Sometimes at night I get an amazing dream where GW sudently jump on the band wagon that publick oppinion matters and will lead to bigger profits over time. After a while the new codexes are well balanced both internaly and externaly. The prices drop and the rule systems becomes less complicated. More stores start to field GW products, wich in turn leads to more boys starting to play the game.

Sudenly GW makes armies with non sexists female models and makes the warhammer universes be more sexual equal while still remaining awsome. Suddenly women and girls also start to play warhammer much more then they used to. Then they will lover prices and get even more gamers.

Playing the game becomes more fun because every list is a competetive list. People are more friendly instead of having the communaty split between competetive and casual players.

But then I wake up an understand that the produsers of warmachine or some other company will probably beat them to it and GW will disaoear as they sell the rights of after nobody buys their models.


***
Edit: The original post stoped here. after that this quickly turned into a debate about female models and female players. Since a lot of the arguments come very inconsistely on a forum I re posted my opinion on this in the first post for new readers of the thread:

Oh man so much burn because I would wish the game was better. Admitting that warhammer might have a problem does not mean that you should not enjoy your game.

I will try to adress what I mean better, although I doubt I will persuade the more aberant of you. I do however appreciate the discusion even if the remarks does not really have me convinced.

Warhammer is a game about empoverment. They present you as the commander of an empovered army witch you pich against another empovered army. All of this empowerment is for males only, all this enpowerment is only for males, no female empowerment is representet. I feel this is sexist and discrimenating.

The most representet women in this game is done through chaos daemons, dark eldar and sister of battles.

Demons does this through demonets. These are based upon the seductress, female who wield power through their ability to seduce men. This plays into clasic tropes that wimen need to offer sex for power and that their only power is through the medium of a man.

We have the dark eldar witch has a good range of female models in both the wytch and kabalite department. However, most of the wych model are female, the wytches provide entertainment. Most of the kabalite models are male, the kabalite provides mafia and politics. All of the wyches wear skimpy body suits. This is refreshing to see on the males, but when females do this it is just a re-representation of more skimpy clad models. Games Workshop seem to continue to do this, someone pointed out the pin up commissar earlier. Things like this is a problem when it is a pattern of sexulasation of women and a BIG amout of the female models in the game are doing this. Yes that is a problem.

And we have the sisters of battle. I feel I have already covered the skinny clad wimen in the section above. As for the regular sisters they are a mix up of clasic female tropes. We have the castice nun who will not foul themselves and be married and clean in the eyes of the good. A very submissive adetude. Of course then you mix this with the imadge of a female cult who seem to hate everyone. Sisters of battle generaly seem little apreciated by everyone. They are more pure then regular people, fanatic and general the queen bitch faction of the setting.

I do not think any of those other three have good representation of woman and are sexist. But where are the rest of the women?

Orks are all gender neutral. Yet all their names are "boyz" and they are always represented as super masculine and rugged.

Necrons are suposebly gender neutral? I supose there where female and male necrotyn originally? However they are all represented in the same way: Based of arnold swatchnegers masculine 80's icon Terminator.

Tyranids also makes no sence talking about gender, yet it does. The hyve tyrant is refered to as male for the most part. Harpy and Crone are both female names so this is good. However the borm queen is caled the dominatrix, again warhammer refering to females as sexist. Also we have a model that births babies. I would generaly not mind, but with the bad representation of females in the game it stand out as sore thumbs.

Space marines are super masculine and do not have females. I understand that it made sence when they where made to make them "male only" as there where diferent oppinions on gender at that time. It makes no sense to go back and change that since they are so defining of the setting. It would be bad for Gw to change them. ted234521 pointed out that discriminate males. I supose you are right on some part, but it is not really discriminating? A lot of people like them. They are a hyber bole of a fantasy warrrior. They are a big boy scouts club with insignias and macho adetude. And they are not the only represensation of males in the setting. I think tau, eldar and dark eldar have a lot more options for you to choose from. Females who play only have those same options.

Eldars have females. Yet very few models are female. Look through the model range. How many female farseers, aspect warriors or guardians can you see? If the eldars had as many female models as the dark eldar range things would be better. Eldars do not come as part of a culth of pleasure as default, this would be good.

The Tau and Kroot I do not know properly. I do think there are some Tau females? And the kroot seem the more gender neutral of the aliens.

I pointed out some induvidual models that where good, the inquisitor females and the tau model. Those are good.

As for human females? There are no female chaos cultists, it should be some of those. Why are there no females in the imperial guard? Ferros pointed out that the warhammer humans setting needs their women as birthing machines to make more and better soldiers. I do not think this is true. I also think this often represent attitudes that can be projected onto the people playing the game. It comes with the territory of the setting. (Not necessarily the people playing.)

Those where my opinion on how the female gender is representet within the setting. And while all of this can be defended within the fictional setting I do not think I can defend the setting if I was to justefy it to a female players. I work in a shop where we sell a lot of things, among the games workshop products. I always have trouble when girls ask me if I can help them find an army with female models in them.

Blacksails mentioned that he does not feel represented by the males in this setting. I find that hard to belive. He does not get a feeling of empowerment from having a good army? He does not think that any of the male models (most of them) are interesting characters? In any of the factions? They are over the top, but they are there.

Ferros I do not think your counter arguments are any good.

Spakadia what do you mean girls do not like violent video games? They do. Although girls a very badly represented in video games as well.

Bronzefist this is not killing GW. But I would think they would be better of if they did not write of 50% of the marked firsthand. If more women played GW more males would also come as it was no longer a "sausage party".

Opera you say I am sexist because I "Body-shaming a woman because she chooses to dress in a sexually-provocative manner". That would be sexist I agree. However, I am body-shaming a company that repetativaly print out representations of woman as one who must dress in a sexually-provocative manner. Caling them on that is not sexist, it is feminist. A femenist is for equal treatment of the gender. Also, all the sisters of battle wear this "boob armour". If anybody would make armour for wimen they would not make it like that. It incteases the chances of deying as opposed to just having a flatter chest. It makes no sence. It is there to enforce that these models have boobs.

Ferros also do not seem to understand what I mean when I say that the sisters of battle behave like men. They wear "poer armour", they have the same stat "BS4" "WS4" because they are though like space marines, but they are human "T3" "S3". The othe represensation of a woman in warhammer that does not take on the role of the seductres only gets tolerated becaused she acts like a boy. The boy here being the space marine. Sisters of battles play like space marines wane be with bolters, bs 4 and power armour. They do not go against the male norm in any way.

I did try to respond to some of the criticism you had on my opinion here. This subject is rather broad and you all seem to take pot shots at me so the awser became quite long. This of course I would tink lead to the "too long, did not read", but I am hopefull. I would like to get your oponion on this, but for the most part you seem to want to discredit my credabilaty and saying how nonsence this is instead of adressing my arguments. Am I that wrong?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ted234521 wrote:

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

Wow, first it was about sexism, and once that was shot down, suddenly you're all for gender diversity? You're like one of those goddamned 10 year old "Facebook activists" who know neither what or anything about the things they are "fighting for".

Girls don't like violent movies or video games for the most part. Clearly that makes them sexist, too!

And there you go. By applying your logic, someone managed to make you look like a complete idiot. Good job.



EDIT: You know, I'm being rather caustic here, and to be honest I don't care. What you're saying is completely wrong on so many levels and you simply fail to see it.

Ted: why do you edit your post so it seems to people reading it like I am saying that girls don't like violent movies or video games? I know first hand they do both from anecdotal evidence and from research statistics.When you first cite me, coment on it, and the cite somone I do not agree with and use the argument that I am an idiot you are putting words in my mouth. That is confusing to people and foul play.

GW has sexist female models?

Where?

 Psienesis wrote:
GW has sexist female models?

Where?

I don't think you know what sexist means...

There's nothing sexist about Sisters Repentia.

Sexist =/= scantily clad.

Well the fact that there are so few female models could be called sexist.

Psienesis I can never tell sarcasem over the internett as it requiers me to know your opinion on something before I read your responce. I will therefor asume you are not sarcastic. There are a few female models and a few of them sexist:

I would count the dark eldar wyches. Very skanky clothed with a lot of cleavage and revealing body suits. A disclaimer about them dresing that way for the areneas is not a good disclaimer.
Daemonets are mostly femae and are clasic seducteres. (The keeper of secrets is mostly a sexy androgynous so I can not count that. Still sex seems to be the main theme to desire.)
Other females in the setting are the death cult assassin models. (Clothing fetish going on there.)
The sisters of battle are abstinent, because they want to be just as though as the muscularly military boys. Being accepted because you act like a boy.
The only female tyranid is one who makes babies. (I supose the dominatrix is female as well? Stil not a very good name.)
The Eldar are OK, but of course the eldar Banshee are all female because we know how whiny the femaile shout can be.


A lot of what can be sead for the dark eldars can be sead for the dark elves in fantasy, or the odd female vampier. But fantasy is better since they have 2 factions that are neatral: Elves and wood elves are OK.


Why are there no more females in the 40k setting? Orks, necrons, tyranids are mostly gender neutral, yet they are all representet very masculine, instead if neutral. (Tyranids mentioned withstanding.)The imperial guard could shurly have mustered up some female soldiers? Look at israel, they have a lot of female soldiers. Norway have also some female soldies. As for fantasy why do not the ogres, warriors of chaos or beastmen have female models?

And for those of you who say Orks are based on rugby players and should stay masculine. That is not an argument of why there are no good females in the factions of 40K.


My personal favoret are of course the princes leya dark eldar models. They do not make sence in the setting, no dark eldar would fould themselves with human monkey girls. Why are they there? Because GW sucks at gender balance.

 Niiai wrote:


I would count the dark eldar wyches. Very skanky clothed with a lot of cleavage and revealing body suits.

Most Dark Eldar are wearing tight, form-fitting or dominatrix-style clothing. Not limited to females. Though in the case of characters like Lelith, she works in the arena. Her job is to entertain. Sexuality is entertaining - and also daring, to fight with no armor.

Daemonets are mostly femae and are clasic seducteres. (The keeper of secrets is mostly a sexy androgynous so I can not count that. Still sex seems to be the main theme to desire.)

DaemonETTES is a feminine. Moreso, they're based off the Succubus. A female demon who feeds of sexual energy. It has historical context.

Other females in the setting are the death cult assassin models. (Clothing fetish going on there.)

All imperial assassins wear form-fitting tight armor regardless of sex.

The sisters of battle are abstinent, because they want to be just as though as the muscularly military boys. Being accepted because you act like a boy.

So nuns are secretly yearning to be men too? Abstinence has been for a very long time, and across many cultures, a sign of spiritual purity. Has nothing to do with masculinity.

The only female tyranid is one who makes babies. (I supose the dominatrix is female as well? Stil not a very good name.)

The female gender is the one that births. This is basic biology. In fact, there is nothing to say the Tyranid is female other than that she births more Tyranids, so, you're kind of admitting my point there.

The Eldar are OK, but of course the eldar Banshee are all female because we know how whiny the femaile shout can be.

The Banshee is also based on historical myth. You're the one being petty and sexist by assuming it has to do with "whiny females".

Why are there no more females in the 40k setting? Orks, necrons, tyranids are mostly gender neutral, yet they are all representet very masculine, instead if neutral. (Tyranids mentioned withstanding.)The imperial guard could shurly have mustered up some female soldiers? Look at israel, they have a lot of female soldiers. Norway have also some female soldies.

Considering humanity's most importance (if least valuable) resource is its inexhaustible numbers, it's pretty important to keep the women birthing while the men go off and fight. Israel doesn't regularly kill planets of its own people.

And for those of you who say Orks are based on rugby players and should stay masculine. That is not an argument of why there are no good females in the factions of 40K.

Why would Orks have females? They don't reproduce sexually. No need for a vagina or mammaries. Pretty sure they don't have male genitals either (unless you've gone and read 1d4's more interesting pages).

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
GW has sexist female models?

Where?

Thats that 50 shades of Administratum Grey kind of sexy

Pretty sure that repentia on the right is a dude.

I don't see the sexism for Sisters of Battle. It's a universe at war, they want to fight for the emperor as much as Space Marines, and being abstinent keeps them in the fight rather than taking a leave from war to go have kids and take care of them for years.
Daemonettes are from the chaos god of excess, which is exactly why they're the way they are, because they serve the god of excess.
Tyranids: big scary aliens. You can't even tell which are male or female because no one knows what their reproductive organs look like
Wyches: For fitting clothes? yes, because they dart across the battlefield and need that form fitting clothing so it doesn't slow them down. Have you ever seen a gymnast doing acrobatics in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt?
Whiney? That's a sexist statement in itself. Eldar look fantastic and I would consider the most "gender neutral" race because even the guardians offer female heads on sprues.
Sorry, but I fail to see the argument towards the sexism.

GW just need to start caring about their customers a little bit more, they actually need to work on putting out much needed FAQs as well as playtesting army books and codex's before sending them out to the public full of errors that just won't be fixed for months or years later. Their stock dropped 24% today following their quarterly earnings report, this is a huge wakeup call for them so we'll see what is going to happen since it is likely to fall lower tomorrow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 namiel wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
GW has sexist female models?

Where?

Thats that 50 shades of Administratum Grey kind of sexy

I just choked on my coffee, I applaud you sir

 Niiai wrote:
My personal favoret are of course the princes leya dark eldar models. They do not make sence in the setting, no dark eldar would fould themselves with human monkey girls. Why are they there? Because GW sucks at gender balance.

I have to disagree with you on Vect's slave girls. Dark Eldar claim trophies all the time, and having some living prisoners while you go on a raid could have a lot of psychological advantages both against the opposing army and in terms of "breaking" willful slaves. And Dark Eldar have... unique? tastes. Slumming with some Mon' keigh girls might be how some DE get their rocks off.

Regarding the models themselves, while the one with the beauty mark is a classic damsel in distress, the captured Sister of Battle is secretly picking the locks on her shackles--to me that stays true to the character of the faction she represents as well as imbuing her with some agency. Because when that lock is picked she is going to bring a few Dark Eldar down with her.

Generally, though, I agree that GW's model range is sorely lacking in female figures. A better example for your argument, Niiai might be the 1998 Games Day exclusive female Commissar. That figure is clearly a pin-up model pretending to be a Commissar.

 Psienesis wrote:
There's nothing sexist about Sisters Repentia.

Sexist =/= scantily clad.

I can agree with this. It'd be sexist if the Repentia were just like that for sex appeal, and were defined as sexual objects. But the Repentia actually have some pretty solid fluff behind why they look like that. They're not defined by their being scantily clad, but their being penitent relgious nutters.

 Niiai wrote:
The sisters of battle are abstinent, because they want to be just as though as the muscularly military boys. Being accepted because you act like a boy.

...What? So they'd be less sexist if they were less tough? Weaker than the men? And why is being tough and in the military have to be a male thing? That itself actually sounds rather sexist.

Besides, it's 40K, man! Everybody needs to be as tough as possibe to survive in this hellhole of a setting!

Well the fact that there are so few female models could be called sexist.

It can be, indeed, though it hasn't always been this way, and without a definitive reason for the absence from the studio, other than "lazy", it cannot be definitively proven.

However, from the fanbase, the more common reasons I hear for the lack are most certainly sexist, often being the "women can't be soldiers".

I would count the dark eldar wyches. Very skanky clothed with a lot of cleavage and revealing body suits. A disclaimer about them dresing that way for the areneas is not a good disclaimer.

Ah, so, because she is dressed "skanky", it's a sexist model? Do we know if the writing of the character suggests that she chooses to do so? Oh, she does? So she's a woman who makes her choice to dress as she does within her culture, and through her skills commands great power and respect?

That's not sexist.

Body-shaming a woman because she chooses to dress in a sexually-provocative manner, however, is.

It should also be noted that all Dark Eldar dress in tight armor. Their male soldiers are also body-gloved.

Daemonets are mostly femae and are clasic seducteres. (The keeper of secrets is mostly a sexy androgynous so I can not count that. Still sex seems to be the main theme to desire.)

They are female-like servants of the Chaos God of Pleasure, Vice and Perversion. The Keeper of Secrets is often modeled with a truly impressive (and nightmare-inducing) wang, because it, too, serves the Evil Sex God/dess. That Daemonettes are lusty, crab-clawed, kind-of-female-but-not-really is... not sexist, because, well, they're not people. They aren't intended to be people, and aren't representative of a social structure.

Other females in the setting are the death cult assassin models. (Clothing fetish going on there.)

As mentioned, all DCAs wear skintight bodygloves. The Vindicare Assassin and the Callidus Assassin are both male, and dressed in much the same outfit as the Moritat Reaper (the female) is.

The sisters of battle are abstinent, because they want to be just as though as the muscularly military boys. Being accepted because you act like a boy.

The Sisters of Battle are abstinent because they are a puritan, penitent order of religious zealots who believe that the purpose of life is to suffer.

You have a serious disconnect between the reasons for their abstinence and the purpose behind it. There's also nothing particularly masculine about being abstinent. I... really don't understand how you think having a religious order of warrior-women who have dedicated their entire lives (and, as well, their deaths) to serving the God-Emperor of Mankind is sexist.

The only female tyranid is one who makes babies. (I supose the dominatrix is female as well? Stil not a very good name.)

We don't have models for these things, or any art telling us what they look like. We actually don't know if these things have any female traits, other than that they lay eggs... or something. This might simply be human (in-universe and out) misunderstanding... for all we know, *all* Tyranid are female.

The Eldar are OK, but of course the eldar Banshee are all female because we know how whiny the femaile shout can be.

Not all Banshees are female, incidentally. Some "female" Eldar models are male Eldar playing a part in the pageant, and so are "cross-dressing".

... also, your comment about the female shout? Offensively sexist.

And for those of you who say Orks are based on rugby players and should stay masculine. That is not an argument of why there are no good females in the factions of 40K.

Orks have no gender. Not in 40K. They do in Fantasy though. You don't want to see that picture.

My personal favoret are of course the princes leya dark eldar models. They do not make sence in the setting, no dark eldar would fould themselves with human monkey girls. Why are they there? Because GW sucks at gender balance.

Did you mean Leia? Princess Leia? From Star Wars?

Dark Eldar take slaves. It's what they *do*. That they have 2 female slave models is slightly sexist, excepting that we know that DE don't take only female slaves. It might be a bit sexist on GW's part that they have not produced any male slave models, but that does not make the depictions of these two sexist in and of themselves.

It is noted that Commoragh is densely populated with a lot of Dark Eldar "half-breeds". I think we can see where the other half is coming from.

That you think DE would not have human slaves suggests to me you don't know much about the Dark Eldar.

As to the others... we have no idea what a female Necrontyr looked like. For all we know, half the named Necron characters are female, but the Imperium thinks they're male.

I will come back to this on a later note when I have less work to do, but I will point out your attack of me when I say the banshee having a whiny female voice.

The banshee is build upon the concept of the banshees vail. I human history, and I also belive in the fictinal eldar history the veil was to mark that someone would die. This sound was always high pitched.

In the rules this was often representet by the bashee pitching a high veil when they charge their oponent. This would then stunn them and netting the banshees inisiative 10.

In the fluff they make this sound by having a voice box that increase the sound tenfold. But it is still based on the eldars voice. A lot of eldar banshee are female in the fluff, and as we can see all of them are wearing female armour taking on the role of the banshee witch is how it is represented upon the battlefield. However an old female trope is that females have high whymi voices and are dumb. Like for instance that surfer girl, like from calerforniam that always end her sentence in a question? Also in when learning rhetoric it is ill adviced to talk fast as this makes you voice pitched. While a lot of female voices are piched higher then males geneticaly, we do not in the culture (at least most western culture) recodnise this with authoraty. A light femenine voice in considered bad in all serius settings.

So the basnhee model is building on a cluster of tropes. The trope of the banshee. The fact that most banshee are female. And the fact that they use their high pinched voice.

Unfortunatly in the real world the fact that females do not get taken seriusly becayse they do not speak "like men" is a problem. This is also the only aspect where there are more females then men I belive. Now while they are basing this aspect consept on an awsome myth, the myth of the banshee, they are still keeping live the trope of the high piched female voice as something un masculine that should be dreaded.

A concrete example of where this happens in real life is Margareth Tatcher who has to learn to speak like a man. A lot of poleticians, at least in Norway, are also copeing her maculine style when talking stil today.

Yeah, it's building on the historical representation of a banshee, which is female in history amd mythology. It's not sexism towards females as a whole, it's just how the mythos goes

 Niiai wrote:
I will come back to this on a later note when I have less work to do, but I will point out your attack of me when I say the banshee having a whiny female voice.

The banshee is build upon the concept of the banshees vail. I human history, and I also belive in the fictinal eldar history the veil was to mark that someone would die. This sound was always high pitched.

In the rules this was often representet by the bashee pitching a high veil when they charge their oponent. This would then stunn them and netting the banshees inisiative 10.

In the fluff they make this sound by having a voice box that increase the sound tenfold. But it is still based on the eldars voice. A lot of eldar banshee are female in the fluff, and as we can see all of them are wearing female armour taking on the role of the banshee witch is how it is represented upon the battlefield. However an old female trope is that females have high whymi voices and are dumb. Like for instance that surfer girl, like from calerforniam that always end her sentence in a question? Also in when learning rhetoric it is ill adviced to talk fast as this makes you voice pitched. While a lot of female voices are piched higher then males geneticaly, we do not in the culture (at least most western culture) recodnise this with authoraty. A light femenine voice in considered bad in all serius settings.

So the basnhee model is building on a cluster of tropes. The trope of the banshee. The fact that most banshee are female. And the fact that they use their high pinched voice.

Unfortunatly in the real world the fact that females do not get taken seriusly becayse they do not speak "like men" is a problem. This is also the only aspect where there are more females then men I belive. Now while they are basing this aspect consept on an awsome myth, the myth of the banshee, they are still keeping live the trope of the high piched female voice as something un masculine that should be dreaded.

A concrete example of where this happens in real life is Margareth Tatcher who has to learn to speak like a man. A lot of poleticians, at least in Norway, are also copeing her maculine style when talking stil today.

Dont Banshees use their psycic ability to inhance the crazy speakers on theri mask creating a scream that can hardly be heard except mentally?...

Dont eldar talk with mostly body gestures? Are you suggesting that eldar women have to dance like the men in order to be taken seriously in conversation? Because im fairly sure they hardly talk.

Seriously dude, you are looking into it way too much. Yes GW uses a lot of things for inspiration but i doubt the creation of the banshee went like this:

"Women have high pitched voices, People hate High pitched voices because men have deep voices, lets make an all (even though its mostly) women group who scream at their enemies until they give up because its what women do in real life, then lets make it dark and have it melt their brains a bit, then lets give them swords because they are bigger versions of kitchen knives..."

See how rediculious that sounds. They just based it on the myth and probably used women because the banshees are based on aerobics, something women can do very well (men can too but there are also male banshees) and put the two togther. You then got screaming acrobats that kill.

I doubt it has sexist origins like you are implying

Every list a competitive list!? Non existent- sexist GW models removed?! This is a day I hope never to see. GW lowering prices would be nice though

Some people need to find something more important to complain about.


like the Tyranid codex or NSA spying.

(Abstinence is sexism now? I had no idea.)

The banshee might be a bad example and it is indeed not the strongest play of evidence.

What I do see is that whenever you try to defend sexist models in the game you always come with an explanation from 1) within the fictional setting itself and 2) using that it has always been so in the setting as an argument.

1: Even though it is justified within the fictional culture does not place it outside of the real world the players occupy. If a female or male player find it sexist I think it would have a negative inn-pact upon the experience of the hobby.

2: I think you will find that most sexism can always be defended by the argument "it has always been so".

 Niiai wrote:
The banshee might be a bad example and it is indeed not the strongest play of evidence.

What I do see is that whenever you try to defend sexist models in the game you always come with an explanation from 1) within the fictional setting itself and 2) using that it has always been so in the setting as an argument.

1: Even though it is justified within the fictional culture does not place it outside of the real world the players occupy. If a female or male player find it sexist I think it would have a negative inn-pact upon the experience of the hobby.

2: I think you will find that most sexism can always be defended by the argument "it has always been so".

So models that our not currently considered sexist, or have never been considered sexist, should be banned because someone might think it is sexist?

Oh so GW has sexist FEMALE models? ....Please. Even if they do, have a look at a Space Marine. Go on, I dare you. What do you see? That's right, a 9 foot tall, SOLID MUSCLE, handsome/rugged, deep-voiced MANLY MAN. WITH A CHAINSAW. This is not "sexist"? Double standard, you have to remember it. By your definition, any romanticized character is sexist. SoB and SM aren't meant to be sexist, they are meant to be idealized, stylized people in a fantasy universe. No one likes it when the stars of the show are ugly, unless it is for a distinct purpose (i.e. the underdog, the brute archetype, etc.)

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The banshee might be a bad example and it is indeed not the strongest play of evidence.

What I do see is that whenever you try to defend sexist models in the game you always come with an explanation from 1) within the fictional setting itself and 2) using that it has always been so in the setting as an argument.

1: Even though it is justified within the fictional culture does not place it outside of the real world the players occupy. If a female or male player find it sexist I think it would have a negative inn-pact upon the experience of the hobby.

2: I think you will find that most sexism can always be defended by the argument "it has always been so".

So models that our not currently considered sexist, or have never been considered sexist, should be banned because someone might think it is sexist?

What I find odd is that Niiai has included most, if not all, of the female models currently in production for 40k by GW (with the exception of some Inquisitors, I now realize). If the argument is that some models are sexist, then surely coming up with a counter example would help you show us what you mean? As while I recognize that yes, some of these models/units are the product of male designers, they are all within the realm of reason, and not exactly sexist. Not conservative, but not sexist.

BladeSwinga wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The banshee might be a bad example and it is indeed not the strongest play of evidence.

What I do see is that whenever you try to defend sexist models in the game you always come with an explanation from 1) within the fictional setting itself and 2) using that it has always been so in the setting as an argument.

1: Even though it is justified within the fictional culture does not place it outside of the real world the players occupy. If a female or male player find it sexist I think it would have a negative inn-pact upon the experience of the hobby.

2: I think you will find that most sexism can always be defended by the argument "it has always been so".

So models that our not currently considered sexist, or have never been considered sexist, should be banned because someone might think it is sexist?

What I find odd is that Niiai has included most, if not all, of the female models currently in production for 40k by GW (with the exception of some Inquisitors, I now realize). If the argument is that some models are sexist, then surely coming up with a counter example would help you show us what you mean? As while I recognize that yes, some of these models/units are the product of male designers, they are all within the realm of reason, and not exactly sexist. Not conservative, but not sexist.

I mean some of the most obvious examples *COUGH* Demonettes *COUGH* are designed like that due to the symbolism 40k employs and not "sexist" per say.

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

BladeSwinga wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The banshee might be a bad example and it is indeed not the strongest play of evidence.

What I do see is that whenever you try to defend sexist models in the game you always come with an explanation from 1) within the fictional setting itself and 2) using that it has always been so in the setting as an argument.

1: Even though it is justified within the fictional culture does not place it outside of the real world the players occupy. If a female or male player find it sexist I think it would have a negative inn-pact upon the experience of the hobby.

2: I think you will find that most sexism can always be defended by the argument "it has always been so".

So models that our not currently considered sexist, or have never been considered sexist, should be banned because someone might think it is sexist?

What I find odd is that Niiai has included most, if not all, of the female models currently in production for 40k by GW (with the exception of some Inquisitors, I now realize). If the argument is that some models are sexist, then surely coming up with a counter example would help you show us what you mean? As while I recognize that yes, some of these models/units are the product of male designers, they are all within the realm of reason, and not exactly sexist. Not conservative, but not sexist.

I mean some of the most obvious examples *COUGH* Demonettes *COUGH* are designed like that due to the symbolism 40k employs and not "sexist" per say.

True, but looking at the Repentia, they could have been a bit more modestly covered up top, instead of having one boob only given a nip cover. I don't know SoB fluff too well, so there may be a reason for this lack of clothing there, but I understand that it has something to do with penance. However, I feel that if there was a male variant of the Repentia, that they'd be similarly clad.

BladeSwinga wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

BladeSwinga wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The banshee might be a bad example and it is indeed not the strongest play of evidence.

What I do see is that whenever you try to defend sexist models in the game you always come with an explanation from 1) within the fictional setting itself and 2) using that it has always been so in the setting as an argument.

1: Even though it is justified within the fictional culture does not place it outside of the real world the players occupy. If a female or male player find it sexist I think it would have a negative inn-pact upon the experience of the hobby.

2: I think you will find that most sexism can always be defended by the argument "it has always been so".

So models that our not currently considered sexist, or have never been considered sexist, should be banned because someone might think it is sexist?

What I find odd is that Niiai has included most, if not all, of the female models currently in production for 40k by GW (with the exception of some Inquisitors, I now realize). If the argument is that some models are sexist, then surely coming up with a counter example would help you show us what you mean? As while I recognize that yes, some of these models/units are the product of male designers, they are all within the realm of reason, and not exactly sexist. Not conservative, but not sexist.

I mean some of the most obvious examples *COUGH* Demonettes *COUGH* are designed like that due to the symbolism 40k employs and not "sexist" per say.

True, but looking at the Repentia, they could have been a bit more modestly covered up top, instead of having one boob only given a nip cover. I don't know SoB fluff too well, so there may be a reason for this lack of clothing there, but I understand that it has something to do with penance. However, I feel that if there was a male variant of the Repentia, that they'd be similarly clad.

I will concede there, the repentia and DE slaves deserved to be buried in a pit and never spoken of again. The concept is good but poor execution.

 Niiai wrote:
What I do see is that whenever you try to defend sexist models in the game you always come with an explanation from 1) within the fictional setting itself

That's because, if it makes sense in context, it by definition, is not sexist, there is no blunter way of stating it. Taking the Banshee example for a moment, it is mentioned in the background that not all Banshees are female and that some are male, however they take on female personas and wear the female armour (which is form-fitting internally like all other aspect armour), because Banshees are based of a female godess from Eldar mythos, which makes Banshees the most inclusive unit in the game, because some of them aren't women they are (temporary) transsexuals.

 Troike wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
There's nothing sexist about Sisters Repentia.

Sexist =/= scantily clad.

I can agree with this. It'd be sexist if the Repentia were just like that for sex appeal, and were defined as sexual objects. But the Repentia actually have some pretty solid fluff behind why they look like that. They're not defined by their being scantily clad, but their being penitent relgious nutters.

 Niiai wrote:
The sisters of battle are abstinent, because they want to be just as though as the muscularly military boys. Being accepted because you act like a boy.

...What? So they'd be less sexist if they were less tough? Weaker than the men? And why is being tough and in the military have to be a male thing? That itself actually sounds rather sexist.

Besides, it's 40K, man! Everybody needs to be as tough as possibe to survive in this hellhole of a setting!

The Repentia miniatures are actually wearing a great deal MORE than Repentia in the fluff and art do.

Remember the Witch Hunters cover art? All that Repentia was wearing was a long scroll that was stitched onto her body.

And weirdly, while I was reading this thread, the episode "Birthright" of Stargate SG-1 just happened to be next up in the queue on Netflix. : /

It's about a group of female Jaffa rebels whose former Goa'uld overlord has banned female Jaffa in an incredibly short-sighted move that will surely result in a sharp decline in the number of soldiers he has available. And by "banned female Jaffa" I mean, "ordered all female Jaffa newborns to be killed henceforth."

Now THAT is sexist.

 Psienesis wrote:
Sexist =/= scantily clad.

Dead true.

OP is trying to find sexism where there is none, which will accomplish nothing other than to annoy other people.

This, however I will agree with:

 Icculus wrote:
Well the fact that there are so few female models could be called sexist.

There is a lack of female characters, which is a real shame. But calling Sisters of Battle and Dark Eldar (Really?) "sexist" is just making up your own problems.

Where's all the rage against the improper representation of males in the hobby?

I mean, how can I possibly live up to the standards set by a space marine!? Try as I may, but I don't think I'll ever be 7 feet and a few hundred pounds of rippling muscle mass.

I'm really confused how any of those initial points are valid. They all have equally valid counter-arguments, as Ferros showed.

 Blacksails wrote:
Where's all the rage against the improper representation of males in the hobby?

I mean, how can I possibly live up to the standards set by a space marine!? Try as I may, but I don't think I'll ever be 7 feet and a few hundred pounds of rippling muscle mass.

Not to mention those highly desired redundant organs

But in all honesty, there is glorification of the male physique in this game, too. It is all over the top, just as the setting is. Everything is to be taken with a grain (or small heap) of salt

When I grew up in Norway boys and girls used to play together. When we grew up we treat each other as equals. Yet there is on a global scale very few girls who play warhammer.

If we flip the sexisem question on it's head we can talk about people you can identify with:

Pick a character from 40K with your gender that you can identify with. If you are a male you can do this. If you are a female you can not do this. And I am talking about the tabletop game here. If you need to read a novel to find one, then that is not part of the game, that is just part of multi media representation of the fictional setting.

 Niiai wrote:
When I grew up in Norway boys and girls used to play together. When we grew up we treat each other as equals. Yet there is on a global scale very few girls who play warhammer.

If we flip the sexisem question on it's head we can talk about people you can identify with:

Pick a character from 40K with your gender that you can identify with. If you are a male you can do this. If you are a female you can not do this. And I am talking about the tabletop game here. If you need to read a novel to find one, then that is not part of the game, that is just part of multi media representation of the fictional setting.

...And that is still not sexist. That is indicative of a lack of diversity, not sexism. You sure have some weird ideas.

 Niiai wrote:
When I grew up in Norway boys and girls used to play together. When we grew up we treat each other as equals. Yet there is on a global scale very few girls who play warhammer.

If we flip the sexisem question on it's head we can talk about people you can identify with:

Pick a character from 40K with your gender that you can identify with. If you are a male you can do this. If you are a female you can not do this. And I am talking about the tabletop game here. If you need to read a novel to find one, then that is not part of the game, that is just part of multi media representation of the fictional setting.

Genderwise, yes, I can agree that women are underrepresented in 40k. However, they do manage to have diverse characters in their setting, and include a lot of ethnic groups (even if some are stereotypes). Would I like to see more respectable female models and characters? Of course, but I can see the reasons why it isn't so.

Let's use your relating example. This is a wargame setting created (at least mostly) by men, for play with likeminded people - mostly other men/males. See a pattern? It's because the designers can relate more easily with male characters that a lot of factions have a vast majority, if not all, of their characters male.

Also, the tabletop characters only have any depth due to any fluff that has been written for them in their codex or in other publications. You can't relate to a character if you know nothing about them, so where would you get this knowledge?

I'm not sure if it's been said or not, bit war has historically been the folly of men, so it would make sense for the creators of 40k to stick to what they know.

ted234521 wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
When I grew up in Norway boys and girls used to play together. When we grew up we treat each other as equals. Yet there is on a global scale very few girls who play warhammer.

If we flip the sexisem question on it's head we can talk about people you can identify with:

Pick a character from 40K with your gender that you can identify with. If you are a male you can do this. If you are a female you can not do this. And I am talking about the tabletop game here. If you need to read a novel to find one, then that is not part of the game, that is just part of multi media representation of the fictional setting.

...And that is still not sexist. That is indicative of a lack of diversity, not sexism. You sure have some weird ideas.

Girls don't like violent movies or video games for the most part. Clearly that makes them sexist, too!

 Blacksails wrote:
Where's all the rage against the improper representation of males in the hobby?

I mean, how can I possibly live up to the standards set by a space marine!? Try as I may, but I don't think I'll ever be 7 feet and a few hundred pounds of rippling muscle mass.

Hell I'll never be a catachan. Or a cadian. Or a DKoK. or any "normal" 40k human.

Are your feelings hurt Blacksails and Bronzefist? It does not really matter because last time I checked we did have a well over 95% representation of male warhammer players. I do not think they feel neglected.

And do not tell me that the warhammer armies are not filled with cool male charcaters you can identfy with and want to add to your army:

Wanne be a lone warrior who fights for what he belives in? Play using Commander Farsight.
Wanne be a brawly warrior who stands up for the little person? Use Space Wolf Logan Grimnar.
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant
Wanne be noble? Play as an ultra marine.
Foul? Any or warboss.

Female characters choises within the codex:
The female xenos inqistor: Pretty cool laura croft like.
Comander shadow sun seems good as well.

An eldar farseer if you are good with greenstuff.
Then we have the tyranid tervigon. Not really an option.
Sister of battle who will not chastise themselfs because they vane be pure for the god emperor.
Oh, and we also have laidy malys: Who wants revenge on her x.

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

 Niiai wrote:
Are your feelings hurt Blacksails and Bronzefist? It does not really matter because last time I checked we did have a well over 95% representation of male warhammer players. I do not think they feel neglected.

And do not tell me that the warhammer armies are not filled with cool male charcaters you can identfy with and want to add to your army:

Wanne be a lone warrior who fights for what he belives in? Play using Commander Farsight.
Wanne be a brawly warrior who stands up for the little person? Use Space Wolf Logan Grimnar.
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant
Wanne be noble? Play as an ultra marine.
Foul? Any or warboss.

Female characters choises within the codex:
The female xenos inqistor: Pretty cool laura croft like.
Comander shadow sun seems good as well.

An eldar farseer if you are good with greenstuff.
Then we have the tyranid tervigon. Not really an option.
Sister of battle who will not chastise themselfs because they vane be pure for the god emperor.
Oh, and we also have laidy malys: Who wants revenge on her x.

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

There's sexism then there is gender diversity. Those two can fall into the same category but are largely separate. And yeah there needs to be more gender diversity in the game itself.

 Niiai wrote:
Are your feelings hurt Blacksails and Bronzefist? It does not really matter because last time I checked we did have a well over 95% representation of male warhammer players. I do not think they feel neglected.

And do not tell me that the warhammer armies are not filled with cool male charcaters you can identfy with and want to add to your army:

Wanne be a lone warrior who fights for what he belives in? Play using Commander Farsight.
Wanne be a brawly warrior who stands up for the little person? Use Space Wolf Logan Grimnar.
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant
Wanne be noble? Play as an ultra marine.
Foul? Any or warboss.

Female characters choises within the codex:
The female xenos inqistor: Pretty cool laura croft like.
Comander shadow sun seems good as well.

An eldar farseer if you are good with greenstuff.
Then we have the tyranid tervigon. Not really an option.
Sister of battle who will not chastise themselfs because they vane be pure for the god emperor.
Oh, and we also have laidy malys: Who wants revenge on her x.

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

You are perceiving problems where none exist. Seriously, this isn't a big deal. Nobody is surprised about the lack of females in tabletop gaming. Not sure if you are White Knighting right now or what, but this is getting all a bit silly I think.

The only thing I agree with here is that the IG need more women. There are some, the Gaunts Ghosts models: Nessa, Benda, and Muril, then the Commissar. There are a vast amount of women fighters in the US army today, a few are friends of mine, and the military has now opened the special forces up for women. So although it is the year 40000, I still think there would be woman to fight in it. When orks invade out planet women will pick up weapons too .

Females have played video games for a long time, that is why there are so many women characters in video games. A fresh one on my mind is the Lt. in the new Space Marine game. Lots of girls play Call of Duty, I can't think of one that the main character is a woman that they can relate too. In my opinion, building and painting models has always been and always will be a mans thing. When building a model airplane or boat, a female is not going to be turned on/off of it because the pilot is a man of woman, no, if you want to build and paint, you're going to build and paint. Adding more woman models into the game is not going to magicly change girls minds about Warhammer and have a huge flock of girls start buying and playing it. Most people don't give a about the gender of the model or army, they do it because they enjoy building, or painting, or the fluff, or the friends they are involved with.

I know of woman that like old cars and rebuilding them. But we are not going to get more woman into restoring old cars by bolting a rubber to the back of the car. Its one of those things that you do because it interests you.

 Niiai wrote:
When I grew up in Norway boys and girls used to play together. When we grew up we treat each other as equals. Yet there is on a global scale very few girls who play warhammer.

If we flip the sexisem question on it's head we can talk about people you can identify with:

Pick a character from 40K with your gender that you can identify with. If you are a male you can do this. If you are a female you can not do this. And I am talking about the tabletop game here. If you need to read a novel to find one, then that is not part of the game, that is just part of multi media representation of the fictional setting.

I'm a male and I can't. They're all just a bunch of bigoted, insane, jerkfacey jerkfaces.

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

Wow, first it was about sexism, and once that was shot down, suddenly you're all for gender diversity? You're like one of those goddamned 10 year old "Facebook activists" who know neither what or anything about the things they are "fighting for".

Girls don't like violent movies or video games for the most part. Clearly that makes them sexist, too!

And there you go. By applying your logic, someone managed to make you look like a complete idiot. Good job.

EDIT: You know, I'm being rather caustic here, and to be honest I don't care. What you're saying is completely wrong on so many levels and you simply fail to see it.

ted234521 wrote:

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

Wow, first it was about sexism, and once that was shot down, suddenly you're all for gender diversity? You're like one of those goddamned 10 year old "Facebook activists" who know neither what or anything about the things they are "fighting for".

Girls don't like violent movies or video games for the most part. Clearly that makes them sexist, too!

And there you go. By applying your logic, someone managed to make you look like a complete idiot. Good job.

EDIT: You know, I'm being rather caustic here, and to be honest I don't care. What you're saying is completely wrong on so many levels and you simply fail to see it.

+1 right here

 l000babyseals wrote:

ted234521 wrote:

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

Wow, first it was about sexism, and once that was shot down, suddenly you're all for gender diversity? You're like one of those goddamned 10 year old "Facebook activists" who know neither what or anything about the things they are "fighting for".

Girls don't like violent movies or video games for the most part. Clearly that makes them sexist, too!

And there you go. By applying your logic, someone managed to make you look like a complete idiot. Good job.

EDIT: You know, I'm being rather caustic here, and to be honest I don't care. What you're saying is completely wrong on so many levels and you simply fail to see it.

+1 right here

This argument had some potential but spiraled in so many different random directions (Sexism to gender diversity and how that is killing GW?) it lost all meaning.

 Niiai wrote:

And do not tell me that the warhammer armies are not filled with cool male charcaters you can identfy with and want to add to your army:
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant

Female characters choises within the codex:
Then we have the tyranid tervigon. Not really an option.

Why is it an option for a male player to identify with a Hive Tyrant but not an option for a female player to do so with the Tervigon?

Seriously I rolled my eyes when I saw the title of this thread. Watching the OP change his argument post to post following each rebuttal has been amusing though.

Seriously I rolled my eyes when I saw the title of this thread. Watching the OP change his argument post to post following each rebuttal has been amusing though

Yep, if his hilarious "logic" wasn't enough, he pretends to be arguing something else entirely the minute his argument is countered. Agh.

Yay! This thread is just as useless as this comment!

Body-shaming a woman because she chooses to dress in a sexually-provocative manner, however, is [sexist]

Oh man so much burn because I would wish the game was better. Admitting that warhammer might have a problem does not mean that you should not enjoy your game.

I will try to adress what I mean better, although I doubt I will persuade the more aberant of you. I do however appreciate the discusion even if the remarks does not really have me convinced.

Warhammer is a game about empoverment. They present you as the commander of an empovered army witch you pich against another empovered army. All of this empowerment is for males only, all this enpowerment is only for males, no female empowerment is representet. I feel this is sexist and discrimenating.

The most representet women in this game is done through chaos daemons, dark eldar and sister of battles.

Demons does this through demonets. These are based upon the seductress, female who wield power through their ability to seduce men. This plays into clasic tropes that wimen need to offer sex for power and that their only power is through the medium of a man.

We have the dark eldar witch has a good range of female models in both the wytch and kabalite department. However, most of the wych model are female, the wytches provide entertainment. Most of the kabalite models are male, the kabalite provides mafia and politics. All of the wyches wear skimpy body suits. This is refreshing to see on the males, but when females do this it is just a re-representation of more skimpy clad models. Games Workshop seem to continue to do this, someone pointed out the pin up commissar earlier. Things like this is a problem when it is a pattern of sexulasation of women and a BIG amout of the female models in the game are doing this. Yes that is a problem.

And we have the sisters of battle. I feel I have already covered the skinny clad wimen in the section above. As for the regular sisters they are a mix up of clasic female tropes. We have the castice nun who will not foul themselves and be married and clean in the eyes of the good. A very submissive adetude. Of course then you mix this with the imadge of a female cult who seem to hate everyone. Sisters of battle generaly seem little apreciated by everyone. They are more pure then regular people, fanatic and general the queen bitch faction of the setting.

I do not think any of those other three have good representation of woman and are sexist. But where are the rest of the women?

Orks are all gender neutral. Yet all their names are "boyz" and they are always represented as super masculine and rugged.

Necrons are suposebly gender neutral? I supose there where female and male necrotyn originally? However they are all represented in the same way: Based of arnold swatchnegers masculine 80's icon Terminator.

Tyranids also makes no sence talking about gender, yet it does. The hyve tyrant is refered to as male for the most part. Harpy and Crone are both female names so this is good. However the borm queen is caled the dominatrix, again warhammer refering to females as sexist. Also we have a model that births babies. I would generaly not mind, but with the bad representation of females in the game it stand out as sore thumbs.

Space marines are super masculine and do not have females. I understand that it made sence when they where made to make them "male only" as there where diferent oppinions on gender at that time. It makes no sense to go back and change that since they are so defining of the setting. It would be bad for Gw to change them. ted234521 pointed out that discriminate males. I supose you are right on some part, but it is not really discriminating? A lot of people like them. They are a hyber bole of a fantasy warrrior. They are a big boy scouts club with insignias and macho adetude. And they are not the only represensation of males in the setting. I think tau, eldar and dark eldar have a lot more options for you to choose from. Females who play only have those same options.

Eldars have females. Yet very few models are female. Look through the model range. How many female farseers, aspect warriors or guardians can you see? If the eldars had as many female models as the dark eldar range things would be better. Eldars do not come as part of a culth of pleasure as default, this would be good.

The Tau and Kroot I do not know properly. I do think there are some Tau females? And the kroot seem the more gender neutral of the aliens.

I pointed out some induvidual models that where good, the inquisitor females and the tau model. Those are good.

As for human females? There are no female chaos cultists, it should be some of those. Why are there no females in the imperial guard? Ferros pointed out that the warhammer humans setting needs their women as birthing machines to make more and better soldiers. I do not think this is true. I also think this often represent attitudes that can be projected onto the people playing the game. It comes with the territory of the setting. (Not necessarily the people playing.)

Those where my opinion on how the female gender is representet within the setting. And while all of this can be defended within the fictional setting I do not think I can defend the setting if I was to justefy it to a female players. I work in a shop where we sell a lot of things, among the games workshop products. I always have trouble when girls ask me if I can help them find an army with female models in them.

Blacksails mentioned that he does not feel represented by the males in this setting. I find that hard to belive. He does not get a feeling of empowerment from having a good army? He does not think that any of the male models (most of them) are interesting characters? In any of the factions? They are over the top, but they are there.

Ferros I do not think your counter arguments are any good.

Spakadia what do you mean girls do not like violent video games? They do. Although girls a very badly represented in video games as well.

Bronzefist this is not killing GW. But I would think they would be better of if they did not write of 50% of the marked firsthand. If more women played GW more males would also come as it was no longer a "sausage party".

Opera you say I am sexist because I "Body-shaming a woman because she chooses to dress in a sexually-provocative manner". That would be sexist I agree. However, I am body-shaming a company that repetativaly print out representations of woman as one who must dress in a sexually-provocative manner. Caling them on that is not sexist, it is feminist. A femenist is for equal treatment of the gender. Also, all the sisters of battle wear this "boob armour". If anybody would make armour for wimen they would not make it like that. It incteases the chances of deying as opposed to just having a flatter chest. It makes no sence. It is there to enforce that these models have boobs.

Ferros also do not seem to understand what I mean when I say that the sisters of battle behave like men. They wear "poer armour", they have the same stat "BS4" "WS4" because they are though like space marines, but they are human "T3" "S3". The othe represensation of a woman in warhammer that does not take on the role of the seductres only gets tolerated becaused she acts like a boy. The boy here being the space marine. Sisters of battles play like space marines wane be with bolters, bs 4 and power armour. They do not go against the male norm in any way.

I did try to respond to some of the criticism you had on my opinion here. This subject is rather broad and you all seem to take pot shots at me so the awser became quite long. This of course I would tink lead to the "too long, did not read", but I am hopefull. I would like to get your oponion on this, but for the most part you seem to want to discredit my credabilaty and saying how nonsence this is instead of adressing my arguments. Am I that wrong?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ted234521 wrote:

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

Wow, first it was about sexism, and once that was shot down, suddenly you're all for gender diversity? You're like one of those goddamned 10 year old "Facebook activists" who know neither what or anything about the things they are "fighting for".

Girls don't like violent movies or video games for the most part. Clearly that makes them sexist, too!

And there you go. By applying your logic, someone managed to make you look like a complete idiot. Good job.



EDIT: You know, I'm being rather caustic here, and to be honest I don't care. What you're saying is completely wrong on so many levels and you simply fail to see it.

Ted: why do you edit your post so it seems to people reading it like I am saying that girls don't like violent movies or video games? I know first hand they do both from anecdotal evidence and from research statistics.When you first cite me, coment on it, and the cite somone I do not agree with and use the argument that I am an idiot you are putting words in my mouth. That is confusing to people and foul play.

 Niiai wrote:

And do not tell me that the warhammer armies are not filled with cool male charcaters you can identfy with and want to add to your army:
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant.

Personally, I find the males of 40k to be rather... repulsive.

Most of the male human (and humanoid) characters look well past their forties. Most of them have had their facial features scarred or horribly deformed, quite a lot are missing limbs, others have had their body parts replaced by hideous biomechanicals, their exaggerated masculinity offset by a host of dehumanizing features. Phisical attributes aside, almost every male character in this universe is a pawn to either a slavering religious bureaucracy or to alien forces beyond their comprehension. In the end, they are utterly powerless.

40k takes 1980s comic book machismo and takes it to its most extreme, to a point where it becomes uncomfortable, oppressive and inhuman. It is an ugly setting that revels in its own ugliness, populated by angry old men consumed by rage, hate and bloodlust, slaves to forces beyond their grasp. Accordingly, women in 40k are not doe-eyed cutesies torn between their duties as a soldier and a mother, but creatures as monstrous as their male counterparts.

I can be shocked, horrified and fascinated by this grand guignol and its cast of nightmarish characters, but I certainly can't identify with any of them.

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

 Niiai wrote:

And do not tell me that the warhammer armies are not filled with cool male charcaters you can identfy with and want to add to your army:
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant.

Personally, I find the males of 40k to be rather... repulsive.

Most of the male human (and humanoid) characters look well past their forties. Most of them have had their facial features scarred or horribly deformed, quite a lot are missing limbs, others have had their body parts replaced by hideous biomechanicals, their exaggerated masculinity offset by a host of dehumanizing features. Phisical attributes aside, almost every male character in this universe is a pawn to either a slavering religious bureaucracy or to alien forces beyond their comprehension. In the end, they are utterly powerless.

40k takes 1980s comic book machismo and takes it to its most extreme, to a point where it becomes uncomfortable, oppressive and inhuman. It is an ugly setting that revels in its own ugliness, populated by angry old men consumed by rage, hate and bloodlust, slaves to forces beyond their grasp. Accordingly, women in 40k are not doe-eyed cutesies torn between their duties as a soldier and a mother, but creatures as monstrous as their male counterparts.

I can be shocked, horrified and fascinated by this grand guignol and its cast of nightmarish characters, but I certainly can't identify with any of them.

Very true. The Male characters are completely un relatable but are still interesting.

 Niiai wrote:
Are your feelings hurt Blacksails and Bronzefist? It does not really matter because last time I checked we did have a well over 95% representation of male warhammer players. I do not think they feel neglected.

And do not tell me that the warhammer armies are not filled with cool male charcaters you can identfy with and want to add to your army:

Wanne be a lone warrior who fights for what he belives in? Play using Commander Farsight.
Wanne be a brawly warrior who stands up for the little person? Use Space Wolf Logan Grimnar.
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant
Wanne be noble? Play as an ultra marine.
Foul? Any or warboss.

Female characters choises within the codex:
The female xenos inqistor: Pretty cool laura croft like.
Comander shadow sun seems good as well.

An eldar farseer if you are good with greenstuff.
Then we have the tyranid tervigon. Not really an option.
Sister of battle who will not chastise themselfs because they vane be pure for the god emperor.
Oh, and we also have laidy malys: Who wants revenge on her x.

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

You're forgetting that about half the Tau FW are females as well. Also just because the models don't have boobs doesn't mean they're not women (e.g. Farseer).

+50% of all vehicle cmds that are from cadia are women . IG tank company based around cadian regiments are the second or third most feminized army in w40k.

Phisical attributes aside, almost every male character in this universe is a pawn to either a slavering religious bureaucracy

Since when is being part of a structure not empowering ? It is being outside of one or being part of a weaker one robs one of power

 Blacksails wrote:
Where's all the rage against the improper representation of males in the hobby?

I mean, how can I possibly live up to the standards set by a space marine!? Try as I may, but I don't think I'll ever be 7 feet and a few hundred pounds of rippling muscle mass.

Better hit the gym, get you some serious steroids. Maybe some of that WeightGain 9000....
Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!!!!

Also... the Xenan Free Legions were an all-female IG line, now OOP.
The Necromundan gangs were just about 50/50 split between male and female models.
The DCA is a female model (one of them is, anyway).
The recruitment rate on Cadia, it is noted, is synonymous with its birth-rate. This would indicate that the Cadian regiments are 50% female.

Wanne be noble? Play as an ultra marine.

Or an Inquisitor of either gender leading a Ordo Hereticus force combining the Sisters of Battle, an IG Regiment, and the Sons of Dorn.

Wanne be a brawly warrior who stands up for the little person

Or a Sister Celestine.

Foul?

Or a Radical Inquisitor of either gender leading the forces of the Ordo Malleus against another Daemonic threat.

I am not seeing a gender diversity here. When it comes to computer games studies show that it is an even 50/50 division on the sexes. I know a lot of girls who play first peson shooters and horror games an other games that can be considered grimm and dark. Yet I know only two girls who used to play Gw some years ago.

Warhammer is doing it wrong.

This is a completely different argument than you made in your OP. This is a comment against GW, not against a specific model (or group of models).

... the claim that the way all women shout is whiny is still overtly sexist, though.

The most representet women in this game is done through chaos daemons, dark eldar and sister of battles

Or Imperial Guardsmen if you want to spend the time collecting the models.

Demons does this through demonets. These are based upon the seductress, female who wield power through their ability to seduce men. This plays into clasic tropes that wimen need to offer sex for power and that their only power is through the medium of a man.

The Keeper of Secrets is the "male" version of the Daemonette. Go check out the modeling blogs that have them with their wangs out.
Incidentally... Daemonettes, being Daemons, can change how they appear. They could be one-breasted, crab-clawed figures sporting a six-foot prehensile dick with a flaming skull on the end of it if they wanted to. There is no true male/female in Daemons.

And we have the sisters of battle. I feel I have already covered the skinny clad wimen in the section above. As for the regular sisters they are a mix up of clasic female tropes. We have the castice nun who will not foul themselves and be married and clean in the eyes of the good. A very submissive adetude. Of course then you mix this with the imadge of a female cult who seem to hate everyone. Sisters of battle generaly seem little apreciated by everyone. They are more pure then regular people, fanatic and general the queen bitch faction of the setting.

All of the Sisters of Battle are chaste and celibate. This is because they're nuns. They're also hard-as-nails soldiers and the equal to the Space Marines, without all the fancy biotech. They are, indeed, more pure than regular people. They are, indeed, more fanatical than regular people. Their faith, and their kung-fu, is stronger than yours. And they can be, indeed, the "Queen Bitch" faction of the setting. That's why I love the Sisters of Battle.

Tyranids also makes no sence talking about gender, yet it does. The hyve tyrant is refered to as male for the most part. Harpy and Crone are both female names so this is good. However the borm queen is caled the dominatrix, again warhammer refering to females as sexist. Also we have a model that births babies. I would generaly not mind, but with the bad representation of females in the game it stand out as sore thumbs.

These are in-universe names given to them by the ignorant members of the Magos Biologis and the Departmento Munitorum. Also, "he" is the default pronoun in the English language. We never refer to an intelligent being as "it" unless we want to make it sound like an object (which, when you're talking about other humans, is offensive). So "he" is used in the place where gender is either unknown or irrelevant. This is changing in modern parlance, but is still the "standard". So all of these other Tyranid creatures being referred to as "he", including the Doom of Malantai, Old One Eye, the Red Terror, and so on... "he" is just a default pronoun, because English doesn't have "neutral/neuter" versions of nouns and verbs. It's not establishing that the model/troop is specifically male (as the Imperium sure wouldn't know), it's just the writing style of the English language.

Eldars have females. Yet very few models are female. Look through the model range. How many female farseers, aspect warriors or guardians can you see? If the eldars had as many female models as the dark eldar range things would be better. Eldars do not come as part of a culth of pleasure as default, this would be good.

This, again, is a different argument than you were making in your OP. Is the lack of more Farseer models, female Guardians, etc. indicative of sexist models? No. It is indicative of GW being lazy. We would need to know more about GW's design process to say whether or not GW is sexist as a company. For example, the lack of female Aspect Warriors could be explained as a reverse of the male Banshees... or we could learn that GW Corporate said "no, don't make female Aspect Warrior models, they never sell, girls don't play this game!". That would be sexist. It is, afaik, also untrue (in that GW Corporate has never said or even intimated such a thing, to my knowledge).

As for human females? There are no female chaos cultists, it should be some of those. Why are there no females in the imperial guard? Ferros pointed out that the warhammer humans setting needs their women as birthing machines to make more and better soldiers. I do not think this is true. I also think this often represent attitudes that can be projected onto the people playing the game. It comes with the territory of the setting. (Not necessarily the people playing.)

There have been female IG models. They are just not widely available. You can still find them on eBay and Amazon and such sometimes. Again, this is not signs of sexist models, but GW being lazy. We would need actual evidence, as I said above, to claim sexism on the part of GW.

Also, all the sisters of battle wear this "boob armour". If anybody would make armour for wimen they would not make it like that. It incteases the chances of deying as opposed to just having a flatter chest. It makes no sence. It is there to enforce that these models have boobs.

The corsets worn by the SoB is a reference to the arch-gothic look of the Victorian era, and in-universe is due to the Decree Passive, which states the Ecclesiarchy can have "no men under arms", following the Age of Apostasy. Yes, it is there to enforce the idea that these soldiers have boobs. That is true in-universe as well. However, it also looks damn good, and sets the SoB apart from the SM as Power Armor troops go. It captures that feel of a Gothic Cathedral, except as soldiers of war.

ey wear "poer armour", they have the same stat "BS4" "WS4" because they are though like space marines, but they are human "T3" "S3". The othe represensation of a woman in warhammer that does not take on the role of the seductres only gets tolerated becaused she acts like a boy. The boy here being the space marine. Sisters of battles play like space marines wane be with bolters, bs 4 and power armour. They do not go against the male norm in any way.

Or maybe Space Marines are trying to act like girls? I mean, their stats are almost the same as the Sisters of Battle.
This is a problem with the mechanics of the game, not the gender of the models. When the game is based on a d6, there aren't many unit stats you can work with.

 Niiai wrote:
Pick a character from 40K with your gender that you can identify with. If you are a male you can do this. If you are a female you can not do this.

Uh, why not? Why can't a person identify with a character who is the opposite gender to them? Gender doesn't define a person.

 Niiai wrote:
Wanne be a lone warrior who fights for what he belives in? Play using Commander Farsight.
Wanne be a brawly warrior who stands up for the little person? Use Space Wolf Logan Grimnar.
Wanne be an am emperor of alien unknown? Tyranid hive tyrant
Wanne be noble? Play as an ultra marine.
Foul? Any or warboss.

Female characters choises within the codex:
The female xenos inqistor: Pretty cool laura croft like.
Comander shadow sun seems good as well.

An eldar farseer if you are good with greenstuff.
Then we have the tyranid tervigon. Not really an option.
Sister of battle who will not chastise themselfs because they vane be pure for the god emperor.
Oh, and we also have laidy malys: Who wants revenge on her x.

This is cherry-picking. You've only said positive things about the male characters and then said negative things about some of the female characters.

And, really, I don't understand this fixation on SoB being celibite. They're religious extremists, abstaining from physical pleasures fits in with that.

 Niiai wrote:
And we have the sisters of battle. I feel I have already covered the skinny clad wimen in the section above.

No, see, just being scantily clad isn't sexism in itself. That's over-simplyifying it. GW didn't make the Repentia just because they wanted sex appeal, they made them with their fluff in mind. Crazed religious zealots desperately seeking redemption. We see this fluff reflected on the models themselves, with their covered faces and chains around them. They're not being pitched as sex objects, but fanatics.

 Niiai wrote:
We have the castice nun who will not foul themselves and be married and clean in the eyes of the good. A very submissive adetude.

So... they're bad representations of women because they don't have sex and don't get married? Is that what you're saying? And, again, they're zealots. That's more important than their being women.

 Niiai wrote:
Sisters of battle generaly seem little apreciated by everyone.

Any faithful in the Imperium would like the Sisters, since they're the soldiers of the church. And most IG or SM the SoB fought alongside would also have respect for them.

 Niiai wrote:
and general the queen bitch faction of the setting.

Lovely. So female characters who are dedicated to a cause and don't care about making friends are "bitches"? That's not really a good nor thought-out assessment of the SoB.

 Niiai wrote:
I do not think I can defend the setting if I was to justefy it to a female players. I work in a shop where we sell a lot of things, among the games workshop products. I always have trouble when girls ask me if I can help them find an army with female models in them.

You may be generalising just a bit, here. Plenty of women enjoy 40K, and many of them don't have to play using female models to do so. Female players aren't all the same, you know!

Also, I find it interesting that you seem to think that males must enjoy male characters and females must enjoy female characters. This isn't the case at all.

 Niiai wrote:
The othe represensation of a woman in warhammer that does not take on the role of the seductres only gets tolerated becaused she acts like a boy. The boy here being the space marine.

Again, why does being a tough, elite soldier have to be an exclusively male thing? You're essentially saying that only men should behave in such a way, which strikes me as quite sexist.

However, I will note that 40K could indeed use some more female representation, since some players (of any gender) might want to use female models, and it'd better represent how diverse some of the factions are. Though I don't really agree with your assessment of some of the current female characters, nor some of your logic.

NILai you started out claiming GW is sexist but you're starting to come off as being sexist yourself (No boobs= Not Female? being celibite is bad?).

Ok i think its enough. He had good intentions but it came off wrong. Let it go guys

I am not saying that females can not enjoy a male main character, but when it becomes the norm it becomes a problem. When girls on several occasions have asked me if I can help them choose a warhammer army for them to play that contains female characters they can choose between wood elves and high elves. My anecdotal experience with these requests is that they do not like to be forced into playing dark elves or sisters of battle, neather are very good representation of women. The eldars have females, but besides the banshee we do not find female models. Banzaimash pointed out that some of the tau are female, but this does not really help if it is not shown.

And you do not think that the sisters of battle are represented as the most zealus of the imperial factions. They are always represented blaming every one else as heretics, seing things in black and white and have the settings role as always playing by the books, especial when this leads to exesive force upon people who might be innocent. I do not count them as a good female representative.

I am not saying that plenty of women are enjoying 40K, I am just saying that very few are. There is a difference there, and the difference is that the women who enjoy 40K does so despite it being a very woman unrepresentative setting. What good representative female factions or characters are there in the setting that eater gender can enjoy?

Bronzefists42 do you not think it is a problem that the only way you know they are females is because they have boobs on the armour? How else do the game do it? 40K is made by boys for boys. Girls are welcome, but they can't have their own toys. Just a gendere representative faction would be good.

I am not saying being celibate is bad, I am saying it is not representative that the "woman faction" in warhammer are only celibate. That is just wrong. It could be an interesting faction if there where other women to choose from but for now they are the "girl we allow because she is a tomboy" faction in the setting.

There is no such thing as innocence, merely degrees of guilt.

 Niiai wrote:
I am not saying that females can not enjoy a male main character, but when it becomes the norm it becomes a problem. When girls on several occasions have asked me if I can help them choose a warhammer army for them to play that contains female characters they can choose between wood elves and high elves. My anecdotal experience with these requests is that they do not like to be forced into playing dark elves or sisters of battle, neather are very good representation of women. The eldars have females, but besides the banshee we do not find female models. Banzaimash pointed out that some of the tau are female, but this does not really help if it is not shown.

And you do not think that the sisters of battle are represented as the most zealus of the imperial factions. They are always represented blaming every one else as heretics, seing things in black and white and have the settings role as alwasy playing by the books, especialy when this leads to exesive force upon people who might be innocent. I do not count them as a good female representative.

I am not saying that plenty of women are enjoying 40K, I am just saying that very few are. There is a diference there, and the difference is that the women who enjoy 40K does so despite it being a very woman unrepresentative setting.

Bronzefists42 do you not think it is a problem that the only way you know they are females is because they have boobs on the armour? How else do the game do it? 40K is made by boys for boys. Girls are welcome, but they can't have their own toys. Just a gendere representative faction would be good.

I am not saying being celibat is bad, I am saying it is not representive that the "woman faction" in warhammer are only celibat. That is just wrong.

Look at modern ballistic vests they are not form fitting they tend to make everyone look "gender neutral". From a distance you can't tell what gender the soldier/police officer is. Now look at the Tau Fire Warrior Armor. It isn't form fitting and acts the same way modern ballistic vests do and makes the wearer more "gender neutral." Tau fluff states that it is rare for one to stand out from the rest as an individual. Heck I play my Shas'o that I use to lead my army I play it as a female. What GW should do is stop being lazy make more Tau heads more feminine. Right now I have third party heads I can buy from but then again I prefer my Fire Warriors to be Helmeted.

Thank you for the endorsement Enigma Crisis. Making more female heads would indeed make more of a gender diversity in the game. It would give the game more attributes to show females other then smacking some breast on aspect armour or skin suits.

Even simple steps like adding female heads for the tau model GW does not do.

 Niiai wrote:
I am not saying that plenty of women are enjoying 40K, I am just saying that very few are. There is a difference there, and the difference is that the women who enjoy 40K does so despite it being a very woman unrepresentative setting.

Though 40K being quite male-centric with its characters isn't the only thing that might discourage women from playing. Some women have said that they were treated differently just due to their gender when they tried to get into the hobby. This sort of thing can be a big problem too.

 Niiai wrote:
What good representative female factions or characters are there in the setting that eater gender can enjoy?

Well, this is entirely subjective! One person might enjoy different things in a character.

 Niiai wrote:
I am saying it is not representative that the "woman faction" in warhammer are only celibate. That is just wrong. It could be an interesting faction if there where other women to choose from but for now they are the "girl we allow because she is a tomboy" faction in the setting.

But that SoB aren't just there to be "the token girl faction", that'd be kinda boring. They're also there to be the "fanatic" faction, showing off the heights of the Imperium's zeal and brutality.

Oh, and sorry if I came off a little rude in my previous reply. It's just something that I feel strongly about.

 Enigma Crisis wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I am not saying that females can not enjoy a male main character, but when it becomes the norm it becomes a problem. When girls on several occasions have asked me if I can help them choose a warhammer army for them to play that contains female characters they can choose between wood elves and high elves. My anecdotal experience with these requests is that they do not like to be forced into playing dark elves or sisters of battle, neather are very good representation of women. The eldars have females, but besides the banshee we do not find female models. Banzaimash pointed out that some of the tau are female, but this does not really help if it is not shown.

And you do not think that the sisters of battle are represented as the most zealus of the imperial factions. They are always represented blaming every one else as heretics, seing things in black and white and have the settings role as alwasy playing by the books, especialy when this leads to exesive force upon people who might be innocent. I do not count them as a good female representative.

I am not saying that plenty of women are enjoying 40K, I am just saying that very few are. There is a diference there, and the difference is that the women who enjoy 40K does so despite it being a very woman unrepresentative setting.

Bronzefists42 do you not think it is a problem that the only way you know they are females is because they have boobs on the armour? How else do the game do it? 40K is made by boys for boys. Girls are welcome, but they can't have their own toys. Just a gendere representative faction would be good.

I am not saying being celibat is bad, I am saying it is not representive that the "woman faction" in warhammer are only celibat. That is just wrong.

Look at modern ballistic vests they are not form fitting they tend to make everyone look "gender neutral". From a distance you can't tell what gender the soldier/police officer is. Now look at the Tau Fire Warrior Armor. It isn't form fitting and acts the same way modern ballistic vests do and makes the wearer more "gender neutral." Tau fluff states that it is rare for one to stand out from the rest as an individual. Heck I play my Shas'o that I use to lead my army I play it as a female. What GW should do is stop being lazy make more Tau heads more feminine. Right now I have third party heads I can buy from but then again I prefer my Fire Warriors to be Helmeted.

Here in NZ you can very easily tell the difference between a female soldier and male soldier, same with police. And from all the photos i have seen (the not 99% staged ones of models in gear) are the same. To make female models you have to actually make them female. If you have seen one before they are very different physically from a male. I agree with the tau though, their armour is like a casing rather than a fit (if that makes any sense) so yea cant tell the difference ish but i think we all know GW didnt make them as women.

 Niiai wrote:
Thank you for the endorsement Enigma Crisis. Making more female heads would indeed make more of a gender diversity in the game. It would give the game more attributes to show females other then smacking some breast on aspect armour or skin suits.

Even simple steps like adding female heads for the tau model GW does not do.

Before the new codex Tau had three heads Tank Commander, Fire Warrior Sarge, and Shadowsun. 1/3 was a female head. With the new update we now have 5 more heads, Fireblades, 3 Pathfinders, and Darkstrider. Now i'ts 1/8 are female heads (Not counting Longstirke as his head comes attached to the body). Again that is GW being lazy nothing more.

Look at modern ballistic vests they are not form fitting they tend to make everyone look "gender neutral". From a distance you can't tell what gender the soldier/police officer is. Now look at the Tau Fire Warrior Armor. It isn't form fitting and acts the same way modern ballistic vests do and makes the wearer more "gender neutral." Tau fluff states that it is rare for one to stand out from the rest as an individual. Heck I play my Shas'o that I use to lead my army I play it as a female. What GW should do is stop being lazy make more Tau heads more feminine. Right now I have third party heads I can buy from but then again I prefer my Fire Warriors to be Helmeted.

Here in NZ you can very easily tell the difference between a female soldier and male soldier, same with police. And from all the photos i have seen (the not 99% staged ones of models in gear) are the same. To make female models you have to actually make them female. If you have seen one before they are very different physically from a male. I agree with the tau though, their armour is like a casing rather than a fit (if that makes any sense) so yea cant tell the difference ish but i think we all know GW didnt make them as women.

Ture I was using it as an example not a good one though. Didn't want to get into the sterotype that all woman are naturally smaller. Looking at them in a battle environment with full battle rattle you really couldn't tell till you got closer. Heck Shadowsun with her helmet on you really can't tell she is female unless you know the fluff of the character.

Edit Fixing quote fields and adding Swastakowey's reply.

The Tau are a good example that male models are the norm. I would think most people who look on Tau models would think of them as male. It is such a dominant representation in warhammer that male is the norm and female must be represented differently to be persevered as female.

As an alien race with gender equality in the field it makes no scense for GW to not make this faction one with female models. You might say that is GW being lazy and nothing more. But this same lazyness also makes women being unrepresented. If GW cared more about their female players they would have made more female characters. Especially where it clearly makes sense in the setting. Tau, imperial guard and eldar at least.

Troike thank you for contributing to the conversation.

"Though 40K being quite male-centric with its characters isn't the only thing that might discourage women from playing. Some women have said that they were treated differently just due to their gender when they tried to get into the hobby. This sort of thing can be a big problem too."

That sort of thing is definably a big problem. I would however think that this problem would decrease if a good representative female would in fact exists within the game. Right now the game is for the most part a male fictional setting with male players. I would like to see diversety in both.

"Well, this is entirely subjective! One person might enjoy different things in a character."

This is very true. I do however feel that my point of female characters to draw from is very shallow. Try to picture a girl (or a boy) wanting to play warhammer 40K with girl models. What is her options?

"But that SoB aren't just there to be "the token girl faction", that'd be kinda boring. They're also there to be the "fanatic" faction, showing off the heights of the Imperium's zeal and brutality."

I agree! However right now they are the token girl faction. While I would not object to the SoB usualy, I do so when they are the only females in being videly represented in the setting.

Only because human beings are biologically-programmed to assume female humanoids have boobs. We have yet, IRL, to encounter an alien species that don't... and we also don't definitively know whether Tau females do or do not. Tau age quickly, and are evolved from a plains-dwelling animal. It's possible that they nurse their young, be we don't know, and it may be that Tau females feature breasts only while pregnant or nursing.

This, though, is entirely conjecture on my part.

Psienesis you are again defenfing it from within the fiction of the setting.

My problem is when someone from the real world want to play with models that look like they are female.

I have already covered this before but the lack of gender diversity would always have an explanation from within the setting. Even if Tau females did not happen to look like what we associate with female in the real world, we would not recognise them as female. Again, this whole debate is about the miss representation of females when we play the game.

so, are you wanting GW to change the game and background just to shove in female characters and models where there werent before? what next, make female space marines canon?

BewareofTom I have already covered that. Making female space marine cannon would be a to radical change in the setting I relive. (Although there is little justification for it to begin with it is established cannon by now.)

What would be good solutions would simply be to print more female models that are not sexist (DE wytches and chaos demonets) or zealus fanatics (SoB). A good start would be:

Female tau heads.
A big increase in female eldars.
Female imperial guards.

It would also be very good with some female special characters.

I am a bit unsure how you could in-corporate females or femininity into the alien factions. The only one in my opinion witch is represented very neutral is the Kroot and Vespides.

Orks are represented masculine and I feel like marines they should stay that way. (I do not know what you think?)

Tyranids could do with some femeninaty on some of the models, but at least the harpy and crone are femenine names.

The necrons could do very well with some femenine models. especialy in the lord of cryptect department, but for starters I would focus on Tau, Eldar and Imperial Guard.

well I agree with you on the tau, eldar and IG front but the rest is much for me, I dont think crons or nids need a "feminine model"... I mean can you tell the difference between cockroaches of which is male and female?

what I think they could/should do for IG is just add 2-3 head and torso options in the command squad box, maybe 1-2 female heads for tau in the FW box, and maybe like 40/60 female to male options for eldar/DE

but other than that not all races need "femininity", I mean sure there where females for necrons before they were robots but now their ROBOTS, and tyranids and BUGS and I think they need role models for female players to relate too

 Niiai wrote:
BewareofTom I have already covered that. Making female space marine cannon would be a to radical change in the setting I relive. (Although there is little justification for it to begin with it is established cannon by now.)

What would be good solutions would simply be to print more female models that are not sexist (DE wytches and chaos demonets) or zealus fanatics (SoB). A good start would be:

Female tau heads.
A big increase in female eldars.
Female imperial guards.

It would also be very good with some female special characters.

I am a bit unsure how you could in-corporate females or femininity into the alien factions. The only one in my opinion witch is represented very neutral is the Kroot and Vespides.

Orks are represented masculine and I feel like marines they should stay that way. (I do not know what you think?)

Tyranids could do with some femeninaty on some of the models, but at least the harpy and crone are femenine names.

The necrons could do very well with some femenine models. especialy in the lord of cryptect department, but for starters I would focus on Tau, Eldar and Imperial Guard.

I pretty much agree except the nids/crons thing, fluff wise nids are pretty much genderless as they do not reproduce sexually in the most conventional sense. On top of that, I've never thought of a carnifex as a guy or girl, just a big, scary, alien thing that needs to die. Same with crons. They are a faceless and sadistic race of cursed souls trapped in ramshackle (by their standards) metal bodies who don't even remember who they are. I feel like giving either faction more things to associate with makes them less alien, removing the "faceless innumerable horror" type thing they have going on.

Guard and Tau on the other hand, sure. GW is just lazy; why make lots of different heads when you can provide 3 that can be swapped around to make a "new" model? I would like to see some female guard especially, it would break up some of the monotony and (in my opinion) make the guard seem more, well, human, and therefore embracing the "mere man at odds with the galaxy" dynamic. Instead of just men, you see men, women, and sometimes children (conscripts?) fighting shoulder-to-shoulder as the first and last line of defense for all of mankind. Much more epic.

Eldar is iffy, with all the race-wide skintight spandex bodysuits (remember male eldar wear them too) you might run into the same issue your thread brought up in the first place, that being "OMG BEWBS". And if you made a female model that wore a helmet and didn't have any recognizable anatomy, (no not just boobs, how about shoulder width, waist, height, ect) how do we even know it is supposed to be a female in the first place? If combat armor makes everyone look the same anyhow, then what is the point? We're talking 28mm miniatures here, you don't have a ton of room for really subtle details... Or subtle enough to know a girl is a girl under 50 pounds of armor anyway.

ted234521: "And if you made a female model that wore a helmet and didn't have any recognizable anatomy, (no not just boobs, how about shoulder width, waist, height, ect) how do we even know it is supposed to be a female in the first place? If combat armor makes everyone look the same anyhow, then what is the point?"

Because warhammer has so much males in the setting that your model is by default male until other vice proven. This is not me bad talking wimen, this is just how it is: When you see 10 warpsiders most warhammer player would assosiate them as male. The same with tau armour.


They based the design of necrons off the terminator. Even that francise has evolved.

 Niiai wrote:
They based the design of necrons off the terminator. Even that francise has evolved.

Incorrect.

The Necron is an evolution of the Chaos Android

Actually, they didn't. They're based on the RT-era Chaos Robots. The Female Terminator model is also very, very, post-Necron appearance.

If people want to play 40K with human-female-models, they have a number of choices. First and foremost being, obviously, the Sisters of Battle.

Second, there are 2 flavors of Eldar.

Third, there are old IG kits that feature female models.

Fourth, there are non-gendered races. One particularly veteran female player I know plays Tyranid. Lady loves her bugs.

And then.... there are Orks.
You brought this upon yourselves.

... you didn't, really, but I am evil like that.

The reason I keep bringing up in-universe things is because the in-universe explanations very much indicate why the models are not sexist (insofar as a small bit of plastic can be called "sexist") or depicts something that can be accurately construed as sexist or gender-discriminatory.

That GW does not have a female-equivalent model for every male model in their line does not make GW sexist, it simply makes them lazy. While I think it would be awesome if there were female IG in numbers to match the male IG, and a variety of SOB sculpts, and more fem-Dar, and more Fem-Tau (though, in a Crisis Suit, who can tell? They don't go around with their helmets off like SM do...).. that GW doesn't have them doesn't indicate a gender bias on GW's part, just the inertia of a conservative business model.

Chutululs spy the terminator movie came out in 1984 and could easily have inspired the chaos android. When where they introduced to the setting? Even if you are right the fact is that a lot of people refer to Necrons as terminators in space. Also, the current models look a lot like terminator.

Even if the necron warriors are generic and do not remember anything, shurly the cryptecs and lords do? This is not a good fictional world based exuse to not have female necrons in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Psiensis you are stil not explaining how sisters of battle, eldar, dark eldar and imperial guards are good representetives for the female gender in the game.

They have to search for old female models on ebay to play female imperial guard?

You keep talking but you never actualy make any valid points. How are these representative for players if they want female characters?

 Niiai wrote:

Even if the necron warriors are generic and do not remember anything, shurly the cryptecs and lords do? This is not a good fictional world based exuse to not have female necrons in the game.

What makes you think there were female necrontyr to begin with? For all we know, they could have been parthenogenetic, or even hermophrodites.

Even if there were female necrontyr, they wouldn't have a female necron form - skeletons tend not to have breasts (provided the necrontyr even had mammary glands).

 Niiai wrote:
Chutululs spy the terminator movie came out in 1984 and could easily have inspired the chaos android. When where they introduced to the setting? Even if you are right the fact is that a lot of people refer to Necrons as terminators in space. Also, the current models look a lot like terminator.

Even if the necron warriors are generic and do not remember anything, shurly the cryptecs and lords do? This is not a good fictional world based exuse to not have female necrons in the game. 

Mainly because skeletons (what a necron essentially is) don't have many superficial traits that identify gender at a glance? Or that adding female physical traits to them makes no sense? Anyway, both the Terminator and necrons look like skeletons. Should we say they're both rip-offs of or inspired by human anatomy? As is most of the non-human beings of 40k?

Also, historically, men are the ones to have taken up arms. Wouldn't it make sense to apply this to the necrons as well? In which case, any female necrons that do exist probably don't get seen often due to not being a military asset. But I don't know much necron fluff, so I can't say too much.

I can understand, and support, wanting to add more female models into the game, I just think you're looking in the wrong places to do so.

Psiensis you are stil not explaining how sisters of battle, eldar, dark eldar and imperial guards are good representetives for the female gender in the game.

How are they bad female representatives? They are women who are either on-par with their male counterparts (IG, Eldar, Dark Eldar), or women who get along just fine, and compete on an even playing field, with their male equivalents.

I'm tired of this "don't do anything that can offend anyone" BS. That's not why I play warhammer, to feel sensitive to other's feelings. I play a game about fanatics, cultists, demons and inquisitors killing stuff. If you want gender-nuetral-all encompassing-love and hug time, go to another game. I want Warhammer to be offensive to someone. If art isn't offending someone then its not doing its job. There's no inherent right to never be offended. If I want to write a book about super human marines killing stuff, awesome. If you want to write a book where everyone is kind and caring about their feelings, go for it, but don't expect me to change just because you see the world differently than I do.

In other words, stop straining yourself looking for a cause to champion and go find some real good to do in the world. This is just annoying.

Well, in all honesty, his goal is noble and would actually do some real good in the world. My main issue is the way in which it's approached, but having viable gender options for all of the 40K armies, where it's appropriate in-universe (no FemMarines, for example), would not be a bad thing.

Having options to customize your army does no one any harm.

 Psienesis wrote:
Well, in all honesty, his goal is noble and would actually do some real good in the world. My main issue is the way in which it's approached, but having viable gender options for all of the 40K armies, where it's appropriate in-universe (no FemMarines, for example), would not be a bad thing.

Having options to customize your army does no one any harm.

I'd love to have some female IG or more female characters all around. I play SOB and don't consider them sexist. They're not role models, but no one really is in Warhammer. Heck, look at my avatar, that's a female tech priestess I made.
It's this mindless "everything I don't like is sexist" attitude that I can't stand.

Yeah, like I said... goal is good, way of getting there is off. And female Tech-Priests are another thing we could have, though they are fairly easily built.

he sisters of battle are free to have sex if they so desire, it all depends on their order and their personalities. The book Cain's Last Stand implies it nicely and their are a few hints in some of the other books as well. The sisters just don't make a big deal of it, it's the SM that can't have sex.

As for the models some armies do have female models and the army's that do not have female models their is fluff backing the reason, so it is hard to call GW sexist. The only real offenders of a lack female models are the Imperial guard, but if you read the novels fluff wise it is fairly rare for women to be inducted. There have been however, whole female regiments (I believe one of the vahallan regiments) and a few that are mixed; the models just don't represent that which is a little sad. The Tau could be accused of the same thing, but they are alien so their physiology is different then ours so there may be little visual difference.

The pin up female commissars the ones I have seen come from Raging Heroes not GW. I have heard about the female commissar Games Day model, but have never seen

And the Nor Queen and the Dominatrix are too different organisms in the tyranid swarm IIRC, but I'd have to recheck the lexicon

SaintofDaemons wrote:
he sisters of battle are free to have sex if they so desire, it all depends on their order and their personalities. The book Cain's Last Stand implies it nicely and their are a few hints in some of the other books as well.

The Cain books are considered to be the least accurate when it comes to the Sisters. Don't take Mitchell's stance on it.

The Cain books fly in the face of all previously-published Sisters Codex material that specifically states they are a celibate and penitent order. They put spikes on their writing pens so that it's painful to write something down, ffs. They are not going drinking and fornicating with random schmucks off the street.

It's a particularly egregious example of a BL author not knowing WTF he's talking about with a faction of the setting. It is, IMO, C.S. Goto-level bad.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Cain books fly in the face of all previously-published Sisters Codex material that specifically states they are a celibate and penitent order. They put spikes on their writing pens so that it's painful to write something down, ffs. They are not going drinking and fornicating with random schmucks off the street.

It's a particularly egregious example of a BL author not knowing WTF he's talking about with a faction of the setting. It is, IMO, C.S. Goto-level bad.

This and this.
All pleasure is a sin. (except maybe the pleasure of destroying the enemies of the Emperor.) These are raving fanatics. You can't apply standard psychology to them. Heck, not making your bunk in the morning probably lands you in the Repentia.

Heh, in fact, it probably does not (by "the book"), but the Sister who failed to make her bunk would *request* being sent to the Repentia, *after* the "mortifaction of the flesh" and whatever other punishments assigned to her by her Sister Superior.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Cain books are considered to be the least accurate when it comes to the Sisters. Don't take Mitchell's stance on it.

I've heard complaints from Tallarn and Ad Mech fans too... Though given that I don't know those factions in depth I'm not sure how justified those were.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Cain books fly in the face of all previously-published Sisters Codex material that specifically states they are a celibate

Not specifically, but it may as well. It mentions them living lives of "extreme self denial" and forsaking all pleasures.

 Psienesis wrote:
It's a particularly egregious example of a BL author not knowing WTF he's talking about with a faction of the setting. It is, IMO, C.S. Goto-level bad.

Yep. Though people take Mitchell more seriously than Goto, so, unfortunately, many think that that was an accurate portrayal of the SoB.

Does Swallow portray them correctly, btw? I haven't read his book yet, so I don't really know.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Does Swallow portray them correctly, btw? I haven't read his book yet, so I don't really know.

They're the best portrayals I've seen of Sisters of Battle. Fire and Faith and Hammer and Anvil are as good as it gets for the poor SOB. (though the canoness dueling the Necron Lord was pretty neat.

Alright, so, I'm going to debunk one more argument, then rehash my issue with your post from a clean-slate viewpoint as if all you originally said was "too many males, not enough females, and I didn't actually say that thing about women being whiny."

Because for all of the aggression you're getting in this thread, I have a feeling a lot of it is due to English being a secondary language and that there's a good deal of miscommunication here. (No offense. I learned two languages awhile ago and can't speak either to save my life.)

 Niiai wrote:
BewareofTom I have already covered that. Making female space marine cannon would be a to radical change in the setting I relive. (Although there is little justification for it to begin with it is established cannon by now.)

Doesn't work that way, nor should it. I could say from an actual scientific standpoint (men and women deal with hormones differently. So much of their implants wouldn't function as well. Also: Unnecessary organs and weaknesses via ovaries, mammaries, etc. It's unknown if the penis or testis exist post-transformation, but that's such a small piece of the total individual).
From an actual fluff perspective it's also pretty obvious. Particularly when Horus' fall is pretty close to the Heaven-Hell allegory. So even the Primarchs would, by virtue of setting and inspiration, remain male.

What would be good solutions would simply be to print more female models that are not sexist (DE wytches and chaos demonets) or zealus fanatics (SoB). A good start would beare based off

This is difficult, since as has already been pointed out, sexually provocative clothing is not necessarily sexist. Should I assume the Catachans with rippling, exposed muscles are sexist against men? No. In some part it fits setting (Wearing little clothing in an arena for Dark Eldar is both a show of bravado and entertainment, repentia are based off self-flagellants (Yep, that's where THOSE models also come from!) in the middle ages and both wore little clothing since they just whipped themselves all damn day.

Female tau heads.
A big increase in female eldars.
Female imperial guards.

No real problem here - except Eldar. They have more female models than most.

I am a bit unsure how you could in-corporate females or femininity into the alien factions. The only one in my opinion witch is represented very neutral is the Kroot and Vespides.

What's with the un-necessary need to make everything female, even factions you can't differentiate between sexes? It's like you're trying to force "females" into every faction without even considering if there's males in the first place, or if it makes sense.

Orks are represented masculine and I feel like marines they should stay that way. (I do not know what you think?)

Orks have absolutely no reason to have any female characteristics whatsoever, so, I agree.

Tyranids could do with some femeninaty on some of the models, but at least the harpy and crone are femenine names.

No, they really couldn't. They're bugs. Applying an anthromorphic feminine to their models is a ludicrous idea.

The necrons could do very well with some femenine models. especialy in the lord of cryptect department, but for starters I would focus on Tau, Eldar and Imperial Guard.

Why would they make female models. An Overseer I could maybe see, but everything else is purpose-built. Why add breasts to your mindless slave-warriors? Literally the only models with any viability for feminine traits are the Lords or Crypteks. Even then, Crypteks are pretty gender neutral. You're pretty much saying "add breasts to robots because" and I find that pretty difficult to swallow.


The problem is that men evolved for fighting. If you've taken anthropology courses you've probably gotten glimpses of this. Better spacial perception, increased androgen receptor sensitivity/density, increased muscle mass, larger waist/smaller hips, higher hand-grip strength, denser bones and stronger ligaments/tendons, ~50% greater lung volume, larger hearts and blood cell count, higher clotting factors, thicker skin, greater pain tolerance (Yep have to go through child birth AND feel more pain? Damn nature, you scary.)

The male sex is intended to fight and fight and much greater efficiency. They are, naturally, in all areas involving physical duress and capability naturally superior to women. I am not being facetious of sexist, this is the basic premise behind sexual dimorphism in nearly every sepcies - you evolve for your given task. In most cases, the responsibility of fighting (for women, territory, or resources), securing food, and combatting threats is the man's duty. This is why men are traditionally fighters and why women are typically relegated to supporting roles.

Now obviously, as technology and needs have adapted women have been able to take up more slack - and a women who is better physically conditioned will be much more useful than a sedentary male - but there's a reason why "war" in theory or reality is not 50% women. Nature is not fair and does not promote equality.

Having said that - suggesting Tyranids or Orks should have any female qualities, particularly things we attribute to the human feminine makes your argument come off as unnecessary and naive. It goes against nature, the fluff, and sensibilities. Could Eldar and Dark Eldar have more? Yes. Their culture also allows for greater advancement of women and it shows in their special characters - but again, you have to be careful to not just throw females in because "that's the way it should be". I wouldn't mind if a Spears of Hawks special female character came out, or those Twilight guys from FW. (Memory is bad, forgive me).

Tau could have more females, but fluff could swing either way. All things equal though, why not?

Imperial Guard could throw in a few random models. I doubt they'll do it for S and G though since it just hikes up the cost of production to make a minority of people happy - but, as a player, I have no problem with it. Maybe make a regiment of mostly females that somehow avoids the same niche of psychotic battle-women as SoB.

Something I'd really love to see is the return of the Black Ships with the Sisters of Silence. That'd make for an awesome faction/unit that's perfectly reasonable finanacially, fluff-wise, and practical.

"Faith & Fire" and "Hammer & Anvil" aren't bad, really, though I think he could have done a bit better with adding a bit more color to the characterizations of the Sisters, though having said that, they all have distinct personalities and depict human emotions. Some even crack jokes now and then.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Does Swallow portray them correctly, btw? I haven't read his book yet, so I don't really know.

I'd say so! He doesn't make any noticable slip-ups in terms of their fluff, and he writes them well too. I certainly enjoyed both of his SoB books.

 Psienesis wrote:
"Faith & Fire" and "Hammer & Anvil" aren't bad, really, though I think he could have done a bit better with adding a bit more color to the characterizations of the Sisters, though having said that, they all have distinct personalities and depict human emotions. Some even crack jokes now and then.

Jokes? Sisters have a sense of humor? Or is a sort of dry wit?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
"Faith & Fire" and "Hammer & Anvil" aren't bad, really, though I think he could have done a bit better with adding a bit more color to the characterizations of the Sisters, though having said that, they all have distinct personalities and depict human emotions. Some even crack jokes now and then.

Jokes? Sisters have a sense of humor? Or is a sort of dry wit?

In one of the fights with the Necrons, one of the Sisters, blasting a few Warriors apart with her bolter, smiles grimly and says, "I wish I had a Stormbolter!"

The problem is that men evolved for fighting. If you've taken anthropology courses you've probably gotten glimpses of this. Better spacial perception, increased androgen receptor sensitivity/density, increased muscle mass, larger waist/smaller hips, higher hand-grip strength, denser bones and stronger ligaments/tendons, ~50% greater lung volume, larger hearts and blood cell count, higher clotting factors, thicker skin, greater pain tolerance (Yep have to go through child birth AND feel more pain? Damn nature, you scary.)

The male sex is intended to fight and fight and much greater efficiency. They are, naturally, in all areas involving physical duress and capability naturally superior to women. I am not being facetious of sexist, this is the basic premise behind sexual dimorphism in nearly every sepcies - you evolve for your given task. In most cases, the responsibility of fighting (for women, territory, or resources), securing food, and combatting threats is the man's duty. This is why men are traditionally fighters and why women are typically relegated to supporting roles.

Now obviously, as technology and needs have adapted women have been able to take up more slack - and a women who is better physically conditioned will be much more useful than a sedentary male - but there's a reason why "war" in theory or reality is not 50% women. Nature is not fair and does not promote equality.

The science behind these claims is dubious, at best, and flat-out wrong in others. There are plenty of mammals in which the female has evolved to be the most-efficient hunter/killer. Historically speaking, there have been female soldiers in just about every era of history, up until the 18th century or so. There are documents dating quite a ways back that detail female knightly orders, as well as historical records indicating female Norse and Celt mercenary forces in the Roman Empire.

 Psienesis wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
"Faith & Fire" and "Hammer & Anvil" aren't bad, really, though I think he could have done a bit better with adding a bit more color to the characterizations of the Sisters, though having said that, they all have distinct personalities and depict human emotions. Some even crack jokes now and then.

Jokes? Sisters have a sense of humor? Or is a sort of dry wit?

In one of the fights with the Necrons, one of the Sisters, blasting a few Warriors apart with her bolter, smiles grimly and says, "I wish I had a Stormbolter!"

Ah yes, I can see them having that sort of humor.

I thought you meant something like "Two heretics walked into a bar...ouch"

I can't remember if there actually is a joke like that, but I do seem to remember some disparaging comments made about the Tech-Priest and his sonic wrench (or something along those lines).

OP is either a troll or stupid.
or both.
sisters of battle are derpy as hell sculpts, but I find the idea... odd.
I'll agree the imp. guard need more women, but they are there (see space marine)
also, have you noticed that half the elder guardians are female? no? THAT'S THE FETHING POINT.
howling banshees are based on something historically relevant (wasn't it valkryies?),
I'm pretty sure the spirit seer model is female too.
the slaves... are SO FETHING STUPID LOOKING. did someone hit both of them in the face with a sledge hammer? looks like it.
shadow sun (is that right?) is female too.
SOB look so... so... something.
demonettes are representations of succubuses (daemons that feed on sexual energies AKA WARPDUST!!!!)
also, howling banshees are awesome models, whenever I see armou my first thaught is "how would that work?" usualy I end up going stuff it, but with GW armour it generally seems about right.

tyranids are asexual, therefore, gender is rendered moot.
also, assassins , get it? ass-ass-ins?
they all have skin-fitting suits, makes it easier to, you know, change appearance, generally skin doesn't hang around you like a jumper... depending on who you are...

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Sisters have a sense of humor? Or is a sort of dry wit?

Yep, very dry. The protagonist of the Swallow books also makes an off-hand remark to her squad about them "not being the most favoured of squads", or something like that.

Their 5E codex has some examples too, possibly, with charming quotes such as "Heretics crave the clensing fire of absolution. They need not fear, for we shall deliver it to them" and "These heretics refute the Emperor's holy right to rule. Let them argue with the barrel of a gun".

 Troike wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Sisters have a sense of humor? Or is a sort of dry wit?

Yep, very dry. The protagonist of the Swallow books also makes an off-hand remark to her squad about them "not being the most favoured of squads", or something like that.

Their 5E codex has some examples too, possibly, with charming remarks quotes such as "Heretics crave the clensing fire of absolution. They need not fear, for we shall deliver it to them" and "These heretics refute the Emperor's holy right to rule. Let them argue with the barrel of a gun".

Ah yeessss that's the stuff

I love some dry wit or deadpan humor.

The science behind these claims is dubious, at best, and flat-out wrong in others. There are plenty of mammals in which the female has evolved to be the most-efficient hunter/killer. Historically speaking, there have been female soldiers in just about every era of history, up until the 18th century or so. There are documents dating quite a ways back that detail female knightly orders, as well as historical records indicating female Norse and Celt mercenary forces in the Roman Empire.

Want to challenge any of them with empirical evidence? Unless you're just going to randomly saying modern science being taught presently in the classroom is flawed based on your own opinions. These courses were in the past few years of my life.

"Plenty of mammals" means nothing in the grand total of all mammals. The lioness and etc? Sure. But no. Particularly primates, which we are based upon.
I never said there weren't female soldiers, pointing out that females existed in the military means nothing for the grand scheme of things.

Edit:

You actually called sexual dimorphisms which are confirmed, measured, and blatantly obvious "dubious at best, flat-out wrong in others"?
Goodness, that's an impressive amount of ignorance.

1. Putting human secondary sexual characteristics on robots. Particularly the faction that started off as science fiction skeletons. My only regret is that the most well thought out parody of that idea I know of isn't safe to link here.

2. There already is sexual dimorphism in Tyranids. It's insect colony sexual dimorphism. Like any good invasive alien species should be.

3. Last I checked, the standard Eldar troop sprues where 1/4 can be characterized as "armor contained blatantly recognizable mammary gland cavity". Not too much work to shift that around to equal, or admit that a good portion of the population (male or female) wouldn't wear that sort of armor and would end up looking mostly the same. Flat chested is a thing that happens in real life, unlike some fantasy artwork.

4. Orks are walking fungus to one extent or another. Why would anyone want to see mammary glands on fungus?

5. Do an image search for female Tau on the Internet for a followup to the previous question.

6. Space Marines were cooler twenty five years ago when they were mind wiped, reconditioned and disposable convicts. Back when a game designer could put a suicide bomb squad in an army.

7. Put a man and a woman of equal height each in space suits and try to tell which one is which. That's about how bulky and padded out Space Marine power armor is, relatively speaking. Take a Space Marine model, file off the eagle and put the Sisters of Battle insignia on the chest. You're not going to see whatever the effects of the steroids and implants have on the wearer underneath that armor, anyway.

8. I'm just numbering these paragraphs because I need to go sleep.

good night.

There are guardswomen as common as guardsmen, however there are no models, for some reason..... I'm guessing that it would look odd if we put a gritty head on a chest with bewbs. And not in the vidya gayms cos killing women looks baaaaad