, we probably wouldn't go far wrong in assuming that 50% of everyone involved is female. As IP expressed via product, it's closer to 10% of everyone being female. Think of this in terms of Space Marines: In-universe, only an infinetsimal percentage of humans are Space Marines. That number is tremendously over represented in terms of the product line. This is because 40k is basically a game about Space Marines. Whoever they fight with or against is generally a secondary matter, as I said.

The recent exception to this, or so the rumors go, is that IG outsold Marines the year before the DE release. But even if that's true, it doesn't seem to have happened again or to have been supported by GW.

Anyway, the point is that there's really no reason that the product line needs to be representative of the fluff. The fluff is only there in the first place to help market the products. Only with regard to BL are product and fluff genuinely the same thing. Unsurprisingly, this (along with the RPG) is where 40k is its most inclusive.

 Miraclefish wrote:
The other element, of course, is market forces.

There are very few girls, relatively, who play 40K. Potentially adding more female rank-and-file as well as character models would add some, but would it generate enough sales to counter the cost of additional development, sculpting, mould creation etc?

And would those figures/characters sell to male gamers also? Maybe, sure. It's a bit chicken and egg, the models aren't there, so the demand isn't. The demand isn't there, so the models aren't. .

Most of the female models that I have seen on the table top have been fielded by men - often big strapping men - but men I have loads...... make of that what you will!

Those female models that have been produced recently - for instance the Dark Eldar - I think I am right in saying they met with universal aclaim - especially Lelieth. Unlike say the new Space marine flyers, the new demons etc which tend to have as many detractors as supporters

There are plenty of awesome female models in:

Warmachine / Hordes
Malifeux

They don't seem to be suffering or having problems selling them? In fact a very high proportion of their range are female?

I also have no problem with the present SOB / Escher models - I was using my Sisters last night and only narrowly lost................

 Miraclefish wrote:
There are very few girls, relatively, who play 40K. Potentially adding more female rank-and-file as well as character models would add some, but would it generate enough sales to counter the cost of additional development, sculpting, mould creation etc?

More likely than not, yes.

It's not just women that want these models. Female soldier models are quite popular in non-GW lines (look at Infinity for example, and plenty of other places), and there's very little reason to think that 40k would be an exception to this.

I'm just gonna toss out my two bolter shells.

If you don't like the supposed lack of women in the fluff, write your own. My homebrew Space Marines are going to have two Land Raiders named after women and their Fortress built where these women lived. Now, how can Land Raiders be named after women? Easy. They performed an act that inspires Space Marines. I'm going to try and make it a full short story with character development and everything.

Also, look at fluff reasons... SM implants only work with the male physiology. That's not sexism, that's genetics. Orks have no gender, Necrons are skeletal. >.>

Neutralista wrote:
SM implants only work with the male physiology. That's not sexism, that's genetics.

Dude, don't even fething start. The Space Marine implants and physiology/genetics bullgak is anything but scientific.

A brother and sister have closer genetics than two non-familial men do, yet one is supposed to believe that the genetic implants, which are picky based off of genetics, work better on those who are LESS genetically similar than those who are more. Despite the fact that it says otherwise. The Y-gene really doesn't code for much (it's a very tiny gene and basically just codes for male genitalia, and things not related to that are also coded for in the X gene, which the Y gene is derived from), and women use the exact same hormones and the like as men do-- yes, women use testosterone and steroids in their body. In fact, testosterone is more important to a developing female then it is to a developing male, and women who lack it are hit much harder than men who lack it.

There is no science behind limiting Space Marines to male-only for biological reasons. Games Workshop is not staffed by scientists, they don't know what the feth they're talking about. It's a cultural thing amongst the Imperium to have space marine be only men, nothing more. And that's really enough reason. It's the same reason that there's no "male Sisters of Battle"-- the Imperium's culture demands that there be no such thing, so there isn't. Don't try to bring pseudoscience in to the discussion. It just sounds stupid.

Well thats just the way its written. If it bothers you that much then maybe its time to look for another table top wargame. Though it may seem ridiculous to some I highly doubt they will retcon 30 years of canon to make a small minority in the community happy.

Its just the way things are, for better or for worse.

 Thatguy91 wrote:
Well thats just the way its written. If it bothers you that much then maybe its time to look for another table top wargame. Though it may seem ridiculous to some I highly doubt they will retcon 30 years of canon to make a small minority in the community happy.

I never asked for a retcon to make female space marines.

I only stated that GW's reasoning is stupid with a side of stupid. And it is.

 Thatguy91 wrote:
Its just the way things are, for better or for worse.

That argument?

Yeah...

That still continues to fail to be a good argument for the status quo.

I'm not arguing. I'm merely stating my opinion. I would love to have some female models in my armies, it would really add some flavor but unfortunately we have to do without.

Just because people aren't with you doesn't mean they are against you. If you honestly want to make a difference and try to make a change then I doubt arguing on an online forum is the right way to go about it.

 Thatguy91 wrote:
I'm not arguing. I'm merely stating my opinion. I would love to have some female models in my armies, it would really add some flavor but unfortunately we have to do without.

Just because people aren't with you doesn't mean they are against you. If you honestly want to make a difference and try to make a change then I doubt arguing on an online forum is the right way to go about it.

I send GW emails and the like. But they don't pay attention to fans, and they don't DO market research.

Still despite this, the more it is talked about, the more likely someone in GW will take notice. Therefor it gets talked about. And it will continue to get talked about.

 Melissia wrote:

Still despite this, the more it is talked about, the more likely someone in GW will take notice. Therefor it gets talked about. And it will continue to get talked about.

This is true. Unfortunately the only time GW seem to change anything in the fluff is when they get a writer with the balls to make changes and as we have come to realize that isn't always a good thing.. *Cough* Matt Ward *Cough*

 Melissia wrote:

 Thatguy91 wrote:
Well thats just the way its written. If it bothers you that much then maybe its time to look for another table top wargame. Though it may seem ridiculous to some I highly doubt they will retcon 30 years of canon to make a small minority in the community happy.

I never asked for a retcon to make female space marines.

I only stated that GW's reasoning is stupid with a side of stupid. And it is.

 Thatguy91 wrote:
Its just the way things are, for better or for worse.

That argument?

Yeah...

That still continues to fail to be a good argument for the status quo.

Sooner or later you will tire of your own argument. The status quo as you are clearly very fond of saying, is not in need of justification. If you do not like it... too bad? GW is not forcing you to purchase their models or gather with friends at your FLGS. If you do that at all it's because you enjoy it. If you stop enjoying it, stop doing it. YOU are responsible for the status quo, not GW.

Like it or not, women are not a large enough part of the wargaming demographic to be catered to by a company whose sole product base is wargaming. It is silly to assume that GW as a company should create a lineup of models marketed toward 5% or less of their potential buyers. I honestly don't think that sexism is a factor, just marketing.

 Mr Morden wrote:


There are plenty of awesome female models in:

Warmachine / Hordes
Malifeux

I wouldn't go that far. I do applaud PP for it's better-than-average inclusion of women in the setting, in both leadership and non-leadership roles. I also love the general artistic direction of the game as well. However I find the number of female models they have that I would really call "Awesome" is somewhat limited. PP seriously has an issue with Boob-Plate, Combat Heels & Inability to wear armor that covers the vitals. There is maybe 1/5 female miniatures that does not have at least one of these issues.

Sometimes If something like eDenny is trying lampshape it (she got cut in half RIGHT across the area where her armor didn't cover her midriff), but that's probably giving them too much credit. It really wouldn't excuse some of the more eye-rolling stuff they have.

I mean they've got a handful of female sculpts I really like - The Female Gunmage comes to mind. However PP is certainly far from perfection though given they've got a whole "Elf Cleavage" faction.

I can similarly Applaud malifaux for the inclusion of women, but still question some design choices. Like when they have those undead hunters that all take on a ghoulish appearance as a result of their trade, except for the female character she's a hotty in super-tight low-cut pants and t-shirt a size too small.

Of course, if you're the kind of person who doesn't mind combat heels, boob-plate or the like the ranges are a godsend.

En Excelsis wrote:
Sooner or later you will tire of your own argument.

I've been making this argument for close to ten years. Ain't gotten tired of it yet, buddy-boy.

En Excelsis wrote:
The status quo as you are clearly very fond of saying, is not in need of justification.

Yes, it is. It is logically fallacious to say that "things are the way they are and therefor they should stay this way." The status quo is not a logically sound justification for the continuation of the status quo, it never has been and it never will be.

En Excelsis wrote:

Like it or not, women are not a large enough part of the wargaming demographic to be catered to by a company whose sole product base is wargaming. It is silly to assume that GW as a company should create a lineup of models marketed toward 5% or less of their potential buyers. I honestly don't think that sexism is a factor, just marketing.

I'm pretty damn sure that it is not only women who wish there were more female models.

The only people tired of the argument, are those who don't understand it. It's a tireless argument to be had, because those who argue against it are part of an inexhaustible system of ignorance.

 Crimson wrote:

En Excelsis wrote:

Like it or not, women are not a large enough part of the wargaming demographic to be catered to by a company whose sole product base is wargaming. It is silly to assume that GW as a company should create a lineup of models marketed toward 5% or less of their potential buyers. I honestly don't think that sexism is a factor, just marketing.

I'm pretty damn sure that it is not only women who wish there were more female models.

Not just more, but better qualify. Even just looking for minis when I run RPGs is a trial. For every 20 bare-chested pouty-lipped elves I can't even find 1 woman in armor and sensible shoes.

 Melissia wrote:
I only stated that GW's reasoning is stupid with a side of stupid.

All in-universe explanations are horse gak so far as real life reason goes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chongara wrote:
sensible shoes

The number one feature of top selling miniatures.

En Excelsis wrote:


Like it or not, women are not a large enough part of the wargaming demographic to be catered to by a company whose sole product base is wargaming. It is silly to assume that GW as a company should create a lineup of models marketed toward 5% or less of their potential buyers. I honestly don't think that sexism is a factor, just marketing.

Uh, what about us men who want female troopers in our IG squads but aren't very good at converting, or don't want an army made of 12 pounds of greenstuff? Or a female Inquisitor without crazy hair? Women in carapace? Where's my Judge Anderson and Judge Hershey Arbiter figs? Judge Beeny?

Marketing, incidentally, by its very nature, is sexist. This is how we are convinced that all women must love the color pink, because everything made for them is pink. That you are not a "real man" if you are not spending $500 on *these* flowers and *this* bracelet and *this* box of chocolates for her on Valentine's Day, because that is what "real men" do, and don't you want to be a "real man"? That *this* motorized vehicle will compensate for your... performance issues.

Currently, and historically, yes, 40K is a male-dominated game. This has been true in every format that RPGs (and miniature wargaming is most certainly an RPG) have taken in the last 40 years. That, however, has been changing, slowly, in the 21st century. Being a geek, or a nerd, a "gamer", is growing in popularity across the board, but also becoming more socially acceptable, *especially* for women. Various conventions are seeing female attendees, of all ages, in record number. While 40K, specifically, has not seen a sudden, huge influx of female players, they do exist, and they exist in proportionately larger numbers in other wargames. Though this cannot be definitively said to be caused by the better-representation of females on the table-top (I'm not sure if such market research has been done), I'm sure it doesn't hurt (also not hurting is a more streamlined rule-set and less-byzantine structure, but I digress).

I agree with Melissia to the extent that if we don't change it won't change.

I despise all arguements say that if you don't like it then leave or say nothing. That type of logical fallacy obliterates any chance of improvement. The sheer idiocy of the arguement just makes me angry. I know saying that doesn't make me persuasive but I just hate how many people use it and believe it's true. It's not. Things don't change unless you say something. Nothing is perfect. I could have liked Bush but thought Iraq was complete bs. I can like Warhammer but think their books could involve less bolter porn. You can enjoy 40k and want more female models. They are not mututally exclusive!

But I think the marketing factor is legitimate. Chongara mentioned that if you like that stuff then it's good. I'll be the guy to fall on the grenade. I like that stuff. Not neccessarily with models but definitely for the artwork. The recent success of Kingdom Death speaks to that. It absolutely had a lot of stuff going for it but you can tell just from the comments on the kickstarter that the pin-up models and artwork were also a signigicant and positive contribution toward its success. I think 40k gets marks for not sexualizing their content almost at all. The writers and modelers could all be feminist and they could still make the models the way they are so that they sell better. That is probably the biggest, not only, but biggest reason they are how they are.

 Shlazaor wrote:
I agree with Melissia to the extent that if we don't change it won't change.

I despise all arguements say that if you don't like it then leave or say nothing. That type of logical fallacy obliterates any chance of improvement. The sheer idiocy of the arguement just makes me angry. I know saying that doesn't make me persuasive but I just hate how many people use it and believe it's true. It's not. Things don't change unless you say something. Nothing is perfect. I could have liked Bush but thought Iraq was complete bs. I can like Warhammer but think their books could involve less bolter porn. You can enjoy 40k and want more female models. They are not mututally exclusive!

But I think the marketing factor is legitimate. Chongara mentioned that if you like that stuff then it's good. I'll be the guy to fall on the grenade. I like that stuff. Not neccessarily with models but definitely for the artwork. The recent success of Kingdom Death speaks to that. It absolutely had a lot of stuff going for it but you can tell just from the comments on the kickstarter that the pin-up models and artwork were also a signigicant and positive contribution toward its success. I think 40k gets marks for not sexualizing their content almost at all. The writers and modelers could all be feminist and they could still make the models the way they are so that they sell better. That is probably the biggest, not only, but biggest reason they are how they are.

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with T&A. Hell even I like it, sometimes, in the proper context. I tend to not think my Wargames are one of them. In all honesty I'd be much less down on the whole cleaving-bearing pouty-lipped elf thing if I could just find like a handful of models that catered to my taste. I mean seriously I'm at the point where I might toss out 2-3x the money I normally pay for miniatures for something well designed, with qualify sculpt.

There is seriously a market for this stuff. "Shut up and take my money" if any of you miniature makers are reading this.

I'd check out Kingdom Death if you want well crafted female models. There is a division between the realistic female armor and the pin-ups so you can get either one you're interested in and then use them for wargaming. For the record I'd love to have female guardsman at the very least but I also wouldn't want to pay more for gakky female guardsmen models so...

Where's my Judge Anderson and Judge Hershey Arbiter figs?

right here :

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/judge-dredd.html?p=11

plus some other useful female figures including citi def

 Psienesis wrote:

En Excelsis wrote:


Like it or not, women are not a large enough part of the wargaming demographic to be catered to by a company whose sole product base is wargaming. It is silly to assume that GW as a company should create a lineup of models marketed toward 5% or less of their potential buyers. I honestly don't think that sexism is a factor, just marketing.

Uh, what about us men who want female troopers in our IG squads but aren't very good at converting, or don't want an army made of 12 pounds of greenstuff? Or a female Inquisitor without crazy hair? Women in carapace? Where's my Judge Anderson and Judge Hershey Arbiter figs? Judge Beeny?

Marketing, incidentally, by its very nature, is sexist. This is how we are convinced that all women must love the color pink, because everything made for them is pink. That you are not a "real man" if you are not spending $500 on *these* flowers and *this* bracelet and *this* box of chocolates for her on Valentine's Day, because that is what "real men" do, and don't you want to be a "real man"? That *this* motorized vehicle will compensate for your... performance issues.

Currently, and historically, yes, 40K is a male-dominated game. This has been true in every format that RPGs (and miniature wargaming is most certainly an RPG) have taken in the last 40 years. That, however, has been changing, slowly, in the 21st century. Being a geek, or a nerd, a "gamer", is growing in popularity across the board, but also becoming more socially acceptable, *especially* for women. Various conventions are seeing female attendees, of all ages, in record number. While 40K, specifically, has not seen a sudden, huge influx of female players, they do exist, and they exist in proportionately larger numbers in other wargames. Though this cannot be definitively said to be caused by the better-representation of females on the table-top (I'm not sure if such market research has been done), I'm sure it doesn't hurt (also not hurting is a more streamlined rule-set and less-byzantine structure, but I digress).

Marketing is about the most evil thing in the world. If there was one person you could blame for sexism it would be advertisers and marking people.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Where's my Judge Anderson and Judge Hershey Arbiter figs?

right here :

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/judge-dredd.html?p=11

They even have Inaba:

 Shlazaor wrote:
I'd check out Kingdom Death if you want well crafted female models. There is a division between the realistic female armor and the pin-ups so you can get either one you're interested in and then use them for wargaming. For the record I'd love to have female guardsman at the very least but I also wouldn't want to pay more for gakky female guardsmen models so...

Kingdom death disappointed me when I actually saw some of the armored female models. In the unarmed modes everything is fair because everyone is half naked wearing a torn sheet, but the armor sets have small alterations that make the female armor less practical and more pinup like. Like the phoenix armor has pants on the male legs and no pants on the female legs. Also in the pictures I looked at the female models had kind of weak poses well the male ones had more assertive poses. The poses could have just been how those models where assembled.

Then KD has the pin up. Pin ups are pin ups, so ya.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Where's my Judge Anderson and Judge Hershey Arbiter figs?

right here :

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/judge-dredd.html?p=11

plus some other useful female figures including citi def

Yeah, I can get 3rd party figures that support these images and character-looks pretty much all day long. This is kinda the crux of the issue, though. Would GW not rather that I give them my money for my female Arbites, female Guardsmen, female Vindicare Assassins, female characters-of-any-stripe-for-use-in-Dark-Heresy, rather than one of their competitors?

We've been around and around with conversion kits, 3rd party retailers, scratch-building and every other way available to the hobbyist to model their GW Army to match the fluff... but, sometimes, you just don't have the time to kit out 140 female Guardsmen for your 800 model army, know what I'm saying?

Why do you guyseven want female models in the game? The ones we have now look like gak. Even the Dark Eldar ones, which are the best ones GW's ever had, look pretty damn manly.

I don't really know a whole lot about how molding and making the figures works, so I'm not sure if they suck because it's just hard to female figurines, or if it's just lack of effort on GW's part.
To date I've never seen an actually decent looking female model though, even outside of GW. From my experience they tend to look like men with breasts.

BlaxicanX wrote:
Why do you guyseven want female models in the game?

Because it's more representative of the lore, and the lore is the only reaosn the game doesn't suck ass.

Yes, the principle of it.

The models look so terrible though.

I say the same thing about the male ones, too.

The vehicles are the only thing that don't suck to paint

BlaxicanX wrote:
Why do you guyseven want female models in the game? The ones we have now look like gak. Even the Dark Eldar ones, which are the best ones GW's ever had, look pretty damn manly.

I don't really know a whole lot about how molding and making the figures works, so I'm not sure if they suck because it's just hard to female figurines, or if it's just lack of effort on GW's part.
To date I've never seen an actually decent looking female model though, even outside of GW. From my experience they tend to look like men with breasts.

Whyy would we not - otherwise I disagree with every part of your statement

That's actually pretty true. The Guardsman models in particular look horrible.

I don't mind certain Space Marine models too much though, and most of the Xenos ones look okay.

 Mr Morden wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
Why do you guyseven want female models in the game? The ones we have now look like gak. Even the Dark Eldar ones, which are the best ones GW's ever had, look pretty damn manly.

I don't really know a whole lot about how molding and making the figures works, so I'm not sure if they suck because it's just hard to female figurines, or if it's just lack of effort on GW's part.
To date I've never seen an actually decent looking female model though, even outside of GW. From my experience they tend to look like men with breasts.

Whyy would we not - otherwise I disagree with every part of your statement

What you said just now doesn't make any sense. You can't say "otherwise I disagree with you" when you didn't agree with anything I said at all.

Baby-steps, man, baby-steps...

Step 1 is to get GW making them in the first place (other companies show that it can be done and done well). Step 2 is to force GW to design them well. Step 3... profit???

BlaxicanX wrote:What you said just now doesn't make any sense. You can't say "otherwise I disagree with you" when you didn't agree with anything I said at all.

I think I get what he means.
The first part of his response was to address your question with a counter-question, thus challenging its validity.
In the second part, he disagreed with all the female minis already existing looking bad - and I have to say, I don't agree with that assessment, either. Some are bad, but some are perfectly alright. Not outstanding, especially when compared to non-GW minis, but certainly alright.

I understood what he said. It was just kind of a silly post so I responded with something silly.

The thing about the status quo, is that its in the majority of 40k players interests to keep it so, just like in other things like business and movies.

Caveat: I'm a white male, and a long way from being a feminist.

The majority of 40k players are male, and the majority subset is white. 40k as is, is designed around that. It's understandable that this group wants to protect their plastic space men, because its human nature to fear change. What I don't understand, is that in a setting that is so culturally diverse, even just within the IoM, there is such a fear of some differently shaped genitalia.

In reality, I think most 40k players would be happy to see more/better female models, but just saying 'it is what it is', doesn't cut the mustard for me. Rewind a hundred years. Black people are used as slaves and oppressed because of the colour of their skin. Would 'it is what it is' be a rational way to think given a 21st century context?

BlaxicanX wrote:
The models look so terrible though.

Lelith's alright, surely.

 Manchu wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
The models look so terrible though.

Lelith's alright, surely.

*looks up the model since it's been forever since I followed 40k*

The quality of the sculpt seems solid, but I'm not sure who they're trying to target with that look. Her body type really isn't traditionally feminine enough for most of the folks who I think would appreciate that outfit. Most of the folks who'd appreciate that they've got sort of a muscular lady there probably would kind of roll their eyes at the outfit. I mean it feels like you'd have to be someone who can both simultaneously enjoy having sort of muscular lady and likes the skimpy-outfitted BDSM elf thing they've got going on. I'm not sure how big that particular segment of the community is.

 Melissia wrote:
I say the same thing about the male ones, too.

The vehicles are the only thing that don't suck to paint

It is clear that you have many more issues with WH40k than just it's lackluster selection of female models. And given your arguments I don't think that having any more females models, just for the sake of having them, will improve your experience at all. If the models still suck to paint (in your opinion) but half of those models are female, how does that resolve the problem?

The representation of females in the lore is not in direct proportion to the number of female models available for purchase.

Another poster mentioned previously that a number of conventions are noticing an increase in attendance by females. This will serve as a good analogy. Most conventions (I am assuming he meant things like comic-con and not work related business conventions) are already catering to a VERY small minority of the human population. If 1% of people show up at a typical convention, and 1% of those people are female. That is an extremely small number. If that number suddenly rose to show that 30% of those attendants were female, it would still only be 30% of 1% of the worlds population.

Extrapolate that into the world of 40k. The Imperium of Man encompasses billions of worlds, and countless trillions of human beings. Of that, the sisters of battle, even if their number were a million strong (which it is not) they would still represent only a fraction of a percent of the Imperium at large. The same is true of the Inquisition, or the Assassin Houses. How is that showing any kind of equality?

It's been said more than once in this thread Cadia has a birthrate that is synonymous with it's recruitment rate. While that's a fine quote from the codex, it doesn't make any further leaps in logic to assume that literally every person so enlisted becomes a Guardsman. There are countless offices within the Imperial Guard and its interconnected militant branches that must be filled. This includes everything from logistics and communication to propaganda, uniform production, food distribution, construction, repair, and navigation. And countless more besides. Many of those station are either gender-neutral, or would be better filled by a female than a male. Even if a equal number of females are conscripted as males, that does NOT imply that they are given the same role once conscripted.

Billions of Guardsman die every day in the service of the Emperer, Billions died yesterday and billions more will die tomorrow. That kind of lust for death requires a heavy influx of new humans to fill the gap. As strange as it is when compared to our reality, the most probable role of women in 40k is giving birth... whether by choice or because they were enlisted to due so. The survival of humanity would depend on it.

So... I suppose you're right. We should make some models of that. have a few models of women in Sanctions Birthing regiments or some such. I mean, it fits with the lore right?

Chongara wrote:
I'm not sure how big that particular segment of the community is.

It seems to be exactly as larger or slightly larger than the segment that like Dark Eldar.

Chongara wrote:

The quality of the sculpt seems solid, but I'm not sure who they're trying to target with that look. Her body type really isn't traditionally feminine enough for most of the folks who I think would appreciate that outfit. Most of the folks who'd appreciate that they've got sort of a muscular lady there probably would kind of roll their eyes at the outfit. I mean it feels like you'd have to be someone who can both simultaneously enjoy having sort of muscular lady and likes the skimpy-outfitted BDSM elf thing they've got going on. I'm not sure how big that particular segment of the community is.

C'mon, everyone loves muscular BDSM ladies!

Biggest problem with Lelith is the kinda gaunt and angular face like all GW elves have. I don't think that this is particularly great look for a woman. Oddly, the human inquisitor has same type of a face.

Well sh'es not a woman. She's a female space elf.

 Manchu wrote:

Chongara wrote:
I'm not sure how big that particular segment of the community is.

It seems to be exactly as larger or slightly larger than the segment that like Dark Eldar.

I don't know, looking over the other Dark Eldar models the vast majority don't seem to be ladies with cheese-grater abs. I'm seeing a lot of models with ornate armor, some-fully clad dudes with whips & armor, skeleton guys and some kind of mutant cyborg thing, a unit of shirtless muscle-men. I mean I'm looking over the range and I'm not seeing anything else quite like her.

The generic succubus maybe a bit, but her even outfit is a bit closer to "Reasonable" and as result she's not really showing off that less-than-volupous physique as much. Even the witches seem to be either mostly armoured or not quite at the "Muscle March" level of the that character model.

Maybe I'm missing something but I could easily see people outside the narrow segment of the population that would enjoy her, enjoying the Dark Eldar range. It's not *my* thing but there certainly seems to be more to them than "Extremely Muscular Women in Skimpy Outfits"

It's been said more than once in this thread Cadia has a birthrate that is synonymous with it's recruitment rate. While that's a fine quote from the codex, it doesn't make any further leaps in logic to assume that literally every person so enlisted becomes a Guardsman. There are countless offices within the Imperial Guard and its interconnected militant branches that must be filled. This includes everything from logistics and communication to propaganda, uniform production, food distribution, construction, repair, and navigation. And countless more besides. Many of those station are either gender-neutral, or would be better filled by a female than a male. Even if a equal number of females are conscripted as males, that does NOT imply that they are given the same role once conscripted.

That's the Departmento Munitorum, not the Imperial Guard. The DM oversees the Guard, but does not draw its bureaucrats from the ranks of the Guard. These people are Administratum clerks, and are drawn from the Administratum's own worlds, the Schola Progeniums, mid-Hive families, the lesser children of nobles, and the other sources of desk-drones that one finds in such societies.

Chongara wrote:
I mean I'm looking over the range and I'm not seeing anything else quite like her.

I dunno, the female Wyches are pretty buff.

 Manchu wrote:

Chongara wrote:
I mean I'm looking over the range and I'm not seeing anything else quite like her.

I dunno, the female Wyches are pretty buff.

Yeah they are. I'd be willing to concede they're roughly in the same category as her, even if not as extreme. Still I don't see "Muscular Women in Skimpy Outfits" as defining the look of the faction as whole. They've got a of models that don't have anything to with that (the majority in fact!). My only point was I don't think the number of people who would enjoy that model for those design elements == the number of people who like Dark Eldar. I'll certainly give them credit for doing something a bit different. There are women there, and they aren't strictly pin-up models or something close to it. That's worth something in my book, not much but it's something. That's more than I can say about some ranges I've seen.

Chongara wrote:
I'd be willing to concede they're roughly in the same category as her, even if not as extreme.

Which makes good sense, considering Lelith is the most extreme of the Wyches.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chongara wrote:
That's worth something, not much but it's something.

I think you're selling the DE abit short. I mean, it's sci-fantasy. No one is wearing anything sensible and I suspect models dressed for respectable, good paying jobs that young women should aspire to hold are not really what you want anyway.

 Manchu wrote:
I think you're selling the DE abit short. I mean, it's sci-fantasy. No one is wearing anything sensible and I suspect models dressed for respectable, good paying jobs that young women should aspire to hold are not really what you want anyway.

I may be selling them a bit short, I'll admit to having become particularly picky and particularly grumpy about female character design in nerd media. I think there are maybe 3 models unit I'd be confident giving a passing mark to (Second row middle model, bottom row two rightmost models), at least in terms of bucking the stupider design trends. Assuming they're not wearing heels I failed to spot.

 Melissia wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
Why do you guyseven want female models in the game?

Because it's more representative of the lore, and the lore is the only reaosn the game doesn't suck ass.

And as you noted, there's a lot of problems with it too. I'm really sick of hearing "the reason there's no female marines is gene-seed, blblabla"
No that's the EXCUSE, as to why there are no female space marines. The follow-up question "Why did they write that" would reveal the real reason. (I can't answer that as I wasn't there, but I could venture some very pointed guesses.)

Why do I want normal female models so bad? I've spent the last 3 months building two armies (Guard and Slaanesh) and because I didn't want them to look like a sausage fest or a playboy shoot I had to scratch build half my models. (Amusingly enough, I'll have to do the same for my daemonettes, because the only GW models who SHOULD look sexual look like odd lizards instead, but I digress.)

Chongara wrote:
Assuming they're not wearing heels I failed to spot.

Lelith is barefoot: points added, points lost, or neither?

 Boggy Man wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
Why do you guyseven want female models in the game?

Because it's more representative of the lore, and the lore is the only reaosn the game doesn't suck ass.

And as you noted, there's a lot of problems with it too. I'm really sick of hearing "the reason there's no female marines is gene-seed, blblabla"
No that's the EXCUSE, as to why there are no female space marines. The follow-up question "Why did they write that" would reveal the real reason. (I can't answer that as I wasn't there, but I could venture some very pointed guesses.)

Why do I want normal female models so bad? I've spent the last 3 months building two armies (Guard and Slaanesh) and because I didn't want them to look like a sausage fest or a playboy shoot I had to scratch build half my models. (Amusingly enough, I'll have to do the same for my daemonettes, because the only GW models who SHOULD look sexual look like odd lizards instead, but I digress.)

http://www.ragingheroes.com/collections/complete-collection/products/preying-mantis

These models are very well sculpted and look much better than the deamonettes that GW currently has in their lineup. I doubt they are marketed towards too many female games but they sure hit the mark for appealing the males in the audience. I'd buy them if I had a use for them in any of my armies.

 Manchu wrote:

Chongara wrote:
Assuming they're not wearing heels I failed to spot.

Lelith is barefoot: points added, points lost, or neither?

Neither. Here's roughly how my analysis for female character designs works.

Gain Points:
-Anything I think looks cool, even if it's not female character specific.
-Having 0 checks on the "Lose Points" list

Lose Points:
-Combat Heels
-Being mostly naked*
-Boob Plate
-Armor that doesn't cover the midriff.
-Proportions of Hitomi Tanaka

*There can be rare exceptions to this, with proper context. Most probably won't come up in miniatures/a war game.

Neutral:
-Anything Else

 Boggy Man wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
Why do you guyseven want female models in the game?

Because it's more representative of the lore, and the lore is the only reaosn the game doesn't suck ass.

And as you noted, there's a lot of problems with it too. I'm really sick of hearing "the reason there's no female marines is gene-seed, blblabla"
No that's the EXCUSE, as to why there are no female space marines. The follow-up question "Why did they write that" would reveal the real reason. (I can't answer that as I wasn't there, but I could venture some very pointed guesses.)

Contrary to popular belief, not every action has an ulterior motive.

Why was Frodo a man and not a woman? Why was Mon Mothma a woman and not a man?!?!?!

sidenote: Why do men think that a female character isn't appealing to females if the character is scantily clad? Do men not buy Catachans because most of them have rippling 6-packs and aren't wearing shirts?

Wonder Woman's a feminist icon and she's been wearing underwear into battle for decades.

@Chongara: She's also rocking a thong. Would that be more points off or points off as included in "mostly naked"?

Also, does Lelith's in-universe job curb her points deductions? She's a performer. She sensually fights for the titillation of spectators. Setting aside whether that's misogynistic (arguably not, as there is no reason to suspect Lelith is the best at this because she's female), I think that makes her outfit kind of appropriate.

 Manchu wrote:
@Chongara: She's also rocking a thong. Would that be more points off or points off as included in "mostly naked"?

Also, does Lelith's in-universe job curb her points deductions? She's a performer. She sensually fights for the titillation of spectators. Setting aside whether that's misogynistic (arguably not, as there is no reason to suspect Lelith is the best at this because she's female), I think that makes her outfit kind of appropriate.

That gets filed under "Mostly Naked". That was a general overview, I'm sure I could find instances where I would take points off for a thong but I don't think it particularly changes anything with this model. Obviously If I stopped and listed out every little detail that could sort of count as "-50 DKP!" I'd be here a while.

There certainly are situations where say being an entertainer could prevent the docking of points for being mostly naked to naked. Depending on specifics, and this is key: So long as the character is being depicted in the context of solely being an entertainer.

In this case she may be an entertainer and that might be fine, it depends a lot on how it's handled. Though I'm not really confident enough in GW to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. However, all that's irrelevant here because the context this model appears in is that of battlefield, here she's a warrior (and no if they've got some kind of thing with combat-as-performance it doesn't help make it "Count') when being depicted in this model.

Heck I'll even give it points for exploring different body types, even if that's not quite my thing. On the whole it doesn't really come out favourably for me. I'll say this much, it doesn't feel oversexualized in a particular exploitive manner the way a lot of designs to, which keeps it pretty far off the bottom of the barrel. I'm just not sure "not the bottom of the barrel", is particularly high praise, even coming from someone as admittedly critical as I am.

I like Lelith. You look at her and think "holy gak taht is one scary mother[bleep]er right there."

It can be argued that she's wearing skimpy clothes, but she is given a pose, a body type, and the equipment taht makes it apparent that she is good at her job, and it involves creating carpets made out of enemy corpses.

Even on a model that's skimpily dressed, a good pose taht doesn't just scream "we copied this from a softcore porno mag" can make or break the model. At least her clothes make SOME sort of sense, she is an agility fighter rather than a heavily armored one.

En Excelsis wrote:
A bunch of amateur psycho-analyzing by some random person on the internet.

No, we're not having this discussion.

 Melissia wrote:
At least her clothes make SOME sort of sense, she is an agility fighter rather than a heavily armored one.

I agree. I think Lelith is suitably dressed for the battlefield considering she takes to the battlefield less as a matter of war in the IG sense and more as a matter of a publicity stunt.

Yeah, she's pretty much explicitly not a soldier-- she's a performer and her art is death.

So I have no problem with her model. I kinda like it.

To me, the supreme example of GW "getting it right" with a female character is Shadowsun. That said, I would not be at all adverse to a "Zero Suit" version of Shadowsun.

BlaxicanX wrote:

 Boggy Man wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
Why do you guyseven want female models in the game?

Because it's more representative of the lore, and the lore is the only reaosn the game doesn't suck ass.

And as you noted, there's a lot of problems with it too. I'm really sick of hearing "the reason there's no female marines is gene-seed, blblabla"
No that's the EXCUSE, as to why there are no female space marines. The follow-up question "Why did they write that" would reveal the real reason. (I can't answer that as I wasn't there, but I could venture some very pointed guesses.)

Contrary to popular belief, not every action has an ulterior motive.

Why was Frodo a man and not a woman? Why was Mon Mothma a woman and not a man?!?!?!

sidenote: Why do men think that a female character isn't appealing to females if the character is scantily clad? Do men not buy Catachans because most of them have rippling 6-packs and aren't wearing shirts?

Wonder Woman's a feminist icon and she's been wearing underwear into battle for decades.

Because James Kahn, who created the character for the novelization of Return of the Jedi, had experience with working with women in important social and business roles, and translated those experiences to the page? The character appearing in EpIII was as-yet unnamed.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mon_Mothma

Why was Frodo male? Because Tolkien was male, and he based the Hobbits on the people of England before, during, and after the 2nd World War. There's rather a lot of author projection into the Hobbits of Middle Earth, though not in a Mary Sue sort of way.

As far as the attire thing goes? Eh... I think this is a hold-over from most of Western societies' habit of slut-shaming and other body-shaming issues that we have. I know several female players (not of 40K, specifically, but of other fantasy and/or sci-fi games) who prefer their characters, or the figs used to represent them, to be either in something skin-tight or in as little as possible, whether this is an RPG, a table-top minis game or an MMO. This is not surprising to me, really, because RPGs are a form of escapist fantasy, where we guys get to be some kind of heroic figure, however we like to personally interpret that, whether we are some bronzed barbarian with 18/00 Strength and a 20 Constitution, a devastatingly intelligent, powerful wizard of moral ambiguity and weak physiology, a race-traitor who has forsaken his evil people to become a champion for Good, and so forth and so on, so why should it not be the same for women in the hobby? There's no easy answer to the question, though, as there's a number of reasons, some valid, that can cause it to be an issue.

Wonder Woman.... she's been doing more than *just* fighting in her underwear for half a century. There's... a lotta baggage in that character's history.

En Excelsis wrote:
http://www.ragingheroes.com/collections/complete-collection/products/preying-mantis
These models are very well sculpted and look much better than the deamonettes that GW currently has in their lineup. I doubt they are marketed towards too many female games but they sure hit the mark for appealing the males in the audience. I'd buy them if I had a use for them in any of my armies.

Those are excellent, a bit spendy but still better quality than what GW's putting out.

BlaxicanX wrote:

Contrary to popular belief, not every action has an ulterior motive.

Why was Frodo a man and not a woman? Why was Mon Mothma a woman and not a man?!?!?!

sidenote: Why do men think that a female character isn't appealing to females if the character is scantily clad? Do men not buy Catachans because most of them have rippling 6-packs and aren't wearing shirts?

Wonder Woman's a feminist icon and she's been wearing underwear into battle for decades.

Frodo was a man? I thought he was a halfling! This changes everything!
I get what you mean, I myself was a little disgusted at Nostalgia Chick when she fell into the sophomoric 'orks=minorities' humbug in her LOTR reviews this month. I wouldn't hang blatant motives on the original writers (40k was originally a self parody of grimderp) but I do think whoever wrote that particular tidbit was very shortsighted. (Early 80's nerd culture was still a boys club, and insularity breeds myopia.)

I'm a big fan of Wondy myself (In her better incarnations that is; Perez and Simone, not that Byrne or Miller gak.) It's not so much exposed arms and legs that I have a problem with, it's the total presentation. Tank Girl is naked in half her stories but still kicks ass. Elen Ripley escaped in underwear but is still a strong character. "Samus In Name Only" in Other M wears a full body armor suit but still manages to invoke the worst stereotypes of weak man-dependent "girls" that the developers could toss out.

I don't have a problem with sexy, but sexy to me does not equal "tittering blond wearing shoelaces".