After a disastrous game last summer, I've been keeping my head out of 40k to concentrate on being at uni, so, as one might imagine, I have no idea where we're at with 40k. 8E's out, Guilliman is back to Mary Sue menace the foes of mankind, giga-marines are stomping around, Ynnead is here to [presumably kill] everything... But the thing I'm interested in today is the encroachment of "3rd wave" or "Tumblr" Feminism into 40k. In my personal opinion, this is a nihilistic postmodernist and neo-marxist ideology that, in regards to games and other media, is trying to push "diversity" as the only thing that matters. What drags me into this discussion is the Facebook page, Feminist 40k, which is critiqued by Sargon of Akkad on YouTube (here and here). For the uninitiated, this is going to be a long one.

What are your views in regards to this encroachment? Is it welcome, is it morally just, does it make sense to you, do you agree with the principles of 3rd wave feminism?

And, being that I have lost track of 40k since the release of 8E, is GW paying this sort of stuff any heed (in the way that Marvel and WotC have)?

We're still figuring out what works for diversity in the military so what happens in a game doesn't really bother me. Even if they retconned the story so that 50% of the marines are women I still wouldn't care as long as the models are as good as the ones currently.

I'm very much opposed to the movement. Having a diverse universe in general does not phase me (I would very much like to see female guardsmen - very fluffy and make a nice change to the current lineup), but the Feminist movement seeks diversity over lore and gameplay. Female marines, over emphasis on how important it is to be X ethnicity in a Y-man's world, etc.

My stance is simple.

An IP should, ideally, be subject only to the author's whims (or writer, or artist, or musician, etc.). I don't care if you're bigoted, racist, sexist, ___ist, or ___ist, an intellectual property or artistic creation is 100% yours. People who don't like it can jog on.

However, this will always clash with money-making, sponsorship, and large publicly controlled companies. That's the sad reality, and we see loads of properties butchered in pursuit of sales or making random people on the internet happy. The push for sales and political correctness that stems from this unfortunate side-effect almost invariably ruins an IP - at the very least it waters it down and makes it a bit crap. Even moreso when you start pandering to a concerned group and you hamfist a "fix" to appease potential buyers. So, as an end result I'm vehemently opposed to any IP bending to the will of critics. I'm also vehemently opposed to people who treat an IP (namely one which exists in entertainment or hobbies) as something which owes them something. That level of entitlement is pitiful.

Why is that I heard more people talking about how Feminism is wonna ruin 40k than actual feminists talking about anything 40k related?

And to be honest I don't think nihilistic means what you think it means.
And I say this as someone opposed to feminism and ideologies in general. Its funny because all ideologies are "modernist" but people keep calling 3rd wave feminism , post-modernist as if its means something when post-modernism is actually the intellectual movement that was created to fight the sXX ideologies that where born from modernist ways of thinking. So basically all ideologies: Comunism, Liberalism, Capitalism, Feminism, Fascism, etc...
But this is the 21th century everyone and nobody cares what words actually mean anymore!

 Selym wrote:
I'm very much opposed to the movement. Having a diverse universe in general does not phase me (I would very much like to see female guardsmen - very fluffy and make a nice change to the current lineup), but the Feminist movement seeks diversity over lore and gameplay. Female marines, over emphasis on how important it is to be X ethnicity in a Y-man's world, etc.

What exactly changes though, if there are more women? SoS and SoB already demonstrates that women can be as brutal as they need to be in this setting. There are no gameplay changes that I can conceive.

Is it a good idea to make female space marines? Probably not since SoS exist anyway and so the market is served in some way.

I'm not a proponent of forcing anything. I just don't see any change as a particular issue.

You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches. If anyone thinks 40k lacks diversity, obviously they are ignoring the Sisters of Battle, Sisters of Silence, Salamanders, Tallarn, Eldar/Dark Eldar women, female Tau...the list is practically endless...

Meh, I lost all respect for Sargon when his supporters cheered sexual assault/rape at an event and he went with it. It seems like so many young, angry people are just looking for something to be upset about that they’ll target anything. Might as well have them be the new “old man yells at cloud.” They’re so anxious to look for something to be mad about, they’ll turn anything into a crying scene. Real snowflakes, lol.

Personally, I’d rather both sides keep their politicking out of 40k and let my BSDM-freak space elves go battle some fascist xenophobic humans or Egyptian space zombies.

Edit: as an aside, I always figured 40k was fairly progressive. We have and have had a mix of female and male models in a number of factions (especially the Eldar factions), the female-only human faction was unique and non-sexualized - and now there are two of them, there’s a mix of unique units that are both female and male (like assassins or inquisitors), there’s an asexual-ish faction by lore (Orks), everyone hates everyone equally, etc.

Games workshop produced Tau models with three slightly different looking heads, four new female named characters, revived Escher gangers, and a sisters of silence sprue.

So yeah I think you can conclude the feminists have swooped in and destroyed 40k. Burn your models.

I'm going to start by saying that I find fem40k extremely insulting, they are SJW extremists who refuse to listen to any point of view other than their own small group, anyone that has a dissenting opinion they brand a "bigot" "sexist" or "racist" which is ironic as that is quite a bigoted point of view.


That being said, can you ask for a more diverse 40k, the answer is a no, the models are grey, you paint them however you like, we have other ethnicities in the lore that are integral to the story, not side lined or anything, some of the best characters in the lore are woman (lotara sarrin, Elizabeth bequin etc.), that being said would I be opposed to more woman models, yes and no, yes if they are brought into the game in a symbiotic way, no if they are just dumped on us with no thought for the actual lore itself, like primaris, if they are going to do a all female army, it needs to make sense, like the sisters of battle, or the sisters of silence (30k), guard doesn't count in my mind as they really should already be there.

Regarding female space marines, they would be physically similar to men anyway due to all the growth hormones and extra muscle, so I don't really see the point of wanting them, they would look pretty much the same at the scale, if it's boob plate they want then it's a solid no from me, it makes sense with sisters as they WANT to be seen as woman (no men under arms in the ecclesiarchy) so accentuating the female form in the armour works, but boob plate marines doesn't make sense as they would have almost no boobs anyway due to muscle mass and again, hormones.

That's my take on it.

These discussions only go one way in nerd circles. Lock it and move on.

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches. If anyone thinks 40k lacks diversity, obviously they are ignoring the Sisters of Battle, Sisters of Silence, Salamanders, Tallarn, Eldar/Dark Eldar women, female Tau...the list is practically endless...

Yeah we all know what a gigantic financial boondoggle the new star wars film has been.

Didn't make money on that crap, no sir. Why, I heard it'll only be the 8th most financially successful movie of all time! Just what they get for pandering to such a niche market as "women".

 Galas wrote:


And to be honest I don't think nihilistic means what you think it means

Nihilistic in the sense that it holds to the idea that there is no meaning, and nothing to aspire to (thus justifying the victim complex that typically shows up amongst 3rd wave feminists), and post-modernist in that it holds to the claims of post-modernist theory in sociology that since, a) different people hold different views over the same data, b) some of these views are irreconcilable, and c) some sets of irreconcilable views cannot be proven/disproven one way or another, that there is no objective reality and that, therefore, only one's subjective reality matters. Thus, if one person claims to be systemically oppressed by something, or is feeling offended by an off-hand remark that was not aimed at them, those are always legitimate claims.

A real-world example of this is when feminists argue that when a man is claimed to have raped a woman, that he does not deserve the methods of due process, and that claims of evidence in favour of the accusation are examples of disbelief and oppression of women.

 Selym wrote:
I'm very much opposed to the movement. Having a diverse universe in general does not phase me (I would very much like to see female guardsmen - very fluffy and make a nice change to the current lineup), but the Feminist movement seeks diversity over lore and gameplay. Female marines, over emphasis on how important it is to be X ethnicity in a Y-man's world, etc.

This. Third wave feminism is very much a "diversity for the sake of diversity at the expense of all else" movement that disregards art and freedom expression in favor of shoehorning in equality. I have no problem with boobplate or combat heels just like I have no problem with tortured, brainwashed penitants with whips for hands a military wing that murders millions to keep themselves a secret. But I'm a straight white man so my opinion can be safely disregarded.

I'm probably not in a great place to talk about this since I'm somewhat sleep deprived and my issues with third wave feminism are numerous.

Also since someone already played the "well what chamges if space marines were women" card; exactly. What changes? Nothing. So why do it?

I’ve got fairly mixed feelings about this movement. Bear in mind I’m a male feminist (hang me, I know) but I’m going to simply present my point of view. First off, no one can deny there are more male soldiers in 40k than female. That’s not at all to say there are no female soldiers in 40k, it’s just there’s a pretty large difference. Now, the thing I care about with scenarios like these the most is the lore remaining largely intact, which is why I have a problem with female space marines. There’s so much in the lore about them being male and the sons of the emprah, so I would be majorly pissed off to see them resort to creating female marines, not because women can’t be buff, powerful soldiers, but because it would alter the lore that has been in place for so long by a worrying degree. In my opinion the main draw 40k has over other war games is its immense amount of fluff, and completely destroying this well established formula would obviously cause a lot of friction. Now all I’ve said are negative things about this movement, but there are a few good things to it as well. We know females are underrepresented, and I definitely think gw should do something about this. Not something stupid like introducing female marines, and not releasing full boxes of female equivalents, but when releasing, I dunno, a faction that draws from civilians like guard or eldar, add in more female models. Not a 50/50 split to start because obviously that would annoy certain people immeasurably, but I think gw should design all those sexy new models, and include a few female models without boob plate or whatever, that look the same as the male ones barring faces. Call me crazy, but in the lore we’re all trying to protect, the universe is a diverse place, so maybe adding a little more diversity to things like poxwalkers or guard wouldn’t hurt as much as we all speculate it would. Thanks for reading
-Cat

Well this thread has an expiration date coming soon.....

People are afraid of this kind of co-opting and all that needs to be said is "the last jedi"

The thing is 40k cant be co-opted. It looks big to us but normies still think we are small and wierd. I also just finished at a university of art where the ideology in question is taken to extremes.40k is not marvel, starwars, majic or primetime tv. 40k is not mainstream enough to worry not to mention the vast majority of 40k hobbyists have been fans for decades. I would hope nu gw knows enough about thier own demograohic to realize 90% of its consumers are Hardened fans who dont even want thier merch assembled or painted and not elementary school kids buying plush stuffed animals and backpacks.



Now prepare yourself for the rest of this thread and its inevitable shutdown.

So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself, I'll be fair, but not like I started the thread). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

I'm just fine with Space Marines staying the way they are to be true to the fluff and I value fluff continuity above all else, providing that model-wise we get some nice Imperial Guard that are women to give some nice visual diversity to that army, and we also get a good modernization of Sisters of Battle. I mean, with a good increase in Imperial Guard sculpts, that would be two of the three main Imperial Armies that are representative of women-at-arms (one solely made of them) for the Emperor, the other two being the Mechanicus which places very little emphasis even on the male gender, and Custodes which seem to fall in the same boat of Marines with gender but also have the Sisters of Silence tied closely to them.

Seriously, as a man who's played 40k for 20 years, I can think of a good chunk of some of my favorite 40k imagery and fluff that showcases some awesome women characters, from Sisters of Battle and Necromunda Escher artwork/models, to Black Library fluff which has great female roles (at least to me) like Elizabeth from Eisenhorn, to several important female Gaunt's Ghosts, to the Ciaphas Cain novels being edited/presented with commentary by a female Inquisitor who he respects, to another novel I remember being about a female Adeptus Arbites as the main character.

I remember at least one very important Remembrancer from the Heresy novels being a woman, to the main character in Mechanicum being arguably one of the most important people in the entire freaking Imperium, with her work with psykers and the Astronomican, as well as the link with the Dragon of Mars.

But maybe I am tempered in my gaming view as not only do I have a sizeable SoB army for 40k, but in Age of Sigmar I can have what will hopefully be an increasing number of cool female Stormcast to fulfill my need for badass women in cool armor, as well as the new Chaos Warqueen coming out to possibly lead a skirmish force I am planning.

 Galas wrote:
So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself, I'll be fair, but not like I started the thread). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

In truth I’m not really that much of a feminist anymore I just put that in to represent the fact that what I was about to say was a different opinion to that of everyone else. Feminism has kinda devolved over the recent years, which almost makes me sad.

For me, anti-feminist are just like Anti-fa. They can't really live without their other half, and at the end of the day they are just bored people looking for a fight (As this thread shows). The only difference is physically vs verbally.
At this point I'm equally bored of both, feminist and anti-feminists.

 Galas wrote:
So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself, I'll be fair, but not like I started the thread). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

If you have a wife or a daughter you should probably think about being a feminist. And probably separate what feminism is from what you read on the internet.

The Genestealer cult box is still 10 identical bald dudes.

The kairic acolyte box (a kit that only has variations in weapons and masked heads) is 20 identical bald dudes.

Poxwalkers (a unit representing random rabble mutated from imperial populace) is a sprue of 10 bald (unless you count horns) dudes.

The only kit in the last 5 years GW has released where "female" is not specifically an attribute of the kit rather than just some of the models in the kit was Harlequins, and it is worth noting that in all Harlequin kits, female models are entirely optional. There are enough male torsos that if you feel threatened by tiny plastic breasts you can avoid them.

Y'all are jumping at shadows here.

 Cat_astrophe wrote:
Bear in mind I’m a male feminist.

That always makes be what to ask which kind of Feminism you subscribe to. Had I been around for the earlier feminist movements, I'd have been a male feminist, too.

 Cat_astrophe wrote:
We know females are underrepresented, and I definitely think gw should do something about this.

In terms of model lineup, I'd be very pleased with an obviously-female Eldar Farseer model, especially as my Farseer is fluffed as female (based in part on the Farseers of DoW). Female guards I think are only not done because it would require redesigning every IG model from scratch so that the facial and hip-shoulder proportions match up properly, but I would like to see that happen. Issues for me come when, as you pointed out, the actions start conflicting with lore, or cause the company to go full SJW.

Also reminds me of the other "female representation" issues. It's a longstanding tenet of Feminism that everyone is equal (though, this part is not often adhered to), therefore everyone should get equal results. For example, if the UK population is 51% female and 49% male, then the company called GW should have a staff that is 51% female. And this even extends to fanbases, where it has become an aspiration of 3rd wave Feminism (and is the objective of Feminist 40k) to make fanbases become 51% female. The argument goes that equality = everyone is the same, so therefore people are only deterred by representational capacity in a fandom. It is not that miniature wargaming is just more appealing to males on averave, no, it is that women are not represented enough in the lore/models.

 Galas wrote:
So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

Welp, thats me triggered. At what point did I say I was anti-feminist? I said I disliked third wave feminism. That is to say feminism that focuses on women in pop culture and not on any actual issues and is mostly about being perpetually angry but not actual offering solutions.

Feminism to me is fighting against the anti-abortion laws in Ireland or trying to make people aware of the issues like female circumcison happening in Britain or the atrocities women go through in Africa, the middle east and India. My view of femism is not about being vaugly angry at Trump and demanding more breasted persons in nerd films. Thats whining like a spoiled child.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself, I'll be fair, but not like I started the thread). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

If you have a wife or a daughter you should probably think about being a feminist. And probably separate what feminism is from what you read on the internet.

This. The internet never ceases to confuse me - I am Swedish which means I am literally Stalin, and I am feminist which means I think all men must die.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Refer to my sig for my thoughts on feminism.

 Selym wrote:
It is not that miniature wargaming is just more appealing to males on averave, no, it is that women are not represented enough in the lore/models.

Chicken and egg. We tell girls that dolls are proper toys and that legos and science and other things are not feminine. Maybe if we stopped forcing them down a path (boys, too) then they'd more freely explore their interests without stigma?

Well, in Age of Sigmar, Neave Blacktalon is pretty badass. I'm converting her to be a female Lord Celestant to lead my skirmish force, as well as the lady from Shadespire.

Not that the fact lessens the need for some more cool female models from GW, though. Especially for 40k.

I am eager to see if I can get my daughter interested in gaming as she's 10x more interested in my models than my son, but alas, that's many years off.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself, I'll be fair, but not like I started the thread). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

If you have a wife or a daughter you should probably think about being a feminist. And probably separate what feminism is from what you read on the internet.

I don't follow any ideology, and I disagree with the core principles that feminism uses to build their narrative. That doesn't mean I don't agree with some of their ideas and affirmations. And that doesn't mean that I agree with the ideas and ideology of anti-feminists.

 Galas wrote:
For me, anti-feminist are just like Anti-fa. They can't really live without their other half, and at the end of the day they are just bored people looking for a fight (As this thread shows). The only difference is physically vs verbally.
At this point I'm equally bored of both, feminist and anti-feminists.

I'm not sure where you are picking up on a need for a fight. Outside of 40k the movement is imo waaay more dangerous than ruining a fanbase. I would even go so far as to propose that it is an existential threat. But that line of discussion is a guaranteed auto-derailer, so I will leave it there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself, I'll be fair, but not like I started the thread). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

If you have a wife or a daughter you should probably think about being a feminist. And probably separate what feminism is from what you read on the internet.

There is not just one kind of Feminism. The post-modernist and neo-marxist Feminism that is currently taking over the Canadian legal and educational systems is not the "womens' suffrage" and "equal pay for equal work" movements of old.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
So 6 anti-feminist guys here (Counting myself, I'll be fair, but not like I started the thread). 1 feminist.

Can someone remind me who are the ones trying to push an agenda here?

If you have a wife or a daughter you should probably think about being a feminist. And probably separate what feminism is from what you read on the internet.

This. The internet never ceases to confuse me - I am Swedish which means I am literally Stalin, and I am feminist which means I think all men must die.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Refer to my sig for my thoughts on feminism.

You are a wow roleplayer and for that you have the greater of my respects. And a Blood Elf nonetheless. Belore be with you.

 AegisGrimm wrote:


Not that the fact lessens the need for some more cool female models from GW, though. Especially for 40k.

More options really is the solution here. I don't see the need to remove anything, and surely simply having more things to choose from can't possibly be harmful?

 Selym wrote:
I would even go so far as to propose that it is an existential threat.

Haha, what?

One of my favorite movie characters is Ellen Ripley, she colored much of my sci-fi views.

 Galas wrote:


I don't follow any ideology, and I disagree with the core principles that feminism uses to build their narrative. That doesn't mean I don't agree with some of their ideas and affirmations. And that doesn't mean that I agree with the ideas and ideology of anti-feminists.

Too much semantics, but I'm perhaps in a similar boat. e.g. Men contain more muscle mass and so are more suitable for combat. Would I use that to preclude women from combat? No - there could be something else they bring to the table. We'll probably move to robots before that goes too far anyway.

 Selym wrote:

 Galas wrote:
For me, anti-feminist are just like Anti-fa. They can't really live without their other half, and at the end of the day they are just bored people looking for a fight (As this thread shows). The only difference is physically vs verbally.
At this point I'm equally bored of both, feminist and anti-feminists.

I'm not sure where you are picking up on a need for a fight. Outside of 40k the movement is imo waaay more dangerous than ruining a fanbase. I would even go so far as to propose that it is an existential threat. But that line of discussion is a guaranteed auto-derailer, so I will leave it there.

How wouldn't I pick a fight agaisn't someone that brings politics to my beloved hobby when he claims that he wants politics out of my beloved hobby? The hipocrisy that you have shown here is substantial. And I'm don't say this with the intention of attacking you because I'm pretty sure you are a very nice guy. But I'm not gonna be happy with what you are doing here.

This again? Curious how feminists are supposedly so vocal about stuff, when they never seem to be the first to speak. It's always some loudmouth like Carl Benjamin ("Sargon of Akkad", the Youtuber, not the historical person) who riles up his followers so they'll go spread his message everywhere.

I consider myself a feminist, and I know there are lots of people who'll hate me for that. I don't agree with all other feminist though, because we're all individuals. I don't think female Space Marines is a good idea, just as I don't think male Sisters of Battle is a good idea. Female Guardsmen though? Heck yeah! More female sculpts in factions where it makes sense, like Eldar? Absolutely!

What's really important isn't what happens in a fictional setting though, but here in our own world. As long as there is, in our reality, inequality in opportunities between the sexes, or between any other groups that should have equal rights, I will be against it. In a fictional universe, it's up to the creator(s) what kind of setting they want to create, and up to me whether I enjoy that setting or not. I happen to enjoy 40k.

 Selym wrote:

There is not just one kind of Feminism. The post-modernist and neo-marxist Feminism that is currently taking over the Canadian legal and educational systems is not the "womens' suffrage" and "equal pay for equal work" movements of old.

I'm not terribly familiar with what is going on up north, but let me preface that by saying that are loads of people with agendas on the internet looking to subvert the opposing movement with misleading information.

 Selym wrote:

 Cat_astrophe wrote:
Bear in mind I’m a male feminist.

That always makes be what to ask which kind of Feminism you subscribe to. Had I been around for the earlier feminist movements, I'd have been a male feminist, too.

 Cat_astrophe wrote:
We know females are underrepresented, and I definitely think gw should do something about this.

In terms of model lineup, I'd be very pleased with an obviously-female Eldar Farseer model, especially as my Farseer is fluffed as female (based in part on the Farseers of DoW). Female guards I think are only not done because it would require redesigning every IG model from scratch so that the facial and hip-shoulder proportions match up properly, but I would like to see that happen. Issues for me come when, as you pointed out, the actions start conflicting with lore, or cause the company to go full SJW.

Also reminds me of the other "female representation" issues. It's a longstanding tenet of Feminism that everyone is equal (though, this part is not often adhered to), therefore everyone should get equal results. For example, if the UK population is 51% female and 49% male, then the company called GW should have a staff that is 51% female. And this even extends to fanbases, where it has become an aspiration of 3rd wave Feminism (and is the objective of Feminist 40k) to make fanbases become 51% female. The argument goes that equality = everyone is the same, so therefore people are only deterred by representational capacity in a fandom. It is not that miniature wargaming is just more appealing to males on averave, no, it is that women are not represented enough in the lore/models.

With ththe feminism I subscribe to, should’ve made it clear, sorry, it’s not what’s going on now. I see myself as a feminist because I believe that, obviously everyone should be equal, which of course earlier waves of feminism certainly represented and had success to a point in doing so. So to answer that part, no, of course I don’t support the kind of stuff we’re seeing regularly throughout the world now, because in my mind that’s not feminism, that’s people wanting to be angry at something. And to the second part, I tried to make this clear (sorry) I don’t at all think we should have a 50/50 split in the ig or anything close to that, like, maybe 1/3 or less female so as not to incite further controversy, or even Better include 20 head options or something like that so everyone’s happy. It sounds hard, but I wasn’t trying to say “redesign the entire range with equal genders” but something more along the lines of “add a few female models, even as just options, to keep everyone happy” I completely agree that it’s stupid to force equality, because that goes against human nature. I’m simply asking that they add the option for it. And anyhoo, with th redesigning thing, primaris are out, and to a newcomer they’d just look like bigger marines, which is essentially a reskin, so it’s not entirely impossible. Sorry if I’m rambling I’ve got a lot of models to paint before Thursday so I’m kind of rushing out these messages.
That’s just my 2 cents though, feel free to have your own opinions

Well, I think this thread is well on its way to locked status seeing as most people can't and won't shift their opinions on this. That being said, I do find it to be a very strange argument. I personally have never heard a woman or any other "feminist" bash Warhammer 40k for being non-feminist, including myself. I do think the only issue I have is the MMO syndrome of sex appeal over safety in some models, but it's not that bad. The reason I have never heard anyone complain is because I talk about the lore first and always, and the lore IS feminist! There are plenty of women in power positions and their role on the battlefield is "almost" (Dan Abnett) always respected, and when it's not it's the entire point of the novel! (Also Dan Abnett). The lore doesn't care about race, gender, creed, morality, it cares about survival in a time when it is impossible to live, and that's why I love it. However, when I get done talking about that world, and anyone I talk to is interested, they see the practical game and wonder where that inclusion is. That's when I hear the disappointment and lack of interest. The game doesn't need female space marines, and nobody who knows the lore argues that, but Games Workshop should honor their own lore by including the amazing elements of the lore into their actual tabletop with better representation and I don't really see the argument there.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Selym wrote:
It is not that miniature wargaming is just more appealing to males on averave, no, it is that women are not represented enough in the lore/models.

Chicken and egg. We tell girls that dolls are proper toys and that legos and science and other things are not feminine. Maybe if we stopped forcing them down a path (boys, too) then they'd more freely explore their interests without stigma?

This was once tried in an experiment with young children, and with a social engineering project in scandinavian countries. Wherever people were given increased freedom to be whatever they want, the more they fall into stereotypical roles. Children given the freedom to play with whatever toys they want (free of social conditioning), the males invariably drew towards weapons and tools more than females, and females invariably drew towards dolls more than the males.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFBk1iLMPds

Men and women have different average psychologies, affected by baseline brain structure and hormonal differences. It's one of the most powerful arguments in favour of allowing transpeople to transition.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Selym wrote:

There is not just one kind of Feminism. The post-modernist and neo-marxist Feminism that is currently taking over the Canadian legal and educational systems is not the "womens' suffrage" and "equal pay for equal work" movements of old.

I'm not terribly familiar with what is going on up north, but let me preface that by saying that are loads of people with agendas on the internet looking to subvert the opposing movement with misleading information.

To add to this, tumblr attention-seekers are not representative of a global movement for equality.

These threads always devolve so frigging fast, unfortunately.

Not that a female Farseer or a couple of female Exarchs (other than Banshees, which actually could use some cool male models) wouldn't be sweet.

 Cream Tea wrote:
This again? Curious how feminists are supposedly so vocal about stuff, when they never seem to be the first to speak. It's always some loudmouth like Carl Benjamin ("Sargon of Akkad", the Youtuber, not the historical person) who riles up his followers so they'll go spread his message everywhere.

I consider myself a feminist, and I know there are lots of people who'll hate me for that. I don't agree with all other feminist though, because we're all individuals. I don't think female Space Marines is a good idea, just as I don't think male Sisters of Battle is a good idea. Female Guardsmen though? Heck yeah! More female sculpts in factions where it makes sense, like Eldar? Absolutely!

What's really important isn't what happens in a fictional setting though, but here in our own world. As long as there is, in our reality, inequality in opportunities between the sexes, or between any other groups that should have equal rights, I will be against it. In a fictional universe, it's up to the creator(s) what kind of setting they want to create, and up to me whether I enjoy that setting or not. I happen to enjoy 40k.

Why would we hate you, I hate fem40k, but on the whole most feminists I've met are ok, you've just shown how different you are to those bigots and sexists over there, so what's to hate?

Like I said before guard should have female models, keep the bodies the same but give us different heads, as a woman in full PPE just looks like a smaller fella in full PPE.

Also woman in the military are basically men with boobs, some of the most sexist, disgustingly horrible stuff I have heard has come from them, it's hilarious and military banter is not for the faint hearted.

 Cream Tea wrote:
This again? Curious how feminists are supposedly so vocal about stuff, when they never seem to be the first to speak. It's always some loudmouth like Carl Benjamin ("Sargon of Akkad", the Youtuber, not the historical person) who riles up his followers so they'll go spread his message everywhere.

I consider myself a feminist, and I know there are lots of people who'll hate me for that. I don't agree with all other feminist though, because we're all individuals. I don't think female Space Marines is a good idea, just as I don't think male Sisters of Battle is a good idea. Female Guardsmen though? Heck yeah! More female sculpts in factions where it makes sense, like Eldar? Absolutely!

What's really important isn't what happens in a fictional setting though, but here in our own world. As long as there is, in our reality, inequality in opportunities between the sexes, or between any other groups that should have equal rights, I will be against it. In a fictional universe, it's up to the creator(s) what kind of setting they want to create, and up to me whether I enjoy that setting or not. I happen to enjoy 40k.

Pretty much completely agree

 Selym wrote:

Men and women have different average psychologies, affected by baseline brain structure and hormonal differences. It's one of the most powerful arguments in favour of allowing transpeople to transition.

I don't think it's a problem if girls play with dolls more than boys do, but I do think it's a problem that a boy who wants to play with dolls (they do exist) is stigmatised. I think it should be perfectly acceptable for one to engage in stereotypically "male" or "female" behaviour regardless of gender, and if that means boys generally engage in "male" activities, that's fine, but you don't have to be trans to be interested in "the other gender's" toys.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I would even go so far as to propose that it is an existential threat.

Haha, what?

Answered in a PM, as my answer will derail.

Let's get some female guard models, more female characters, new Sisters of Battle, and maybe some different skin tones featured in GW's studio models and artwork. OK, OK, just to keep it realistic I'll give up on SoB.

Anyone making a fuss after that, is definitely suspect.

This argument is so easy to win in 40k because it's so easy to give Feminists what they claim they want without really changing the IP at all except for some new models. So give it to them. Everyone who truly loves the game wins. When those who are left unsatisfied start demanding half the Primarchs get retroactively gender bent or that all depictions of violence get taken out of the rules and lore and the game become about all of the races standing shoulder to shoulder in the same State-issued Solidarity Coveralls, it won't be hard to brush them aside.

So, I think it got overlooked (because I didn't explicitly say it), but I consider myself a feminist.

That being said, it's important to define what "feminist" means - I think the definitions the "anti-fem" crowd would give and the one I would give are highly different. It's kind of like how I would call myself a liberal, but think the anti-vaxxers or the like at the extreme end of the liberal wing are idiots and closer to alt-right than liberal (horseshoe theory).

I do want to say, I feel like the 40k community as a whole has generally been very chill with tolerance/diversity. I mean, I'm gay and I play, so does my b/f, and the gaming group I frequent (~15-20 people) includes at least one non-binary person and one in an openly nonmonagmous relationship. Never heard anything bad about any of those things. We all want to be grown adults and want to go play with our overcosted little toy soldiers with as little excessive drama drawn into it as possible. We have enough as it is debating if that 8" charge was enough to make it in to melee. And seriously, nobody/very few cared that the Eldar box had an androgenous (? nonbinary? hermaphroditic?) avatar or female emissary of Ynnead, for example...just some people like to stir the pot. OP, I'm looking at you.

 Galas wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Galas wrote:
For me, anti-feminist are just like Anti-fa. They can't really live without their other half, and at the end of the day they are just bored people looking for a fight (As this thread shows). The only difference is physically vs verbally.
At this point I'm equally bored of both, feminist and anti-feminists.

I'm not sure where you are picking up on a need for a fight. Outside of 40k the movement is imo waaay more dangerous than ruining a fanbase. I would even go so far as to propose that it is an existential threat. But that line of discussion is a guaranteed auto-derailer, so I will leave it there.

How wouldn't I pick a fight agaisn't someone that brings politics to my beloved hobby when he claims that he wants politics out of my beloved hobby? The hipocrisy that you have shown here is substantial. And I'm don't say this with the intention of attacking you because I'm pretty sure you are a very nice guy. But I'm not gonna be happy with what you are doing here.

I think you misread me, I was pointing to the picking up on the push for a fight, not on the picking of a fight. Which I actually am, but I don't want to bring destruction outside of a a single containable thread. I don't perceive you as attacking anything except highly justifiable targets, such as my own arguments.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
OP, I'm looking at you.

I admit I'm stirring the pot, but I really am just looking for views and the current state-of-play in 40k.

Something I've always been curious about is hownexactly you make a model look female while keeping away from things that are considered sexist by some.

Take the female Far Seer for example. Their heads are totally covered by the ghost helm, they can't have boob plate because sexism or whatever and the Eldar are a naturally slender race. The same problem applies to any female with a helmet or any sort of face protection and the muntitorum factories are hardly going to make armour with special pinched in waists so we can all see that the wearers are female. Same applies to space marines but then I subscribe to the No Space Marines without helmets philosophy so I dunno. Every one of my grey knights could be women under there.

I think we're encountering different ideas of what female 40k models should be like. I don't mind SoB boob-plate, because that's their religion (ha!), and I would not mind Farseer boob-plate if done subtly as ornate armour. I would be quite pleased with some obviously female Farseer heads, as the helms look awkward to me.

But gratuitous boob-plate is gratuitous. It makes no real sense for the IG to do it (or irl armies would have done it earlier), and be-breasted marines would be just... ew. And illogical, but that's a secondary concern in 40k.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Something I've always been curious about is hownexactly you make a model look female while keeping away from things that are considered sexist by some.

Take the female Far Seer for example. Their heads are totally covered by the ghost helm, they can't have boob plate because sexism or whatever and the Eldar are a naturally slender race. The same problem applies to any female with a helmet or any sort of face protection and the muntitorum factories are hardly going to make armour with special pinched in waists so we can all see that the wearers are female. Same applies to space marines but then I subscribe to the No Space Marines without helmets philosophy so I dunno. Every one of my grey knights could be women under there.

Isn't there something about this in the Eldar lore, like Aspect Warriors are traditionally both genders, but the armor takes the appearance of the "traditional" one - hence boob plate on banshees (which may be male underneath) but pec plate on scopions, etc. that may be female under?

 Selym wrote:
I think we're encountering different ideas of what female 40k models should be like. I don't mind SoB boob-plate, because that's their religion (ha!), and I would not mind Farseer boob-plate if done subtly as ornate armour. I would be quite pleased with some obviously female Farseer heads, as the helms look awkward to me.

But gratuitous boob-plate is gratuitous. It makes no real sense for the IG to do it (or irl armies would have done it earlier), and be-breasted marines would be just... ew. And illogical, but that's a secondary concern in 40k.

But there are people who have issues with Sister boob plate and theoretical Far Seer boob plate. Howling Banshees are another good example since masks are a part of their equipment and they're all female. You can't really visually represent their fluff without adding some obviously feminine features which would be considered sexist by some people.

 Luciferian wrote:
Let's get some female guard models, more female characters, new Sisters of Battle, and maybe some different skin tones featured in GW's studio models and artwork. OK, OK, just to keep it realistic I'll give up on SoB.

Anyone making a fuss after that, is definitely suspect.

This argument is so easy to win in 40k because it's so easy to give Feminists what they claim they want without really changing the IP at all except for some new models. So give it to them. Everyone who truly loves the game wins. When those who are left unsatisfied start demanding half the Primarchs get retroactively gender bent or that all depictions of violence get taken out of the rules and lore and the game become about all of the races standing shoulder to shoulder in the same State-issued Solidarity Coveralls, it won't be hard to brush them aside.

In all honesty, GW just needs to update their products. Cadians have terrible proportions and do a disservice to both males and females. They really would just need to do what they did for Tau strike teams: mostly helmeted with some male and female heads, just pick what you want. Since they've done it once I suspect they'll do it again. They've also gotten more variety in their skin tones of late, in the Guard codex they have a few black guardsmen. So it's a start that'll take some time.

The only real point of contention (that I have seen) is that some people have advocated for female marines. I personally don't see the point because a genetically enhanced female super soldier would look EXACTLY like a male enhanced super soldier. Especially with armor. Unless you make the armor feminine, which also makes no sense and might draw attention for sexualizing them. So either it's strictly a lore change or you're treading a fine line of what is or is not an acceptable female model. Either scenario is bad IMO.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Something I've always been curious about is hownexactly you make a model look female while keeping away from things that are considered sexist by some.

Take the female Far Seer for example. Their heads are totally covered by the ghost helm, they can't have boob plate because sexism or whatever and the Eldar are a naturally slender race. The same problem applies to any female with a helmet or any sort of face protection and the muntitorum factories are hardly going to make armour with special pinched in waists so we can all see that the wearers are female. Same applies to space marines but then I subscribe to the No Space Marines without helmets philosophy so I dunno. Every one of my grey knights could be women under there.

There was a thread about precisely that, but it got locked. Just like this thread will get locked. Men and women are biologically different, and as such, there is no way to give them each representation as sculpts without showing those differences somehow. Although that clearly doesn't account for pantsu french maid models.

I see people here who identify as both Feminist and anti-Feminist who say that the solution is simply more of everything for everyone. More options, not less. I agree. Then, we can all have our thing and stand together as 40k fans against culture warriors whose only interest in the hobby is to use it as a political bludgeon.

As a side note, Feminist40k is a really creepy, cult-like group made up almost entirely of straight white male "allies". They have an ideological purity test you have to take before you can even join the group. With all of the things coming out these days, people like that are probably the last people one should trust, if you know what I'm saying.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Something I've always been curious about is hownexactly you make a model look female while keeping away from things that are considered sexist by some.

Like this:


Or like this:


The "A woman in practical uniform is indistinguishable from a male" isn't really true to any miniature sculptor that knows how to sculpt a female body. GW does the "finest miniatures in the world" (They won't, we all know that), and they do "heroic proportions"; not realistic ones. So they'll have 0 problems doing female models for Eldar and Imperial Guard that aren't sexualized but are still obviously female.
I'll concede, GW learned how to sculpt a female face 1 and a half year ago, so baby steps.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Something I've always been curious about is hownexactly you make a model look female while keeping away from things that are considered sexist by some.

Take the female Far Seer for example. Their heads are totally covered by the ghost helm, they can't have boob plate because sexism or whatever and the Eldar are a naturally slender race. The same problem applies to any female with a helmet or any sort of face protection and the muntitorum factories are hardly going to make armour with special pinched in waists so we can all see that the wearers are female. Same applies to space marines but then I subscribe to the No Space Marines without helmets philosophy so I dunno. Every one of my grey knights could be women under there.

Isn't there something about this in the Eldar lore, like Aspect Warriors are traditionally both genders, but the armor takes the appearance of the "traditional" one - hence boob plate on banshees (which may be male underneath) but pec plate on scopions, etc. that may be female under?

This is true. Male Banshee Eldar wear boob plate and female Dire Avengers, etc... don't. But thats a specific case. One example of indistinguible male-female models are Tau Firewarriors. The box has both female and male heads, but with helmets you can't tell who is who, but thats because Tau don't have breasts.

Dandelion wrote:


In all honesty, GW just needs to update their products. Cadians have terrible proportions and do a disservice to both males and females. They really would just need to do what they did for Tau strike teams: mostly helmeted with some male and female heads, just pick what you want. Since they've done it once I suspect they'll do it again. They've also gotten more variety in their skin tones of late, in the Guard codex they have a few black guardsmen. So it's a start that'll take some time.

The only real point of contention (that I have seen) is that some people have advocated for female marines. I personally don't see the point because a genetically enhanced female super soldier would look EXACTLY like a male enhanced super soldier. Especially with armor. Unless you make the armor feminine, which also makes no sense and might draw attention for sexualizing them. So either it's strictly a lore change or you're treading a fine line of what is or is not an acceptable female model. Either scenario is bad IMO.

I agree completely.

This thread has been suprisingly respectful of all sides and full of people throwing out well thought out solutions and obsticles.

Im actually really proud

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I think we're encountering different ideas of what female 40k models should be like. I don't mind SoB boob-plate, because that's their religion (ha!), and I would not mind Farseer boob-plate if done subtly as ornate armour. I would be quite pleased with some obviously female Farseer heads, as the helms look awkward to me.

But gratuitous boob-plate is gratuitous. It makes no real sense for the IG to do it (or irl armies would have done it earlier), and be-breasted marines would be just... ew. And illogical, but that's a secondary concern in 40k.

But there are people who have issues with Sister boob plate and theoretical Far Seer boob plate. Howling Banshees are another good example since masks are a part of their equipment and they're all female. You can't really visually represent their fluff without adding some obviously feminine features which would be considered sexist by some people.

I agree with lore-abiding Banshee armour, and I would justify the Farseer boob-plate with them having the technical capacity and (previous) artistic freedom to make subtly female features on combat gear. For variety's sake, if nothing else.

Here's an example:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches.

Heaven forbid we see more women as major characters in our imaginary worlds. The cootie epidemics could wipe out entire franchises. The crows will pluck out our eyeballs! The sun will bleach our bones! And lo, the survivors will wander the shattered ruins of comic stores and convention halls, lamenting the fools of the past whose willfulness - nay, whose blind hubris wrought such apocalyptic insanity! Woe! Woe unto those who write major characters without testicles!

There's really no reason not to have female Guard, or what have you. In fact, there's a thriving third-party market for it. You can throw out whatever buzzwords you like or put scare quotes around the word diversity or whatever the new hotness for these threads is, but there's nothing wrong with expanding the character roster beyond the five billion different super-grizzled Marines.

To be honest Marvel and comic-books in general are in a downfall since the 90's. It has nothing to do with feminism, etc... The Mighty Thor (The one with the female protagonist) has been one of the most popular and economically sucessfull Marvel comics since his release.
So please lets put to bed the "SJW killed Marvel" because they didn't. Bad history arcs, the internet, repetition until boredom of the fans, a dying media, etc... thats whats killing mainstream comic books.

nateprati wrote:
This thread has been suprisingly respectful of all sides and full of people throwing out well thought out solutions and obsticles.

Im actually really proud

I think a good word is "reasonable." Lots of talk of solutions or perspectives of, "This would be a reasonable solution to fit reality/lore (e.g., female guard), this seems silly in the lore (e.g., female SM)." And I think that's the key question - it's not necessarily what *anyone* would find sexist or discriminatory or whatever, or what some extremist faction would want, but what a reasonable person would think. Kudos, fam.

 Spinner wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches.

Heaven forbid we see more women as major characters in our imaginary worlds. The cootie epidemics could wipe out entire franchises. The crows will pluck out our eyeballs! The sun will bleach our bones! And lo, the survivors will wander the shattered ruins of comic stores and convention halls, lamenting the fools of the past whose willfulness - nay, whose blind hubris wrought such apocalyptic insanity! Woe! Woe unto those who write major characters without testicles!

Disclaimer: I don't usually read comics.

From what little I've been hearing about Marvel, it is not opposition to female characters. It's the sickening abandonment of the mythological characteristics of the old style of comics that used to hold intellectual value, combined with an even more sickening preference in the SJW comics for perfect Mary Sues whose only opponents are men. 3rd wave Feminism is just as sexist against women as the old establishment used to be. It focuses on how men and women are two classes in conflict with eachother, like the old Proletariat vs Bourgeoisie model of Marxism.

 Spinner wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches.

Heaven forbid we see more women as major characters in our imaginary worlds. The cootie epidemics could wipe out entire franchises. The crows will pluck out our eyeballs! The sun will bleach our bones! And lo, the survivors will wander the shattered ruins of comic stores and convention halls, lamenting the fools of the past whose willfulness - nay, whose blind hubris wrought such apocalyptic insanity! Woe! Woe unto those who write major characters without testicles!

There's really no reason not to have female Guard, or what have you. In fact, there's a thriving third-party market for it. You can throw out whatever buzzwords you like or put scare quotes around the word diversity or whatever the new hotness for these threads is, but there's nothing wrong with expanding the character roster beyond the five billion different super-grizzled Marines.

That's kind of a straw man. I have never once seen anyone say that there shouldn't be more female models, female guardsmen or major female characters. However, there's a big difference between doing that because it makes sense and carries the internal logic of the setting (which it does in 40k) and turning an IP into a mouthpiece for a certain brand of politics at the expense of everything else. I don't read comic books, but when I read a book or watch a movie I really don't care what the gender, ethnicity or BMI of the protagonist is, as long as they are a well-written character in a well-written story. Make them an obvious token character who only exists to parrot the words of a gender studies professor and I'm out.

 Spinner wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches.

Heaven forbid we see more women as major characters in our imaginary worlds. The cootie epidemics could wipe out entire franchises. The crows will pluck out our eyeballs! The sun will bleach our bones! And lo, the survivors will wander the shattered ruins of comic stores and convention halls, lamenting the fools of the past whose willfulness - nay, whose blind hubris wrought such apocalyptic insanity! Woe! Woe unto those who write major characters without testicles!

There's really no reason not to have female Guard, or what have you. In fact, there's a thriving third-party market for it. You can throw out whatever buzzwords you like or put scare quotes around the word diversity or whatever the new hotness for these threads is, but there's nothing wrong with expanding the character roster beyond the five billion different super-grizzled Marines.

I like how you homed in on the one really stupid post to take a stand against. I've actually never heard anyone say they'd dislike female IG since this topic became a thing. In fact literally NO ONE complained about Lt. Mira (?) in Space Marine as far as I remember. Just like no one praised her either. I actually kind of feel bad for the writers because she was a really good character and no one acknowledges her.

The boob plate thing is barely a feminist problem, it's a "it looks fething stupid" problem. GW and similar companies designing with their dicks is the primary reason I'd be wholly turned off on a Sisters of Battle army even if the army was available in plastic.

I acknowledge Lt. Mira! She really should have gotten a promotion out of that campaign, but then the game producers collapsed, iirc.

To be honest I'm more pissed about those damned Romanticist than any other kind of ideology out there interfering with my hobbies.

By their fault is that I need to see a ham-fisted romantic subplot in EVERY DAMM movie, comic, book, videogame, etc... that only cheapens the character developement and MORE THAN HALF OF THE TIME DOESN'T EVEN MAKE ANY KIND OF SENSE.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches.

Heaven forbid we see more women as major characters in our imaginary worlds. The cootie epidemics could wipe out entire franchises. The crows will pluck out our eyeballs! The sun will bleach our bones! And lo, the survivors will wander the shattered ruins of comic stores and convention halls, lamenting the fools of the past whose willfulness - nay, whose blind hubris wrought such apocalyptic insanity! Woe! Woe unto those who write major characters without testicles!

There's really no reason not to have female Guard, or what have you. In fact, there's a thriving third-party market for it. You can throw out whatever buzzwords you like or put scare quotes around the word diversity or whatever the new hotness for these threads is, but there's nothing wrong with expanding the character roster beyond the five billion different super-grizzled Marines.

I like how you homed in on the one really stupid post to take a stand against. I've actually never heard anyone say they'd dislike female IG since this topic became a thing. In fact literally NO ONE complained about Lt. Mira (?) in Space Marine as far as I remember. Just like no one praised her either. I actually kind of feel bad for the writers because she was a really good character and no one acknowledges her.

Not really trying to take a stand - this thread has come and gone over and over in various incarnations in different subforums (the board games subforum just had one die, I believe), and it usually goes the same way. I really just wanted to have a little fun with a particular post's brand of hyperbole before it all really got off the rails.

Agreed with you on Mira! It's a shame that we never really saw more of her. I liked the quiet 'we get gak done' working relationship she had with Titus. Give the two of them a regiment or two to work with and maybe a week, and they'd have that entire system cleared of orks, no sweat!

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, in Age of Sigmar, Neave Blacktalon is pretty badass. I'm converting her to be a female Lord Celestant to lead my skirmish force, as well as the lady from Shadespire.

Not that the fact lessens the need for some more cool female models from GW, though. Especially for 40k.

I wll note that in fairness we got a fair number of female characters in the wave of triumvirate boxes.

Trimvirate of the Imperium included Celestine (woman) Greyfax (Woman) Cawl (PROABLY a man but with the level of cybernetics on him for all we know he started life as a woman)
Trimvirate of the Ynnari: 1 Male, 1 Female 1.... heck if I know
Trimvirate of the Primarch: 3 dudes.

Let's remove the models who are part of an orginization that the fluff requires to be a gender for a moment or are previously eistablished characters (intreastingly eneugh these are nearly the same chars eaither way) This removes Gulliman, Celestine, Cypher, and Voldus from the mix.

We're left with, Greyfax (female), Cawl (Male), Yvraine (female) the Visreich (male) and the avatar whose gender I'm honestly not sure of


pretty even Mix I'd say

 Arachnofiend wrote:
The boob plate thing is barely a feminist problem, it's a "it looks fething stupid" problem. GW and similar companies designing with their dicks is the primary reason I'd be wholly turned off on a Sisters of Battle army even if the army was available in plastic.

This is the type of chest protector female fencers wear, because it's terribly uncomfortable for them not to be contoured:



Also, having worn my share of body armor alongside females wearing the same body armor, I can tell you that when it's on properly I find it really constricting on MY chest. I can only imagine how uncomfortable it is for them.

 Selym wrote:
I acknowledge Lt. Mira! She really should have gotten a promotion out of that campaign, but then the game producers collapsed, iirc.

I wish Forgeworld would acknowledge the Space Marine characters like the.did with Gabriel Angelos. I'd love a Lt. Mira model for my IG. I know Titus and...beard guy have head in one of the space marine kits. I think its the vanguard kit? But some official acknowledgment would be nice.

Edit: Close. It was the veteran squad.

 Galas wrote:
To be honest I'm more pissed about those damned Romanticist than any other kind of ideology out there interfering with my hobbies.

By their fault is that I need to see a ham-fisted romantic subplot in EVERY DAMM movie, comic, book, videogame, etc... that only cheapens the character developement and MORE THAN HALF OF THE TIME DOESN'T EVEN MAKE ANY KIND OF SENSE.

But... but... I need a flash of side-boob and some lovin' to keep me interested in the political drama/action movie blockbuster of the decade! A lot of media producers are so out of touch with what people actually enjoy that it's not even funny anymore. Eventually they'll get a hit though. Hopefully.

If the armor looked more like that it would probably look better. That's a far cry from the perfectly separated O's that Sisters of Battle wear.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Something I've always been curious about is hownexactly you make a model look female while keeping away from things that are considered sexist by some.

It varies with the model's species, of course, with male Eldar being somewhat androgynous, but like.

Aside from breasts there's also hip-waist-shoulder ratio and legs-torso ratio (and head size, hands and feet size...), which armour can dampen but won't fully remove. I often refer to the uncropped version of my avatar here, but instead I'll use another piece from my gallery (warning, huge image):



Most will probably assume male at first because media has conditioned us to assume that anything in full armour without a skintight breastplate and/or exposed skin must be male, but if you place those assumptions aside I think the above would make a very good basis for a female model (especially if FW does it rather than GW and their play-dough sculpting). It's about as perfect a balance as I can think of between stylised fantasy elements, reasonable design and hints to the wearer's sex.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If the armor looked more like that it would probably look better. That's a far cry from the perfectly separated O's that Sisters of Battle wear.

I was gonna say how I think GW should redo sisters of battle, with a more less obvious boob plate to normal sisters etc... and more ornamental ones for high ranking sisters... but who cares? Obviously GW don't. LOL


EDIT: Ashiyara let me say that I love the design of your character. I'll add my grain of sand with a picture of my roleplaying character too. She unlike yours have boob plate (Her design is obviously based in the sisters of battle), but I think is more in the realm of "admisible boob plate for a faction based in religious over-ornamentation". The drawn was done by a female friend of mine, and to be honest I didn't even said her to make a boob plate (Damm the resolution, I can't make it look big )

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If the armor looked more like that it would probably look better. That's a far cry from the perfectly separated O's that Sisters of Battle wear.

Yeah, but this is 40k. Self-flagellation and uncomfortable armour is the only thing keeping Slaanesh at bay.

I kind of appreciate the baroque sensibilities of the corset armor, because I think it fits aesthetically with the theme of SoB, but I wouldn't cry if it toned down a bit.

 Selym wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If the armor looked more like that it would probably look better. That's a far cry from the perfectly separated O's that Sisters of Battle wear.

Yeah, but this is 40k. Self-flagellation and uncomfortable armour is the only thing keeping Slaanesh at bay.

When you put it that way it's surprising there aren't more Sisters that fall to Slaanesh. They keep Slaanesh away... by doing exactly the sort of things Slaanesh revels in? An obsession with self-inflicted pain is firmly within their domain.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If the armor looked more like that it would probably look better. That's a far cry from the perfectly separated O's that Sisters of Battle wear.

Yeah, but this is 40k. Self-flagellation and uncomfortable armour is the only thing keeping Slaanesh at bay.

When you put it that way it's surprising there aren't more Sisters that fall to Slaanesh. They keep Slaanesh away... by doing exactly the sort of things Slaanesh revels in? An obsession with self-inflicted pain is firmly within their domain.

The day when Chaos maintains logical integrity is the day I leave 40k

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If the armor looked more like that it would probably look better. That's a far cry from the perfectly separated O's that Sisters of Battle wear.

Yeah, but this is 40k. Self-flagellation and uncomfortable armour is the only thing keeping Slaanesh at bay.

When you put it that way it's surprising there aren't more Sisters that fall to Slaanesh. They keep Slaanesh away... by doing exactly the sort of things Slaanesh revels in? An obsession with self-inflicted pain is firmly within their domain.

They don't enjoy the pain though, thats the difference. They enjoy their faith in the Emperor however. And of course, who wouldn't? Unless you're a heretic? =_=

On the subject of Marvel their comics were declining in qialoty for years and I stopped reading before the SJW stuff became a thing. That said when I've read the odd comic it is VERY noticable.

To answer the OP about feminism and 40K - yes please. A more diverse range of models and a more diverse player base can only be good for 40K.

As for the so-called "Sargon of Akkad," the source of your current concerns - he is a cretin cashing in on male insecurity. I'd avoid listening to him as it risks turning you into a snivelling whiner afraid of women.

 Aesthete wrote:
To answer the OP about feminism and 40K - yes please. A more diverse range of models and a more diverse player base can only be good for 40K.

As for the so-called "Sargon of Akkad," the source of your current concerns - he is a cretin cashing in on male insecurity. I'd avoid listening to him as it risks turning you into a snivelling whiner afraid of women.

It's really not. I never entirely pay attention to Sargon, as I use his videos for keeping track of a few narratives and events. Doesn't mean I'm going to warm up the the SJW's though, they're full of snivelling whiners who are afraid of: opinions, counterarguments, facts, men, women, life, problems, and their own inadequacies. With a serious dose of collectivist ideologies.

So it begins...

 Galas wrote:
So it begins...

Well, we have proven Dakka can keep its cool for a while, soo..

The SJW thing goes for both the left and the right wings. If anyone wants to continue the discussion, I can make a new thread somewhere else.

If it's a choice between Sargon and Big Red, I have to say I'd take Sargon any day, even though they both have annoying voices. It's an easy litmus test for me - one of them would let you speak and provide your own opinions and arguments, the other wouldn't.

Fortunately that's not quite the level of decision we're forced to make in the case of 40k.

To continue this discussion about politics outside of 40k, go here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/749160.page#9796257

I'm on the side of taking issue with the lack of female models in 40k. It would be one thing if 40k were primarily a story, but its not. The universe largely exists to facilitate the battles on the tabletop and bring friends together to share a game they love. A lot of the love comes from the self expression we get when we field our armies and a lot of that appeal on those that aren't represented. I mean, a lot of us pick our chapter based on, "which badass white guy best represents me?"

Raising a daughter has certainly heightened my awareness of how true this is. In all the geeky things I enjoy, it just takes one female character for her to idolize to get her into it. Certainly no where have I seen this more than in Star Wars, where perhaps my favorite thing about Ep7 was the sheer number of little girls in Jedi robes the following Halloween. Equally interesting is how many red lightsabers I've had to buy for the birthdays of my daughters male friends.

In a game that prides itself on model customization and in particular making your own heroes, its simply ridiculous at this point to not throw a female head or two on those sprues. If a girl wants to be a badass space marine in power armor to help her envision herself blasting orks apart or hacking the limbs of space bugs.... awesome, that's more people to play with.

I get the lore argument, but frankly, lore in every medium needs a refresh every decade or three anyway. The game can't sit forever in 80's sensibilities and has really needed to advance for years now. There's just no reason to make a sandbox universe in which women can't be the heroes too.

On the plus side, it wasn't the topic that caused the real issue, but the (admittedly scumbbaggy) source.

 LunarSol wrote:


I get the lore argument, but frankly, lore in every medium needs a refresh every decade or three anyway. The game can't sit forever in 80's sensibilities and has really needed to advance for years now. There's just no reason to make a sandbox universe in which women can't be the heroes too.

I disagree with this logic. 40k prides itself, or used to anyways, on bringing together a particular blend of tropes, media backgrounds, and mythological characteristics that made 40k well... 40k. Having a bit of a refresh once in a while can be good, but taking a swing at the longstanding logics of the universe is needlessly destructive. Really, it would be better to let it die a hero than have it live to become a (possible) abomination.

EDIT:
Not to say that I oppose female leads. Just the poorly done ones. The ones done for the sake of "it's 2018 guise, we need progress!"

 Aesthete wrote:
To answer the OP about feminism and 40K - yes please. A more diverse range of models and a more diverse player base can only be good for 40K.

As for the so-called "Sargon of Akkad," the source of your current concerns - he is a cretin cashing in on male insecurity. I'd avoid listening to him as it risks turning you into a snivelling whiner afraid of women.

Pro tip: insulting people who have a different opinion to you is a good way to undermine your argument and push people further to the other side.

 Selym wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


I get the lore argument, but frankly, lore in every medium needs a refresh every decade or three anyway. The game can't sit forever in 80's sensibilities and has really needed to advance for years now. There's just no reason to make a sandbox universe in which women can't be the heroes too.

I disagree with this logic. 40k prides itself, or used to anyways, on bringing together a particular blend of tropes, media backgrounds, and mythological characteristics that made 40k well... 40k. Having a bit of a refresh once in a while can be good, but taking a swing at the longstanding logics of the universe is needlessly destructive. Really, it would be better to let it die a hero than have it live to become a (possible) abomination.

Sure, but "no girls allowed" is just... not important. It's just not.

You don't even need a massive retcon or anything. We just had a huge timeskip. During that time, someone figured out how to make the space marine process compatible with women. Now we have women space marines. Done.

If they end up doing female space marines instead of redoing SoB i'll be super pissed.

 Selym wrote:
It's really not. I never entirely pay attention to Sargon, as I use his videos for keeping track of a few narratives and events. Doesn't mean I'm going to warm up the the SJW's though, they're full of snivelling whiners who are afraid of: opinions, counterarguments, facts, men, women, life, problems, and their own inadequacies. With a serious dose of collectivist ideologies.

That's quite the list of negative qualities you ascribe to SJWs. Personally I find the ones I know generally pretty cool, but clearly you and I have very different views of the world. I don't, for example, recognize your earlier description of Canada either, and I would question your sources of fact and analysis... but we probably don't need to go down that road in a 40K General Discussion thread

To get back on topic: 40K - the lore and tone - has changed several times over the years. I'm fine with it continuing to evolve, and I'm in favour of getting more female points of view into the game - both in terms of models, in terms of the fiction, and in terms of player base - so I think the fine folks of Feminist40K are doing a good work. I also think it's the better bet for GW to attempt to expand its customer base, but I think they're being prudent in doing so at a glacial pace since it's clear that there are some among the established player base who feel threatened by the relevant changes.

Aaaaaand now we get to implied insults and false dichotomies which label only one specific way of viewing things as correct, and anything else as the last gasp of threatened, inadequate manchildren etc. in spite of the fact that literally everyone here is advocating for more female representation in the models.

Yawn.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Pro tip: insulting people who have a different opinion to you is a good way to undermine your argument and push people further to the other side.

The art of rhetoric is a little less black-and-white than that, I reckon, but thanks for the friendly tip.

I'm not sure why this argument always makes its way back to "female Space Marines" given how much room there is elsewhere in the game to try and break away from the whole "no girls allowed" thing.

40k has a lot of all-male armies, yes, but it's also got a couple of all-female armies, a bunch of entirely co-ed armies, and a few for whom the concept of gender is irrelevant or misleading. The problem isn't that there are no female Space Marines, it's that the women that exist in the lore are wildly underrepresented on the tabletop, and it'd be a lot more straightforward to put more female Guard/Eldar/Inquisition models on the table and expand/make relevant Sisters of Silence and Sisters of Battle.

It's bait, mate.

 Luciferian wrote:
Aaaaaand now we get to implied insults and false dichotomies which label only one specific way of viewing things as correct, and anything else as the last gasp of threatened, inadequate manchildren etc. in spite of the fact that literally everyone here is advocating for more female representation in the models.

Yawn.

Is this targeted at anything or anyone in specific?

 LunarSol wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


I get the lore argument, but frankly, lore in every medium needs a refresh every decade or three anyway. The game can't sit forever in 80's sensibilities and has really needed to advance for years now. There's just no reason to make a sandbox universe in which women can't be the heroes too.

I disagree with this logic. 40k prides itself, or used to anyways, on bringing together a particular blend of tropes, media backgrounds, and mythological characteristics that made 40k well... 40k. Having a bit of a refresh once in a while can be good, but taking a swing at the longstanding logics of the universe is needlessly destructive. Really, it would be better to let it die a hero than have it live to become a (possible) abomination.

Sure, but "no girls allowed" is just... not important. It's just not.

You don't even need a massive retcon or anything. We just had a huge timeskip. During that time, someone figured out how to make the space marine process compatible with women. Now we have women space marines. Done.

Thats not how (good) narritive structure works. If you follow that logic then to hell with it, orks riding into battle on bloodthirsters, Cawl found plans for an FTL drive in his coat pocket and now we don't need warp travel, T'au sussed space marine tech and have their own Primachs now, Eldar sending hacked necrons in battle now why not? Sky's the limit when you don't give a gak.

In order for a fictional universe to work it needs its own internal structure and rules (this is why saying "hurr we have giant mans fighting daemons is unrealistic so whats the problem?" Is a bugbear with me). While 40k is unrealistic it adheres to its own laws. Warp travel is crap but neccesery, Chaos is self-defeating, orks are everywhere. Primaris, like them or not, don't break these rules because their roots are still in the space marine creation process and only certain people can undergo the process. An lack of a womb isn't the only barrier between a person and being a death merchant with two hearts either, only certain genetic structures work for certain geneseeds.

If you throw out the rules of one thing then why stop there? You've excused yourself from your own consistancy so why not let the setting devolve in a gigantic pile of sludge?

*sigh*

This again.

No, I don't mind the influence of feminism (in various forms, to greater and lesser degrees) on WH40k, particularly if it opens up the universe to a broader range of players (as isolated, insular communities tend to die off).

No, I wouldn't mind if they allowed women to become Astartes. I don't think its necessary, but it wouldn't really change anything significant for the setting, gameplay, or modeling if the dangly bits between the legs of the superhuman warrior monks who live to fight weren't the same (they'd all look like astartes - not boys, not girls, but astartes, which is clearly its own developmental category).

No, I don't think its likely to change, not because serious changes is lore like that can't happen (OHHHHHH THEY CAN), but because the reaction from the fanbase to a change that could appear to be capitulating to some of the more modern feminist approaches would cause a serious uproar, justified or not, and the world would drown in phrases like neo-marxism and nihilism and more, nothing but Jordan Peterson videos would be linked (I saw you, OP), Felinids would mate with Tarellians, etc., etc.

The Warhammer 40k universe is a product of its time, but a lot of that can/should be window dressing, and given the very core of the universe (hint: grim and dark), the dangly bits are very much window dressing. Modernizing settings (like they do/did with comics) is how a setting stays relevant to the changing demographics of players and the consequent changes in cultures and subcultures.The only real question as to whether WH40k would bring in greater diversity of players is how the existing player base reacts, and I have low confidence the reaction would be beneficial to inclusion.

There also seems to be an awful lot of anti-"third-wave-feminism" posters making some interesting claims about third wave feminism's intentions, goals, influence, etc. There's bound to be a few crazies that might match those claims, but the painting so far has been with a fairly broad brush, IMO.

Edit: Also, my goodness, the slip on the slopes of the arguments around here, it's amazing! Modifying a 10000+ year old super soldier program (which was itself explicitly modified for improvement over those 10000+ years) to include the other sex is apparently going to lead to Orks riding Bloodthirsters (...now I want to see a Looted Bloodthirster modeled, damnit). Felinids mating with Tarellians, indeed!

 Aesthete wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
Aaaaaand now we get to implied insults and false dichotomies which label only one specific way of viewing things as correct, and anything else as the last gasp of threatened, inadequate manchildren etc. in spite of the fact that literally everyone here is advocating for more female representation in the models.

Yawn.

Is this targeted at anything or anyone in specific?

Why, looking for recognition? Here, have this award for posting in bad faith.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm not sure why this argument always makes its way back to "female Space Marines" given how much room there is elsewhere in the game to try and break away from the whole "no girls allowed" thing.

40k has a lot of all-male armies, yes, but it's also got a couple of all-female armies, a bunch of entirely co-ed armies, and a few for whom the concept of gender is irrelevant or misleading. The problem isn't that there are no female Space Marines, it's that the women that exist in the lore are wildly underrepresented on the tabletop, and it'd be a lot more straightforward to put more female Guard/Eldar/Inquisition models on the table and expand/make relevant Sisters of Silence and Sisters of Battle.

Fluffwise, only Marine armies are all-male. And they're supposed to be so small as to be statistically irrelevant. Listing by gender quotas:

All male:
Every Marine army, including Custodes
[Headcannon exceptions to normal armies]

All female:
SoB
SoS
[Headcannon exceptions to normal armies]

Neither male nor female in the human sense:
Every Nid army
Every Ork army
Ad Mech
Daemons

Mixed Gender:
Literally everything else...
All Eldar armies
Imperial Guard
Imperial Knights, not that you could tell anyway
Titans, same as IK

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm on the side of taking issue with the lack of female models in 40k. It would be one thing if 40k were primarily a story, but its not. The universe largely exists to facilitate the battles on the tabletop and bring friends together to share a game they love. A lot of the love comes from the self expression we get when we field our armies and a lot of that appeal on those that aren't represented. I mean, a lot of us pick our chapter based on, "which badass white guy best represents me?"

Raising a daughter has certainly heightened my awareness of how true this is. In all the geeky things I enjoy, it just takes one female character for her to idolize to get her into it. Certainly no where have I seen this more than in Star Wars, where perhaps my favorite thing about Ep7 was the sheer number of little girls in Jedi robes the following Halloween. Equally interesting is how many red lightsabers I've had to buy for the birthdays of my daughters male friends.

In a game that prides itself on model customization and in particular making your own heroes, its simply ridiculous at this point to not throw a female head or two on those sprues. If a girl wants to be a badass space marine in power armor to help her envision herself blasting orks apart or hacking the limbs of space bugs.... awesome, that's more people to play with.

I get the lore argument, but frankly, lore in every medium needs a refresh every decade or three anyway. The game can't sit forever in 80's sensibilities and has really needed to advance for years now. There's just no reason to make a sandbox universe in which women can't be the heroes too.

Ehh... considering that I play Tau, Orks and Guard I can't say that I agree with the "which badass represents me?" idea. I've never even played marines. In fact, I've never envisioned myself as a single character and I don't know anyone who has.
Now, a role model on the other hand is entirely different. Those girls idolizing female characters is only natural, since they are looking for someone to aspire to. There's a reason we have the saying "Like father, like son". But I don't think that ties in very well with plastic models. Especially as hero characters are all becoming monopose, which keeps you from really customizing them. Besides, you would only be aspiring to a character you made up yourself which is not especially interesting. Of course, I encourage more female options (characters or troops) because they have been confirmed to exist for every human faction except marines. Because of this, I would only oppose female marines.

Now, for the female marine argument, I personally prefer when a fictional universe abides by its own rules. It helps make it real. 40k has done this fairly well because they abide by the rule that it sucks for everyone (except Orks cuz Orks). Technical restrictions are also one of the appeals of good fiction. As an example, I'm actually amazed at how GW managed to make magic make sense in a futuristic setting. The fact that tapping into the warp could kill you makes it feel more real and less arbitrary. In the same vein, marines being male has been established and the fact that it is inherently sexist (to a degree), because of technical limitations or even prejudice, makes the universe feel more compelling.

If you're still unconvinced, all I can say is that a female marine would look just like a male marine. Just put a helmet on and declare it's a woman. Or say that the really masculine jawline was caused by the geneseed and space steroids. Considering GW has yet to hint at female marines I would not hold your breath.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Jordan Peterson videos would be linked (I saw you, OP)

You say that like he's a bad thing...

I don't really care whether or not more 'diversity' is added to the setting or the model range. The problem is when people try to smuggle a political agenda into the setting while purporting to be doing something far more banal and uncontroversial.

"Oh, you don't like the changes we're proposing to the setting? Hmmm, that's problematic. I guess that misogyny is still rampant among the 40k player base".

Ultimately GW is a business and there is no moral imperative for them to cater their product to any particular group. You either support their products financially or you go elsewhere. If it makes business sense for them to court your dollar then they'll do so. If they run the risk of alienating their primary customer base and decide against it, you're not obliged to be happy with it but you can vote with your dollars.

Dandelion wrote:
In the same vein, marines being male has been established and the fact that it is inherently sexist (to a degree), because of technical limitations or even prejudice, makes the universe feel more compelling.

If you're still unconvinced, all I can say is that a female marine would look just like a male marine. Just put a helmet on and declare it's a woman. Or say that the really masculine jawline was caused by the geneseed and space steroids. Considering GW has yet to hint at female marines I would not hold your breath.

In line with this argument, iirc part of the geneseed's encoding required that is interacted with the genetics of the Y chromosome. And even if it didn't need to do that, Marines are a technically-agendered subspecies of Homo Sapiens, meaning that the genetic modifications would render you unrecognisable from your original form. Thereby making females irrelevant.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
*
There also seems to be an awful lot of anti-"third-wave-feminism" posters making some interesting claims about third wave feminism's intentions, goals, influence, etc. There's bound to be a few crazies that might match those claims, but the painting so far has been with a fairly broad brush, IMO.

You're right. Apparently we're on fourth wave feminism since 2012 according to wikipedia. This is difficult to keep up with.

 Selym wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Jordan Peterson videos would be linked (I saw you, OP)

You say that like he's a bad thing...

It's a rhetorical tactic. Take a hard stand and marginalize anything which dissents from your ideology without directly addressing any of the underlying principles and arguments. This works especially well on Dakka, where certain political topics are taboo and you can throw out ad hominems and insults as long as you don't direct them to a certain user. Then, if anyone responds, you play the "if you're offended it must be true, what are you, triggered?" game. Alternatively you play the innocent victim of a personal attack, even though they're responding to some kind of generalization you made in the first place.

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
In the same vein, marines being male has been established and the fact that it is inherently sexist (to a degree), because of technical limitations or even prejudice, makes the universe feel more compelling.

If you're still unconvinced, all I can say is that a female marine would look just like a male marine. Just put a helmet on and declare it's a woman. Or say that the really masculine jawline was caused by the geneseed and space steroids. Considering GW has yet to hint at female marines I would not hold your breath.

In line with this argument, iirc part of the geneseed's encoding required that is interacted with the genetics of the Y chromosome. And even if it didn't need to do that, Marines are a technically-agendered subspecies of Homo Sapiens, meaning that the genetic modifications would render you unrecognisable from your original form. Thereby making females irrelevant.

If marines/custodes are agendered, then that means there are technically more female only armies than male only. SoB and SoS versus nothing. So the real problem is that GW hasn't given Guard female heads and that they haven't updated SoB. Tau and Eldar already have female models so GW is just lagging.

 Enigma of the Absolute wrote:


"Oh, you don't like the changes we're proposing to the setting? Hmmm, that's problematic. I guess that misogyny is still rampant among the 40k player base".

Reminds me of when someone tried that with Wyrd a while back claiming they'd been harassed by a Henchman at an event or something and put themselves forward to be hired some kind of gender relations consultant.

Wyrd told them to go away unless they could provide proof, which they couldn't. It's funny because Malifaux actually has a large amount of unsexualised female models despite its turn of the century setting but it's very telling of the mindset of some people that they would try to stir controversy around a company not by attacking the product but by attacking the fanbase.

Dandelion wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
In the same vein, marines being male has been established and the fact that it is inherently sexist (to a degree), because of technical limitations or even prejudice, makes the universe feel more compelling.

If you're still unconvinced, all I can say is that a female marine would look just like a male marine. Just put a helmet on and declare it's a woman. Or say that the really masculine jawline was caused by the geneseed and space steroids. Considering GW has yet to hint at female marines I would not hold your breath.

In line with this argument, iirc part of the geneseed's encoding required that is interacted with the genetics of the Y chromosome. And even if it didn't need to do that, Marines are a technically-agendered subspecies of Homo Sapiens, meaning that the genetic modifications would render you unrecognisable from your original form. Thereby making females irrelevant.

If marines/custodes are agendered, then that means there are technically more female only armies than male only. SoB and SoS versus nothing. So the real problem is that GW hasn't given Guard female heads and that they haven't updated SoB. Tau and Eldar already have female models so GW is just lagging.

I say technically-agendered, because they don't reproduce or act on sexual desire (until chaos, that is), but they're still very much manly men both thematically and genetically.

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
In the same vein, marines being male has been established and the fact that it is inherently sexist (to a degree), because of technical limitations or even prejudice, makes the universe feel more compelling.

If you're still unconvinced, all I can say is that a female marine would look just like a male marine. Just put a helmet on and declare it's a woman. Or say that the really masculine jawline was caused by the geneseed and space steroids. Considering GW has yet to hint at female marines I would not hold your breath.

In line with this argument, iirc part of the geneseed's encoding required that is interacted with the genetics of the Y chromosome. And even if it didn't need to do that, Marines are a technically-agendered subspecies of Homo Sapiens, meaning that the genetic modifications would render you unrecognisable from your original form. Thereby making females irrelevant.

If marines/custodes are agendered, then that means there are technically more female only armies than male only. SoB and SoS versus nothing. So the real problem is that GW hasn't given Guard female heads and that they haven't updated SoB. Tau and Eldar already have female models so GW is just lagging.

I say technically-agendered, because they don't reproduce or act on sexual desire (until chaos, that is), but they're still very much manly men both thematically and genetically.

I wonder if Slaanesh fixes their bits for them. Marines still get their bits removed or are impotent right? At what point does Slaanesh decide "right, you're corrupt enough, I'll fix your bits now. It also shoots fire now by the way".

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
In the same vein, marines being male has been established and the fact that it is inherently sexist (to a degree), because of technical limitations or even prejudice, makes the universe feel more compelling.

If you're still unconvinced, all I can say is that a female marine would look just like a male marine. Just put a helmet on and declare it's a woman. Or say that the really masculine jawline was caused by the geneseed and space steroids. Considering GW has yet to hint at female marines I would not hold your breath.

In line with this argument, iirc part of the geneseed's encoding required that is interacted with the genetics of the Y chromosome. And even if it didn't need to do that, Marines are a technically-agendered subspecies of Homo Sapiens, meaning that the genetic modifications would render you unrecognisable from your original form. Thereby making females irrelevant.

If marines/custodes are agendered, then that means there are technically more female only armies than male only. SoB and SoS versus nothing. So the real problem is that GW hasn't given Guard female heads and that they haven't updated SoB. Tau and Eldar already have female models so GW is just lagging.

I say technically-agendered, because they don't reproduce or act on sexual desire (until chaos, that is), but they're still very much manly men both thematically and genetically.

I get what you mean (though marines aren't technically human sooo) . I just thought it was funny considering the claims about male-only clubs.

who cares, really

Dandelion wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
In the same vein, marines being male has been established and the fact that it is inherently sexist (to a degree), because of technical limitations or even prejudice, makes the universe feel more compelling.

If you're still unconvinced, all I can say is that a female marine would look just like a male marine. Just put a helmet on and declare it's a woman. Or say that the really masculine jawline was caused by the geneseed and space steroids. Considering GW has yet to hint at female marines I would not hold your breath.

In line with this argument, iirc part of the geneseed's encoding required that is interacted with the genetics of the Y chromosome. And even if it didn't need to do that, Marines are a technically-agendered subspecies of Homo Sapiens, meaning that the genetic modifications would render you unrecognisable from your original form. Thereby making females irrelevant.

If marines/custodes are agendered, then that means there are technically more female only armies than male only. SoB and SoS versus nothing. So the real problem is that GW hasn't given Guard female heads and that they haven't updated SoB. Tau and Eldar already have female models so GW is just lagging.

I say technically-agendered, because they don't reproduce or act on sexual desire (until chaos, that is), but they're still very much manly men both thematically and genetically.

I get what you mean (though marines aren't technically human sooo) . I just thought it was funny considering the claims about male-only clubs.

Marines are still human, super heavily modified, but still human. PRIMARCHS aren't and have never been human.

I don't understand isn't feminism the political, social, and economic equality of women? Does 40k involve any of those?

On top of that aren't there women already playing the game? So there doesn't seem to be a barrier for them, why is this not chalked up personal choice?

Not to mention that relying on GW to give you what you want is well...a waste of time.

You would be much better off just kit bashing your own stuff rather then trying to get GW to make what you want.

Looking at this thread in the index, I thought surely someone had necro'd an old thread. No way there were that many people who jumped on the obvious bait in just a few hours.

You never cease to disappoint me dakka.

I just want to express my contempt for this thread's mere existence, and the weird fearmongering "oh no our hobby is being invaded" premise present in the OP. Yeah, I'm sure someone is out there whining about how there aren't any female space marines and what an affront to equality this is. There are also people whining about how we teach children the earth is round in school, and the round earth stuff is all a big conspiracy. The proper response is to laugh and move on with your life.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:
To answer the OP about feminism and 40K - yes please. A more diverse range of models and a more diverse player base can only be good for 40K.

As for the so-called "Sargon of Akkad," the source of your current concerns - he is a cretin cashing in on male insecurity. I'd avoid listening to him as it risks turning you into a snivelling whiner afraid of women.

Pro tip: insulting people who have a different opinion to you is a good way to undermine your argument and push people further to the other side.

not if the insult is pretty much stating a fact

I'd still like someone to explain why "feminism = female space marines". Is everyone so unimaginative that the only way they can think of to increase the presence of women in the 41st milennium is to make them Space Marines?

Oh dear. Here I was, waking up to a nice winter morning and what's the first thing on Dakka I see? *groans and debates just going back under the blankets*

TL;DR: opinionated extremes are often silly, but more feminism is good for everybody and really, there should already be better selection of 40k miniatures for all.

This might get ranty.

I'm a straight young white male myself, for those that might be interested, but subscribe to many feminist tenets as a basis for my self-ascribed humanitarian world view. This includes things like equal treatment, freedom of decisions for persons themselves and, you know, basic human rights and such little things that might make one's life better. There are of course more pressing matters wrong in this world than representation in our silly games of toy soldiers, but here's my take on it: it isn't away from you if someone else gets some love too. Just as it is with human right questions, no-one who wasn't already abusing others is losing anything by letting others have things too. And it is important to let them have them.

We all love certain things in our cultures, whether they be works of fiction, pieces of art or even food. Everyone has their preferences. What connects these all though is that at some point in history there was a human mind that came up with them: there was something that inspired that mind to make it, maybe some stroke of luck or years of hard work that let it happen. Throughout history men have had it easier in almost all respects, most of all when it comes to making art (try imagining you want to be an artist and get your teeth punched in for merely suggesting such an idea, such was too often your lot if you were born a non-noble woman before 1800's. Didn't mean it didn't happen, 'cause there have always been badasses among us ) or helping humanity in general. Through the ages the same story repeats: there is someone with a neat idea, cool stuff happens and the best of those ideamakers get idolized in our collective gallery of great minds. There's people like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Rosalind Franklin and Emmy Noether making science and people like J. R. R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin writing literature and collectively we humans just love these people and their ilk as heroes and idols (and let's drop an Indian Nobel physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar here too for good measure). Until recent years these lists have been mostly sausagefests in their gender ratios, but with the in-march of more progressive societies there has always been a trend towards an equal split because hey, news flash: all sorts of people, men, women, queers, whatever, have ALWAYS had the exact same potential to produce awesome things given a chance. Historically, they just weren't.

And what does this mean in the context of 40k, our beloved grimdark future of all-around suckiness for everyone?

We like our hobby for different reasons, but the same principle stands: awesome things happen in the hobby because there are awesome humans out there doing them. If there's more people in, there's going to be a bigger chance that some of them are outstanding like our idolized heroes have been. As the nerd culture (comics, movies, rpgs, video games...) spreads through younger generations and becomes more and more mainstream, all the traditionally white male dominated fields of gaming are going to see an influx of more diverse folk in the end. And that is only a good thing, for all of us. 40k has always been a huge and many-faceted, almost schizophrenic whole, but remained true to its dark, humorous core and it will continue to do so even if it gets more traction in the progressive circles. It is also a fools errand to really try and separate it from politics, because nothing really exists in a vacuum and 40k came into being as a partly political satire of life in Thatcherian Britain. Likewise, those who like to get their knickers in a twist will carry on doing so with its imagery just as they have done for decades, as zealous witch burnings and xenophobic lynch mobs of indoctrinated fascist masses tend to look kinda bad in any wrong context. The point here, however, is that allowing more diversity INSIDE that wonderfully misanthropic gaming universe will help more folk pick up the game and produce demand and content for us all, resulting in a better hobby, because once again reiterated, someone else having more options is not away from someone else. My significant other, for a practical example, would like to pick up the miniature side with good old Gigerian flesh-machine-horror that is Adeptus Mechanicus / properly diverse and chopped up Guard, but is at the same time disappointed and disheartened because the ranges produced don't lend themselves very well to that vision as they have next to none female models that fit her vision. And regarding that, I personally find some peoples' comments on the gender ratios of Imperium's armies entirely preposterous: saying that armies would mostly consist of men (or shouldn't be 50/50, or at most 1/3 or whatever the heck) is utterly silly poppycock to me, given that humanity of 40k teeters on the brink of extinction. There is no luxury of selection in planetary armies, there is only war and that total war consumes everyone in the affected regions. Just like there are men and women tilling the fields and tending the factories, there are men and women fighting on all fronts.

One last point: on exposure, rolemodels and whining. As a physics teacher (here in the Nordic countries, where it actually means something) I cannot stress too strongly how EXTREMELY IMPORTANT it is to get exposed to something to actually know it exists and have role models that help one to retain their motivation for grasping new things. Being exposed to, say, the existence of Sisters of Battle might entertain the mind of a young girl long enough in a local gaming shop that she gets curious later on and picks up the game. Things like this aren't guaranteed, of course, but every single one that happens is a net positive. This phenomenon has been super visible now with the latest Star Wars films, whereafter young girls swinging toy light sabers around have latched on to the fact that yes, there is indeed a big budget action film with someone like them at the lead, even if they have no clue as to what the actual movie was about. They can find that out later in life, when their cognitive capabilities have developed a bit and grow up making pew pew noises, like many of us here have. Generally speaking there has always been such fictional material with boys or men in the lead that the whole idea of not reading or otherwise consuming those from young age might come off as bit alien to many men of geektastic tendencies, but it is groundbreaking that we can finally have that for women too. As for the need of feminism on these subjects, well, you know there're crying manbabies on the internet signing petitions to Disney to remove Last Jedi from official canon and fanedits of the movie with all female characters cut out? Yeah, there's plenty of need for that. In 40k, the "crying manbabies" problem isn't that bad, but it exists. Active gatekeeping, toxic communities and misogyny are still problems, though more of communities than the 40kverse itself.

To cap it once more: it isn't away from you if someone else gets some love too.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd still like someone to explain why "feminism = female space marines". Is everyone so unimaginative that the only way they can think of to increase the presence of women in the 41st milennium is to make them Space Marines?

No idea who else mentioned it if anyone (as I refuse to read this thread in its entirety), but I mentioned it because I remember an absolutely moronic article from one of those clickbait site. I also remember my more... easily upset friends reacting somewhat strongly to it as well. So it really encapsulates the entire situation for me. Morons on one end, paranoid nutters on the other, everyone sane just moves on and ignores them, maybe while agreeing yes SoB need to get some new models and more attention overall.

SilverAlien wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd still like someone to explain why "feminism = female space marines". Is everyone so unimaginative that the only way they can think of to increase the presence of women in the 41st milennium is to make them Space Marines?

No idea who else mentioned it if anyone (as I refuse to read this thread in its entirety), but I mentioned it because I remember an absolutely moronic article from one of those clickbait site. I also remember my more... easily upset friends reacting somewhat strongly to it as well. So it really encapsulates the entire situation for me. Morons on one end, paranoid nutters on the other, everyone sane just moves on and ignores them, maybe while agreeing yes SoB need to get some new models and more attention overall.

I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

 Luciferian wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
Aaaaaand now we get to implied insults and false dichotomies which label only one specific way of viewing things as correct, and anything else as the last gasp of threatened, inadequate manchildren etc. in spite of the fact that literally everyone here is advocating for more female representation in the models.

Yawn.

Is this targeted at anything or anyone in specific?

Why, looking for recognition? Here, have this award for posting in bad faith.

No, I was wondering who you were responding to since it wasn't immediately clear from your post.

Luckily your subsequent posts have made it pretty clear what point you're going after

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

 Sherrypie wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

When were the current Cadian models sculpted? GW are only just getting a handle on decent female faces now (even then...). I dread to think what they would have looked like if they were sculpted back then. Oh wait, we do know.



Truly a face that represents women everywhere.

Which doesn't really change the fact that we all agree now would be a good time to show these armies some love, since GW has clearly shown they can do female sculpts now. Though frankly that is more or less what I'd expect a female catachan to look like.

Though, for the more veteran players who might remember, when was the current succubi sculpt for dark eldar released?

I mean, she doesn't really look like more or less of a potato than any guardsman ever, to be honest. Guardsmen look pretty silly and the whole line could use an update.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

When were the current Cadian models sculpted? GW are only just getting a handle on decent female faces now (even then...). I dread to think what they would have looked like if they were sculpted back then. Oh wait, we do know.

Spoiler:

Truly a face that represents women everywhere.

... why are you posting that like it would be a bad thing? The male scuplts sucked almost as badly, but since they made more of those, the sculptors had more skill in making them. Had they simply done more female faces too, they would've been better. And that posted model is actually pretty nifty.

Also, I find it funny that "since they couldn't get it right on first try they shouldn't try" is even implied as an argument.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Oh wait, we do know.

{image}

Truly a face that represents women everywhere.

To be fair, it's not like most of GW's male faces are any better.

 Luciferian wrote:
I mean, she doesn't really look like more or less of a potato than any guardsman ever, to be honest. Guardsmen look pretty silly and the whole line could use an update.

That was my point. As a man I don't really identify with whatever those stubby armed abhumans in cadian armor are (saying that, I don't choose armies based on wether or not I identify with them at all amd I'm skeptical that anyone does) and I doubt women would want to buy models that looked like someone stuck wax lips and a fake nose on a potato. I don't think its fair to blame GW for a lack of diversity when the model line most suited to it is like 15 years old and dates back to when they could barely make MEN look decent let alone women.

Yeah, the whole idea that you have to identify with your army in order to feel welcome or comfortable with the hobby is absolute nonsense. And it's also one I've never seen espoused by a single woman who plays 40k.

Indeed. It would be difficult to identify with Nids or Orks.

 Sim-Life wrote:
That was my point. As a man I don't really identify with whatever those stubby armed abhumans in cadian armor are (saying that, I don't choose armies based on wether or not I identify with them at all amd I'm skeptical that anyone does) and I doubt women would want to buy models that looked like someone stuck wax lips and a fake nose on a potato. I don't think its fair to blame GW for a lack of diversity when the model line most suited to it is like 15 years old and dates back to when they could barely make MEN look decent let alone women.

Respectfully, i have no idea what point you are driving at, these barely seem to be coherent thoughts. Women wouldn't want to buy gakky looking models of women but men and women alike were fine with it when they were gakky looking models of men? GW chose not to update a line therefor it isn't GWs fault that the main female line is really out of date, making for a less diverse range of models? I legitimately don't understand what you are driving at.

GW didn't bother making female models for whatever reason, which is fine but we'd all like a change on that front. They lack any good reason to not do so currently, as SoS and the handful of SoB releases were both well received and good quality. Therefor, they should do this with other female model lines that have been neglected, such as the rest of SoB and possibly even female IG. If you take issue with any part of that statement, please point at it and explain why because I'm frankly lost.

He's saying that it's not easy to identify with IG even as a male, because their models are potatoes.

 Luciferian wrote:
He's saying that it's not easy to identify with IG even as a male, because their models are potatoes.

Alright, that's first of all pretty subjective, as I guarantee you a lot of people fill in the blanks and tend to take only the most basic impressions from the models themselves, but whatever I can't be bothered to argue because...

That's still totally irrelevant to the matter at hand? Even if people don't identify with them there is no reason we can't have more female models and armies represented in the production line. It'd be good if only for the sake of variety.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
He's saying that it's not easy to identify with IG even as a male, because their models are potatoes.

Alright, that's first of all pretty subjective, as I guarantee you a lot of people fill in the blanks and tend to take only the most basic impressions from the models themselves, but whatever I can't be bothered to argue because...

That's still totally irrelevant to the matter at hand? Even if people don't identify with them there is no reason we can't have more female models and armies represented in the production line. It'd be good if only for the sake of variety.

You seem to be under the impression I was making any kind of serious point. I forgot humour isn't allowed in the discussion of gender politics.

Yes, shut yer patriarchal mouth! But really, nobody can sense humour over text.

 Sim-Life wrote:
You seem to be under the impression I was making any kind of serious point. I forgot humour isn't allowed in the discussion of gender politics.

You literally said "that was my point" and then went on to explain it. If you want to keep defending it, as you already started to earlier i feel i should again point out, feel free. But don't pull the "lol it was all a joke man, why so serious" stuff when someone points out why your point was an idiotic one.

I am way more bothered by the weird paranoia of some people who keep shouting about some imaginary feminist conspiracy, which honestly act way more aggressive and vocal about their ideas than actual feminists.

And honestly Sargon is an dubious individual with a long history of being an utter gakker, so I would rather ignore people like him

Black Library has had loads of female characters in all sorts of rolls since the beginning, sadly for whatever reasons GW have been extremely reluctant to have many models that reflect this.

Not talking about female marines - that's as bad an idea as male Sisters of Battle.

But we know that there are females in every other branch of the Imperium to the highest level, they are starting to appear on the table top now which to me is a good thing but its still very slow and bitty.

I'm against this identitarian nonsense myself, but I have never seen anyone actually pushing for it with regards to 40k, except the obvious parody articles.

As earlier mentioned in the thead, I think GW is to small to really attract that crowd, there isn't enough money involved to make it worth it to them

 Spinner wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches.

Heaven forbid we see more women as major characters in our imaginary worlds.

If I believed that was their goal, I'd be on their side. Female soldiers are basically my favourite thing in fiction, and I've got the fanfiction to prove it.

The reason why I am not on their side is because when they say "female representation" they don't mean "humans with XX chromosomes," they mean "members of their political ideology." People don't hate modern Marvel comics because they hate women - the Marvel of yesteryear made Storm the leader of their most popular superhero team and to my knowledge nobody hated them for that. People hate modern Marvel comics because they have become a vehicle for the same ideology that ten years ago was calling superheroes a fascist fantasy.

I'm out of the hobby because GW became 70% more expensive overnight when they banned international sales, but if the Australia Tax was lifted female representation would be the thing most likely to bring me back. But that's because I like a good-looking woman in uniform, not because I subscribe to the entire grab-bag of left-wing politics.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


I get the lore argument, but frankly, lore in every medium needs a refresh every decade or three anyway. The game can't sit forever in 80's sensibilities and has really needed to advance for years now. There's just no reason to make a sandbox universe in which women can't be the heroes too.

I disagree with this logic. 40k prides itself, or used to anyways, on bringing together a particular blend of tropes, media backgrounds, and mythological characteristics that made 40k well... 40k. Having a bit of a refresh once in a while can be good, but taking a swing at the longstanding logics of the universe is needlessly destructive. Really, it would be better to let it die a hero than have it live to become a (possible) abomination.

Sure, but "no girls allowed" is just... not important. It's just not.

You don't even need a massive retcon or anything. We just had a huge timeskip. During that time, someone figured out how to make the space marine process compatible with women. Now we have women space marines. Done.

Except it would undermine the Space Marine's thematic element of knightly medieval warrior monks in space.
Monks, from the time period the Imperium takes its cues at least, were an all male religious organisation. I think even today its an all male thing, but there might be an outlier somewhere.
If you want a female equivalent, then look at the Sororitas, who are based off of nuns.

It would be like giving Tau vehicles that look like Mustangs and Abrams tanks. It wouldn't make sense thematically and would run contrary to their source of inspiration (anime, mecha, vaguely Asian inspired, etc)

 Sherrypie wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

I give GW a pass on this simply because of human gender dimorphism. Sprues for WHFB dark elves and eldar, which are represented as more androgynous, have l long included both male and female torsos. Including female models on the human-based sprues wouldn't be impossible, but it does reduce inter-changeability of parts, and GW almost never offers enough useful parts for mono-gender miniatures to begin with (at least in terms of weapons options).

I'm never entirely sure why "female Space Marines" is the hill so many choose to die on. OK, it's part of the background going back to ... not quite the Rogue Trader rulebook, because I don't think it comments one way or the other. The article in WD 90-something about the surgical implant process is where it came in, I think. But other bits have been dropped along the way (Squats, for example, or the wholesale re-writing of the Eldar in 1990) without becoming such a cause. If GW didn't want to just drop that tiny notion (which makes no biological sense anyway), then the introduction of Primaris Marines would have been as good a place as any to introduce them; there was enough whining about them anyway, making half of them wimmin wouldn't have made any difference.

Male Sororitas? The Sisters of Battle being all-female makes more sense in-universe than Space Marines being entirely male.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I'm never entirely sure why "female Space Marines" is the hill so many choose to die on. OK, it's part of the background going back to ... not quite the Rogue Trader rulebook, because I don't think it comments one way or the other. The article in WD 90-something about the surgical implant process is where it came in, I think. But other bits have been dropped along the way (Squats, for example, or the wholesale re-writing of the Eldar in 1990) without becoming such a cause. If GW didn't want to just drop that tiny notion (which makes no biological sense anyway), then the introduction of Primaris Marines would have been as good a place as any to introduce them; there was enough whining about them anyway, making half of them wimmin wouldn't have made any difference.

Male Sororitas? The Sisters of Battle being all-female makes more sense in-universe than Space Marines being entirely male.

But it's just an easily updated minor detail with no plot significance. Why not have male SoB?

The reasons to pick the SM hill are:

- It's the only all-male faction in 40k
- Space Marines are the definitive article of 40k
- Space Marines take up some of the oldest and most fundamental parts of 40k
- Space Marines are all directly relatable to every 40k player
- They're based on masculine tropes, and historical examples of all-male traits and orders
- And they are the paragons of masculinity, for better or worse

As far as humans are concerned we have an all male faction (sm), an all female faction (sob) and a mixed one (ig). This could be balanced enough*. I do think it's unfortunate that the poster boy faction that gets promoted and expanded over all else is the boys only faction, this kind of skews these proportions.

I also think that Cawly Sue easily could have made the supermarine formula work on women while he was meddling with it. Fluff it as "Now that the process works on all humans we get double the recruits! Hooray for Cawl!" and as "Of course they look exactly the same as the male ones, boobplate is ridiculous!", allowing each player to decide for themself which gender their marines are. That's just me though, and as a xenos player I have no vested interest in Imperial fluff.

 Selym wrote:
Indeed. It would be difficult to identify with Nids or Orks.

Put a bag of candy in front of me and witness The Great Devourer.


* To be fair sisters desperately need an update and ig could definitely use some more female options (to be even more fair; they need a redesign in general, see spoiler)

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I'm never entirely sure why "female Space Marines" is the hill so many choose to die on. OK, it's part of the background going back to ... not quite the Rogue Trader rulebook, because I don't think it comments one way or the other. The article in WD 90-something about the surgical implant process is where it came in, I think. But other bits have been dropped along the way (Squats, for example, or the wholesale re-writing of the Eldar in 1990) without becoming such a cause. If GW didn't want to just drop that tiny notion (which makes no biological sense anyway), then the introduction of Primaris Marines would have been as good a place as any to introduce them; there was enough whining about them anyway, making half of them wimmin wouldn't have made any difference.

Male Sororitas? The Sisters of Battle being all-female makes more sense in-universe than Space Marines being entirely male.

Indeed - if GW actually bothered to create more non Marine models it would be helpful - but that's another argument. we don't need female Marines we need female models where the lore and luff tells us they should be

We know have Escher gangs - but are we going to have a few female Orlocks, Delaque, outlaws etc - there is nor reason not too but will we get a few....?
We had no female cultists, beast"men" - even though these are all in the fluff.
Gensestealer Cults - no female models - again in the fluff
Imperial Guard - loads in the fluff - table - nope, finally got some images in the last Codex which is good but models?
Ad Mech - we don't need female models as such - although a few would be ok - but why do GW ignore them in the Codex fluff when its all over the BL novels - just stick a few female names in here and there to confirm that Ad MEch does not care about your gender as such, in fact many have that element removed but retain their names - little things that help.

Oh and of course Sisters of Battle - three plastic models and 1 resin in 20 years - really?

Forgeworld are no better in terms of general or character models - which is why various 3rd party makers are doing them and doing them well.

To clarify I don't need or want Female Marines or Orks, but I really want to have the above models

just add a upgrade pack of female heads, 5 normal and 5 with berets and two with cybernetics and then just make sisters plastic and done.

Female Marines keep coming up because it's apparently Feminist 40k's main contention with the setting. They don't seem to care about anything else, they want female Marines and will not rest until they get them.

And apparently the lack of female Marine models is proof that GW and all of us who play the game are all sexist misogynists who are all conspiring to keep women and minorities out of the hobby.

Oh, and of course the few female models we do have are obviously all "problematic" in some way. Sisters of Battle are "fetishized", Sisters of Silence have boobplate, Escher wear crop tops and high-heels, etc.

 Sidstyler wrote:
Female Marines keep coming up because it's apparently Feminist 40k's main contention with the setting. They don't seem to care about anything else, they want female Marines and will not rest until they get them.

And apparently the lack of female Marine models is proof that GW and all of us who play the game are all sexist misogynists who are all conspiring to keep women and minorities out of the hobby.

Oh, and of course the few female models we do have are obviously all "problematic" in some way. Sisters of Battle are "fetishized", Sisters of Silence have boobplate, Escher wear crop tops and high-heels, etc.

Well if you put it like that it does sound a bit odd. We have only just got a few female Stormcast models in AOS - again loads in the fluff for all factions

The postmodern neo-marxist ...cult (there is no better word for it) is the biggest thread to western liberal democracy that has ever existed.
Fascism has lost already. Probably because it lost the war.
Marxism has the benefit of being the victor over fascism despite being worse. Both ideologically and in scale of devastation it has caused.

They will infect everything.
Girlmarines are just the tip of the iceberg. They will come and tell you that you cannot run a company -be it your LGS- if you are one of the following things:
-male
-white
-straight

Because if you are one of that or -shudder- multiple you are by identity politics driven definition a racist oppressive patriarcist.
You also charge girls more for their models. Cause.... [offers no evidence] ... it is true!

You have two choices:
Get used to and complicit
Or
Speak up.

Btw.
The funniest thing is that in China the term "white leftist" is used a an insult. In communist china, LOL.
They hated the new Star Wars for its SJW narrative so much that it got pulled from theatres. XD

Oh the irony tastes so great!

 combatcotton wrote:
The postmodern neo-marxist ...cult (there is no better word for it) is the biggest thread to western liberal democracy that has ever existed.
Fascism has lost already. Probably because it lost the war.
Marxism has the benefit of being the victor over fascism despite being worse. Both ideologically and in scale of devastation it has caused.

They will infect everything.
Girlmarines are just the tip of the iceberg. They will come and tell you that you cannot run a company -be it your LGS- if you are one of the following things:
-male
-white
-straight

Because if you are one of that or -shudder- multiple you are by identity politics driven definition a racist oppressive patriarcist.
You also charge girls more for their models. Cause.... [offers no evidence] ... it is true!

You have two choices:
Get used to and complicit
Or
Speak up.

Btw.
The funniest thing is that in China the term "white leftist" is used a an insult. In communist china, LOL.
They hated the new Star Wars for its SJW narrative so much that it got pulled from theatres. XD

Oh the irony tastes so great!

......
Yeah, I am stop lurking this thread otherwise my palm may be imprinted on my face forever

 Selym wrote:
Indeed. It would be difficult to identify with Nids or Orks.

I identify quite well with Nids around lunchtime at the Buffet.

Also I am amazed this post managed to survive this long... Given this is very US politics in tabletop gaming.

Though as for a solution... And no, Female Space Marines is not one.

Add female heads for: Imperial Guard, Eldar (unhelmeted and otherwise), Inquisitors, Adeptas Mechanicus (Difficult to tell when you are as upgraded as they are, but should have a few within the ranks), Imperial Agents (Female psykers and the like), genestealer cult. (Are they all male in the later generations..? I can't honestly remember too well)

Don't forget some for Renegades and Heretics, cultists and the like.

The thing is we all want these models (aside from FeMarines) but even if GW made them they'd still be a long while off being released.

If we look at it even optimistically we'd need to wait for plastic Cadians to get an update which won't be for a while. Like 2019 at the earliest and thats assuming they started working on them last year. Its even less likely that they'd make female Marine because it would pull focus away from expanding the presumably extensivly planned Primaris line. The production time it would take to implement and release the female models people are asking for is probably longer than their attention span is willing to stick around for.

The only female models I can see realistically being added to the range any time soon is within the Eldar aspect warrior lines. If we want to venture into the realm of wishful thinking we can hope Sisters will get an update at the end of the current codex cycle as a celebration type release. Like "yay, everyone has a codex for 8th and heres some plastic SoBs now shut up about them."

I think at the core of it people get two categories confused:

1) out of touch, post modernist, cult like, weird liberal arts degree feminists who hate men and want to destroy all things patriarchal

2) normal everyday people who like comfortable familiar narratives and structure and lap stuff like blindly adding characters who have "female" as an attribute, are vaguely angry at sexism, etc.

Category 2 can be imagined to be part of category 1, but they simply aren't. They're just extremely numerous and like things they are familiar with and stories they know and like.

And it's true in previously nerd focused franchises that can make the reach for the masses, you will see characters blindly swapped time women for no reason other than to get normal people to cheer and go "wooo #girl power!!" See movies, some very mainstream video games, etc. That's not an attempt by. Corporation to appeal to category 1 people, that's a stab at the millions of category 2 average normal folks. Not every change to normalize a setting is "feminist", just the ones you notice.

There are franchises that are safe, though, and 40k is one of them. Normal people simply will not commit the time or money to commit to 40k. Same reason normalizing comics didn't work - have you ever tried to buy and follow comics? It's both massively expensive for what you get and ridiculously confusing. Going to a movie is comparatively zero commitment, which is why star wars has been normalized extremely successfully (and it has been if you're being at all honest with yourself. Both new star wars movies are comfortably in the top 10 most successful films of all time. That does not a "dying" franchise make).

Sure. GW could pull a Disney and try to cram 40k into the normal space unsiccessfully but the situation is very different. Gw does not have two business branches, one which chugs along raking in billions upon billions of dollars and one which barely seems to do anything at all. It was a natural thought to ask "why can't I make this second thing more like this first thing?"

That's not how GW is operating. Look at their marketing. "Hey, remember this great thing from 25 years ago?" Is not a company coming for the mass market. Gw knows that their customers are heavily financially committed weirdos. Feminist 40k does not have the numbers behind them that Feminist Star Wars has. And as long as the hobby is about buying extremely expensive plastic models and painting them for hours before playing a weird nerdy game with them, that will stay that way.

 combatcotton wrote:
The postmodern neo-marxist ...cult (there is no better word for it) is the biggest thread to western liberal democracy that has ever existed.
Fascism has lost already. Probably because it lost the war.
Marxism has the benefit of being the victor over fascism despite being worse. Both ideologically and in scale of devastation it has caused.

They will infect everything.
Girlmarines are just the tip of the iceberg. They will come and tell you that you cannot run a company -be it your LGS- if you are one of the following things:
-male
-white
-straight

Because if you are one of that or -shudder- multiple you are by identity politics driven definition a racist oppressive patriarcist.
You also charge girls more for their models. Cause.... [offers no evidence] ... it is true!

You have two choices:
Get used to and complicit
Or
Speak up.

Btw.
The funniest thing is that in China the term "white leftist" is used a an insult. In communist china, LOL.
They hated the new Star Wars for its SJW narrative so much that it got pulled from theatres. XD

Oh the irony tastes so great!

Never thought I'd see the day where a modern German defended nazism.

Erased a poorly thought out post.

I'm not sure he's saying Nazism was good, just better than Marxism. Either way, I think the mods are asleep.

 Mmmpi wrote:

 combatcotton wrote:
The postmodern neo-marxist ...cult (there is no better word for it) is the biggest thread to western liberal democracy that has ever existed.
Fascism has lost already. Probably because it lost the war.
Marxism has the benefit of being the victor over fascism despite being worse. Both ideologically and in scale of devastation it has caused.

They will infect everything.
Girlmarines are just the tip of the iceberg. They will come and tell you that you cannot run a company -be it your LGS- if you are one of the following things:
-male
-white
-straight

Because if you are one of that or -shudder- multiple you are by identity politics driven definition a racist oppressive patriarcist.
You also charge girls more for their models. Cause.... [offers no evidence] ... it is true!

You have two choices:
Get used to and complicit
Or
Speak up.

Btw.
The funniest thing is that in China the term "white leftist" is used a an insult. In communist china, LOL.
They hated the new Star Wars for its SJW narrative so much that it got pulled from theatres. XD

Oh the irony tastes so great!

Never thought I'd see the day where a modern German defended nazism.

There's a ton wrong with everything you just said. But civility and the forum rules prevent me from tell you just how wrong you are, and just how much I hate you.

Well, humanity doesn't change so quickly. Just be on the other side of the fence next time it comes along.

 GuardStrider wrote:
I am way more bothered by the weird paranoia of some people who keep shouting about some imaginary feminist conspiracy, which honestly act way more aggressive and vocal about their ideas than actual feminists.

Absolutely. This internet anti-feminist movement is absolutely surreal. I really cannot understand how so many people can succumb to such senseless paranoia. "Oh no, they gave a girl a lightsabre, everything is ruined!"

 Mmmpi wrote:

 combatcotton wrote:
The postmodern neo-marxist ...cult (there is no better word for it) is the biggest thread to western liberal democracy that has ever existed.
Fascism has lost already. Probably because it lost the war.
Marxism has the benefit of being the victor over fascism despite being worse. Both ideologically and in scale of devastation it has caused.

They will infect everything.
Girlmarines are just the tip of the iceberg. They will come and tell you that you cannot run a company -be it your LGS- if you are one of the following things:
-male
-white
-straight

Because if you are one of that or -shudder- multiple you are by identity politics driven definition a racist oppressive patriarcist.
You also charge girls more for their models. Cause.... [offers no evidence] ... it is true!

You have two choices:
Get used to and complicit
Or
Speak up.

Btw.
The funniest thing is that in China the term "white leftist" is used a an insult. In communist china, LOL.
They hated the new Star Wars for its SJW narrative so much that it got pulled from theatres. XD

Oh the irony tastes so great!

Never thought I'd see the day where a modern German defended nazism.

There's a ton wrong with everything you just said. But civility and the forum rules prevent me from tell you just how wrong you are, and just how much I hate you.

How is this in any way a defence of Nazism?

Saying that it lost because of the war? Factually true. It was a popular idea around Europe before it was proven insane by WW2 and the Holocaust. Had Germany won, we would likely not be living in democracies right now.
Saying that it is better than Marxism? Opinion, but it's not like Marxist-based regimes have ever ended well.

And it's not like the brand of Feminism to which combatcotton is referring does not exist, or has no presence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

 GuardStrider wrote:
I am way more bothered by the weird paranoia of some people who keep shouting about some imaginary feminist conspiracy, which honestly act way more aggressive and vocal about their ideas than actual feminists.

Absolutely. This internet anti-feminist movement is absolutely surreal. I really cannot understand how so many people can succumb to such senseless paranoia. "Oh no, they gave a girl a lightsabre, everything is ruined!"

You have to be reeealllly unfamiliar with the whole thing if that's your view on it. Anyways, calling the mods in on this. I think we're done here.

 combatcotton wrote:
The postmodern neo-marxist ...cult (there is no better word for it) is the biggest thread to western liberal democracy that has ever existed.
Fascism has lost already. Probably because it lost the war.
Marxism has the benefit of being the victor over fascism despite being worse. Both ideologically and in scale of devastation it has caused.

They will infect everything.
Girlmarines are just the tip of the iceberg. They will come and tell you that you cannot run a company -be it your LGS- if you are one of the following things:
-male
-white
-straight

Because if you are one of that or -shudder- multiple you are by identity politics driven definition a racist oppressive patriarcist.
You also charge girls more for their models. Cause.... [offers no evidence] ... it is true!

You have two choices:
Get used to and complicit
Or
Speak up.

Btw.
The funniest thing is that in China the term "white leftist" is used a an insult. In communist china, LOL.
They hated the new Star Wars for its SJW narrative so much that it got pulled from theatres. XD

Oh the irony tastes so great!

The Star Wars film was fething awful full stop and did not notice any SJW elements to be honest just bad writting, direction, pacing.......

To be fair GW has ignoed its own lore and fluff in focussing so much on almost exclusively male charcters for the tabletop.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
I'm not sure he's saying Nazism was good, just better than Marxism. Either way, I think the mods are asleep.

Let's just say I've been spending too much time on political forums and I let my mouth run. While I don't nessissarily agree with your assestment of what he said, I will edit my answer.

Thanks for pointing out my stupid.

Eldar guardians have 2 female torsos in their kit, why is it so hard for GW to do the same in the basic troop box for IG, SM(scouts beeing the option there) harlequins and tau?

That plus a release of plastic SoB and a expansion of SoS would silence majority of the feminist complaining about 40K

 Selym wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:

 combatcotton wrote:
The postmodern neo-marxist ...cult (there is no better word for it) is the biggest thread to western liberal democracy that has ever existed.
Fascism has lost already. Probably because it lost the war.
Marxism has the benefit of being the victor over fascism despite being worse. Both ideologically and in scale of devastation it has caused.

They will infect everything.
Girlmarines are just the tip of the iceberg. They will come and tell you that you cannot run a company -be it your LGS- if you are one of the following things:
-male
-white
-straight

Because if you are one of that or -shudder- multiple you are by identity politics driven definition a racist oppressive patriarcist.
You also charge girls more for their models. Cause.... [offers no evidence] ... it is true!

You have two choices:
Get used to and complicit
Or
Speak up.

Btw.
The funniest thing is that in China the term "white leftist" is used a an insult. In communist china, LOL.
They hated the new Star Wars for its SJW narrative so much that it got pulled from theatres. XD

Oh the irony tastes so great!

Never thought I'd see the day where a modern German defended nazism.

There's a ton wrong with everything you just said. But civility and the forum rules prevent me from tell you just how wrong you are, and just how much I hate you.

How is this in any way a defence of Nazism?

Saying that it lost because of the war? Factually true. It was a popular idea around Europe before it was proven insane by WW2 and the Holocaust. Had Germany won, we would likely not be living in democracies right now.
Saying that it is better than Marxism? Opinion, but it's not like Marxist-based regimes have ever ended well.

And it's not like the brand of Feminism to which combatcotton is referring does not exist, or has no presence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

 GuardStrider wrote:
I am way more bothered by the weird paranoia of some people who keep shouting about some imaginary feminist conspiracy, which honestly act way more aggressive and vocal about their ideas than actual feminists.

Absolutely. This internet anti-feminist movement is absolutely surreal. I really cannot understand how so many people can succumb to such senseless paranoia. "Oh no, they gave a girl a lightsabre, everything is ruined!"

You have to be reeealllly unfamiliar with the whole thing if that's your view on it. Anyways, calling the mods in on this. I think we're done here.

"my right to free speech and discussion is being suppressed by the feminists! I demand an open conversation about the positives and negatives of a given philosophy, not just shutting down the conversation any time it goes somewhere people are uncomfortable with!"

*Open conversation about the positives and negatives of a given philosophy starts*

"MOOOOOOOOOOOODS!"

shortymcnostrill wrote:
As far as humans are concerned we have an all male faction (sm), an all female faction (sob) and a mixed one (ig). This could be balanced enough*. I do think it's unfortunate that the poster boy faction that gets promoted and expanded over all else is the boys only faction, this kind of skews these proportions.

This is indeed the problem. If the factions that are actually supposed to be mixed gender were represented in model form as such, and if those factions, as well as SoB, had equal spotlight to marines, then the marines being all male wouldn't really be a problem. But this is not the case.

 Selym wrote:

Saying that it lost because of the war? Factually true. It was a popular idea around Europe before it was proven insane by WW2 and the Holocaust. Had Germany won, we would likely not be living in democracies right now.
Saying that it is better than Marxism? Opinion, but it's not like Marxist-based regimes have ever ended well.

The actual regimes you're talking about were pretty far from the ideology of philosophies they were supposed to be based on.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Eldar guardians have 2 female torsos in their kit, why is it so hard for GW to do the same in the basic troop box for IG, SM(scouts beeing the option there) harlequins and tau?

That plus a release of plastic SoB and a expansion of SoS would silence majority of the feminist complaining about 40K

IG: Yep, would love to see that.

Tau: Already in there, Tau females just don't look super different than tau males (hint: Look at the forehead thingy)

Harlequins: Ditto, I think there are actually 5 female torsos in a 7-model troupe box?

SM Scouts: Still space marines, so you'd have to change the canon first which most people are against.

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Eldar guardians have 2 female torsos in their kit, why is it so hard for GW to do the same in the basic troop box for IG, SM(scouts beeing the option there) harlequins and tau?

That plus a release of plastic SoB and a expansion of SoS would silence majority of the feminist complaining about 40K

IG: Yep, would love to see that.

Tau: Already in there, Tau females just don't look super different than tau males (hint: Look at the forehead thingy)

Harlequins: Ditto, I think there are actually 5 female torsos in a 7-model troupe box?

SM Scouts: Still space marines, so you'd have to change the canon first which most people are against.

Also:

Cultists - both Chaos and GSC
Ad Mech

 Selym wrote:

You have to be reeealllly unfamiliar with the whole thing if that's your view on it. Anyways, calling the mods in on this. I think we're done here.

Oh trust me, I'm not unfamiliar with any of this, I just strongly disagree with you.

Also, you're calling mods to close your own thread when people disagree with you? You have a problem with free speech now?

No, I think I'm a large part in why the mods got called.

 Mr Morden wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Eldar guardians have 2 female torsos in their kit, why is it so hard for GW to do the same in the basic troop box for IG, SM(scouts beeing the option there) harlequins and tau?

That plus a release of plastic SoB and a expansion of SoS would silence majority of the feminist complaining about 40K

IG: Yep, would love to see that.

Tau: Already in there, Tau females just don't look super different than tau males (hint: Look at the forehead thingy)

Harlequins: Ditto, I think there are actually 5 female torsos in a 7-model troupe box?

SM Scouts: Still space marines, so you'd have to change the canon first which most people are against.

Also:

Cultists - both Chaos and GSC
Ad Mech

Admech do technically have half the soldiers wearing different metal crotchpieces. I figure that's probably the only, ah, "organic feature" the adeptus mechanicus would leave intact (gotta make more skitarii somehow!) and so you are free to consider that the gender defining feature of a Skitarii.

Cultists and GSC...yep. There's really no good excuse in some of those monobuild or essentially monobuild kits where it would take exactly zero effort to have a female chaos cultist, kairic acolyte, or poxwalker. It gets a little ludicrous when you try to justify it in lore terms

"Ah, see, the genestealer cult would all look male because they're weird mutants, even the ones who are supposed to look indistinguishable from humans, weird mutants so they are all male."

"No, the chaos cultists are all male because...women wouldn't fall for the...cult?"

"Clearly what we have here is an...um...planet full of dudes who got infected with this zombie virus, and so only...only dudes became zombies...yep..."

 Crimson wrote:

shortymcnostrill wrote:
As far as humans are concerned we have an all male faction (sm), an all female faction (sob) and a mixed one (ig). This could be balanced enough*. I do think it's unfortunate that the poster boy faction that gets promoted and expanded over all else is the boys only faction, this kind of skews these proportions.

This is indeed the problem. If the factions that are actually supposed to be mixed gender were represented in model form as such, and if those factions, as well as SoB, had equal spotlight to marines, then the marines being all male wouldn't really be a problem. But this is not the case.

Agreed and well said

To be frank, the Femininst movement has a lot better things to worry about than whether GW include some female bodies in their IG kits.

Like equal pay, sexual assault, pension rights, and so on.

I think we're done here.