i'm a big fan of breaking down the barriers between genders. there's no meaningful differences between men, women, or anything else, anyway, so it shouldn't really matter on the tabletop, either
Kanluwen wrote: But I would like to see them start pushing Marines more into the realm of "logic" while Sisters of Battle push more for "Faith".
That leans hard into some fairly dated stereotypes about men and women, though, unless it's used ironically. As in - Marines are touted as the logical ones, but actually have a habit of making spur-of-the-moment decisions from emotion, and Sisters are touted as making their decisions on Faith, but actually just do whatever seems the most tactically sound and find a Faith justification for it later...
My view is that Marines have lore, a story, a structure behind who they are and what they are. That lore does NOT have to reflect modern gender politics.
In fact the VAST majority of factions in GW do not follow modern morality nor social values. Marines will issue genocide orders on whole planets at times.
I don't ask that my Marines observe the Geneva Convention, Human Rights and Articles of War - so why do they have to follow gender balance?
The Marines have a story behind them and yes you can argue that the science might be wonky; but freaking heck this is a sci-fi universe where the factions run around with chainsaws on the battlefield and their main battle tank is straight out of WW1.
Sisters of Battle are the same. They don't have to have Bothers of Battle added to them. Again they've a story; that story defines part of what they are officially.
NOW what I put above is what I feel the official GW angle should be. What YOU do with YOUR army and models - do whatever the heck you want. Female Marines; Hello Kitty Marines; Pony Marines; Mechanical Marines; Brothers of Battle
Do whatever you want. The market is flooded wtih material for conversions and 3D printing has expanded that roster in a massive way.
I'm 100% all for people converting to represent what they wish and to adapt the lore to suit themselves within the bubble of their own game and their corner of the mad, insane world that is 40K.
ps my point about the lore being the lore also means GW should be adding more women to the ranks of the Guard, because they've always been present in the lore and story of the setting. Indeed whilst you could argue the marines are regressive on that front; the Imperial Guard is highly progressive
Your models, your fluff. GW makes rules, but literally, who cares. There isn't a single rule regarding gender in 40k. There is no rule that says a model must identify as such and such, or cannot be X/Y. There is only rules for a named unit or models in a unit. Other than that, nothing about colors, hair, biological bits, or gender depiction exists in the table top rules. You do you. Anyone else who says otherwise is lying.
Kanluwen wrote: But I would like to see them start pushing Marines more into the realm of "logic" while Sisters of Battle push more for "Faith".
That leans hard into some fairly dated stereotypes about men and women, though, unless it's used ironically. As in - Marines are touted as the logical ones, but actually have a habit of making spur-of-the-moment decisions from emotion, and Sisters are touted as making their decisions on Faith, but actually just do whatever seems the most tactically sound and find a Faith justification for it later...
When I say "Logic" for Marines, I mean that they are the product of logic and science. They're created by science, not a natural phenomenon or force of will. That science may be corrupted and enmeshed with rote ritual now, but that doesn't change the what of their origin.
It's the opposite situation for the Sisters of Battle. It's a kind of natural phenomenon for lack of a better term, something where their miracles could be expected to exist even if the Sisters of Battle ceased to exist. So long as the Imperial Faith or a similar bit was present? We should see the same miraculous events occur.
Take away the science behind Marines, and they cease to exist.
With all of that said, I have zero issue with the Ecclesiarchy getting to go all Bene Gesserit on things. More faith weaponization!
Kanluwen wrote: But I would like to see them start pushing Marines more into the realm of "logic" while Sisters of Battle push more for "Faith".
That leans hard into some fairly dated stereotypes about men and women, though, unless it's used ironically. As in - Marines are touted as the logical ones, but actually have a habit of making spur-of-the-moment decisions from emotion, and Sisters are touted as making their decisions on Faith, but actually just do whatever seems the most tactically sound and find a Faith justification for it later...
When I say "Logic" for Marines, I mean that they are the product of logic and science. They're created by science, not a natural phenomenon or force of will. That science may be corrupted and enmeshed with rote ritual now, but that doesn't change the what of their origin.
It's the opposite situation for the Sisters of Battle. It's a kind of natural phenomenon for lack of a better term, something where their miracles could be expected to exist even if the Sisters of Battle ceased to exist. So long as the Imperial Faith or a similar bit was present? We should see the same miraculous events occur.
Take away the science behind Marines, and they cease to exist.
With all of that said, I have zero issue with the Ecclesiarchy getting to go all Bene Gesserit on things. More faith weaponization!
I agree with this, but more into the themes that marines reflect and there place in the setting. Which I think is often at odds with how people see them. Marines are to often too representing of the Cool of 40K and there themes often get entirely overlooked when they just too cool to be the bad guys.
Most marines in the imperium are probably a few bad days from a chaos marine, just as brutal and dangerous as the marines on the other side.
As GW does more to diversify the marine themes actually gets stronger and potentially more interesting. The lore itself is more just common Sci-fi stuffs.
I do wish the sisters of silence got some more work, since we also need good minis GW.
Overread wrote: My view is that Marines have lore, a story, a structure behind who they are and what they are.
It'd be good to give a detailed analysis of the publication dates and authors of the background and rules that give them this structure. Sometimes people just don't have the knowledge to make these claims.
If the best we get is "in the early days" or "some studio members," that's not doing it for me. Naming publication dates and bylines gets us partway there, it gets to the very bottom of bloom's taxonomy. At the bare minimum, you'd have to give some comparison of Armies of the Imperium with Realms of Chaos with Origins of the Legiones.
Right now you have what's visually a long post, but not really an effort post.
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StudentOfEtherium wrote: i'm a big fan of breaking down the barriers between genders. there's no meaningful differences between men, women, or anything else, anyway, so it shouldn't really matter on the tabletop, either
Oh yeah more importantly.
Thats male normativitiy. We know that the Imperium is structured on conquest and subjugation. When there's a very tall hierarchy using a military to direct most of the product of industry for their private benefit, then women are commodities. Women either have the ability to semi-voluntarily sell themselves, or theyre sold by their families, and access to women is one of the rewards of different levels of the hierarchy. The phenomenon of a small portion of men becoming rent boys validates this concept that discrimination against women is a function of the economic model.
There's no such thing as gender equity in an Imperial military. The hierarchy uses a minority of the population mostly men to lug weapons around and to crack heads. The majority of the population is subject to some level of precarity, and so women are commodified and subject to gendered abuse of various kinds. The existence of the Imperium depends on a deep disparity between men and women.
There's no such thing as gender equity in an Imperial military. The hierarchy uses a minority of the population mostly men to lug weapons around and to crack heads. The majority of the population is subject to some level of precarity, and so women are commodified and subject to gendered abuse of various kinds. The existence of the Imperium depends on a deep disparity between men and women.
This is not actual 40k background at all. It's entirely out of your own head.
The Imperium has historically mostly been represented on the tabletop with men because the game was made in the 90s when 'soldier =man' was the default that everyone just took for granted. But even with that, there had never been any suggestion of women being treated any more or less as commodities than men. They're ALL just grist for the mill.
By this point, we have background material suggesting that women do just fine in the guard, v in the Inquisition, in the ministorium, in the mechanicum, in the administratum... The Imperium doesn't care what's in their pants, just whether or not they do their job.
The only places it matters is the Sisters, whose existence relies entirely on a lame joke from the 90s, and the Marines, due to an old piece of fluff created to justify the models all being male back when female models simply didn't sell well, also in the 90s.
Female Custodes allows folks that want to officially play female genetically enhanced warriors to do so.
It leaves Marines and SoB as specific sexes for their equally outdated/historcal/important (delete as you see fit) reasons of models with dubious background excuse.
I’m fine with that. I wonder if part of GW’s reasoning was that it kicks the ‘need’ for female Marines into the long grass.
What I find amusing are the folks referencing Alexander the Great and his companions (historians still seem to be debating whether one was his lover) as being the cool male-only template for Custodes, while bemoaning the change as being down to a desire to pander to LGBT folks.
JNAProductions wrote: FemMarines
Misters of Battle
The recently announced lady Custodes
General thoughts and feelings on the various genders of 40k forces?
Split off from a news and rumours thread to avoid too much sidetracking.
I had completely missed that there was a female Custodes - interesting!
For me - like others - the only gendered organisations are the Asartes, Sororitas and Sisters of Silence - and even then the Marines have women serving the chapter as Thralls (or whatever designation they use for the Chapter) as they did pre-Heresy
Although I have missed in lore who does all the tech stuff in both the female organisations so you could have male Tech priests in both?
Part of the problem with Space Marines being male only is that they dominate the game to a ridiculous degree and are supported as a faction more than every other faction combined.
I don't think anyone can really argue this point. If there's a narrative update, Space Marines are at the forefront. If there's a new release, Space Marines will typically get something to go along with it. Hell, range updates were basically suspended for two years when Primaris were introduced.
And GW comes out and says it's a boys only club. That puts an unfortunate look and spin to any perspective hobbyists, or just anyone from the outside looking in.
It would be one thing if the Space Marines were a niche faction like GSC or DE. But they're not. They're the poster child. They have half a dozen subfactions, who even get their own unique kits and special characters. Marines come in every flavor you could possibly want--from norse-influenced space werewolves to inhumanly beautiful blood drinking types to religious fanatics with enough zeal to make an Adepta Sororitas Canoness blush. Except girl, that's the only flavor not allowed.
You could say it violates the lore but does it violate the lore more than primaris marines? Not really. GW makes the lore. It's literally whatever they say it is. If they say that the missing two legions were actually female space marines kept on ice for reasons, that's the lore then despite how silly or illogical they make it--after all, how much silly lore have they put out since the Fall of Cadia? A whole lot.
Female space marines wouldn't hurt anyone. Female custodes don't hurt anyone else. If you don't like them, don't use them, but just because you don't like it doesn't mean that no one should like it ever.
Honestly, making the game less of a boys only club would be the least offensive thing a company that squatted a bunch of people's models--or entire races--has done in a while.
Is it pandering? Well, yes. GW is a company at the end of the day, and they want to make money. They're not trying to save the world or support female empowerment--they think that these moves will get them a bigger customer base and make them more money. But there's a reason they think that. Might have something to do with AoS's fairly generous amount of female characters didn't end the fething world.
Although I have missed in lore who does all the tech stuff in both the female organisations so you could have male Tech priests in both?
I believe techmarines handle the duties of tech priests, though it's likely they have enginseer equivalents among their serfs to help
From what I recall of Sisters of Battle, and I'm not sure if the lore has been changed since, but the Sisters Diagolus help maintain their machines.
Though it's likely that techpriests serve extensively in both organizations. However, a person can be trained in upkeep and maintenance of the holy machines without being full on tech priests.
If you play the (quite excellent) Rogue Trader CRPG, you'll see a lot of tech types that assist in the maintenance and service of your flag ship who are not tech priests, though they may or may not be affiliated with the Mechanicum.
That's a good point. GW already "ruined" marines by introducing Primaris, that's as big of a retcon/shakeup as you can imagine. Making all factions suddenly gender-agnostic is a small step in comparison.
I have a couple of opinions on this topic.
1. The "scientific" explanation for why SM are men only is rubbish. Scrap it. Just say: Emperor wanted only men for his marines, so we got only men. End of story. With the desparate position the Imperium is in and Cawl/Primaris it would also easily allow for female Marines. Or not, because Guilliman doesn't want even more friction with conservative faction.
2. If you want "Misters of battle" give them boob armour/ the same armour, just head swaps. Same as with Banshees recently. The armour doesn't have the form because of the woman inside, but because if ritual meaning. The armour has to be that way because of the founding story of "no men at arms" for the church, so it's imperial dogma, but the higher ups know there are also men inside those armours. Maybe there's even a secret decree for male Sisters of battle to never take off their helmets in public .
3.
Female Chaos Space Marines should happen as they don't care about stupid "science" of 10K years ago. They also don't care about imperial dogma.
4. Female Custodes... well fluff never said otherwize to my knowledge, we just got a clarification they're actually there. Hopefully models will follow.
Altima wrote: Part of the problem with Space Marines being male only is that they dominate the game to a ridiculous degree and are supported as a faction more than every other faction combined.
I don't think anyone can really argue this point. If there's a narrative update, Space Marines are at the forefront. If there's a new release, Space Marines will typically get something to go along with it. Hell, range updates were basically suspended for two years when Primaris were introduced.
And GW comes out and says it's a boys only club. That puts an unfortunate look and spin to any perspective hobbyists, or just anyone from the outside looking in.
It would be one thing if the Space Marines were a niche faction like GSC or DE. But they're not. They're the poster child. They have half a dozen subfactions, who even get their own unique kits and special characters. Marines come in every flavor you could possibly want--from norse-influenced space werewolves to inhumanly beautiful blood drinking types to religious fanatics with enough zeal to make an Adepta Sororitas Canoness blush. Except girl, that's the only flavor not allowed.
You could say it violates the lore but does it violate the lore more than primaris marines? Not really. GW makes the lore. It's literally whatever they say it is. If they say that the missing two legions were actually female space marines kept on ice for reasons, that's the lore then despite how silly or illogical they make it--after all, how much silly lore have they put out since the Fall of Cadia? A whole lot.
Female space marines wouldn't hurt anyone. Female custodes don't hurt anyone else. If you don't like them, don't use them, but just because you don't like it doesn't mean that no one should like it ever.
Honestly, making the game less of a boys only club would be the least offensive thing a company that squatted a bunch of people's models--or entire races--has done in a while.
Is it pandering? Well, yes. GW is a company at the end of the day, and they want to make money. They're not trying to save the world or support female empowerment--they think that these moves will get them a bigger customer base and make them more money. But there's a reason they think that. Might have something to do with AoS's fairly generous amount of female characters didn't end the fething world.
Although I have missed in lore who does all the tech stuff in both the female organisations so you could have male Tech priests in both?
I believe techmarines handle the duties of tech priests, though it's likely they have enginseer equivalents among their serfs to help
From what I recall of Sisters of Battle, and I'm not sure if the lore has been changed since, but the Sisters Diagolus help maintain their machines.
Though it's likely that techpriests serve extensively in both organizations. However, a person can be trained in upkeep and maintenance of the holy machines without being full on tech priests.
If you play the (quite excellent) Rogue Trader CRPG, you'll see a lot of tech types that assist in the maintenance and service of your flag ship who are not tech priests, though they may or may not be affiliated with the Mechanicum.
Yeah really enjoy the RT game and seen plenty of examples of lay priests in the lore but would be nice to have some sisters themed Tech priests - al al Techmarines - - although there is also no reason why they can not be female - or genderless.
Missed the Diagolus reference!
And I guess there is not much Sisters of Silence lore....
Altima wrote: Part of the problem with Space Marines being male only is that they dominate the game to a ridiculous degree and are supported as a faction more than every other faction combined.
I don't think anyone can really argue this point. If there's a narrative update, Space Marines are at the forefront. If there's a new release, Space Marines will typically get something to go along with it. Hell, range updates were basically suspended for two years when Primaris were introduced.
And GW comes out and says it's a boys only club. That puts an unfortunate look and spin to any perspective hobbyists, or just anyone from the outside looking in.
It would be one thing if the Space Marines were a niche faction like GSC or DE. But they're not. They're the poster child. They have half a dozen subfactions, who even get their own unique kits and special characters. Marines come in every flavor you could possibly want--from norse-influenced space werewolves to inhumanly beautiful blood drinking types to religious fanatics with enough zeal to make an Adepta Sororitas Canoness blush. Except girl, that's the only flavor not allowed.
You could say it violates the lore but does it violate the lore more than primaris marines? Not really. GW makes the lore. It's literally whatever they say it is. If they say that the missing two legions were actually female space marines kept on ice for reasons, that's the lore then despite how silly or illogical they make it--after all, how much silly lore have they put out since the Fall of Cadia? A whole lot.
Female space marines wouldn't hurt anyone. Female custodes don't hurt anyone else. If you don't like them, don't use them, but just because you don't like it doesn't mean that no one should like it ever.
Yeah, this is why the discussion has historically been mostly about the marines; they're half of the game.
They also are the ultimate customisable faction that you can flavour for you liking, so denying this one specific flavouring is just weird.
Viking, marines? Sure! Vampire marines? Go ahead! Samurai marines? Sounds cool, make it happen! Amazon marines? Get out of here!
So yeah, female custodes is nice, but also that faction being all male was not really a huge problem.
I don't really like the idea of female space marines. I mean, a roided up, extremely genetically modified woman with extreme amounts of testosterone, hormones, and geneseed ( as well as the fact that many chapters like Blood Angels are modeled after their primarch in a sense, and sanguinius is male, etc.) basically just seems like a man to me. Female custodes? I don't mind them, I never knew Custodes were only male either, to be honest. But for space marines, I wouldn't do it. SoB when you break them down, are effectively just unmodified female space marines but with very similar equipment. Obviously there's a lot more, but if anyone wants a 'strong female character' aesthetic, SoB have access to rhinos, bolters, and advanced equipment, many of which the Spacemarines use. They aren't augmented, but are highly trained. I think that's a lot more interesting, having unaugmented humans who aren't part of the IG, and are all one gender. It's not bad in my opinion, it's pretty cool at least to me. If a cool, battle-nun sisterhood isn't sexist, then I don't see how only male space marines are.
I mean think about it, Sister Act with oversized guns and swords, and weird bondage servitors sounds pretty rad to me.
Just another line of thinking here - do people want to see Napoleonic and WW2 armies feature more women as regular infantry too? Indeed most ancient armed games have full male armies and those with a higher percentage (or total) of women tend to only come from fantasy model lines.
It's not just a "product of the 90s" its a product of men dominating warfare for thousands of years in many western cultures. Even when women did feature on the battlefield it was loan hiding individuals or specialist groups such as the Russian The Night Witches.
And as Bullisariuscowl notes, the SoB basically are female marines. They wear similar armour; drive the same rhino chassis for all their vehicles and have their own form of dreadnoughts and more. However they are more interesting than "female marines" because "female marines" would likely just be female heads on regular marine bodies with some light chest armour adjustments. Ergo they really are not going to look much different as models.
Design wise they don't bring anything to the table that the SoB don't already bring.
Also do armies really have to represent us on the tabletop and modern gender politics on the tabletop? I can't help but feel that 40K in the 80s and the 90s wasn't really emulating anything real either.
And again we swing back to the point that if you want to do it anyway, you can.
Finally the biggest thing in all this is the undercurrent. That female marines are needed to bring more women into the hobby. That one huge barrier is that the marines, not the Eldar or the Orks, or the Tyranids, or the Tau; just the Marines and only the Marines not having women is the barrier.
Now I get you, if your posterboy army has no women that can be a barrier. But that's not a marine issue, that's a GW marketing issue and they've loads of ways that they already show women in the setting. Several major Imperial Guard book series are now featuring women Commissars and soldiers.
Furthermore is it fantasy women you need or is it real women presenting media; women in the shop wearing the red shirt; women on the social media pages doing videos and presentations; women winning in competitions etc....
I can't help but feel that the whole "female space marines" is a wasted effort if the end goal is more women joining the hobby in terms of it really not being a true barrier in the first place. Instead I think its everything else around the game; its marketing; its social dynamics on display; the composition of clubs and groups etc... The notable heroes and most influential individuals within the community. That Is where I think the real impact is.
Overread wrote: Just another line of thinking here - do people want to see Napoleonic and WW2 armies feature more women as regular infantry too? Indeed most ancient armed games have full male armies and those with a higher percentage (or total) of women tend to only come from fantasy model lines.
It's not just a "product of the 90s" its a product of men dominating warfare for thousands of years in many western cultures. Even when women did feature on the battlefield it was loan hiding individuals or specialist groups such as the Russian The Night Witches.
Fiction and history are different things. History is what it is, fiction is what you choose it to be.
And as Bullisariuscowl notes, the SoB basically are female marines. They wear similar armour; drive the same rhino chassis for all their vehicles and have their own form of dreadnoughts and more.
Conceptually and aesthetically, they absolutely aren't. They're badass fetish nuns. And I love them for it, but that's very different from big bulky superhuman marines.
However they are more interesting than "female marines" because "female marines" would likely just be female heads on regular marine bodies with some light chest armour adjustments. Ergo they really are not going to look much different as models.
Absolutely no different chest armour! Just different heads, that's all. Ans yes, them not looking that different to male marines would be the point. I don't really mind hyperfeminity of the SoB, it is cool, but if that's the only flavour of femininity on the table, then that's an issue.
I can't help but feel that the whole "female space marines" is a wasted effort if the end goal is more women joining the hobby in terms of it really not being a true barrier in the first place. Instead I think its everything else around the game; its marketing; its social dynamics on display; the composition of clubs and groups etc... The notable heroes and most influential individuals within the community. That Is where I think the real impact is.
I mostly agree that it is not the main barrier. The biggest issue with female marines is the reaction that happens when one dares to suggest them. It is very hostile and toxic, and would no doubt be extremely off-putting to most women. So making female marines official, GW would deny ammo from that toxic part of the community.
Overread wrote: Just another line of thinking here - do people want to see Napoleonic and WW2 armies feature more women as regular infantry too? Indeed most ancient armed games have full male armies and those with a higher percentage (or total) of women tend to only come from fantasy model lines.
This is a false equivalence. The Napoleonic Wars were a thing that actually happened and are extremely well documented as well.
While the likes of Spanish and Portuguese Partisans were certainly made up of all sorts of folk from all walks of life, the standing armies of the Napoleonic era were very much men only. While people can certainly have alt-history applying this logic doesn't work because the reason people play historical wargames is to reenact history that happened.
40k isn't real and as such has no obligation to follow "historical precedent" or real-world cultural restrictions. Most importantly the background for 40k has been extremely consistent on the point that sex, gender, and race (in the human sense, not the species sense) are no longer considerations in humanity's culture.
Service is based on numbers on a spreadsheet. One man and one woman are both still one human and that's all anyone cares about.
Explicitly telling customers marines are boys only has the same optics of star wars telling you only men can be Jedi.
It's exclusionary for no reason, and is the MOST visible representation of the IP being sold.
It would definitely be less of an issue if it wasn't the central marketing pillar of the franchise.
For me personally, I find the 'lore" used to justify male marines only as one of the more ridiculous bits of pseudoscience in 40k. It just comes across as 10 year Olds fighting over there anti laser shields and anti laser shield lasers - my anti girl geneseed...
There is nothing inherent to human genetics that makes something incompatible with someone because of their chromosomal configuration. You would literally have to put complex mechanisms into the geneseed to prevent them working with half the population. It wouldn't default to incompatible. Thats not how these things work.
I'll preface this post by clarifying (for the avoidance of any doubt) that I don't have much of a horse in this particular race. SMs have never appealed to me as an army, and the addition or subtraction of females would not change that.
Anyway, I don't see an issue with SMs being all-male and SoB being all-female in the lore (and official models).
There is absolutely no reason why GW should add female SMs (or male SoB) just to pander to the gender-politics of the Current Year.
If I am to be brutally honest, I think far too many people are desperate for some sort of validation (in this case from Daddy GW). You have always been free to put female heads on SMs. You can even use green stuff to make boob-armour for them if it floats your boat. You can make up your own lore about how they're a super-secret, extra-special chapter, consisting only of women. Go nuts.
I doubt even the most fanatical of GW store managers is going to be looking between the legs of all your models to make sure their sex is appropriately lore-accurate.
However, just because you want a chapter of female marines doesn't mean GW should be required to change the longstanding lore and models just to affirm you.
Frankly, I despise this idea that every fantasy and sci-fi franchise must change its lore to reflect a specific set of modern-day politics. The whole point of escapist fiction is to see and experience worlds, creatures, civilisations etc. that are far removed from our own. There is absolutely no reason why fantasy/sci-fi civilisations should confirm to the current day, western, left-wing views on gender. It's especially bizarre in a universe of 40k, where even the factions we're supposed to be rooting for are genocidal maniacs.
Long story short, model your armies however you want. Play female marines. Play furry marines (I know one poster on Dakka has a furry army). Play Star Wars marines. Build or convert your models in whatever way appeals to you, official models and lore be damned. Make up whatever lore you like, even if it would be considered heretical in the canon. But please don't demand that the official lore be re-written to cater to you (or your political ideology).
Overread wrote: Just another line of thinking here - do people want to see Napoleonic and WW2 armies feature more women as regular infantry too? Indeed most ancient armed games have full male armies and those with a higher percentage (or total) of women tend to only come from fantasy model lines.
This is a false equivalence. The Napoleonic Wars were a thing that actually happened and are extremely well documented as well.
While the likes of Spanish and Portuguese Partisans were certainly made up of all sorts of folk from all walks of life, the standing armies of the Napoleonic era were very much men only. While people can certainly have alt-history applying this logic doesn't work because the reason people play historical wargames is to reenact history that happened.
40k isn't real and as such has no obligation to follow "historical precedent" or real-world cultural restrictions. Most importantly the background for 40k has been extremely consistent on the point that sex, gender, and race (in the human sense, not the species sense) are no longer considerations in humanity's culture.
Service is based on numbers on a spreadsheet. One man and one woman are both still one human and that's all anyone cares about.
From what I have read there were a small number of female soliders in these armies - often to join up with their husbands. Not many but some as their was often through history. Same with 18th c warships - quite often women aboard, not always in a combat mode and relatively small numbers but they were there.
However Agreed re having women models etc - personally prefer no male Sisters or female Marines as I like that element of the lore - but you could have representation in those armies with support units.....I would much prefer to see Thralls, chapter officers etc than yet another slightly different marine unit or rubbish like Centurions invented... Same with Sisters - have some frateris milita etc.
Support units I feel just don't work in 28-32mm wargames. At least on your standard tabletop battle. You just start running out of space to put them and have them feel like they properly fit on the battlefield.
Cool as models, dioramas or as npcs in a "attack on camp" type affair ,but not always easy to put on the table.
I feel like they work better in 6-20mm games where you've a LOT more space ot have proper camps, support waggons and the like. Where you can put all those things down and the armies as well and it all fits.
40K is already overcrowding with aircraft and big models;
my alternate take to all-male space marines and all-female sisters is that we can say the enhancement process for both involves transitioning. ie, the process of becoming a space marine, with the geneseed and all that, brings the recipient's body closer in line with their primarch, making any afab space marines transmasc. you can do something similar for sisters and say that by allowing for the inclusion of trans women, they open up their potential recruitment field even further. after all, trans women are still women, so the "no men under arms" policy would still apply!
Hellebore wrote: Explicitly telling customers marines are boys only has the same optics of star wars telling you only men can be Jedi.
It's exclusionary for no reason, and is the MOST visible representation of the IP being sold.
It would definitely be less of an issue if it wasn't the central marketing pillar of the franchise.
what would change?
look, the fascist engineered killer machines that would purge a planet if a single person on it has the wrong hair colour because rather be safe than sorry, now has females as well which is more appropriate to modern society as also woman can be killers machines for a fascist regime
so the Imperium is less evil if woman a represented equally, or is 40k running in a dead-end with the "everyones evil" plot and now going to change things for Marines becoming the good guys with equal representation and purging mutants and heretics is not a thing any more.
the IP sold does not have any good guys and being exclusive with the Poster Boys is not because it was ok back then but this is what those factions are, exclusive fascist dictatorships that are committing genocide for breakfast as training lesson and changing the background to make more money and the last argument to go with 40k (30 years of developed background) is gone as well
a new game every 3 years, with rules, models and background being replaced by something different but keeping the names the same so people don't get confused
StudentOfEtherium wrote: my alternate take to all-male space marines and all-female sisters is that we can say the enhancement process for both involves transitioning. ie, the process of becoming a space marine, with the geneseed and all that, brings the recipient's body closer in line with their primarch, making any afab space marines transmasc. you can do something similar for sisters and say that by allowing for the inclusion of trans women, they open up their potential recruitment field even further. after all, trans women are still women, so the "no men under arms" policy would still apply!
That presupposes that people collectively agree what the definition of a woman is (and some people refuse to answer that question) and that trans women are women though.
Personally, I align with vipoid's take. People's obsession with needing to be validated (I play Orks, and no I don't need to identify as an angry mushroom killing machine to enjoy the faction) and have "modern day sensibilities" and trends implanted into every single hobby, piece of media or entertainment, and bad takes on history is incredibly annoying and frankly shows they want the sameification of anything distinct or remotely exclusive in a faction's identity. Especially in a wargame environment like 40k, which is anything but puppies and rainbows and not a slice of life setting, that this is where people demand to get this fix is anyone's guess but it smacks of narcissism to want everything you consume to reflect what you think is their version of reality. May as well go and create a wargame where everyone is amorphous genderless grey blobs that take the form of whatever you want to project, that's your safest bet for representation, but we all know why that doesn't currently exist in a popular format.
Mr Morden wrote: And I guess there is not much Sisters of Silence lore....
Which makes it even more of a shame that instead of using the existing female sub-faction to increase female 'representation' in the Custodes, GW instead just chose to lazily retcon in femstodes instead.
Sisters of Silence have been almost comically mistreated in 40K with no serious effort made to explain their inclusion. They never even got models for all of their units in 30K. It's notable that people don't really seem to care if the female faction is treated poorly...
All male Space Marines is pretty flimsy lore to begin with. It's more a tradition than anything that needs to be and it doesn't even really need to be explicitly retconned. The custodes introduction is really all that's needed.
More importantly, Space Marines are the "avatar" faction. They're designed to be flexible so anyone can see themselves as the heroes of the setting. When they were created "anyone" meant boys. These days there's no reason it shouldn't mean "everyone".
LunarSol wrote: They're designed to be flexible so anyone can see themselves as the heroes of the setting. When they were created "anyone" meant boys. These days there's no reason it shouldn't mean "everyone".
I'll never understand this need for self-insertion, but apparently that's the first thing everyone cares about these days.
Mr Morden wrote: And I guess there is not much Sisters of Silence lore....
Which makes it even more of a shame that instead of using the existing female sub-faction to increase female 'representation' in the Custodes, GW instead just chose to lazily retcon in femstodes instead.
Sisters of Silence have been almost comically mistreated in 40K with no serious effort made to explain their inclusion. They never even got models for all of their units in 30K. It's notable that people don't really seem to care if the female faction is treated poorly...
This too. Instead of working on SoS within the Adeptus Custodes faction and really building it into a proper "Talons of the Emperor" feel, they're an afterthought. I mean they basically have one unique kit in the whole faction and that's it. But you'll notice it's only ever people wanting to turn explicitly male factions into having females in their ranks rather than the other way around or boosting the representation of existing female factions. It's like people complaining that female sports teams make less than their male counterparts, but those very people never actually attend female sports games.
Sisters of Silence feels like that pet project of one designer who left/got let go and no one else in the office wants to take it up so its been left to languish with nothing.
I was glad to see them rolled into the Custodes, but yeah GW could do so much with them!
Grimskul wrote: But you'll notice it's only ever people wanting to turn explicitly male factions into having females in their ranks rather than the other way around or boosting the representation of existing female factions.
Lol, that's bullgak and you know it.
The difference now is that SoB has had a full range refresh and Guard has finally been given a better balance of men/women models after years. People are still clamoring for more Guard models, Catachans especially after Ripper Jackson and Not-Carl Weathers.
In terms of Xenos, Aeldari have always had a good balance, and GSC and the Leagues are pretty even as well. Necrons are skeletons and Tyranids are both sexless and genderless. Mechanicus are more machine than meat so making explicitly male or female models is out of the question without going into smut.
That leaves Marines and Custodes as the only other model ranges that can visibly be shown to not be explicitly male only.
I love their general concept and design, but something about their sculpts always felt off. Not sure if it's their proportions or the studio paint job. I guess I'll have to get a test miniature and see for myself.
LunarSol wrote: They're designed to be flexible so anyone can see themselves as the heroes of the setting. When they were created "anyone" meant boys. These days there's no reason it shouldn't mean "everyone".
I'll never understand this need for self-insertion, but apparently that's the first thing everyone cares about these days.
It's a thing people push as an argument for why more different groups don't appear within the hobby.
However, as I've argued before, I don't think its the models. The models are toys. Toys you can convert, paint, model and adjust. Heck today the market is saturated with vast amounts of knowledge and access (3rd prints!) to make your own conversions and such.
Where you need the representation isn't in the models or factions. We don't need female orks or gender identity parties for Tyranids - what we need are actual physical real people. Actual women winning the Golden Demon; trans winning tournaments; presenters with GW and other firms of diverse backgrounds. That, I think, is where you'd actually see proper growth. Also that kind of growth would also lead to actual impressions and ideas from those groups coming into the hobby; rather than the core current demographic guessing.
When the primary seller for Warhammer (not 40k, Warhammer) is an all-male army with specific background reasons (shaky as they are) as to why there are no girls, that enforces the notion that Warhammer is for boys.
Would FSM fix that? I doubt it. Would it help to reduce the chuds who cling to Space Marines being male-only as a way to be misogynistic and keep women out of hobby spaces? Yes, in the long term I believe it would.
I guess the setting itself is not very appealing to the masses and without a major change and retcon it won't be
I doubt that having female killers that tramble on civilians in their way to fight everyone who doubt the regime is right will attract more female players
GW tried to mitigate that effect somewhat at the start of 10th with Sororitas being marketed front and center next to marines (not in the starter set, mind you). So I assume they are aware of this issue and are working on it, while still trying to keep SM identity untouched.
Overread wrote: My view is that Marines have lore, a story, a structure behind who they are and what they are. That lore does NOT have to reflect modern gender politics.
In fact the VAST majority of factions in GW do not follow modern morality nor social values. Marines will issue genocide orders on whole planets at times.
I don't ask that my Marines observe the Geneva Convention, Human Rights and Articles of War - so why do they have to follow gender balance?
The Marines have a story behind them and yes you can argue that the science might be wonky; but freaking heck this is a sci-fi universe where the factions run around with chainsaws on the battlefield and their main battle tank is straight out of WW1.
Sisters of Battle are the same. They don't have to have Bothers of Battle added to them. Again they've a story; that story defines part of what they are officially.
NOW what I put above is what I feel the official GW angle should be. What YOU do with YOUR army and models - do whatever the heck you want. Female Marines; Hello Kitty Marines; Pony Marines; Mechanical Marines; Brothers of Battle
Do whatever you want. The market is flooded wtih material for conversions and 3D printing has expanded that roster in a massive way.
I'm 100% all for people converting to represent what they wish and to adapt the lore to suit themselves within the bubble of their own game and their corner of the mad, insane world that is 40K.
ps my point about the lore being the lore also means GW should be adding more women to the ranks of the Guard, because they've always been present in the lore and story of the setting. Indeed whilst you could argue the marines are regressive on that front; the Imperial Guard is highly progressive
<Literally this, could not have said it better myself. exalted
I knew a guy one time who had a custom all female catachan guard army. it was a pretty cool idea.
there's no meaningful differences between men, women, or anything else, anyway, so it shouldn't really matter on the tabletop, either
I personally could not disagree more with this from a purely scientific fact based reality. but you do you, id rather keep that real world side discussions and debates out of my fictional world where there is plenty of gender representation across every faction, even if marines can only be genetic male engineered copies of their primarchs. >
kodos wrote: I guess the setting itself is not very appealing to the masses and without a major change and retcon it won't be
I doubt that having female killers that tramble on civilians in their way to fight everyone who doubt the regime is right will attract more female players
The issue with this train of thought is that Marines aren't generally presented as horrific murder machines for a fascist empire.
Gert wrote: Would it help to reduce the chuds who cling to Space Marines being male-only as a way to be misogynistic and keep women out of hobby spaces? Yes, in the long term I believe it would.
I don't think it would make one bit of difference.
If a group of people wish to exclude another group of people then the parent firm of the game they like making a chance like female-marines would just be seen as "pandering" and the chud group would just ignore that "new lore" and stick to "traditional".
In the end GW could change the lore to happy carebears and it wouldn't matter. For that group the fact that marines are all male is simply an excuse; their actual reason is purely social exclusion.
Plus, again, the models don't matter. Now if the latest winner of GD is a women; if the latest winner of the tournament they attend is a women - if the notable iconic figureheads of the community (not the game) are women. THAT makes the difference. Again I think its really important to separate toys from actual real community people in this regard. Because every time we end up talking about female marines its not actually about the lore; the models; the toys; the game. It's purely about "we think this will increase real people diversity". And to me that just doesn't work. People aren't inspired so much by toys as they are by actual real people. By the paintwork and modelling they do; by the attitudes and charisma they have; by the fun they show being had etc...
You put female marines in and I'd wager it would change nothing of GW's core demographic. You put women on the panels; you have notable sculptors highlighted (seriously there are a lot of women in sculpting and its a huge shame that the market leader sets the tone of "hiding" their sculptors. Beyond a notable few in the early days, we know almost no one who actually sculpts the models we love); you have whole youtube channels presented by; you have the big Warhammer + TV articles, games and more played and engaged with by women.
kodos wrote: I guess the setting itself is not very appealing to the masses and without a major change and retcon it won't be
Basically this and I don't think that it should pander to the mythical idea of a "modern audience" that is all inclusive because changing itself to appeal to everyone is an exercise in futility. It's a niche hobby and while it's become more mainstream than it was in the past, it fundamentally is still largely dominated by guys because the baseline setting and the actually hobby itself trends towards a male audience (and a very specific one at that as well) to begin with and you can't force girls into joining just to achieve some abitrary idea of gender parity or diversity. Just like how the cosmestics and fashion industry will be dominated by women, and I don't think you should force changes in products to appeal to men, I think there's fundamentally nothing wrong with having a skew to a particular demographic. Are you going to start hating on how kids are the primary focus for Paw Patrol and that adults are being excluded in that franchise due to ageism? While we shouldn't actively bar women from joining, like Overread said, sweeping changes to the lore are not going to the Panacea you're looking for (and in fact, can do the opposite and dilute the identity of the actual setting if you go gung ho with more and more retcons) and any weird sexist/mysognist stuff is really tied to the local community that should be addressed there, GW isn't going to be able (nor should they) police people's behaviours and you can find arseholes in any hobby, it feels like that particular fear is just a shield to push changes you guys want.
kodos wrote: I guess the setting itself is not very appealing to the masses and without a major change and retcon it won't be
I doubt that having female killers that tramble on civilians in their way to fight everyone who doubt the regime is right will attract more female players
The issue with this train of thought is that Marines aren't generally presented as horrific murder machines for a fascist empire.
because murder machines don't make good poster boys if you want to appeal to the mass market and have parents buy toys for their kids
so marketing does not reflect background and people think those are the heroes of the story instead of the average humans
like you did not need to have a female Terminator to make the genre appealing to the masses so females can identify with the Terminator too and not just boys
yet the heroes of the story were Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor
40k can have all the different people as average humans, and those can also be the heroes, good guys and protagonist, but changing the horrific murder machines to be inclusive and hide their murder aspect from the public is the wrong way of making 40k more appealing
you can, but than you need also remove all the work from the past and really reset the background and remove all the old connections
Er... how many people in this thread are women* or have asked women about this? This thread mostly reads as a bunch of blokes who reckon better representation wouldn't work to pull in more female customers. Maybe it wouldn't, but the thread is full of anecdotes at best, and mainly just unsupported assertions.
Meanwhile GW has been shifting to more diversity in their model range for nearly a decade and has access to sales and engagement data we do not. Clearly they think this is a profitable strategy based on that. They may have focus-grouped it. They may have taken some risks and it paid off and they kept the trend. Maybe they did some other kind of market research. Who knows? But clearly they are continuing down this path for a reason, and it isn't going to be altruism by a PLC.
*I am aware of at least one in this thread who is in support of the mixed-gender Custodes.
Haha, that post is a lot of crap but I guess someone had to be that guy .
I'd say most people won't even care what gender the people in that thick golden armour have. It's not that big of a deal to proclaim the downfall of the whole game.
The difference between Zulus and Space Marines should be obvious, but I'll help you and point out that one of them is fiction.
Also, to the people saying that "gender politics" are brought into the game I'd say they were always there. Catachans, Orks and Space Marines are western "gender politics" of the 80s in Action. Super Heroes could only be men and couldn't be differently perceived. Times have changed and now equality of genders has become a thing in Western societies as well, the game merely reflects its society like it did 30 years ago.
A cynic might say that the fascist Imperium is not that evil anymore also is a reflection how fascism as a whole is on the rise and underestimated as well but I think that's a stretch and probably offtopic.
If they brought back some satire or reflection on "this is how stuff can go wrong", having a narrators comment on "this is how flawed our heroes are, as they are only men" could be a fun comment. I would appreciate that more than just a retcon.
Haighus wrote: Er... how many people in this thread are women* or have asked women about this? This thread mostly reads as a bunch of blokes who reckon better representation wouldn't work to pull in more female customers. Maybe it wouldn't, but the thread is full of anecdotes at best, and mainly just unsupported assertions.
Meanwhile GW has been shifting to more diversity in their model range for nearly a decade and has access to sales and engagement data we do not. Clearly they think this is a profitable strategy based on that. They may have focus-grouped it. They may have taken some risks and it paid off and they kept the trend. Maybe they did some other kind of market research. Who knows? But clearly they are continuing down this path for a reason, and it isn't going to be altruism by a PLC.
*I am aware of at least one in this thread who is in support of the mixed-gender Custodes.
I've asked my sisters their opinion way back who are aware of Warhammer as a hobby I've been part in for a while now, and frankly although I was able to get both sisters into Warcraft 3, the younger one into WoW and the Persona game series and even Yu-Gi-Oh/Beyblade, when it came to Warhammer, at that point in time it was seen as something that has too much up front investment to enjoy casually and they preferred going further into things like anime (for my older sister) and K-pop (for my younger sister). Even when I showed my younger sister the different factions and asked her which one she found looked the best on first impressions, she was drawn to Eldar due to their aesthetic (she likes elves) and Tyranids for their uniqueness and fundamentally never saw marines as something she would start just based on what they looked like and all the stuff I showed her was helmeted so she wasn't aware they were male only. I've asked her if making them female would change anything and she said no, and she said on second glance that the Sisters of Battle caught her attention only because of the overt faith aspect since we're Christian. So I think this idea where seeing one female head on a SM body would be revolutionary is definitely overblown.
Overread wrote: I don't think it would make one bit of difference.
If a group of people wish to exclude another group of people then the parent firm of the game they like making a chance like female-marines would just be seen as "pandering" and the chud group would just ignore that "new lore" and stick to "traditional".
In the end GW could change the lore to happy carebears and it wouldn't matter. For that group the fact that marines are all male is simply an excuse; their actual reason is purely social exclusion.
That is a cop-out for refusing to combat poor behaviours in a community. "We can't stop the racists/sexists/homophobes cos they'll always be racists/sexists/homophobes". You can stop them from infesting your community and you can help to prevent them from dragging more people into their orbit by normalising the things they spew hate about.
You can claim it would make no difference but look at the likes of women's football in the UK. The attitude towards the sport is massively different and the support the England team got at the Women's 2022 Euros was huge.
Nobody here is expecting a change overnight but never trying because it might take time is a poor excuse not to try in the first place.
Plus, again, the models don't matter.
Nope, that is complete tosh. SoB got their huge redo and there were a bunch of stories of parents taking their girls into Warhammer shops and the girls getting interested because there were women models. When the White Scars supplement for 8th got released there was backlash because it had an awful rendition of "Asian Marine" that bordered on racism. When more diverse modeling options for faces came for both Marines and Stormcast, the various people they represented talked about how cool it was that GW had finally given the option to accurately represent the diversity of humanity on their models.
Representation works and matters to people.
Overread wrote: I don't think it would make one bit of difference.
If a group of people wish to exclude another group of people then the parent firm of the game they like making a chance like female-marines would just be seen as "pandering" and the chud group would just ignore that "new lore" and stick to "traditional".
In the end GW could change the lore to happy carebears and it wouldn't matter. For that group the fact that marines are all male is simply an excuse; their actual reason is purely social exclusion.
That is a cop-out for refusing to combat poor behaviours in a community. "We can't stop the racists/sexists/homophobes cos they'll always be racists/sexists/homophobes". You can stop them from infesting your community and you can help to prevent them from dragging more people into their orbit by normalising the things they spew hate about.
You can claim it would make no difference but look at the likes of women's football in the UK. The attitude towards the sport is massively different and the support the England team got at the Women's 2022 Euros was huge.
Nobody here is expecting a change overnight but never trying because it might take time is a poor excuse not to try in the first place.
I never said that efforts could not be made to combat poor community behaviour. I said that you don't combat it simply by making female marine models.
Changing the gender options of a model in a fictional game won't change the behaviour of those who wish to socially exclude others.
Womens football is also a different comparison and kind of supports my point honestly. Because those aren't toys playing football, those are actual real women. Those are named women appearing winning events; being promoted; shown playing the game itself. They didn't modify football, they didn't change football. They changed who got promoted being played and being shown. They showed that women do have a fun time playing; they created teams and named players and more. They inspired other women to get involved.
They didn't paint the ball pink and stick frills on the goalposts. They simply promoted women players and started to give them more attention.
Again this swings back to my point, the barrier isn't a lack of women in the space marine army roster; as you note the Sisters of Battle exist; the Tyranids exist; the Sisters of Silence - - would exist if GW invested into them. There are options for people who want to play as aliens; as monsters; as male and female dominated armies. The Imperial Guard range is steadily catching up to its lore in being more gender diverse.
I imagine GW will make the leap at some point. After all there has to be a Marine release every 18 months or that section of the playerbase is missing out.
With that said I imagine it won't change very much. I reckon any market of potential buyers who aren't in because Marines are all men but would be if the lore changed is tiny.
As others say - if you want female Marines just make them. Plenty of people have done so.
I know it prompts "no, no, the lore is very different!" - but I think Sisters of Silence have really struggled to define themselves as a thing given the wider Sisters of Battle release. Which is a shame. I'm not sure what direction you'd take them though to carve out a niche.
Haighus wrote: Er... how many people in this thread are women* or have asked women about this? This thread mostly reads as a bunch of blokes who reckon better representation wouldn't work to pull in more female customers. Maybe it wouldn't, but the thread is full of anecdotes at best, and mainly just unsupported assertions.
Meanwhile GW has been shifting to more diversity in their model range for nearly a decade and has access to sales and engagement data we do not. Clearly they think this is a profitable strategy based on that. They may have focus-grouped it. They may have taken some risks and it paid off and they kept the trend. Maybe they did some other kind of market research. Who knows? But clearly they are continuing down this path for a reason, and it isn't going to be altruism by a PLC.
well, I know my wifes opinion on the setting, and that she does not like it has nothing to do with Space Marines not being female or that there are not enough female models for the Imperium
as from the factions should is most interested in Eldar as she always plays Elves and they have had female models from the very beginning for their troops
if GW would see a big leap and sales if they change the background, maybe. If they could keep the position they have by killing of their main setting and replacing it with a similar but new one, remains to be seen
3. Female Chaos Space Marines should happen as they don't care about stupid "science" of 10K years ago. They also don't care about imperial dogma.
The way I see it, Chaos is a meritocracy. If a woman can murder her way to the top, power to her. My Chaos Knights are led by a woman (I used the carapce from Canis Rex to model her hatch open so you can see the pilot), and I more recently made a Chaos Lord model for her.
Right now, the only thing keeping loyalist Marines all-male is GW, and they can change that with the stroke of a pen. All they have to do is say that due to increasing rates of attrition, Cawl was forced to figure out a way to induct women into the Astares.
In the meantime, if you want to make female Marine models, knock yourself out.
While I do have strong opinions on the matter, I will just limit myself here and agree with Morden.
If this truly goes through, oh boy, there goes any chance the SoS had of having a little bit of spotlight. Such a shame, blanks are so cool; so are secondary armies within armies (Kroots being a great example)
That's not what I said. At all.
Grimtuff, are you male? Because if you are, then most media is already aimed towards you-and 40k is a big example of that. And part of that is that the flagship army is all men-no girls allowed.
I will also reiterate: Adding representation defangs bigots of at least one tool to try to exclude others. That's a good thing.
Keep this discussion on a respectable level, otherwise it’s going to get locked.
I'm going to be completely honest, I don't think this thread *can* survive properly - not when there's some folks who are very clearly and wilfully misinterpreting matters like "representation" and "exclusion".
Can't we just enjoy the Custodes? They're very cool.
While true, I don't think it's wrong to say that the Custodes retcon has brought this thread on. Not that I disagree, but I don't see this thread going anywhere productive while we still have people claiming that representation means "if I'm not modelled on the table then representation isn't real", or "I identify as a nurgle daemon" comments.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DeathKorp_Rider wrote: We should add gender in 40K to the list of thread topics that won’t survive because people will inevitably ruin it
Unfortunately, if the mods aren't willing/able to properly police the thread, then, yes, I believe you're right.
kodos wrote: I guess the setting itself is not very appealing to the masses and without a major change and retcon it won't be
I doubt that having female killers that tramble on civilians in their way to fight everyone who doubt the regime is right will attract more female players
The issue with this train of thought is that Marines aren't generally presented as horrific murder machines for a fascist empire.
This is the real problem.
The Imperium ARE NOT THE "GOOD GUYS"
In essence the 40k universe is full of factions competing for the title of whom can be the bigger donkey-cave.
When exterminatus is on the table....EVERYTHING'S on the table.
I asked my wife what she thought.
She thought the Custodes looked sillier than normal Warhammer models, especially their comically oversized weapons, but thought they looked appropriate for bodyguards of the Emperor.
She was much more interested in the Sisters of Silence, and thought their background was cooler and their models were also much cooler, although she preferred them with bald heads rather than topknots.
Overread wrote: I don't think it would make one bit of difference.
If a group of people wish to exclude another group of people then the parent firm of the game they like making a chance like female-marines would just be seen as "pandering" and the chud group would just ignore that "new lore" and stick to "traditional".
In the end GW could change the lore to happy carebears and it wouldn't matter. For that group the fact that marines are all male is simply an excuse; their actual reason is purely social exclusion.
That is a cop-out for refusing to combat poor behaviours in a community. "We can't stop the racists/sexists/homophobes cos they'll always be racists/sexists/homophobes". You can stop them from infesting your community and you can help to prevent them from dragging more people into their orbit by normalising the things they spew hate about.
You can claim it would make no difference but look at the likes of women's football in the UK. The attitude towards the sport is massively different and the support the England team got at the Women's 2022 Euros was huge.
Nobody here is expecting a change overnight but never trying because it might take time is a poor excuse not to try in the first place.
Plus, again, the models don't matter.
Nope, that is complete tosh. SoB got their huge redo and there were a bunch of stories of parents taking their girls into Warhammer shops and the girls getting interested because there were women models. When the White Scars supplement for 8th got released there was backlash because it had an awful rendition of "Asian Marine" that bordered on racism. When more diverse modeling options for faces came for both Marines and Stormcast, the various people they represented talked about how cool it was that GW had finally given the option to accurately represent the diversity of humanity on their models.
Representation works and matters to people.
there's a reason that the majority of people speaking up against this are cis, het, and white men. the more your demographics supported, the less you can understand why representation matters. even with queer characters in media becoming more and more common, i still get happy whenever i'm watching a movie and a tv and there's an incident lesbian couple in the background, or a main character happens to be a lesbian. if you've never had to struggle to see yourself in media, then you can't understand the joy in finally finding that media you can see yourself in, and frankly, at that point i don't think your opinion really matters to the discussion
While true, I don't think it's wrong to say that the Custodes retcon has brought this thread on. Not that I disagree, but I don't see this thread going anywhere productive while we still have people claiming that representation means "if I'm not modelled on the table then representation isn't real", or "I identify as a nurgle daemon" comments.
gotta love people repeating the same joke from 2014 over and over again and pretending like it's social critique. oooh, maybe next they'll tell me that thing about facts and feelings
There's a reason that the majority of people speaking up against this are cis, het, and white men. the more your demographics supported, the less you can understand why representation matters. even with queer characters in media becoming more and more common, i still get happy whenever i'm watching a movie and a tv and there's an incident lesbian couple in the background, or a main character happens to be a lesbian. if you've never had to struggle to see yourself in media, then you can't understand the joy in finally finding that media you can see yourself in, and frankly, at that point i don't think your opinion really matters to the discussion
Being called a cishet white man is not an insult. People who fit that category (myself included) have a TON of privilege, but that doesn't mean we're bad or anything of the sort. Just that we have advantages people who don't fit into those categories lack.
I mean when the implication is, "you're a straight white, cis male, your opinions don't matter" like some posters have stated, it is fundamentally a way to "other" people (ironic given the liberal stances of most posters that are pro-female Custodes) and shut them up by saying they should be ashamed for even having a different opinion from anything other than complete agreement with retcons that functionally add little to no value to the faction nor had any real precedent prior to this fluff blurb.
The privilege thing is even dumber when this is about toy models, LUXURY toy models at that. GW isn't something like groceries, if you can afford to be part of this hobby, you get a say regardless since you have the money and status to even waste time arguing about it. GW doesn't care where the cash flows. You don't get a discount for being white while playing this, I don't get some passive racial buff for being Asian while playing with other people, and frankly anyone who thinks about race constantly when playing with toy soldiers has a bigger chip on their shoulder that goes beyond notions of representation.
Grimskul wrote: retcons that functionally add little to no value to the faction
To you.
The privilege thing is even dumber when this is about toy models
You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that their toys can now represent women. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys changed so that one group of toys now has women in it.
Take a moment and reflect.
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Grimskul wrote: If you have to bend yourself backwards to try and force a faction to be female to enjoy it, maybe the problem lies with you?
The faction isn't female. It's mixed gender. If you can't enjoy it when it's mixed gender, maybe the problem lies with you?
It would be like heckling and crying that Mario is male and that the only way you can enjoy playing Mario games is for MARIO specifically to be female and that you won't accept playing Toadette or Peach as viable alternatives and that until Nintendo affirms that Mario was really a woman all along you can have fun.
That doesn't make sense. You're playing AS Mario. The whole deal is that you play *as* him. You're not playing as "YOUR" Mario. With the Custodes, you're not playing as a single Custodian - you're collecting YOUR army of them.
Grimskul wrote: retcons that functionally add little to no value to the faction
To you.
The privilege thing is even dumber when this is about toy models
You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that their toys can now represent women. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys changed so that one group of toys now has women in it.
Take a moment and reflect.
I'd love for you to explain how much is actually added by Custodes including women in their ranks in-universe besides saying "whoa Imperium is so badz, they make even wimminz genetic monsters (already done by things like Callidus Assassins)! Woo!"
You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that some of their toys only represent one group. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys stays the same so that one group of toys doesn't include all groups.
Also, by that logic you agree that Misters of Silence is totally acceptable and should be implemented as soon as possible.
Grimskul wrote: retcons that functionally add little to no value to the faction
To you.
The privilege thing is even dumber when this is about toy models
You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that their toys can now represent women. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys changed so that one group of toys now has women in it.
Take a moment and reflect.
I'd love for you to explain how much is actually added by Custodes including women in their ranks in-universe besides saying "whoa Imperium is so badz, they make even wimminz genetic monsters (already done by things like Callidus Assassins)! Woo!"
You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that some of their toys only represent one group. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys stays the same so that one group of toys doesn't include all groups.
Also, by that logic you agree that Misters of Silence is totally acceptable and should be implemented as soon as possible.
Misters of Battle or Silence aren't as big a deal as female Marines, because Sisters of Battle aren't the flagship faction. And Sisters of Silence are a subfaction of an already small faction. Not to mention, men aren't in need of more representation-men have privileges over what women have.
But, here's the thing-if adding men to Sisters (of both kinds) is needed to add women to Marines... Sure. That's fine.
I feel the greatest strength of AoS regarding male and female sculpts is that they are making more dedicated female bodies whereas 40K still goes with ‘female head that fits a generic body’ most of the time.
The Slaves to Darkness (think Conan true Barbarian) that is coming out next week not only has such bodies but they are a wider range of body types than I was expecting. I mean, they all look like they fight for a living.
Souleater wrote: I feel the greatest strength of AoS regarding male and female sculpts is that they are making more dedicated female bodies whereas 40K still goes with ‘female head that fits a generic body’ most of the time.
The Slaves to Darkness (think Conan true Barbarian) that is coming out next week not only has such bodies but they are a wider range of body types than I was expecting. I mean, they all look like they fight for a living.
I'm not a fan of AoS's rules, but I definitely applaud GW for that.
Grimskul wrote:I'd love for you to explain how much is actually added by Custodes including women in their ranks in-universe besides saying "whoa Imperium is so badz, they make even wimminz genetic monsters (already done by things like Callidus Assassins)! Woo!"
Simple. Women exist, and I don't need to "justify" them existing in my fictional worlds. They just do.
I don't know why you feel the need to "justify" having women showing up in the same places men do.
You're right. It *is* dumb when people get offended that some of their toys only represent one group. It *is* dumb that people are offended that the story behind those toys stays the same so that one group of toys doesn't include all groups.
Good job that those toys are probably all going to be mixed gender one day, and this won't be a factor any more.
But I applaud your effort to deflect from your own offence about plastic toys - especially given that you were the one to mention them first.
Also, by that logic you agree that Misters of Silence is totally acceptable and should be implemented as soon as possible.
Souleater wrote: I feel the greatest strength of AoS regarding male and female sculpts is that they are making more dedicated female bodies whereas 40K still goes with ‘female head that fits a generic body’ most of the time.
The Slaves to Darkness (think Conan true Barbarian) that is coming out next week not only has such bodies but they are a wider range of body types than I was expecting. I mean, they all look like they fight for a living.
Shame the same cannot be said for the heads. So what are they gonna do with the Bananas? Give them female heads? They're gonna look even manlier now
Okay, offending posts, off-topic posts, posts that contributed feth all to the topic and posts that replied to certain offending posts, have all been removed. If I have been overzealous in my pruning, my apologies, but I did not want certain posts to be regurgitated again and again a few pages down the line.
One and only warning: don't 💩post, don't drag this off-topic, just this once.. prove that you can be civil, level-headed, don't bait people with your gakky habits and stay on target. If you are incapable of contributing in a constructive way, do us all a favour and don't bother posting here at all. Next poster to cross the line gets a long vacation or a slap of the hammer.
@Frozium: I have used either female Stormcast heads or Statuesque miniatures heads on my female Custodes. They are slightly smaller (I mean they’re probably a more realistic head-to-body scale than some of the current bare-headed Custodes heads.
In the far future, when they re-do the Custodes range to account for Primaris being the same height, I *hope* that GW will do female bodies as they did for female Stormcast.
I have been in this hobby for decades, and the fluff has always been in flux. Things have been changed, new things introduced, old things silently swept under the rug. I have not like all those changes, but that's normal. But change itself is not automatically bad. Your favourite part of the lore did not exist at some point, someone had to add it to the setting.
Hell, I'm a grognard, in a sense that I think over the years the fluff has overall gotten worse. (Primarchs were a mistake, bring back penal legion marines!) But some bits of it have gotten better, and one of the good bits is the increased diversity of the people depicted in it. So increasing that further is definitely the sort of change I can get behind.
I don't understand the hostility this has caused. Does it matter what gender they're depicted as? They're not real! They are plastic or resin toys used in a made up universe. There is no wrong or right they belong to whoever bought or was gifted them.
Far too much hostility in this section of wargaming. I've never encountered anything like it even in historical gaming in which at least you attempt to build a force that is historically accurate. This is a hobby that is there to bring you fun and enjoyment, and it's not real. You can use your models to represent what you want and nobody has the right to tell you otherwise. I know there are rules etc for competitive play hence why I avoid that.
There's enough stress and trouble in everyday life without getting worked up about toys. There's enough real discrimination in the world without dragging gaming into it. If you're not happy with the miniatures then find some you are happy with and have fun, that after all is surely why we're all involved in wargaming rather than actually being involved in war. Have fun, enjoy your hobby how you want and be happy doing it.
I mean when the implication is, "you're a straight white, cis male, your opinions don't matter" like some posters have stated, it is fundamentally a way to "other" people (ironic given the liberal stances of most posters that are pro-female Custodes) and shut them up by saying they should be ashamed for even having a different opinion from anything other than complete agreement with retcons that functionally add little to no value to the faction nor had any real precedent prior to this fluff blurb.
The statement about an opinion not mattering was far more specific than you're paraphrasing it to be: it ran something along the lines of "someone who has never experienced exclusion can't understand how important inclusion is to those who are regularly excluded." Personally, I have a tremendous respect for the power of empathy, so I think there may be some folks out there who do understand (and I'd like to think I'm one of them)... But even then, there is a difference between intellectual understanding and visceral understanding. The latter does tend to come from lived experience- like the difference between intelligence and wisdom.
And while some people may respond as if they want people to feel shame after a triggering exchange in which both parties experience a state of emotional escalation, that isn't really what most people advocating for inclusion are hoping to achieve. Making those who disagree with you experience shame will do nothing to alleviate the exclusionary status quo.
I do think that there is room for disagreement with the Custodes retcon- someone earlier mentioned that SoS were already included in the Talons faction and that expanding their options might have been a better way to be inclusive, and of course many (you included) mention the lack of lore precedent. I'm not sure that lore argument stands up, but I certainly would rather have seen two new SoS units in the dex than fluff that says Custodes can be women- not because I object to female Custodes (I don't), but because I really, really like SoS and ALWAYS thought they were more interesting than Custodes.
The privilege thing is even dumber when this is about toy models, LUXURY toy models at that. GW isn't something like groceries, if you can afford to be part of this hobby, you get a say regardless since you have the money and status to even waste time arguing about it. GW doesn't care where the cash flows. You don't get a discount for being white while playing this, I don't get some passive racial buff for being Asian while playing with other people, and frankly anyone who thinks about race constantly when playing with toy soldiers has a bigger chip on their shoulder that goes beyond notions of representation.
Privilege isn't always "a discount."
It sounds like you're assuming that if people have an interest in 40k, they have achieved a degree of financial security that would imply they do not suffer much from being marginalized. I may be misinterpreting, but I think that's what you're trying to indicate here. If that's not the case, sorry to have misinterpreted.
The trouble here though is that merely being financially secure does not necessarily imply that one is not marginalized. Certainly, it does mean there are others who are marginalized more. But if you're a Person of Colour, even if you're wealthy, you've probably had to have the conversation with your kids about why they have to be more conscious of their interactions and potential interactions with police than their Caucasian friends- even those who are lower on the socioeconomic scale, or more poorly behaved.
Consuming media that you can imagine is about you IS a form of privilege, and it is one that is really hard to see and understand if you don't live it. It isn't as obvious as some of the other forms of privilege vs. exclusion, which is why it can be tempting to tell people to "just get over it." But it's very real when you're in it.
And before I wrap up this post, I want to share one more thought: whenever a work of art is modified, and those modifications make the work more accessible to marginalized communities, people often assume that this is the sole reason the modifications are being made. They don't even think to ask the artists whether or not they did it because they thought it made the story more interesting. And in a lot of cases, the stories actually ARE more interesting as a result of their inclusiveness. The male soldier has been represented in fiction and film so often that there is very little new ground to be discover... But female soldiers haven't really been explored as much, nor have gay and trans soldiers. Any story that they find themselves in is more likely to be interesting just by virtue of its relative scarcity.
Aliens was as cool as it was at least in part because of Ripley and the novelty of the female action hero. If her character had been a dude, the movie would scarcely be remembered 30 years later. In a recent CBC interview with Denis Villeneuve, he spoke about how much more interesting the female protagonist is to write than the male. And that's coming from a guy who just finished a movie about Paul Atreides. My best example, though it's more racial than gender-based is Jordan Peele's version of Twilight Zone and Lovecraft Country. A gender-based powerhouse franchise would be Handmaid's Tale- which will soon spinoff into the Testaments- not that it's a remake like the Peele stuff, but it's a dystopian world that is very much driven by a strong female protagonist with plenty of equally strong female antagonists.
Margaret Atwood's pioneering feminism makes me proud to be a Canadian, though these days I'm concerned she's a bit TERFy... So I'm cautious.
I mean when the implication is, "you're a straight white, cis male, your opinions don't matter" like some posters have stated, it is fundamentally a way to "other" people (ironic given the liberal stances of most posters that are pro-female Custodes) and shut them up by saying they should be ashamed for even having a different opinion from anything other than complete agreement with retcons that functionally add little to no value to the faction nor had any real precedent prior to this fluff blurb.
The statement about an opinion not mattering was far more specific than you're paraphrasing it to be: it ran something along the lines of "someone who has never experienced exclusion can't understand how important inclusion is to those who are regularly excluded." Personally, I have a tremendous respect for the power of empathy, so I think there may be some folks out there who do understand (and I'd like to think I'm one of them)... But even then, there is a difference between intellectual understanding and visceral understanding. The latter does tend to come from lived experience- like the difference between intelligence and wisdom.
And while some people may respond as if they want people to feel shame after a triggering exchange in which both parties experience a state of emotional escalation, that isn't really what most people advocating for inclusion are hoping to achieve. Making those who disagree with you experience shame will do nothing to alleviate the exclusionary status quo.
I do think that there is room for disagreement with the Custodes retcon- someone earlier mentioned that SoS were already included in the Talons faction and that expanding their options might have been a better way to be inclusive, and of course many (you included) mention the lack of lore precedent. I'm not sure that lore argument stands up, but I certainly would rather have seen two new SoS units in the dex than fluff that says Custodes can be women- not because I object to female Custodes (I don't), but because I really, really like SoS and ALWAYS thought they were more interesting than Custodes.
The privilege thing is even dumber when this is about toy models, LUXURY toy models at that. GW isn't something like groceries, if you can afford to be part of this hobby, you get a say regardless since you have the money and status to even waste time arguing about it. GW doesn't care where the cash flows. You don't get a discount for being white while playing this, I don't get some passive racial buff for being Asian while playing with other people, and frankly anyone who thinks about race constantly when playing with toy soldiers has a bigger chip on their shoulder that goes beyond notions of representation.
Privilege isn't always "a discount."
It sounds like you're assuming that if people have an interest in 40k, they have achieved a degree of financial security that would imply they do not suffer much from being marginalized. I may be misinterpreting, but I think that's what you're trying to indicate here. If that's not the case, sorry to have misinterpreted.
The trouble here though is that merely being financially secure does not necessarily imply that one is not marginalized. Certainly, it does mean there are others who are marginalized more. But if you're a Person of Colour, even if you're wealthy, you've probably had to have the conversation with your kids about why they have to be more conscious of their interactions and potential interactions with police than their Caucasian friends- even those who are lower on the socioeconomic scale, or more poorly behaved.
Consuming media that you can imagine is about you IS a form of privilege, and it is one that is really hard to see and understand if you don't live it. It isn't as obvious as some of the other forms of privilege vs. exclusion, which is why it can be tempting to tell people to "just get over it." But it's very real when you're in it.
And before I wrap up this post, I want to share one more thought: whenever a work of art is modified, and those modifications make the work more accessible to marginalized communities, people often assume that this is the sole reason the modifications are being made. They don't even think to ask the artists whether or not they did it because they thought it made the story more interesting. And in a lot of cases, the stories actually ARE more interesting as a result of their inclusiveness. The male soldier has been represented in fiction and film so often that there is very little new ground to be discover... But female soldiers haven't really been explored as much, nor have gay and trans soldiers. Any story that they find themselves in is more likely to be interesting just by virtue of its relative scarcity.
Aliens was as cool as it was at least in part because of Ripley and the novelty of the female action hero. If her character had been a dude, the movie would scarcely be remembered 30 years later. In a recent CBC interview with Denis Villeneuve, he spoke about how much more interesting the female protagonist is to write than the male. And that's coming from a guy who just finished a movie about Paul Atreides. My best example, though it's more racial than gender-based is Jordan Peele's version of Twilight Zone and Lovecraft Country. A gender-based powerhouse franchise would be Handmaid's Tale- which will soon spinoff into the Testaments- not that it's a remake like the Peele stuff, but it's a dystopian world that is very much driven by a strong female protagonist with plenty of equally strong female antagonists.
Margaret Atwood's pioneering feminism makes me proud to be a Canadian, though these days I'm concerned she's a bit TERFy... So I'm cautious.
speaking of Alien/Aliens, whenever GW gets around to making new catchan models, i hope we get some Ripleys in the new kit in addition to all the Arnold Schwarzeneggers. the regiment is the embodiment of 80s action movie, so she definitely deserves to make it in (female catachans already, but they deserve to be on the sprue in addition to being special characters or standalone movels)
I do think that there is room for disagreement with the Custodes retcon- someone earlier mentioned that SoS were already included in the Talons faction and that expanding their options might have been a better way to be inclusive, and of course many (you included) mention the lack of lore precedent. I'm not sure that lore argument stands up, but I certainly would rather have seen two new SoS units in the dex than fluff that says Custodes can be women- not because I object to female Custodes (I don't), but because I really, really like SoS and ALWAYS thought they were more interesting than Custodes.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. They could've fleshed out the SoS to actually be an interesting subfaction worth grabbing for some people like Kroot are. There was something actually cool there: an army of blanks.
What do we get instead? Space Marines 2: Bling Boogaloo NOW WITH WOMEN.
I don't even care about the stances people have at representation (and I gotta say, some of you are really praising GW too much for what just amounts to simple corporate stunt to sell more product), but this is just lazy to a complete extreme, Primaris Lieutenants be damned. We could've gotten something that was actually nice and welcomed by everyone, but noooo, let's just keep reskinning our existing troops (because that has worked so well for the new Squatstodes, right?).
Yeah, I'm salty. I don't even really care that much for Custards as is, but I really love Kroot and I wish more armies had minor subarmies within them, and SoS were a prime candidate. Guess I'll have to homebrew them...
the reason we got a short story confirming female custodians and not a refreshed sisters of silence range is because the effort needed for these two things are not equivalent. one would take months or years of sculpting, mold making, etc. while the other has a far quicker turnaround time, for a much lower cost. custodes only got one model with the new codex, so this wouldn't have been the time to expand that part of the army either way. it's not an either or situation, it's not like creating this short story means they can't expand SoS later, but they likely didn't have the resources allocated to custodes to justify such a thing
when SoS get more models, it's probably going to be via heresy, not 40k, anyway
Dysartes wrote: Melta-spear guy being released instead of a non-unique SoS character sculpt is a fairly odd move, given how many character options AC already have.
Would it have hurt GW to have kept the "Talons of the Emperor" name for the 'dex and webstore category?
The worst part is the opportunity to explore the "failed" Custodes and Sisters of Silence as their own subfaction, making the Talons of the Emperor into an organization that could have been three pronged...much like the talons of a bird of prey.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: the reason we got a short story confirming female custodians and not a refreshed sisters of silence range is because the effort needed for these two things are not equivalent. one would take months or years of sculpting, mold making, etc. while the other has a far quicker turnaround time, for a much lower cost. custodes only got one model with the new codex, so this wouldn't have been the time to expand that part of the army either way. it's not an either or situation, it's not like creating this short story means they can't expand SoS later, but they likely didn't have the resources allocated to custodes to justify such a thing
when SoS get more models, it's probably going to be via heresy, not 40k, anyway
I mean, I get that. It's simply that from now on they're probably gonna give Custodes a whole range refresh to include the fems, but are just gonna continue ignoring SoS, instead of giving them a big push like with Kroot. The writing is on the wall, really.
The worst part is the opportunity to explore the "failed" Custodes and Sisters of Silence as their own subfaction, making the Talons of the Emperor into an organization that could have been three pronged...much like the talons of a bird of prey.
Knowing GW, I doubt they know or have the ability to count the talons on a bird
Jaxmeister wrote: I don't understand the hostility this has caused. Does it matter what gender they're depicted as? They're not real!
There are different things going on
One problem is that the main thing for 40k is the background for most people. GW changing the background is not something new and always causes unrest because if you start an army/faction for the background and it get changed, the reason why you play that faction might be removed
Yet most of the time this is something old and only veterans care about so ditched by the community as "haters gonna hate" and that the new fluff is superior as new people only know the new stuff anyway
The other problem is that hypocritical changes to a product by corporations are in general controversial as people are going to defend them because the topic is right, while others are against it because they are just hypocritical
For the Custodes, it was established in the last Codex that they are all male. This is not some leftovers from the 80ies or old fluff only the "haters" remember anyway but recently established.
And the change is not really doing something for the story as the Emperors bodyguard is already split into a male and female branch for reasons that make perfect sense in the context of the regime the Imperium is
So a corporation adapting their product to sell to a new demographic, combined with people who already are upset about constant changes to the product (ever changing rules and models and now the new background is not save either, which is more of a problem for people who came in the last 2 Editions) and people who did not get the joke in the first place (the setting was never good as satire anyway but people make connections, empathise or relate to the "heroes" of the setting which are written as murder machines that commit genocide to keep google maps running)
That is true, if the designer thought it would not be cool, and there is examples of stuff like that from all GW games past, they wouldn't add it to new lore.
Now what ever what the designers thought is cool for designers and isn't for the players is a separate thing. Many frenchises shown people over the years that what the makers think is cool and what the audiance think is cool, are not the same thing.
As long as the number of Fallouts , In to the Spiderverses and Dunes is larger then Cpt Marvels, Wishs and Rings of Powahha, it is more or less okey. Of course with products like GW armies, there is that small problem that not everyone is the consumer of w40k or GW The Hobby, but rather a specific faction in a specific game. And those people can't or won't just jump from their BoC being gone, to lets say, playing Necromunda. But it is those people personal problems, not the companies.
All In all, after reading enough of old lore, I think that post 8th ed getting angry at any changes is just odd. Now in this specific case, the extra burn comes from the fact that the change is thrown in along side one of the worse codex (and this is coming from an 8th ed GK player) I have ever seen. Maybe if the Custodes rules were fun and enjoyable the whole female custodes thing would be a meh who cares thing.
As of right now GW could and is willing to write anything in their books. For all we know they could write the eldar were bio engineered scout tyranid organisms for all we know, and people would just have to live with it.
To people to dislike the changes, and it is a big change considering 40 years of w40k lore being changed, my condolances. But at the same time, after seeing the Cawl lore, and what was/is going on in the BL books, what did people expect? At least non of the named characters from the books, didn't suddenly change in to a female.
For the Custodes, it was established in the last Codex that they are all male. This is not some leftovers from the 80ies or old fluff only the "haters" remember anyway but recently established.
And the change is not really doing something for the story as the Emperors bodyguard is already split into a male and female branch for reasons that make perfect sense in the context of the regime the Imperium is
So a corporation adapting their product to sell to a new demographic, combined with people who already are upset about constant changes to the product (ever changing rules and models and now the new background is not save either, which is more of a problem for people who came in the last 2 Editions) and people who did not get the joke in the first place (the setting was never good as satire anyway but people make connections, empathise or relate to the "heroes" of the setting which are written as murder machines that commit genocide to keep google maps running)
For stormcast in 1st edition it was established that they were all men. All materials about them "men of Sigmar" " heroic men who fought chaos to the end" etc etc. And then 2ed came and GW decided that SCE were in fact populated by a lot of women too. They were in every box, a lot of the named characters were female, and got books and stories outside of their "codex". GW can do with their lore what ever they can. Tomorrow they could put out a story that Cawl has in dead created 20 extra legions of primaris, and they are all made out of women. All prior lore ignore and/or explained with "it is Cawl".
GW is not a company ran by robots. its designers are still human, its sculptors are still human, its writers are still humans. each of these are human beings with their own thoughts and feelings on a wide variety of subjects and those thoughts and opinions will bleed into the game in myriad ways
if i had to guess, the way this short story came about was not some GW accountant circling "woke" on a whiteboard to a chorus of cheers. it was probably one writer, or a small group of writers, who wanted to introduce female custodians because they thought it would be cool, who then asked higher ups "hey is this okay?" and got an answer ranging from "sure, whatever" to "absolutely". this is still just a short story in a codex. if they wanted Female Custodians Exist Now to be a major marketing point for this codex, they might have written a warcom article in advance about it, or had a female custodian on the cover, or something more. as-is, this feels like a small effort because someone personally wanted it to exist
I'm pretty new to the hobby (I started playing last summer), but I've exposed to the 40k universe since college in the early 2010s when my best friend and college room mates were very into the hobby. I do know a fair bit about the lore from what I already knew previously, and from what I have absorbed over the last 10 months.
In regards to female space marines, the people that want them seem to fall under two categories from what I have seen:
1. They want badass women in battle armor, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire, and shouting about heresy.
2. The want the dogmatic, oppressive empire to somehow be a bastion of progressive values and equality.
The first one is filled by the Adepta Sororitas, and the second runs counter to what makes the Empire interesting. As a storyteller, perhaps you can make the Empire a progressive utopia, but you largely remove the pre-existing lore plot hooks by doing so. This risks making the enemies of mankind uninteresting. Part of the fun of running xenos armies is taking down the oppressive Imperium. Every sentient faction (barring the Tyranids and probably Orks) has valid criticisms of the other factions, and likewise, each has moral faults. You remove that nuance if you turn the Imperium into the unambiguous good guys.
Female Custodes. Ok, I prefer the aesthetics of female miniatures.
If this female custode is the first one, that could be interesting. It would raise a lot of questions, how, why? perhaps Guilliman saw a sister of silence standing next to a Custode, and said, turn that (SoS), into that (custode)
But no, there have always been female custodes. Ok, so where have they been? why have they never been mentioned. why are all the custodes we've met been men? or at least had male names. Are the writers sexist? is this a case of female erasure up until now. how is GW going to tackle the bigotry of the writers they have used up til now, fire them I say!
If they have always been present, then why is the organisation called the Adeptus Custodes? the name is high gothic, which is essentially latin, and the correct way to decline nominative nouns to reflect genders is -a (female) --us (male) and -um (neuter) hence, adepta sororitas (female) adeptus astartes (male) so the custodes should be, adeptUM custodes, to reflect that the organisation is gender neutral.
So why are they still the adeptUS custodes? GW needs to change the name ASAP to reflect the fact that the organisation practices gender equality, and is a proponent of Diversity Equity and Inclusion. anything else and GW are just proving they are bigots by erasing women.
Goodrich wrote: I'm pretty new to the hobby (I started playing last summer), but I've exposed to the 40k universe since college in the early 2010s when my best friend and college room mates were very into the hobby. I do know a fair bit about the lore from what I already knew previously, and from what I have absorbed over the last 10 months.
In regards to female space marines, the people that want them seem to fall under two categories from what I have seen:
1. They want badass women in battle armor, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire, and shouting about heresy.
2. The want the dogmatic, oppressive empire to somehow be a bastion of progressive values and equality.
The first one is filled by the Adepta Sororitas, and the second runs counter to what makes the Empire interesting. As a storyteller, perhaps you can make the Empire a progressive utopia, but you largely remove the pre-existing lore plot hooks by doing so. This risks making the enemies of mankind uninteresting. Part of the fun of running xenos armies is taking down the oppressive Imperium. Every sentient faction (barring the Tyranids and probably Orks) has valid criticisms of the other factions, and likewise, each has moral faults. You remove that nuance if you turn the Imperium into the unambiguous good guys.
I agree with you that #2 is wrongheaded, but I haven't seen many people advocating for that. I think the issue actually is that in a lot of the newer (and by this I mean not ancient) fluff Imperium already is portrayed too much as the good guys, undermining the satire and veering dangerously close to fascism apologia.
But most people actually just want j#1 and SoB, whilst very cool, are aesthetically and thematically very different from marines, and of course not the favoured faction around which most of the game revolves. Marines are thematically very customisable. There are viking marines, vampire marines, whatever sort of marines you want... unless your theme involves girls! It is just a weird and needless limitation.
madtankbloke wrote: Female Custodes. Ok, I prefer the aesthetics of female miniatures.
If this female custode is the first one, that could be interesting. It would raise a lot of questions, how, why? perhaps Guilliman saw a sister of silence standing next to a Custode, and said, turn that (SoS), into that (custode)
But no, there have always been female custodes. Ok, so where have they been? why have they never been mentioned. why are all the custodes we've met been men? or at least had male names. Are the writers sexist? is this a case of female erasure up until now. how is GW going to tackle the bigotry of the writers they have used up til now, fire them I say!
If they have always been present, then why is the organisation called the Adeptus Custodes? the name is high gothic, which is essentially latin, and the correct way to decline nominative nouns to reflect genders is -a (female) --us (male) and -um (neuter) hence, adepta sororitas (female) adeptus astartes (male) so the custodes should be, adeptUM custodes, to reflect that the organisation is gender neutral.
So why are they still the adeptUS custodes? GW needs to change the name ASAP to reflect the fact that the organisation practices gender equality, and is a proponent of Diversity Equity and Inclusion. anything else and GW are just proving they are bigots by erasing women.
I appreciate this is a sarcastic post... but canonically the Adeptus Mechanicus is mixed gender and they don't use Adeptum. Neither does the Adeptus Terra. GWs faux latin is, well, faux.
Anyway, it does seem that the answer to no female Custodes prior to now is a combination of biases of various authors and/or managers in GW* and (allegedly) a degree of "no model no rule" when that was apparently even extended to lore.
*Regarding bias, we have straightforward examples of this. Lorewise, the Imperial Guard has contained large numbers of female Guard pretty much since the beginning, but representation in the model range has been minimal until recent years, and representation in the background was also fairly minimal in GW's earlier years. You can also see elements of this in how older rulebooks would always refer to players using male pronouns rather than neutral ones. I doubt much of this was conscious but that doesn't stop it being a bias.
The Imperium has pretty much always been portrayed as good guys.... on the outside. I can't think of a time when people who weren't into 40k saw them the same way as the Stormtroopers they are. Finding out they're not the heroes is part of the hook that keeps your attention once you start really paying attention to the fluff and getting to experience its more engaging stories.
I appreciate this is a sarcastic post... but canonically the Adeptus Mechanicus is mixed gender and they don't use Adeptum. Neither does the Adeptus Terra. GWs faux latin is, well, faux.
They are quite happy to use the correct declension of the noun with the adepta sororitas and the adeptus astartes, Its obviously female erasure by a cohort of sexist writers when it comes to the mechanicus and the custodes. fire them i say! Astra Militarum gets a pass, Militarum is either the adjective 'Military' or the noun 'singular soldier' which does reflect the gender inclusivity of the imperial guard as in the noun form, it has the -um (neuter) ending.
Seriously, they can't even get their faux latin consistently right (or wrong).
Why be opposed to more options? I thought everyone here wanted more kitbashes, more ways of seeing the 40k setting. Disappointed by the forumite reaction to this, but also hopeful from the positivity and artistry I've seen on social media.
RaptorusRex wrote: Why be opposed to more options? I thought everyone here wanted more kitbashes, more ways of seeing the 40k setting. Disappointed by the forumite reaction to this, but also hopeful from the positivity and artistry I've seen on social media.
In general I don't see people opposed to more optional parts.
The dividing line isn't what people do with their own armies, its more purely what the official GW stance is on the story and lore of the 40K setting.
If GW made optional female models of every single model in their line up, but they were not "lore accurate" no one would care one bit and would use what they want. The only stickler is that the story was X (either in reality or in the impressions of people) and now the story might be Y. People just like their stories to "mean something" and have some sense of permeance/structure.
Wayniac wrote:The custodes thing sours me because they chose to just lie and gaslight people saying "they've always been there" rather than add an actual reason.
An honest question, to both yourself and anyone else who feels strongly on the "they've always been there" comment: what would you have rather had GW do?
Let's say that they did fully want to retcon Custodes, instead of it being a development within universe, which is pretty clearly what they intend for. How should GW handle retcons?
Public announcement that they *are* retconning something (which I've never known them to explicitly do)?
Retcon and not elaborate (Necrons, Votaan)
Retcon, and explain WHY they're retconning it (again, never really known to happen)
I'm genuinely curious as to what GW "should" have done about this retcon (and before anyone suggests, I'm not going to accept "advance the narrative" - it's very clear that GW weren't going to do this approach).
Goodrich wrote:1. They want badass women in battle armor, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire, and shouting about heresy.
...
The first one is filled by the Adepta Sororitas
I see this bandied around, but it missed a lot of points. The biggest one is that the Sororitas are VERY aesthetically limited. Unlike Astartes, Sororitas are locked into a very specific aesthetic design, and if you don't like that aesthetic, you're kinda shafted. Obviously, this is a problem for ANY faction (well, not all, I suppose - many factions have a variety of aesthetic approaches that they can take), but for Sisters, because of how ornate their models are, and the very strong theming they have, this is much harder than Astartes.
For instance, with Astartes, you have tacticool, Gothic knights, robes, greco-roman, viking, Mongolian, native American, lizard, celtic, mechanical, birds, etc etc - and these are just the canon choices!!
With Sisters, you have... different shades of the same Catholic/Gothic design.
Now, Custodes are ALSO fairly limited in their aesthetic design, but at least now there's at least TWO (three if you include SoS) flavours of women in cool armour. Compared to men in cool armour, that's still very limited, but hey, more choice is good!
I know that "badass women in battle armor, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire, and shouting about heresy" is technically fulfilled by just Sisters of Battle, but by that same logic, we should scrap Deathwatch, Grey Knights, male Custodes, Inquisitors, and all forms of Space Marines, except for Ultramarines because "genetically enhanced men in battle armour, shooting guns, fighting enemies of the Empire and shouting about heresy" is covered by Ultramarines.
Evidently, a choice of flavour is good. If people like the flavour of Sisters of Battle, they have those. If people don't, they now have the option of Custodes.
2. The want the dogmatic, oppressive empire to somehow be a bastion of progressive values and equality.
...
and the second runs counter to what makes the Empire interesting. As a storyteller, perhaps you can make the Empire a progressive utopia, but you largely remove the pre-existing lore plot hooks by doing so. This risks making the enemies of mankind uninteresting. Part of the fun of running xenos armies is taking down the oppressive Imperium. Every sentient faction (barring the Tyranids and probably Orks) has valid criticisms of the other factions, and likewise, each has moral faults. You remove that nuance if you turn the Imperium into the unambiguous good guys.
The Imperium *already* has women at arms. Why wouldn't they have them elsewhere?
Not to mention that the Imperium *is not institutionally sexist*. Never has been. Them having women soldiers doesn't make them "progressive". The appearance of women doesn't mean that a faction is "good" or "progressive" within the setting, but we should remember that there ARE real world people, who might want to have women in their armies which commit awful genocides and xenophobic wars.
The existence of women in your fictional army doesn't make them "good". Women can also be part of oppressive theocratic regimes. Women can also be rebuilt on the genetic level to commit atrocities against aliens. Why shouldn't they be able to?
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Overread wrote: People just like their stories to "mean something" and have some sense of permeance/structure.
40k hasn't had permeance and structure since Rogue Trader. And if women being able to be super soldiers as well as men means that your story "means nothing", politely, what on earth were your priorities?
RaptorusRex wrote: Why be opposed to more options? I thought everyone here wanted more kitbashes, more ways of seeing the 40k setting. Disappointed by the forumite reaction to this, but also hopeful from the positivity and artistry I've seen on social media.
In general I don't see people opposed to more optional parts.
The dividing line isn't what people do with their own armies, its more purely what the official GW stance is on the story and lore of the 40K setting.
If GW made optional female models of every single model in their line up, but they were not "lore accurate" no one would care one bit and would use what they want. The only stickler is that the story was X (either in reality or in the impressions of people) and now the story might be Y. People just like their stories to "mean something" and have some sense of permeance/structure.
Oh, people do care! Try posting pictures of converted female marines or art of female marines on FB groups. There will be a bunch of hostile comments and good chance that moderators just delete your pictures. I used to think that it is not important for GW to canonise this, but the reactions when I did try to just model my own models how I wanted changed my mind. That toxic section of the fanbase just needs to be shut up by the GW.
And of course it would be really bizarre for GW to do non-canon conversion bits.
Wayniac wrote:The custodes thing sours me because they chose to just lie and gaslight people saying "they've always been there" rather than add an actual reason.
An honest question, to both yourself and anyone else who feels strongly on the "they've always been there" comment: what would you have rather had GW do?
Let's say that they did fully want to retcon Custodes, instead of it being a development within universe, which is pretty clearly what they intend for. How should GW handle retcons?
This is a malformed question.
'How should GW do the thing that GW shouldn't do?'
Here's my suggestion for the introduction of femstodes:
Tyel wrote: Ultimately this is a retcon. I don't think it matters that much - and I agree there have been far bigger retcons throughout 40k's history, and will likely be more still in the years to come. But I can see why people would be annoyed.
It's a retcon which is actually detrimental to female Custodes.
With a little thought and care, it could have gone some thing like: The creation of Custodes isn't gender-locked, but requires some sort of specific genetic marker which is most common in the noble houses of Terra; thus that's where they mostly recruit from. They traditionally recruited males because that's what the Emperor did. However after their losses at the battle of the Lion's Gate, and the ongoing pressures of the Indomitus Crusade, their recruitment can no longer keep up with demand, and so they've chosen to widen their pool of potential candidates to include women from the Terran houses.
Instead we get: There have always been female Custodes, but they've never done anything notable enough to be mentioned in any of the Horus Heresy, Siege of Terra, Emperor's Legion, Dawn of Fire (etc.) novels, or any sourcebooks.
It's frustrating that for so many people, the destination is all that matters, regardless of how it is reached.
This is literally the laziest way of introducing female Custodes, or increasing female representation in the faction possible. It's on the same level as Rise of Skywalker featuring the first gay couple in Star Wars History! - two nameless characters without any lines, in the background of a scene, who were cut out for the Chinese release. Stunning and brave.
Imagine a world where instead of a lazy retcon and a horribly proportioned Shield Captain (but now he has a new hat spear!) there was a thoughtful introduction of female Custodes, and either a female model/female upgrade sprue or Sisters of Silence upgrade sprue to give the existing female sub-faction some depth on the tabletop.
In regards to female space marines, the people that want them seem to fall under two categories from what I have seen:
...
2. The want the dogmatic, oppressive empire to somehow be a bastion of progressive values and equality.
The first one is filled by the Adepta Sororitas, and the second runs counter to what makes the Empire interesting. As a storyteller, perhaps you can make the Empire a progressive utopia, but you largely remove the pre-existing lore plot hooks by doing so.
I agree with you that #2 is wrongheaded, but I haven't seen many people advocating for that. I think the issue actually is that in a lot of the newer (and by this I mean not ancient) fluff Imperium already is portrayed too much as the good guys, undermining the satire and veering dangerously close to fascism apologia.
While authors sometimes make the mistake of casting the imperium in too positive a light, I think you're falling into the trap of thinking that recruiting women (and men) to be super soldiers somehow means the imperium can't be horrible in all the ways it has always been shown to be horrible. One of the points we kept circling in a thread on gender ratios in the guard was that, while the imperium is absolutely nightmarish in most regards, gender inequality isn't something that the imperium as a whole advocates. Which is inkeeping with the idea that they're desperate for soldiers to feed the war effort. Being willing to let people with boobs die on the battlefield doesn't somehow translate to the imperium being a bastion of progressive ideals.
Marines being a boys only club isn't awkward from an in-universe perspective. However, it is awkward/cringe from a real-world perspective in that marines are the most supported and most visible faction of the game, and they're a 100% sausage fest. I'm not saying that that's turning women away in droves, but you can imagine how a percentage of women who might be interested in the game might decide to pass when they realize that the emphasis in tabletop support, video games, and novels is overwhelmingly on a faction of all dudes. Someone made the Star Wars analogy earlier, and it's a good one. Star Wars tends to put a ton of emphasis on jedi. If wielding a lightsaber was a boys-only club, I suspect the franchise would have fewer women interested in the franchise than it does.
Now, while the arbitrary boys-only rule for marines is completely arbitrary (at best, you could maybe headcanon it's a Frankenstein thing where the Emperor was trying to prevent marines from reproducing as easily so that they'd be easier to wipe out like Thunder Warriors)... you also can't elegantly retcon it because there are decades of material explicitly stating there aren't/weren't femarines up to that point. Changing that retroactively would be tough. While the primaris lore is awkward and clunky in its own right, it really should have been GW's chance to introduce femarines. Doubling the recruitment pool would have been a way more valuable use of Cawl's time than turning marines into bigger targets who have trouble riding in standardized transports. They could still go this route by having Cawl roll out additional primaris improvements or whatever, but it would be more awkward.
To my knowledge, custodes haven't been explicitly a boys-only club until recently. So the retcon, while awkward, is more doable for the golden bananas than it would be for marine. The stain hasn't had as much time to set. Having femstodes is probably a good move overall as it helps distinguish them form marines a bit. As-is, they really suffer from just being marines+1 without much to differentiate them from astartes. That said, custodes aren't the flagship faction. Letting girls join custodes doesn't have the same positive impact letting them join marines would. So while I like the change, it loses a couple points for awkward retcon'ing, and it doesn't gain many points for making the game more approachable to women.
RaptorusRex wrote: Why be opposed to more options? I thought everyone here wanted more kitbashes, more ways of seeing the 40k setting. Disappointed by the forumite reaction to this, but also hopeful from the positivity and artistry I've seen on social media.
In general I don't see people opposed to more optional parts.
The dividing line isn't what people do with their own armies, its more purely what the official GW stance is on the story and lore of the 40K setting.
If GW made optional female models of every single model in their line up, but they were not "lore accurate" no one would care one bit and would use what they want. The only stickler is that the story was X (either in reality or in the impressions of people) and now the story might be Y. People just like their stories to "mean something" and have some sense of permeance/structure.
Oh, people do care! Try posting pictures of converted female marines or art of female marines on FB groups. There will be a bunch of hostile comments and good chance that moderators just delete your pictures. I used to think that it is not important for GW to canonise this, but the reactions when I did try to just model my own models how I wanted changed my mind. That toxic section of the fanbase just needs to be shut up by the GW.
And of course it would be really bizarre for GW to do non-canon conversion bits.
Oh there's always toxic groups in ANY hobby and places like FB can allow them to congregate. However in general I've not seen it happen. It will depend what groups you join, what groups you're active in and in how things go - eg if the post devolves into a huge fight it might well get removed. Not because mods hate women in armour or something but just because its a huge headache.
That said FB's moderation systems are more limitd than normal forums and communities on FB are often far more face-less than those on forums. By their nature whilst they are highly social they are also kind of not on FB groups. You get a similar thing on Reddit as well.
RaptorusRex wrote: Why be opposed to more options? I thought everyone here wanted more kitbashes, more ways of seeing the 40k setting. Disappointed by the forumite reaction to this, but also hopeful from the positivity and artistry I've seen on social media.
In general I don't see people opposed to more optional parts.
The dividing line isn't what people do with their own armies, its more purely what the official GW stance is on the story and lore of the 40K setting.
If GW made optional female models of every single model in their line up, but they were not "lore accurate" no one would care one bit and would use what they want. The only stickler is that the story was X (either in reality or in the impressions of people) and now the story might be Y. People just like their stories to "mean something" and have some sense of permeance/structure.
Oh, people do care! Try posting pictures of converted female marines or art of female marines on FB groups. There will be a bunch of hostile comments and good chance that moderators just delete your pictures. I used to think that it is not important for GW to canonise this, but the reactions when I did try to just model my own models how I wanted changed my mind. That toxic section of the fanbase just needs to be shut up by the GW.
And of course it would be really bizarre for GW to do non-canon conversion bits.
Unfortunately absolutely true. Any time female Marines are posted, there is very often a backlash. A picture of a woman Space Marine very often attracts people crying about it's non-canonity or making hurtful/misogynistic comments, even if no other comment by the creator is made beyond simply showing the Astartes in question.
Evidently, while YOU might not care about what other people do with their armies, there are plenty of people who do, and it's very reductionist for you, Overread, to sweep that under the rug.
If GW shouldn't make any changes to their canon, how should this issue be resolved?
Wayniac wrote:The custodes thing sours me because they chose to just lie and gaslight people saying "they've always been there" rather than add an actual reason.
An honest question, to both yourself and anyone else who feels strongly on the "they've always been there" comment: what would you have rather had GW do?
Let's say that they did fully want to retcon Custodes, instead of it being a development within universe, which is pretty clearly what they intend for. How should GW handle retcons?
This is a malformed question.
'How should GW do the thing that GW shouldn't do?'
Here's my suggestion for the introduction of femstodes:
Incidentally, I actually already responded to this comment in that thread, because I don't think your comment actually hits the mark.
As I said - it's clear that GW don't want to advance the narrative by having Custodes only recently be able to have women recruits. They want to have had Custodes of all genders since their inception. That means a retcon is essential. You say "how should GW do they thing they shouldn't do", but WHY shouldn't GW retcon? And, more importantly, they already have. I'm asking how they should go about it.
How do you suggest they do a *retcon*, not just an advanced narrative?
Overread wrote:Oh there's always toxic groups in ANY hobby and places like FB can allow them to congregate. However in general I've not seen it happen. It will depend what groups you join, what groups you're active in and in how things go - eg if the post devolves into a huge fight it might well get removed. Not because mods hate women in armour or something but just because its a huge headache.
That said FB's moderation systems are more limitd than normal forums and communities on FB are often far more face-less than those on forums. By their nature whilst they are highly social they are also kind of not on FB groups. You get a similar thing on Reddit as well.
And how do you propose *dealing* with that?
I'm sorry, but it's long past time for "well, you'll always find toxic groups" and "I've not seen it".
While authors sometimes make the mistake of casting the imperium in too positive a light, I think you're falling into the trap of thinking that recruiting women (and men) to be super soldiers somehow means the imperium can't be horrible in all the ways it has always been shown to be horrible.
I don't think that. Gender equality is not part of what I consider the wrongheaded portrayals of Imperium as good guys. That takes the form of how the narrative usually frames the marines etc as valiant saviours and defenders of humanity in completely unironic manner.
One of the points we kept circling in a thread on gender ratios in the guard was that, while the imperium is absolutely nightmarish in most regards, gender inequality isn't something that the imperium as a whole advocates. Which is inkeeping with the idea that they're desperate for soldiers to feed the war effort. Being willing to let people with boobs die on the battlefield doesn't somehow translate to the imperium being a bastion of progressive ideals.
Agreed.
Marines being a boys only club isn't awkward from an in-universe perspective. However, it is awkward/cringe from a real-world perspective in that marines are the most supported and most visible faction of the game, and they're a 100% sausage fest. I'm not saying that that's turning women away in droves, but you can imagine how a percentage of women who might be interested in the game might decide to pass when they realize that the emphasis in tabletop support, video games, and novels is overwhelmingly on a faction of all dudes. Someone made the Star Wars analogy earlier, and it's a good one. Star Wars tends to put a ton of emphasis on jedi. If wielding a lightsaber was a boys-only club, I suspect the franchise would have fewer women interested in the franchise than it does.
Yep. Exactly this.
Now, while the arbitrary boys-only rule for marines is completely arbitrary (at best, you could maybe headcanon it's a Frankenstein thing where the Emperor was trying to prevent marines from reproducing as easily so that they'd be easier to wipe out like Thunder Warriors)... you also can't elegantly retcon it because there are decades of material explicitly stating there aren't/weren't femarines up to that point. Changing that retroactively would be tough. While the primaris lore is awkward and clunky in its own right, it really should have been GW's chance to introduce femarines. Doubling the recruitment pool would have been a way more valuable use of Cawl's time than turning marines into bigger targets who have trouble riding in standardized transports. They could still go this route by having Cawl roll out additional primaris improvements or whatever, but it would be more awkward.
Introduction of the primaris definitely would have been the easiest point of time to change this. They could of course still just do it as a new improvement by Cawl. But frankly, I don't really care how they do it. The lore has been changes so many times for way worse reasons that it being changed for good reasons is no problem at all.
To my knowledge, custodes haven't been explicitly a boys-only club until recently. So the retcon, while awkward, is more doable for the golden bananas than it would be for marine. The stain hasn't had as much time to set. Having femstodes is probably a good move overall as it helps distinguish them form marines a bit. As-is, they really suffer from just being marines+1 without much to differentiate them from astartes. That said, custodes aren't the flagship faction. Letting girls join custodes doesn't have the same positive impact letting them join marines would. So while I like the change, it loses a couple points for awkward retcon'ing, and it doesn't gain many points for making the game more approachable to women.
Yeah, there simply is not that much fluff on the custodes to begin with and not so many people are familiar with it, so the change is easier to make.
I'm sorry, but it's long past time for "well, you'll always find toxic groups" and "I've not seen it".
How do I propose solving moderator issues in multiple FB groups? No idea I'm not a manager for FB with the kind of influence to even attempt some kind of cross group moderation policy for FB.
If you mean in the hobby space then honestly I mostly covered bringing more women into the hobbyspace here:
Pretty sure I also made one or two further posts in the thread on this topic, which mostly rehash the same core concept.
This isn't something that a few lines of lore will change or a line of women heads for space marines. The issue isn't the lore when people get hostile, its people who have a focused agenda to start with and are using the marines as an excuse to beat their chest on that agenda. Changing that agenda is far more complex.
Moderation in FB groups is also not limited to this issue alone - almost all hobby groups have their own problem topics with "FB Groups" because, as I said, the nature of FB and FB groups means that you get a VAST variety of moderation skils; moderation tools and also tricks for getting around them etc....
So yes I've solutions for how to get more women into the hobbyspace; ways in which specific groups can also improve upon that and heck I could suggest ways in which moderators and staff could work to promote good behaviour and drive out bad. But none of it will touch a mass swathe of FB groups in one go as a solution.
I do know that simply creating "female marines" as official models wouldn't "solve" it. Those with an agenda would just fixate on something else to use as their argument.
I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.
Pretty sure I also made one or two further posts in the thread on this topic, which mostly rehash the same core concept.
My counterpoint is that all men, women, and non-binaries that I know also feel that the approach GW has taken with Custodes has meant more to them than the approaches you've mentioned. I'm inclined to take their word on that.
This isn't something that a few lines of lore will change or a line of women heads for space marines. The issue isn't the lore when people get hostile, its people who have a focused agenda to start with and are using the marines as an excuse to beat their chest on that agenda. Changing that agenda is far more complex.
And defanging those who use that agenda is a good place to *practically* start. Theory and abstracts are one thing - but for now, it's important to remove the tools that those folks would sek to browbeat others with.
You mention that they use the Marines as an excuse to beat their chest - so remove their ability to do so first, and then do the rest.
I do know that simply creating "female marines" as official models wouldn't "solve" it. Those with an agenda would just fixate on something else to use as their argument.
And then you remove that from them as well. Make it CLEAR to them that their argument will not be permitted. We've already seen plenty of people online announce that this is their departure from 40K. I can only hope that they're telling the truth - they will not be missed.
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JNAProductions wrote: I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.
Exactly - it's a step, a preventative measure. It won't suddenly make everyone get along, because those are wider societal problems - but it DOES disarm people who would seek to use misogynistic talking points. It does defang them. And it does show them that they're NOT the ones calling the shots here.
JNAProductions wrote: I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.
Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.
JNAProductions wrote: I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.
Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.
This. If it causes a mass exodus of players, all the better. If people are that put off by the change they probably aren’t worth playing against.
JNAProductions wrote: I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.
Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.
JNAProductions wrote: I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.
Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.
Disagree. The people who have the really big, world-ending tantrums about the idea of femmarines aren't playing anyways. They're hobby tourists, there just long enough to spout outrage while dramatically quitting as publicly as possible.
All it really does is make people like myself who would rather see different factions be different and see genuinely interesting ideas get a chance out there care less about the setting and care even less about discussing it. We've seen how this goes with how lazily handled AdMech+Skitarii have been, with how lazy they have been with GSC+Brood Brothers, and to an extent we're seeing it again with the Custodes. Mostly this is on GW's own head though as they keep cutting the books to the bone to squeeze more rules related crap into them, while removing the hobby and lore side of things.
For the record, since I'm sure I'll have people taking this whole thing out of context shortly? I don't care about Custodes having women in their ranks. I don't have much of a care about Custodes in general. I think the faction's been poorly handled since they first received a codex. It felt like them just shoving the releases for 30k into 40k too. They missed a golden (no pun intended) opportunity to just make the 'basic' Custodes into an all Imperial factions bodyguard unit with a low model count.
I do think that Custodes now just randomly getting women as being mentioned in their ranks feels a bit reductive, but part of that is the nature of how things seemingly were done. They could have made a mention of how the names of Custodes are names passed down from myths and legend, taken up by the Custodes during their service...whether the Custodes in question be man or woman.
I personally would rather have seen a third "talon" added to the overall faction(maybe a good place to rehome Militarum Tempestus or Inquisitorial Stormtroopers?), consisting of mixed genders, and a striking of the name of "Adeptus Custodes" as the codex title and instead a focus upon how it is "The Talons of the Emperor" along with an expansion of the Sisters of Silence range to parity with the Custodes.
In my experience, female marines would help sell the game. When I played Space Hulk and WH40k 4th edition with my wife, she never wanted to play as the marines, which meant I never got to be the Tyranids. And that made the game even more not fun than it already was.
Women* want to play as female marines without dealing with the fan BS that comes from female marines not being canon. GW should let them.
JNAProductions wrote: I don't think anyone seriously believes that adding FemMarines will solve sexism.
But what it DOES do is leave sexists with one less tool to use for their bigotry. No, it won't make the GW hobby space a utopia of equality-but it'd be a helpful step.
Bonus: if it drives away people who have tantrums about the idea of femarines, then you're less likely to end up playing a game against people who have tantrums about femarines.
Disagree. The people who have the really big, world-ending tantrums about the idea of femmarines aren't playing anyways. They're hobby tourists, there just long enough to spout outrage while dramatically quitting as publicly as possible.
Also very true.
I personally would rather have seen a third "talon" added to the overall faction(maybe a good place to rehome Militarum Tempestus or Inquisitorial Stormtroopers?), consisting of mixed genders, and a striking of the name of "Adeptus Custodes" as the codex title and instead a focus upon how it is "The Talons of the Emperor" along with an expansion of the Sisters of Silence range to parity with the Custodes.
I'd have been interested by this. Putting the Tempestus in the same "book" as the Custodes would've been a really cool move, and moved the Tempestus away from the Guard and more towards their new role as non-Guard special forces who undertake elite operations. Buff SoS more to be debuff machines and asymmetric forces (give them more than just "power armour with bolter and null powers", make them FEEL POWERFUL), and keep Custodes as the super-ultra-mega-powerful badasses.
And ultimately, GW could've done all of the above. I don't think the resources that went into making women Custodes would've been enough or even used to uplift the other elements of the Talons.
I can also see from GW's perspective why they didn't go full on female space marines with primaris, even though we all agree that it would have been the best time.
GW had just finished squatting fantasy, AoS was just getting started, has the space marines and to a lesser extent the Imperium lose the 13th Black Crusade in full color, and with primaris, GW was basically creating an environment where a lot of hobbyists were worrying that their current space marine collections would also be squatted and no longer supported--maybe even not having a new release every 18 weeks.
With all that volatility, I can see why they were hesitant to be a big change like that.
Not that I agree with it. They should have done it then, or at least left the door open to do it later. But I understand why they didn't.
Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
Which is also why they take Custodes from Death Worlds, where the people are capable of wrestling a beast the size of a bear and win, instead of taking from posh nobles who have servitors catering to their every need. Right?
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
They’re only men because the female models didn’t sell when the game first came out, so they dropped them and made up something saying only men could do it to explain away the lack of women. Also, don’t bring “gender politics” into this as that has no relevance and will only derail the conversation
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse. look at any number of female strongmen, female martial artists, female sports players. people are so against the idea of strong women that female athletes are being forced onto hormone replacement therapy because they exceed the idea of what men expect of them. biology does not state that women are fundamentally weaker than men, because human biology really doesn't differentiate between men and women all that much (and just look at intersex people for how much this strict sexual binary doesn't even work as a framework). if we're turning to biology to make an argument, then we can look at decades of hormone science to see that the barrier between male and female bodies is remarkably thing and incredibly malleable
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse. look at any number of female strongmen, female martial artists, female sports players. people are so against the idea of strong women that female athletes are being forced onto hormone replacement therapy because they exceed the idea of what men expect of them. biology does not state that women are fundamentally weaker than men, because human biology really doesn't differentiate between men and women all that much (and just look at intersex people for how much this strict sexual binary doesn't even work as a framework). if we're turning to biology to make an argument, then we can look at decades of hormone science to see that the barrier between male and female bodies is remarkably thing and incredibly malleable
Also this is trying to apply logic to a universe 38k years in the future, for where we all know the physical differences have become negligible at best and don’t even apply
Not Online!!! wrote: IN a setting where melee combat is a thing?
No deathkorp. that is bs as is the claim above.
Until there’s definitive proof that they are all male, I’ll chose to believe the DKoK are mixed gender regiments who all seem to be equally capable of kicking ass and dying in horrific ways like the men
Wayniac wrote: The custodes thing sours me because they chose to just lie and gaslight people saying "they've always been there" rather than add an actual reason.
The fact anyone pointing this out gets called an incel/misogynist/etc. is proof that this is just part of the ongoing culture war, and nothing else.
"Oceania was always at war with Eurasia" Anyways, I agree, there seems to be an awful lot of toxicity and dissingenuity by the pro-femstodes crowd and it's honestly leaving me with such an awful impression. I am so tired of the damn culture war, man. Can't even state your opinion without being called all kinds of insults, no matter how politely you present it.
I don't feel like we're reading the same thread? The quoted text above is the only text I've found in the entire thread that uses the words "Incel" or "Misogynist" - I actually think so far, given the volatility of the subject matter, both sides of the debate have been fairly well-behaved in this thread- though if posts have been hidden/ deleted before I got a chance to see them, that may explain why I feel like we're looking at two different threads.
"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse.
Especially when Strength is such a small part of winning a fight.
Speed, accuracy and strength are equally important to a striker. If you throw the most powerful haymaker in history, but I'm so fast that I'm not there to connect with, the strength you put behind it is wasted, and you're probably overextend and ripe for a less powerful rabbit punch to your kidneys or floating ribs, and despite being a weaker strike, it's going to do more damage.
(When we were taking Kempo, my step brother always used to say that he'd love to see what happened if someone tried to hit him with a baseball bat, because as soon as he dodged the first hit, the follow through would leave his opponent vulnerable to at least three strikes on exposed soft targets before the opponent could recover... While I myself have too much instinct for self preservation to wish for ANY physical conflict, I don't disagree with his assessment.)
Strength is probably slightly more important to a grappler than speed or accuracy, but only slightly- I could be the strongest dude on the planet, but I still ain't gonna be able to choke you out if you dip your chin fast enough to prevent contact with your neck.
Not to mention that in 40k, more work is typically done by guns and tech than the fitness of the user. Last I checked, women's trigger fingers are as strong as men's.
Not Online!!! wrote: IN a setting where melee combat is a thing?
No deathkorp. that is bs as is the claim above.
Until there’s definitive proof that they are all male, I’ll chose to believe the DKoK are mixed gender regiments who all seem to be equally capable of kicking ass and dying in horrific ways like the men
There were two successive codices DK on custodes. What else do you want? And DKoK? Total war doctrine dictates that you will waste men over women period. Especially if you are allready in a pinch due to a certain event and are allready cloning.
This particular argument makes less sense the further you up the scale of what is possible. In our current day lives the gap in physical strength between men and women is self-evident, because the only relevant displays of strength are tied to our jobs, sports and recreational activities. In a context of intergalactic horrors, power armor and superhuman strength, that gap becomes meaningless because the baseline, unaugmented human is always going to be relatively weak even at the physical extremes.
Reopen for business. Massive thanks to those who are having this discussion in good faith and honesty, lets see if we can keep this thread open permanently. Last time we managed 17 pages so I know it can be done.
For the other posters, Rules 1,2&3 are not optional, follow them or get the hammer.
There of course are financial considerations, but I believe that for the most part the people who work at the GW are just increasing the diversity and representation because they think that it is the right thing to do.
40K was created by people who were pretty liberal and punk, the whole thing started as a satire of right wing dystopia in Thatcherian UK. Over the years the satire has unfortunately dimmed, but despite this I don't think folks at the GW are pleased with various regressives trying to claim 40K, and have taken steps to fight that.
Crimson wrote: There of course are financial considerations, but I believe that most part people who work at GW are just increasing diversity and representation because think that is the right thing to do.
40K was created by people who were pretty liberal and punk, the whole thing started as satire of right wing dystopia in Thatcherian UK. Over the years the satire has unfortunately dimmed, but despite this I don't think folks at the GW are pleased with various regressives trying to claim 40K, and have taken steps to fight that.
Indeed. If they really wanted to just get more profit there are easier and safer ways like offering some more specialized Marine chapters like they did for Templars or Wolves, or investing in new miniatures for guard like HWT’s models for DKoK or updating the Catachan line. These are much less likely to backfire here. This was done because many people keep asking for this expansion of representation and I’m sure many employees did too.
madtankbloke wrote:Female Custodes. Ok, I prefer the aesthetics of female miniatures.
If this female custode is the first one, that could be interesting. It would raise a lot of questions, how, why? perhaps Guilliman saw a sister of silence standing next to a Custode, and said, turn that (SoS), into that (custode)
But no, there have always been female custodes. Ok, so where have they been? why have they never been mentioned. why are all the custodes we've met been men? or at least had male names. Are the writers sexist? is this a case of female erasure up until now. how is GW going to tackle the bigotry of the writers they have used up til now, fire them I say!
If they have always been present, then why is the organisation called the Adeptus Custodes? the name is high gothic, which is essentially latin, and the correct way to decline nominative nouns to reflect genders is -a (female) --us (male) and -um (neuter) hence, adepta sororitas (female) adeptus astartes (male) so the custodes should be, adeptUM custodes, to reflect that the organisation is gender neutral.
So why are they still the adeptUS custodes? GW needs to change the name ASAP to reflect the fact that the organisation practices gender equality, and is a proponent of Diversity Equity and Inclusion. anything else and GW are just proving they are bigots by erasing women.
It’s actually correct Latin for once and consistent with 40k’s wider usage. Things only decline neuter in Latin if they’re genderless. Mixed gender groups decline masculine (as they do in say French).
The Adepti Titanicus, Mechanicus Arbites and Terra* have always been mixed sex since RT and always been ‘Adeptus’.
Adepta Sororitas declines female because it’s a group of only women.
True that’s not how we necessarily like to do things in modern English, but it’s correct for Latin.
*though ‘Terra’ itself is actually a female noun.
insaniak wrote:Or... Custodes can be women now because the designers thought that would be cool, and there's not really any larger agenda here.
This is pretty much it IMO. Not really any reason for them not to be tbh.
Claims of gaslighting is pretty spurious as well, the ‘there’s always been female Custodes’ is clearly in universe.
A retcon sure, but not gaslighting and frankly not that significant a retcon.
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
There has never been any background that states custodes genetic engineering is antigirl. THey stated that marine geneseed is locked to men (which is itself a very far fetched concept), but have never said the same for custodes.
All custodes start as the sons of nobles and 'custodes engineering is only compatible with men' are two entirely different things.
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
There has never been any background that states custodes genetic engineering is antigirl. THey stated that marine geneseed is locked to men (which is itself a very far fetched concept), but have never said the same for custodes.
All custodes start as the sons of nobles and 'custodes engineering is only compatible with men' are two entirely different things.
Even with marines, the 'incompatibility' issue only exists because in Citadel's early days mixed blister packs with women in them didn't sell well. Marines being only men is in itself a retcon.
And the 'physically stronger' argument goes straight out the window in a game setting where women have the exact same physical profile as men.
Brickfix wrote: I think it great that a writer now has the opportunity to show a masculine brotherhood in Marines and a different bond in custodes
I can't help but think that a lot of the world's problem will be solved when people stop seeing a need to differentiate between bonds of 'masculine brotherhood' and any other type of close friendship.
But that aside, writers will still be able to do that when GW do eventually add female space marines, because male space marines will still exist.
The genetic restriction to men for geneseed is a ridiculous ass pull anyway.
Modern medicine puts organs from either sex into the other.
there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.
Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.
Hellebore wrote: The genetic restriction to men for geneseed is a ridiculous ass pull anyway.
Modern medicine puts organs from either sex into the other.
there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.
Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.
This is a setting where the chief mechanics literally worship the machines they make and read lengthily latin to them to make them work.
Where holy oils are applied; where rites of instruction are used; where they will literally build the same machine with zero innovation for hundreds - nay thousands of years because that's what is written in the manual.
It's perfectly fitting that the Geneseed system for Marines could work on women and yet never is used on them. Or even the delivery system itself is built to reject women to prevent it being used incorrectly according to the original design manual etc...
Heck the Imperium, until Primaris, wouldn't even make more marines that a set number because of ancient reasons; even though the war effort could seriously do with more of them .
Hellebore wrote: there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.
Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.
IIRC, they did try to work this into one of the Horus Heresy books, with Malcador suggesting that marines be both and the Emperor insisting on boys only. Which suggests both that the process could work on women, and that the reason there aren't women marines is purely down to the Emperor's preferences.
Overread wrote: It's perfectly fitting that the Geneseed system for Marines could work on women and yet never is used on them. .
Honestly, that would be my pick of the ways to introduce women to the Astartes... Have a Chapter that is desperate for recruits and running out of candidates try it on some girls out of desperation and ... woah, look at that, it works after all!
Hell, that even gives an out for those who prefer to stick to their male-only Marine forces... some Chapters would embrace the potential to broaden their recruitment pool, and others would object to it not specifically on gender grounds, but simply because the Emperor said 'no' ten thousand years ago... That's pretty much bang on as a totally 40K-themed schism, right there.
Hellebore wrote: The genetic restriction to men for geneseed is a ridiculous ass pull anyway.
Modern medicine puts organs from either sex into the other.
there is nothing in our biology that would put a hard lock on something like that. It would take deliberate design in the geneseed to stop working in the presence of too many X chromosomes, or only activate in the presence of a Y chromosome.
Because testosterone is produced in all humans regardless of chromsomes, so there is nothing you can tangibly tie the geneseed to for any practical reason - it would have to be entirely ideological.
the only difference there could be is that some bodies naturally create more testosterone, while others create more estrogen— of course, this is a problem that we can easily fix here in 2024, let alone 40,000 years in the future
which does bring me back to a suggestion i had when this conversation first started. say that the process of becoming a space marine requires such an excessive amount of testosterone such that hormone replacement therapy is a part of the process. anyone can become a space marine, but all space marines will be men, cis or trans
Overread wrote: It's perfectly fitting that the Geneseed system for Marines could work on women and yet never is used on them. .
Honestly, that would be my pick of the ways to introduce women to the Astartes... Have a Chapter that is desperate for recruits and running out of candidates try it on some girls out of desperation and ... woah, look at that, it works after all!
Hell, that even gives an out for those who prefer to stick to their male-only Marine forces... some Chapters would embrace the potential to broaden their recruitment pool, and others would object to it not specifically on gender grounds, but simply because the Emperor said 'no' ten thousand years ago... That's pretty much bang on as a totally 40K-themed schism, right there.
DeathKorp_Rider wrote: Honestly, do marines or Custodes even need a sex? I am not 100% sure about this but I’m guessing marines don’t go around having sex or anything
If Marines were presented as sexless transhuman killing machines, that'd be one thing. But they aren't.
DeathKorp_Rider wrote: Honestly, do marines or Custodes even need a sex? I am not 100% sure about this but I’m guessing marines don’t go around having sex or anything
Far as I recall their whole sex drive is killed off during the mutations they undergo to become a Marine.
The issue is that culturally we use masculine language as a default. If we truly used neutral language to describe things - they etc, then sure, there would actually be a case for considering them sexless.
But it comes across overwhelmingly male, and that generates a push to even things out.
Even the term 'guys' is not as gender neutral as people like to claim it is - I've never heard a straight man say they sleep with guys.
So, until language embraces truly gender neutral pronouns in conversation, we will still have the push pull over representation, even in supposedly neutral contexts.
I honestly don’t care. I have always been a big fan of seeing yourself in your armies. I’ve never not played someone because they had female heads on their Astartes or modeled their miniatures in whatever way. They are your plastic toy soldiers. Not mine. Do what you want.
With that being said. I loved the idea of a bunch of regular people in power armor. Kinda like the Imperial Guard but with power armor and Bolters. Like I said I’m a big fan of putting yourself in your army, I’m a man so I had the idea of using sisters of battle rules and miniatures and converted most, not all of the miniatures being male. I tried to have a healthy balance. I ended up using sisters miniatures and/or Van Saar miniatures with conversions. They actually looked kinda cool. I ended up completing 1000 points of this army. I went to play with them at a GW in Maryland and was told I couldn’t use the army because I could offend someone.
Again, use whatever you want. Model your miniatures whatever way you want. They are your toys not mine. We should respect everyone and just have fun with our plastic toy soldiers. It’s just annoying bringing real world politics into the setting. Enjoy the hobby, respect everyone and have fun.
Oh and if you want to see some miniatures of my “Misters of Battle” hit me up. I have no problem sharing my conversions. I still have some pictures of them.
LunarSol wrote: They're designed to be flexible so anyone can see themselves as the heroes of the setting. When they were created "anyone" meant boys. These days there's no reason it shouldn't mean "everyone".
I'll never understand this need for self-insertion, but apparently that's the first thing everyone cares about these days.
Because you get to see yourself in everything already.
kodos wrote: I guess the setting itself is not very appealing to the masses and without a major change and retcon it won't be
I doubt that having female killers that tramble on civilians in their way to fight everyone who doubt the regime is right will attract more female players
Boy I wish GW actually leaned into Space marines being fascist murder troops and the imperium being the awful hellstate its supposed to be more, but GW sure don't/
If you want Marines to be all boys cause misogyny, that's cool. If you make it explicit and go "Yeah, the emperor was a gakky bronze age warlord, of course he hated women", but we both know GW never will
kodos wrote: I guess the setting itself is not very appealing to the masses and without a major change and retcon it won't be
Basically this and I don't think that it should pander to the mythical idea of a "modern audience" that is all inclusive because changing itself to appeal to everyone is an exercise in futility. It's a niche hobby and while it's become more mainstream than it was in the past, it fundamentally is still largely dominated by guys because the baseline setting and the actually hobby itself trends towards a male audience (and a very specific one at that as well) to begin with and you can't force girls into joining just to achieve some abitrary idea of gender parity or diversity. Just like how the cosmestics and fashion industry will be dominated by women, and I don't think you should force changes in products to appeal to men, I think there's fundamentally nothing wrong with having a skew to a particular demographic. Are you going to start hating on how kids are the primary focus for Paw Patrol and that adults are being excluded in that franchise due to ageism? While we shouldn't actively bar women from joining, like Overread said, sweeping changes to the lore are not going to the Panacea you're looking for (and in fact, can do the opposite and dilute the identity of the actual setting if you go gung ho with more and more retcons) and any weird sexist/mysognist stuff is really tied to the local community that should be addressed there, GW isn't going to be able (nor should they) police people's behaviours and you can find arseholes in any hobby, it feels like that particular fear is just a shield to push changes you guys want.
Its dominated by guys because plenty guys think that girls have such different brains that they can't have fun playing with toy soldiers.
And male spaces tend to be just fething gross to women. Lot of game shops in the world are not safe for ladies.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: GW is not a company ran by robots. its designers are still human, its sculptors are still human, its writers are still humans. each of these are human beings with their own thoughts and feelings on a wide variety of subjects and those thoughts and opinions will bleed into the game in myriad ways
if i had to guess, the way this short story came about was not some GW accountant circling "woke" on a whiteboard to a chorus of cheers. it was probably one writer, or a small group of writers, who wanted to introduce female custodians because they thought it would be cool, who then asked higher ups "hey is this okay?" and got an answer ranging from "sure, whatever" to "absolutely". this is still just a short story in a codex. if they wanted Female Custodians Exist Now to be a major marketing point for this codex, they might have written a warcom article in advance about it, or had a female custodian on the cover, or something more. as-is, this feels like a small effort because someone personally wanted it to exist
Indeed the last time we know about a writer wanting to add femstodes, he was told no he couldn't by the corporate suits.
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
There has never been any background that states custodes genetic engineering is antigirl. THey stated that marine geneseed is locked to men (which is itself a very far fetched concept), but have never said the same for custodes.
All custodes start as the sons of nobles and 'custodes engineering is only compatible with men' are two entirely different things.
Even with marines, the 'incompatibility' issue only exists because in Citadel's early days mixed blister packs with women in them didn't sell well. Marines being only men is in itself a retcon.
And the 'physically stronger' argument goes straight out the window in a game setting where women have the exact same physical profile as men.
Brickfix wrote: I think it great that a writer now has the opportunity to show a masculine brotherhood in Marines and a different bond in custodes
I can't help but think that a lot of the world's problem will be solved when people stop seeing a need to differentiate between bonds of 'masculine brotherhood' and any other type of close friendship.
But that aside, writers will still be able to do that when GW do eventually add female space marines, because male space marines will still exist.
Priestley also has had some very "Girls have cooties" Tier takes as well.
Ahtman wrote: As an Ork I don't care what giblets you have it's all getting chopped. You know, for fun.
Orks are not, in fact, genderless. They are sexless, but they are all masc.
Being able to reproduce asexually by just producing spores doesn't mean that biologically you lack sex. Sex in animals is related to the gametes you produce, big female, small male, some insects can produce both thus hermafroditism. Plants can use meiosis in some cases to produce copies of itself but they are still male/female/both so if we link Orks to fungi that's probably how they reproduce.
What Orks definetly don't have is gender, because that's a human thing that includes social, psychological, cultural, etc... aspects of being a man or a woman.
M.
Edit: Yes, we human players can assign a gender to Orks, but that's on us, not necessarily how Orks see themselves in the lore.
Miguelsan wrote: Being able to reproduce asexually by just producing spores doesn't mean that biologically you lack sex. Sex in animals is related to the gametes you produce, big female, small male, some insects can produce both thus hermafroditism. Plants can use meiosis in some cases to produce copies of itself but they are still male/female/both so if we link Orks to fungi that's probably how they reproduce.
What Orks definetly don't have is gender, because that's a human thing that includes social, psychological, cultural, etc... aspects of being a man or a woman.
M.
Edit: Yes, we human players can assign a gender to Orks, but that's on us, not necessarily how Orks see themselves in the lore.
Orks absolutely have a gender because they were written and made by humans that place human gendered concepts into them. Orks are masc. There's no serious take where they aren't masc.
That might be how you see them, I see them akin to ants, bees, or termites so a majority sterile females, along with the fertile ones, but that's because I, a human, place human gendered views on them.
Miguelsan wrote: That might be how you see them, I see them akin to ants, bees, or termites so a majority sterile females, along with the fertile ones, but that's because I, a human, place human gendered views on them.
My mistake, I was answering at the nid being genderless part, not the Orks. Still boyz is how we human players call them, do you speak Ork? Do even orks speak gothic in the setting? It's the same convenience used in the movies, for ease of understanding we get samurai speaking English, or actors using Russian accents for KGB officers.
So boyz is not how they call themselves in the setting, it's how GW authors using human PoV including gender wrote them in so we human players can understand something familiar to us rather than an incoherent string of characters on a page related to even weirder concepts born out of an ork mind.
Miguelsan wrote: That might be how you see them, I see them akin to ants, bees, or termites so a majority sterile females, along with the fertile ones, but that's because I, a human, place human gendered views on them.
M.
Suuure you do.
They are literally called the boyz. In setting.
I'm pretty sure Miguelsan was referring to Tyranids.
Ahtman wrote: As an Ork I don't care what giblets you have it's all getting chopped. You know, for fun.
Orks are not, in fact, genderless. They are sexless, but they are all masc.
I said nothing about our gender, only that we don't care about your sex: you're all getting krumped either way. Whether humies think we're masculine or feminine means nothing to us.
Ahtman wrote: As an Ork I don't care what giblets you have it's all getting chopped. You know, for fun.
Orks are not, in fact, genderless. They are sexless, but they are all masc.
I said nothing about our gender, only that we don't care about your sex: you're all getting krumped either way. Whether humies think we're masculine or feminine means nothing to us.
This thermian stuff is deeply uninteresting. But orks clearly consider themselves male. They use he/him pronouns and consider themselves boyz. That's gendered language.
kodos wrote: this is simply because the imperial narrator writing down what Orks say is unreliable and changed it to fit the imperial norms
in reality, Orks use she/they and call themselves gyrlz
Orks just fought Space Marines for Millenia and like to imitate them. They don't know there are different kinds of humans because they also all look the same. (According to some dakkanauts the Imperial guard must feature less than 10% females so even if Orks fought other human factions than Space Marines they still wouldn't know of different genders, following that logic. )
Miguelsan wrote: My mistake, I was answering at the nid being genderless part, not the Orks. Still boyz is how we human players call them, do you speak Ork? Do even orks speak gothic in the setting? It's the same convenience used in the movies, for ease of understanding we get samurai speaking English, or actors using Russian accents for KGB officers.
So boyz is not how they call themselves in the setting, it's how GW authors using human PoV including gender wrote them in so we human players can understand something familiar to us rather than an incoherent string of characters on a page related to even weirder concepts born out of an ork mind.
M.
It doesn't matter. Orcs are not real. The text and the models representing them are real, how they're presented and perceived is real. And they come across as unambiguously male, and are perceived as such. Thus they're an all male faction from representation perspective.
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse. look at any number of female strongmen, female martial artists, female sports players. people are so against the idea of strong women that female athletes are being forced onto hormone replacement therapy because they exceed the idea of what men expect of them. biology does not state that women are fundamentally weaker than men, because human biology really doesn't differentiate between men and women all that much (and just look at intersex people for how much this strict sexual binary doesn't even work as a framework). if we're turning to biology to make an argument, then we can look at decades of hormone science to see that the barrier between male and female bodies is remarkably thing and incredibly malleable
Also this is trying to apply logic to a universe 38k years in the future, for where we all know the physical differences have become negligible at best and don’t even apply
Wow this is so fundamentaly wrong from a scientific point of view I just don't know what to say(I say that as evolutionary biologist). The biological and psychological difference between sexes is huge that they are practicly another species. Diseases affect the sexes differently and male and female bodies react differently to medcine. I could go on with similar examples. Hormones do not define sex(or chromosomes). Hormone therapy just feths up your body and most europeen countries have started banning it at least for non adults.And you don't seem to understand what intersex means it is not what you seem to think it is. They always have a sex.
I would recomend some reading before making some statements on what is scientific and what is unscientific.
Wow this is so fundamentaly wrong from a scientific point of view I just don't know what to say(I say that as evolutionary biologist). The biological and psychological difference between sexes is huge that they are practicly another species. Diseases affect the sexes differently and male and female bodies react differently to medcine. I could go on with similar examples. Hormones do not define sex(or chromosomes). Hormone therapy just feths up your body and most europeen countries have started banning it at least for non adults.And you don't seem to understand what intersex means it is not what you seem to think it is. They always have a sex.
I would recomend some reading before making some statements on what is scientific and what is unscientific.
None of this is relevant to a game setting where men and women are functionally identical.
Wow this is so fundamentaly wrong from a scientific point of view I just don't know what to say(I say that as evolutionary biologist). The biological and psychological difference between sexes is huge that they are practicly another species. Diseases affect the sexes differently and male and female bodies react differently to medcine. I could go on with similar examples. Hormones do not define sex(or chromosomes). Hormone therapy just feths up your body and most europeen countries have started banning it at least for non adults.And you don't seem to understand what intersex means it is not what you seem to think it is. They always have a sex.
I would recomend some reading before making some statements on what is scientific and what is unscientific.
None of this is relevant to a game setting where men and women are functionally identical.
Skimming over the discussion so far, is this based purely on in-game stats?
If so that's also ignoring a whole slew of suspension of disbelief type moments, such as when suddenly (to use extremes) an untrained human off the street (ala cultist) is potentially functionally identical to a steroid and hormone grown skitarii with mechanical limbs. I think we can all assume that when you explode the very linear base scaling of the stats in the game, that's a very one sided fight in reality, hence the suspension of disbelief isn't a strong enough metric to prove whether biological differences in a story/setting/fictional work are relevant to anything.
I guess if we're honest it's all down to integrity of the setting in any regard, whether the Imperium maintains gender divides in some factions due to ignorance from the Imperium and that's a feature of the setting, whether there's some sci-fi hand-wavey reason for it, or possibly if it's the authors ignorance which can be innocent or not.
All for gender representation where it doesn't blow up the entire setting, not everything is fair and equal in the Imperium and sometimes they don't know what they can/can't do in-setting. As such I'm fine with female custodians, that makes sense to me as Emps will have wanted any exceptional people he can find. Stuff like marines, sisters of battle and sisters of silence get a bit iffy, because their entire identity is partly based around the anachronistic beliefs of their organisations. But if it flies for one faction, it does for all at that point imo.
With regards peoples kits or personal army fluff, yeah whatever. If you want female space marines, go for it, do some cool conversions and it can be a fun game. I can acknowledge and appreciate that persons passion and beliefs even if that doesn't fit my perspective on the in-universe fluff.
Souleater wrote: The oddity for me has always been that Custodes were only selected from the nobility.
Makes perfect sense to me. 40K has loads of ancient time tropes so the Custodes being drawn from the Nobility fits right into the way many ancient armies would have their upper ranks populated almost exclusively by the upper classes of the day. Here you have the best of the best, so of course they'd only select from the best of stock of the Nobility. Not the common dregs of the population for the rank and file .
Souleater wrote: The oddity for me has always been that Custodes were only selected from the nobility.
Makes sense with their pompous superior shinyness.
But yeah, I always liked marines better, at least they have an option of being gritty.
The fact that I don't really like the custodes that much in the first place dampens my joy about female custodes a bit. I will never do a full army of them, and IIRC we currently have no proper ally rules to include just a squad or two in a bigger force.
Sometimes I wonder what these forums would have looked like when GW went from "here's how to make your own tank with a tin can and some glue" to "here's a big expensive solid plastic tank kit to build at home; and an even more expensive resin one"
Would we have had fights over authentic tank creation; or on how GW is destroying the hobby of creation for greed?
Sometimes I think some people look way way too far into things
those forums pointed out that these people are just haters who don't like the hobby and just want GW to fail and that a true fan is going to support the company no matter what so they can grow and deliver more of models people like
would have been more entertaining to see how todays social media would have reacted to the retcons of 4th Edition or 7th Edi codex writing
stratigo wrote: Because you get to see yourself in everything already.
I absolutely don't and never have. It's not helpful to just assume everyone to be a white man because they don't agree with your presuppositions. Self-insertion was relevant up until when I was about 11 years old, and even then I could be a ninja turtle, a velociraptor or whatever was the current thing. After that, I learned to appreciate characters and stories for what they are, not for how well they represent my arbitrary phenotype and cultural heritage. Then again, I was well cared and provided for, so maybe that's the reason I'm no longer bound by those infantile notions. I can see people needing this if they have lacked proper attention and care in their lives and, in those cases, they have my deepest sympathies.
stratigo wrote: Because you get to see yourself in everything already.
I absolutely don't and never have. It's not helpful to just assume everyone to be a white man because they don't agree with your presuppositions. Self-insertion was relevant up until when I was about 11 years old, and even then I could be a ninja turtle, a velociraptor or whatever was the current thing. After that, I learned to appreciate characters and stories for what they are, not for how well they represent my arbitrary phenotype and cultural heritage. Then again, I was well cared and provided for, so maybe that's the reason I'm no longer bound by those infantile notions. I can see people needing this if they have lacked proper attention and care in their lives and, in those cases, they have my deepest sympathies.
I’m not sure if you realize it, but you sound needlessly condescending here.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: "women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse. look at any number of female strongmen, female martial artists, female sports players. people are so against the idea of strong women...
Yes, women can be strong and participate in sports/hobbies/jobs etc that require it. But on a basic, even, and biological level, men are physically stronger than women. That doesn't mean 'every man is stronger than every woman', 'women can't be strong' or 'I'm against women who are strong'. Those are incorrect extrapolations you have made. I'm not even going to touch the rest of what you said beyond identifying it as absolute rot. The two genders have significant differences and we should celebrate them, not try and pretend they don't exist.
DeathKorp_Rider wrote: Also, don’t bring “gender politics” into this as that has no relevance and will only derail the conversation
This entire conversation is about gender. It's right there in the title.
Manfred von Drakken wrote: I think anyone who is actively upset by the idea of female Custodes or Marines really needs to have an honest conversation with themselves about why.
I've already done so. I resent the idea that a hitherto male-only organisation like the Custodes has suddenly been retroactively altered to have apparently always had female members with little rhyme or reason beyond a shallow attempt to appeal to modern sensibilities. This would extend to Space Marines too, were it to happen to them. That would be even more egregious, because the universe has provided us with reasoning for them being male-only, whether you agree with it or believe it would hold up to real life science, or not. Even putting aside the science part, the Marines are analogous to a brotherhood of monks, the same way the Sororitas are analogous to a nun convent. Those are the explanations within the universe, so there's no good reason to change it except for an attempt to score real-life political points. Certainly I don't approve of doing it in the name of 'recruitment': if a woman wants to be involved with 40k or wargaming as a whole, that's great, and they should be welcomed. But 40k (or any work of fiction, for that matter) shouldn't be changed to try and cultivate a theoretical fanbase when it already has a dedicated one.
I would have the exact same response to the sudden appearence of male Sisters (Brothers?) of Battle that had mysteriously always been there. I had the same response to the Salamanders suddenly changing from being ethnically black to literally coal-black - that one would certainly seem to torpedo the idea that any of this is done with a genuine consideration toward 'representation'.
40k is a fictional universe and the Imperium it depicts is supposed to be a dystopian fascist hellscape. So why on earth does it even matter that one or two of its factions are male exclusive? The Imperial Guard has women in its ranks because if you can operate a lasgun, you can be a meatshield. The AdMech have women (or a close approximation) because the Omnissiah doesn't particular care who's grafting mechanical bits to themselves. The Sisters of Battle and Sisters of Silence exist. The Eldar and Tau have women in prominent societal and military positions. The Tyranids are a force of nature without gender at all. There's plenty of 'representation' already without trying to crowbar it in.
I’m not sure if you realize it, but you sound needlessly condescending here.
I didn't intend to. I'm not a native speaker so please bear with me. I'm aware that lack of validation, especially during childhood, can be a difficult topic, and I've navigated a particularly bad case in in my immediate personal environment for several years. It's not meant to dismiss those people, but rather to explore where this need for external validation by representation, in popular media of all things, might be rooted in.
I’m not sure if you realize it, but you sound needlessly condescending here.
I didn't intend to. I'm not a native speaker so please bear with me. I'm aware that lack of validation, especially during childhood, can be a difficult topic, and I've navigated a particularly bad case in in my immediate personal environment for several years. It's not meant to dismiss those people, but rather to explore where this need for external validation by representation, in popular media of all things, might be rooted in.
MalusCalibur wrote: I've already done so. I resent the idea that a hitherto male-only organisation like the Custodes has suddenly been retroactively altered to have apparently always had female members with little rhyme or reason beyond a shallow attempt to appeal to modern sensibilities.
But why? What does "all-male" add to the custodes? What story does it allow you to tell that you cannot tell with it being a mixed gender force, and has GW ever actually told that story, or would the stories told of the custodes be absolutely the same regardless because their gender was never actually a defining aspect of their character?
40k is a fictional universe and the Imperium it depicts is supposed to be a dystopian fascist hellscape. So why on earth does it even matter that one or two of its factions are male exclusive? The Imperial Guard has women in its ranks because if you can operate a lasgun, you can be a meatshield. The AdMech have women (or a close approximation) because the Omnissiah doesn't particular care who's grafting mechanical bits to themselves. The Sisters of Battle and Sisters of Silence exist. The Eldar and Tau have women in prominent societal and military positions. The Tyranids are a force of nature without gender at all. There's plenty of 'representation' already without trying to crowbar it in.
I believe the disconnect between you and those people is that you're fundamentally arguing on different levels. Your argument is largely an in-universe one, theirs is a real life one. What you call "scoring political points" on the real-life level to them is a necessary effort towards fixing some sort of deficit within player communitys and maybe society as a whole. It's not surprising those positions are irreconcilable.
MalusCalibur wrote: But 40k (or any work of fiction, for that matter) shouldn't be changed to try and cultivate a theoretical fanbase when it already has a dedicated one.
By this argument, no game or piece of media should ever try to evolve or grow to increase its appeal so long as there are people who like it exactly how it is. This is an argument for stagnation and increasing irrelevance.
MalusCalibur wrote: But 40k (or any work of fiction, for that matter) shouldn't be changed to try and cultivate a theoretical fanbase when it already has a dedicated one.
By this argument, no game or piece of media should ever try to evolve or grow to increase its appeal so long as there are people who like it exactly how it is. This is an argument for stagnation and increasing irrelevance.
I think this is going to come down to both the nature of the change and how it chooses to adapt. As I've noted before in this thread there are a LOT of ways you can take GW and 40K (and other games) as they are right now and adapt the wrapping, marketing and everything else around the game to be more welcoming to different groups. All of that can be done without changing the lore at all; though you might choose to highlight some parts that were less well mentioned (accepting that sometimes some fans won't have ever read them so will need to be introduced to the classic information in the first place).
The fact that I don't really like the custodes that much in the first place dampens my joy about female custodes a bit. I will never do a full army of them, and IIRC we currently have no proper ally rules to include just a squad or two in a bigger force.
It's a shame they haven't redone the Torchbearer Fleet rules from 9th which let you mix Custodes and Admech to escort Primaris Greyshields to the Chapters they were meant to reinforce. Once located, the Grey Shields had to earn the trust of the Firstborn, then finally the Firstborn and Primaris could fight together as allies and the Custodes and Admech would retreat back to the fleet to bring more Grey Shields to another chapter. These were the rules that finally made me not see Primaris as a huge mistake- they were arguably the coolest rules in 9th.
Armies of Faith were similar- they let you mix Sisters, Marines and Guard... But the built in story wasn't as strong.
BertBert wrote: I can see people needing this if they have lacked proper attention and care in their lives and, in those cases, they have my deepest sympathies.
Well we live in a heck of a world.
I mean, if you're a woman, you already know you make 70 cents on the dollar compared to men, you're 16% more likely to be killed by your partner (worldwide) and many law makers are currently trying to take away your right to decide what is done to your own body.
If you're trans, things are worse.
And if your sex/ gender overlap with visible ethnicity or disability? All of the sex/gender based gak you have to deal with is ramped up even further.
Those factors are active whether you got attention as a child or not. Having the best parents and family in the world will not allow you to make as much money as a man in the same job, nor will it let you end an entopic preganancy in Arizona. And being bombarded with those unfortunate facts everytime you turn on the news does make it nice to have a hobby where you can slap Golden Girls (pun very much intended) down on the table kinda nice- like at least 21st century regression doesn't affect your hobby...
That is, until you have to use the washroom (depending on what state you live in).
I feel like there's definitely a conversation to be had about theory of mind and how we relate to media or the character within. I already found the FSM conversation exhausting before GW threw a match on the gasoline, however. In my humble opinion, it helps any setting to have characters with a wide range of experiences, bodies, et cetera not because it reflects me (I'm a musclefat 5'9 white person) but because it gives the setting more life.
Case in point. I am a SW fan, though my homebrew is the focus of my tabletop efforts. I want the darker skinned Fenrisians to exist, because it's not simply extrapolative satire or caricature of Scandinavia then. It provides a break from the historical antecedents: "oh, there are a fair number of people of African descent here, it's not 100 percent like our own history". I would suggest people who are more interested in this line of thinking to read Ursula K. LeGuin's introduction to the current (?, it's on Kindle) edition of her Left Hand of Darkness.
MalusCalibur wrote: Marines, and Custodes, are men. There is an in-universe reason for this (incompatibility with the various gene implants etc) and a logical one (if you're going to make super-soldiers, you're going to start with the physically stronger gender template). That's all that should matter - showing no respect to the source material in order to cater to modern identity politics is shallow pandering at best.
"women are weaker" is such an unscientific excuse. look at any number of female strongmen, female martial artists, female sports players. people are so against the idea of strong women that female athletes are being forced onto hormone replacement therapy because they exceed the idea of what men expect of them. biology does not state that women are fundamentally weaker than men, because human biology really doesn't differentiate between men and women all that much (and just look at intersex people for how much this strict sexual binary doesn't even work as a framework). if we're turning to biology to make an argument, then we can look at decades of hormone science to see that the barrier between male and female bodies is remarkably thing and incredibly malleable
Also this is trying to apply logic to a universe 38k years in the future, for where we all know the physical differences have become negligible at best and don’t even apply
Wow this is so fundamentaly wrong from a scientific point of view I just don't know what to say(I say that as evolutionary biologist). The biological and psychological difference between sexes is huge that they are practicly another species. Diseases affect the sexes differently and male and female bodies react differently to medcine. I could go on with similar examples. Hormones do not define sex(or chromosomes). Hormone therapy just feths up your body and most europeen countries have started banning it at least for non adults.And you don't seem to understand what intersex means it is not what you seem to think it is. They always have a sex.
I would recomend some reading before making some statements on what is scientific and what is unscientific.
So, sexual dimorphism is absolutely a thing in humans, and the posters upquote (behind the spoiler tag for brevity) are underselling the differences which do exist. However, you are overselling the differences equally as much, especially when considering large amounts of the observed differences between sexes and genders in humans are partially or entirely ascribable to environmental factors. The degrees to which this is the case for a given observed difference is frequently a topic for debate, but it is obvious how things like cultural factors or defined gender roles might impact disease states. Men are more likely to die of industrial exposures if women are gatekeeped out of industrial roles for cultural reasons, for example. Medicines can differ between sexes, but most such differences are attributable to different weights and sometimes different fat distributions. It is rare that medications are dosed by sex (rather than flat dosing, or based on weight, renal function etc), but it does happen occasionally. I cannot think of any examples off the top of my head though.
To state females are "almost a different species" is a pretty wild claim when a given person is much more likely to be similar to their parent of the opposite sex than a random person globally of the same sex. This is highlighted by transplants being sex-agnostic, but having a much higher chance of compatibility between close family members of any sex.
In addition, whilst sex is obviously about more than hormones, sex hormones are the chief vehicle by which sex is expressed phenotypically in development. Phenotypical sex can absolutely be changed by changing hormones in utero (and onwards) to a very convincing degree.
Finally, the reason that sexual dimorphism is fairly unimportant to 40k is that the polymorphism of the Imperium is much greater. This is very relevant when considering female Marimes, as Marines recruit from a huge variety of sources with seemingly very few differences in the end result, usually selecting for strength of will and determination over physical fortitude. A Blood Angel isn't physically significantly different to a Flesh Tearer. They share the same geneseed, yet Flesh Tearers recruit from feral worlders on Cretacia and Blood Angels recruit rad-damaged waifs from Baal. The latter is likely to be much more physically different from the former than the differences between male and female on each world, because health has an enormous impact on development. Yet both have the same outcome. Despite the huge variety of health and nutritional statuses of Marine recruiting populations, it is very rare for the recruitment stock of a Marine chapter to have some measurable impact on the Marines they produce, and it is more often actually an effect of the environment rather than the humans themselves (such as the high radiation on Nocturne turning Salamanders coal-black). A Chapter like the Imperial Fists doesn't note a significant difference between Marines recruited from malnourished underhivers, low-G voiders, or Terran nobility. The process of implanting geneseed clearly overcomes such major differences and ends up in broadly the same place.
BertBert wrote: I can see people needing this if they have lacked proper attention and care in their lives and, in those cases, they have my deepest sympathies.
Well we live in a heck of a world.
I mean, if you're a woman, you already know you make 70 cents on the dollar compared to men, you're 16% more likely to be killed by your partner (worldwide) and many law makers are currently trying to take away your right to decide what is done to your own body.
If you're trans, things are worse.
And if your sex/ gender overlap with visible ethnicity or disability? All of the sex/gender based gak you have to deal with is ramped up even further.
Those factors are active whether you got attention as a child or not. Having the best parents and family in the world will not allow you to make as much money as a man in the same job, nor will it let you end an entopic preganancy in Arizona. And being bombarded with those unfortunate facts everytime you turn on the news does make it nice to have a hobby where you can slap Golden Girls (pun very much intended) down on the table kinda nice- like at least 21st century regression doesn't affect your hobby...
That is, until you have to use the washroom (depending on what state you live in).
Getting a bit deep here, but class and degree of financial security during upbringing can make a large impact on all of those things, so the experience of a given individual can vary widely. It is more likely to follow the positions you mention, but obviously actual circumstances vary. For example, few wealthy women are actually prevented from treating an ectopic in Arizona, because they can afford to fly out of state.
DeathKorp_Rider wrote: Honestly, do marines or Custodes even need a sex? I am not 100% sure about this but I’m guessing marines don’t go around having sex or anything
The SW do. Or they have one of the most viral aspirants know to man. Lukas the Trickster was known to have sneaked in, beded and sired children with a few jarls women. Now he couldn't have done this being prepubescent, which means he had to do it after he became an aspirant. And plain starter SW aspirants are not allowed to roam around Fenris. Which means he had to be at least blood claw level, which is other chapters scout level. And there were also a few space wolves who were either said to be romanticaly involved with others (in case of Torin we don't even know if those were men or women) and Ragnar definitly had feelings for Gabriela Belisarius. Or at least Ragnar thinks he did in the retrospects. But this is SW we are talking about. I can imagine that in legions where marines are mind locked (iron hands), mind wiped multiple times(GK) or something similar both the want and the need for human interaction is gone. Salamanders, another of the "pro human" chapters, are said to live among their familes and are often the heads of the places. They get very emotional about humans in general.
In the case of custodes we have two groups of them, which divide in to smaller sub groups. The "acting" as guards custodes, both the vault shadow wardens and the throne room guards have 0 human needs and wants. Their job slowly burns them out. The 100 companions are probably the same. In case of the "rank and file", if one can ever say that about such gene crafted demi gods, their interest and their life spans allow them to do and follow many persuits. Valerian for example clearly has a soft heart for Alaya. Now it is not romantical, but he himself is suprised that he does care about her and being in contact with her.
And then there is the second group of custodes the Ephoroi and all the other custodes that left the active service as "rank and file" defenders of the palace and lived out their lifes as eyes of the emperor. For all we know, some of the sensei, could be sired by those custodes. Especialy those with dream powers, which is one of the traits all custodes share.
kodos wrote: those forums pointed out that these people are just haters who don't like the hobby and just want GW to fail and that a true fan is going to support the company no matter what so they can grow and deliver more of models people like
would have been more entertaining to see how todays social media would have reacted to the retcons of 4th Edition or 7th Edi codex writing
I was here and on other forums when the big fluff changes from 4th to 5th occurred. They were very divisive. Not as politically charged, mind you, but a lot of people rage quit (or pretended to). I, personally, stopped following the game after that, in that I stopped buying new codices, bought far fewer minis, and started looking at other options outside of GW.
I was here and on other forums when the big fluff changes from 4th to 5th occurred. They were very divisive. Not as politically charged, mind you, but a lot of people rage quit (or pretended to). I, personally, stopped following the game after that, in that I stopped buying new codices, bought far fewer minis, and started looking at other options outside of GW.
How did necron and the non necron community react to necron going from slaves to their gods to god enslavers/killers? I can only remember the whole tyranid suddenly move fast uproar from 9th ed. But that was mostly big only because it was messing up a lot of the ultramarines dates and lore.
As I recall the Necron was divided. Some LOVED that they were basically mindless terminator machines that were totally unfathomable; totally unstoppable and just kept coming.
Others liked that the Necrons gained personality and could be something else other than just mindless and that the lore could go deeper.
Personally I liked it because the unfathomable story slot was (and still is) Tyranids and I feel that Necrons evolving has given them even more scope as a faction to do stuff.
Of course they can still be mindless machines - there's more than enough damaged/crippled tomb worlds and crazed upper ranks that yo ucan still have your mindless murder machine - its just got layers to it now.
The entire flavor of the Necron faction changed. In 3.5/4 they were a Lovecraftian Outside-Context-Problem, a darkness looming over everything. The army felt like a horror story in action. Look at the Xenology, or Ciaphas Cain nearly crapping himself at the sight of Necrons to get a feel for how apocalyptic they were.
Then suddenly they were squabbling, comedic, out of touch nobles in space. They were these detached immortals playing internal political games that sometimes meant slaughtering a planet of humans. The flavor was completely different. The menace was gone. The lore for every extant Necron army was destroyed. Years of conversion projects and army building were scrapped to make room for Scooby Doo villain hijinks.
And the people who never liked the Oldcrons insisted this was an improvement. Making Necrons into yet another army of people with essentially human personalities and motivations was a great thing.
To be fair, I think over the years GW was able to make Newcrons work. I’ve enjoyed novels like The Infinite and the Divine. But at the time all people could see was the ending of something that motivated their hobby or the beginning of a new opportunity.
kodos wrote: those forums pointed out that these people are just haters who don't like the hobby and just want GW to fail and that a true fan is going to support the company no matter what so they can grow and deliver more of models people like
would have been more entertaining to see how todays social media would have reacted to the retcons of 4th Edition or 7th Edi codex writing
I was here and on other forums when the big fluff changes from 4th to 5th occurred. They were very divisive. Not as politically charged, mind you, but a lot of people rage quit (or pretended to). I, personally, stopped following the game after that, in that I stopped buying new codices, bought far fewer minis, and started looking at other options outside of GW.
not sure if I was here on dakka, but quit after 5th same as most of the people I played with during that time and some because of the rules coming with 6th, but those returned with 7th, quit again with 8th and now play again with 10th
those who quit because of the background changes never returned
kodos wrote: A lot of people started Necrons because it was the new gak and a strong army, while a lot of those who played them before quit or changed army
And some people like me started playing 'crons because the new fluff created room for them to have more personality/history/ambition than the old fluff did. Which is kind of analogous to the optimistic outcome of changes like this one. The hope is that someone who might have been uninterested in yet another sausage fest faction might find custodes a bit more approachable/interesting going forward. I'm not sure how likely this change is to actually move anyone's needle, but you can see how they're hoping it works out.
The Necron example is a relatively poor one, because Necrons prior to 5th edition did have personalities, individual goals etc. You just had to go searching in background material beyond the codex for it.
It's a bit like the (still occasionally repeated) claim from the time that 5th edition gave you the opportunity to paint your Necrons a colour other than silver.
Lord Damocles wrote: The Necron example is a relatively poor one, because Necrons prior to 5th edition did have personalities, individual goals etc. You just had to go searching in background material beyond the codex for it.
It's a bit like the (still occasionally repeated) claim from the time that 5th edition gave you the opportunity to paint your Necrons a colour other than silver.
I don’t think anyone can force you to paint your necromancer silver.
Another big problem with the shift was the quality of writing and the understanding of Sci Fi and how it affected the setting. For example, the Oldcron codex is vague on the time scale, but uses terms like age, eon, etcs to convey the rise and fall of Necrontyr society, the War in Heaven and all that took place over enormous spans of time. The Newcron codex had all of the important Necrontyr/Necron history happen in a single generation so the characters could all be present for the big events. It made the setting feel pathetically small, the scale wayyyy off.
Another was the change in FTL. Oldcrons had a tech that put them above the warp, chaos, and all the petty squabbles that humanity considered life and death struggle. They made the Emperor’s webway project look short sighted and doomed in conception alone. The Tyranids back then used the warp as you would expect from a species of psykers. They made sense in the setting, and it neatly tied together the hive mind, the shadow in the warp, zoanthropes, Genestealers, and all that. 5th edition gave them Narvhals, a non-warp FTL that raises a ton of questions and adds complication to a fairly complete part of the background without really expanding the lore in a way that enhances the game for anyone. At the same time, the Necrons lost their FTL and became dependent on the webway, which takes away much of their scale and menace, as well as violating the core theme of the faction.
5th also cemented the dumber take on the Tyranids as the om-nom-nom hangry faction when they used to be the Discovery Channel red-in-tooth-and-claw faction. Earlier depictions of the hive mind portray it as a sapient and calculating mind who sees the other space traveling species as competitors for the galaxy’s resources rather than just meals on wheels. It was less a lion among lambs and more a lion among hyena cubs. A subtle distinction, but one that added a lot to the flavor of the faction.
Tying it back, I found these changes really affected how I planned and built an army, whether I was even interested in them at all, in a much more profound way than a change of genders for the Custodes changes the flavor of the Custodes.
How did necron and the non necron community react to necron going from slaves to their gods to god enslavers/killers?
I remember hating it. I still do!
We can even look to before that, when the original Necron codex was introduced. You should have seen the uproar from Eldar fans upset that the new Necron lore stepped a bit on Eldar lore.
I do have to point out though, that the introduction of the Necron lore changed nothing about how Eldar operated on the table, while the Necron revision in late 5th ed coincided with knocking a lot of Necron units down a notch or two in relative power levels, and changed how the army played in some pretty fundamental ways.
We can even look to before that, when the original Necron codex was introduced. You should have seen the uproar from Eldar fans upset that the new Necron lore stepped a bit on Eldar lore.
Personally I liked it because the unfathomable story slot was (and still is) Tyranids . . .
The easiest critique of this is to point out just how many "power armored supersoldier" armies there are. Like, more than one faction can obviously occupy a similar story slot.
We can even look to before that, when the original Necron codex was introduced. You should have seen the uproar from Eldar fans upset that the new Necron lore stepped a bit on Eldar lore.
Personally I liked it because the unfathomable story slot was (and still is) Tyranids . . .
The easiest critique of this is to point out just how many "power armored supersoldier" armies there are. Like, more than one faction can obviously occupy a similar story slot.
The counter argument is that all of them are pretty much either the same (super)faction in different flavors or their spikier corrupted versions in spiker flavors. They stepping on each other's is far less of an issue than with two factions that aren't related at all.
Personally I liked it because the unfathomable story slot was (and still is) Tyranids . . .
The easiest critique of this is to point out just how many "power armored supersoldier" armies there are. Like, more than one faction can obviously occupy a similar story slot.
The counter argument is that all of them are pretty much either the same (super)faction in different flavors or their spikier corrupted versions in spiker flavors. They stepping on each other's is far less of an issue than with two factions that aren't related at all.
Really? Because I would think the opposite. Because Necrons and Tyranids are so different they don't risk stepping on each other, rather they represent polar opposite potential results of the existential endgame.
The Necrons were the science faction, ancient and deeply connected to all the other factions since time immemorial. The Tyranids were the nature faction, new to the galaxy and unknown. The Necron end goal was a quiescent galaxy of human cattle for the entertainment of ancient Star gods. The Tyranid end goal was a dead galaxy stripped of everything that supports life. They were both very different from the goals of the other factions in the game.
kodos wrote: A lot of people started Necrons because it was the new gak and a strong army, while a lot of those who played them before quit or changed army
And some people like me started playing 'crons because the new fluff created room for them to have more personality/history/ambition than the old fluff did. Which is kind of analogous to the optimistic outcome of changes like this one. The hope is that someone who might have been uninterested in yet another sausage fest faction might find custodes a bit more approachable/interesting going forward. I'm not sure how likely this change is to actually move anyone's needle, but you can see how they're hoping it works out.
Okey but this is a male dominated hobby, and it is not like there is a way to stop someone from legaly playing what ever army they want as long as the load outs and bases are correct. Sisters exist in the game and IG got a whole bunch of female heroes and female heads as options, but that didn't bring legions of female players. But it is even more visible in AoS. AoS is new, or at least as new as a GW game can be, and SCE were a faction where half the models were female since like 2ed. There is no huge world wide wave of female players flocking to play, just because here is a faction that has females as both troops and leaders. In fact AoS has female models all across its model lines, at least the new ones. But again this doesn't seem to be causing interst girls/women. It is a bit like gymnastics. I went to school with dudes that did it, some were extremly good at it, but their competions and those that girls/women had was like 1 fan to 10 fans. And women got really in to the competitions too, both the fans and competitors. I think table top gaming is just, not very interesting to people outside of the boys/men. That doesn't mean that there is no females that could be interested in it, but those are very few and far in between. It is like dudes and horseback ridding or women doing weight lifting. They exists, but are very rare. And this is why I think it is very dangerous to take an existing frenchise, with an existing fan base, which pays for the whole merch, to just change it. Many companies tried it and it didn't work. The old fans moved away and fans didn't come. And the table top as a fandom is extremly open comparing to most of the other fandoms. Heck you can do it with zero interaction with other people. So all changes have to be weighted. On one side there is authors/designers trying to be creative and tell a new story, which is understandable, but other hand we have Luke Skywalker sipping on blue milk and the ultimate victory of Palpatine family. It can end bad.
And in this specific example of custodes codex, it really couldn't have been made at a worse time. If custodes were bad and stayed bad, we would have the ad mecha situation. Non popular faction, stays back, and look, it lore got changed too. Who cares? It would be like changing GK to have primaris mid 8th ed. The symbolical 5 GK players around the world wouldn't matter. But this is not the case we have. Custodes are, for now, a very popular army. A ton of people bought in to the army after the sm codex changes. And it doesn't even matter, if people picked up the faction for power reasons or not. The fact is, they had fun before, then they didn't have fun, then GW said they over did the changes, made the army fun again AND THEN they droped a codex which is a mountain sized worse change then the one people got a few months ago. So now the deep change to the lore hits gets amlified. Not only does the army become bad, not only does GW pretend to not notice it. But they also try to retroactivly change reality. You can't have multiple decades of something being X, litteral text written by you that X is X, and then say nah X was Y all along. It just doesn't work on people, that care about a codex power, it doesn't work on people that care about the lore and to use an example from a different thread here, I can bet 250internet $ (we smaller salaries here), that the mention of female custodes is not going to A rise the sales of the book. B make the faction more popular C bring a substantial number of new players to w40k.
Karol wrote: Okey but this is a male dominated hobby, and it is not like there is a way to stop someone from legaly playing what ever army they want as long as the load outs and bases are correct.
You know how your gaming group enforces competitive gaming and 2k only? Congratulations you have discovered Social Pressure and Hostile Environments.
Okey but this is a male dominated hobby, and it is not like there is a way to stop someone from legaly playing what ever army they want as long as the load outs and bases are correct.
Oh boy is that a gakky take.
I'm not going to weigh in too hard, but for a couple of relevant anecdotes: Representation is very important both on a societal level and an individual level.
As a life long nerd man I've dated several nerd women in my time. And while they were all nerdy in different ways / aspects (big into anime and comics, big into video games, big into board games / card games / TT games) and enjoyed a variety of lines within their chosen sphere(s) of nerdom, they've also all had a noticeable lean towards ones which represent women as more than just sex objects. One in particular expressed that she really enjoyed seeing women represented powerfully and capably, because while she enjoyed men in those roles it also felt good to see her sex represented.
And frankly? I get it. Because while I am a man and therefor the default audience for all of this stuff, I'm also very noticeably black. I've first hand experience that there's no shortage of hobby spaces (irl and online) which are noticeably hostile towards me simply because of that deviation from the standard participant template. And let me tell you that gak is uncomfortable. It sucks trying to enjoy something you care about with othersand having it made known that you're not welcome, especially when so many don't truly realize they're doing it. And if addressed they quickly become extremely, openly hostile. I can tell you first hand that this gak is common place, but I can also tell you it's gotten markedly better as media has become more diverse. And all of these things with which I have first hand experience are much, much worse for women in these spaces.
Furthermore, that issue is actively fought by representation in the media / source material. While you and I know that Blade and Worderwoman aren't real and certainly aren't out friends, our deeper subconcious does not. Seeing a meddly of representation in media teaches the lizard brain to see a variety of demographics in a positive light, because all IT sees is a human that it has positive feelings about. So even without a conscious effort this sort of inclusion actively softens views and makes such spaces - be they IRL or online - more friendly and accepting of diverse participation.
Okey but this is a male dominated hobby, and it is not like there is a way to stop someone from legaly playing what ever army they want as long as the load outs and bases are correct.
Oh boy is that a gakky take.
I'm not going to weigh in too hard, but for a couple of relevant anecdotes: Representation is very important both on a societal level and an individual level.
As a life long nerd man I've dated several nerd women in my time. And while they were all nerdy in different ways / aspects (big into anime and comics, big into video games, big into board games / card games / TT games) and enjoyed a variety of lines within their chosen sphere(s) of nerdom, they've also all had a noticeable lean towards ones which represent women as more than just sex objects. One in particular expressed that she really enjoyed seeing women represented powerfully and capably, because while she enjoyed men in those roles it also felt good to see her sex represented.
And frankly? I get it. Because while I am a man and therefor the default audience for all of this stuff, I'm also very noticeably black. I've first hand experience that there's no shortage of hobby spaces (irl and online) which are noticeably hostile towards me simply because of that deviation from the standard participant template. And let me tell you that gak is uncomfortable. It sucks trying to enjoy something you care about with othersand having it made known that you're not welcome, especially when so many don't truly realize they're doing it. And if addressed they quickly become extremely, openly hostile. I can tell you first hand that this gak is common place, but I can also tell you it's gotten markedly better as media has become more diverse. And all of these things with which I have first hand experience are much, much worse for women in these spaces.
Furthermore, that issue is actively fought by representation in the media / source material. While you and I know that Blade and Worderwoman aren't real and certainly aren't out friends, our deeper subconcious does not. Seeing a meddly of representation in media teaches the lizard brain to see a variety of demographics in a positive light, because all IT sees is a human that it has positive feelings about. So even without a conscious effort this sort of inclusion actively softens views and makes such spaces - be they IRL or online - more friendly and accepting of diverse participation.
Forgive me, but can I poke at this a bit?
Like, how do you think this interacts with the idea of target demographics? Can products be made for certain sub-demographics and retain those aims? I'm no expert, but I imagine Barbie has a pretty small array of male dolls compared to its female line, and that just seems like a reflection of the typical purchasing consumer. There's all manner of products and media that are aimed at specific audiences, and I think it's healthy to have those sub-ecosystems sitting alongside other products/media that are aimed more at "general" audiences, where I'd expect to see more inclusivity.
Okey but this is a male dominated hobby, and it is not like there is a way to stop someone from legaly playing what ever army they want as long as the load outs and bases are correct.
Oh boy is that a gakky take.
I'm not going to weigh in too hard, but for a couple of relevant anecdotes: Representation is very important both on a societal level and an individual level.
As a life long nerd man I've dated several nerd women in my time. And while they were all nerdy in different ways / aspects (big into anime and comics, big into video games, big into board games / card games / TT games) and enjoyed a variety of lines within their chosen sphere(s) of nerdom, they've also all had a noticeable lean towards ones which represent women as more than just sex objects. One in particular expressed that she really enjoyed seeing women represented powerfully and capably, because while she enjoyed men in those roles it also felt good to see her sex represented.
And frankly? I get it. Because while I am a man and therefor the default audience for all of this stuff, I'm also very noticeably black. I've first hand experience that there's no shortage of hobby spaces (irl and online) which are noticeably hostile towards me simply because of that deviation from the standard participant template. And let me tell you that gak is uncomfortable. It sucks trying to enjoy something you care about with othersand having it made known that you're not welcome, especially when so many don't truly realize they're doing it. And if addressed they quickly become extremely, openly hostile. I can tell you first hand that this gak is common place, but I can also tell you it's gotten markedly better as media has become more diverse. And all of these things with which I have first hand experience are much, much worse for women in these spaces.
Furthermore, that issue is actively fought by representation in the media / source material. While you and I know that Blade and Worderwoman aren't real and certainly aren't out friends, our deeper subconcious does not. Seeing a meddly of representation in media teaches the lizard brain to see a variety of demographics in a positive light, because all IT sees is a human that it has positive feelings about. So even without a conscious effort this sort of inclusion actively softens views and makes such spaces - be they IRL or online - more friendly and accepting of diverse participation.
Forgive me, but can I poke at this a bit?
Like, how do you think this interacts with the idea of target demographics? Can products be made for certain sub-demographics and retain those aims? I'm no expert, but I imagine Barbie has a pretty small array of male dolls compared to its female line, and that just seems like a reflection of the typical purchasing consumer. There's all manner of products and media that are aimed at specific audiences, and I think it's healthy to have those sub-ecosystems sitting alongside other products/media that are aimed more at "general" audiences, where I'd expect to see more inclusivity.
Toy companies tell children (and their parents) What toys boys and girls are supposed to like and often get upset if a toyline ends up popular with the gender they didn't intend it for. They, in many ways, create the demo they target. On top of overall societal pressures. Boys who play with barbies are still, uh... largely frowned upon socially for example. None of this is healthy.
Toy companies tell children (and their parents) What toys boys and girls are supposed to like and often get upset if a toyline ends up popular with the gender they didn't intend it for. They, in many ways, create the demo they target. On top of overall societal pressures. Boys who play with barbies are still, uh... largely frowned upon socially for example. None of this is healthy.
I feel like the issue's a little more nuanced than that. Along the lines of "write what you know", many artists/designers/etc. are naturally going to be making things that happen to appeal to their own demographic because of the likelihood of shared experiences. Is this bad? I would say not inherently, no.
RaptorusRex wrote: There is definitely a web of factors involved in how play is gendered.
On top of that, I just did a search for the oft-cited "monkeys play with gendered toys" study, only to find that another study was done in 2023 that supposedly came up with the opposite result. So like, square that circle.
gender is far more complicated than a lot of people want to give it credit for, and all of those complications cascade into myriad other complications in each other way that gender intersects with our life. it's rarely simple!
StudentOfEtherium wrote: gender is far more complicated than a lot of people want to give it credit for, and all of those complications cascade into myriad other complications in each other way that gender intersects with our life. it's rarely simple!
The funny part is most people don't seem to know where a lot of gender theory comes from, and when they do they like to ignore John Money and all the stuff he did.
and then you add capitalism to it were corporations will do everything that makes more money
support it, oppose it, play with it or trying to guide it
which in the end is what annoys most people about it (not talking about the vocal minority here that just hates it for reasons) but that not even trying to hide the money making aspect and calling people out for not liking corporations of doing it
Like, how do you think this interacts with the idea of target demographics? Can products be made for certain sub-demographics and retain those aims? I'm no expert, but I imagine Barbie has a pretty small array of male dolls compared to its female line, and that just seems like a reflection of the typical purchasing consumer. There's all manner of products and media that are aimed at specific audiences, and I think it's healthy to have those sub-ecosystems sitting alongside other products/media that are aimed more at "general" audiences, where I'd expect to see more inclusivity.
Not all target demographics and audiences are gendered though. GW isn't aiming for male nerds, it is aiming for nerds (that have significant purchasing power) and while that demographic is dominated by men, it does include women (and non-binary people).
RaptorusRex wrote: There is definitely a web of factors involved in how play is gendered.
On top of that, I just did a search for the oft-cited "monkeys play with gendered toys" study, only to find that another study was done in 2023 that supposedly came up with the opposite result. So like, square that circle.
Karol wrote: Okey but this is a male dominated hobby, and it is not like there is a way to stop someone from legaly playing what ever army they want as long as the load outs and bases are correct.
You know how your gaming group enforces competitive gaming and 2k only? Congratulations you have discovered Social Pressure and Hostile Environments.
Yeah, but I wasn't talking about my store. I am was talking in general. It is a male dominated hobby world wide. Show me the pictures of women "collectors" having tens of thousands of dollars spend on various table top products (not just GW), in the same numbers we see for men. It is like you know if we talked about who collects expensive bags, and you told me that there are men who do it. Yes, there are women who take part in the hobby. There is women only social preasure or "hostile enviroment" stopping women from joining. If a 13y old autist from a "toxic eviroment" can join so can do women/girls. But they don't want to. It is simple as that. And trying to change it has, and I will again use a sports example here, as efficient as WNBA. Decades spends on promotions, milions of dollars spends on teams, salaries etc. And women do not come, in even a fracture of of the numbers, of where men go to see NBA.
People have different likes, needs and wants. That is true. And you can probably have an example of anyone liking anything, just like you can find an example of an example of anyone disliking anything. But there are still group preferancs. There is things people like in large numbers (football in europe) and there is stuff only a few people like (currling). And there are also divides by what men and women like. There is no way to make GW games or hobby more accesible to anyone, without handing out stuff for free. Women don't seem to like table top gaming. Same way men generaly don't like to watch "wives of..." series. There ae thousand and one things like that. And trying to change it generaly ends bad for the companies that try it in the long run, but most important it ends bad for the communities whose support build up the frenchise and the companies to begin with.
Who was asking for Female custodes? I am not saying I read the WHOLE internet or even everything that is writen in polish, german and english. But through 3 editions, 9 years (and I build to remember such things) I have seen exactly 0 times people ask for such a change. So if it isn't made for the existing fans, and it will have no positive impact on the community as a whole, Why was the change made?
Also it is lazy. I would get it if we get some cool story, about how custodes lose more and more members each days, and then suddenly someone cracks a lost vault on Venus and we find out that the Mother of Space Marines, had a side project and she created 10k female custodes, with weapons armour (maybe even some new things, Emperors custodes didn't have). And now the brotherhood has to deal with the "problem". Keep them separate? They aren't part of the custodes culture, do we induct them in to it. Maybe there would be different factions looking at the new "sisters". Such a story line could be interesting. And not be "yeah there were custodes female for the last 40 years" we just forgot to tell you about it, wrote each text as if they were always male and you know stuff like that.
Not all target demographics and audiences are gendered though. GW isn't aiming for male nerds, it is aiming for nerds (that have significant purchasing power) and while that demographic is dominated by men, it does include women (and non-binary people).
Yeah and how is it going for all the other frenchises that tried it? comic books, super hero movies, D&D, etc all male dominated for decades. Companies decided to open it up for new consumers and what happens? sales go down for everything. And the more controversial or "controversial" the changes the more it drops. Meanwhile frenchises that don't try to artificialy change are doing great. And the best thing women and men love Fallout, Dune, Godzilla. Mind blowing right. People do a proper Baldurs Gate and everyone loves it.
If GW wants more "female" factions then they should work on stuff which already exists in the lore. Expand SoS, write more about IG which has litteral 100% female regiments, maybe write about subfaction. Heck they could have even done the custodes thing right. Instead people get smacked in the head and made to accept a reality which isn't real.
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StudentOfEtherium wrote: gender is far more complicated than a lot of people want to give it credit for, and all of those complications cascade into myriad other complications in each other way that gender intersects with our life. it's rarely simple!
Only it is. Simple economics show us it isn't. Just look at the most free, democratic and equal societies in the world, with a history of equality dating back centuries. And what do we see in them? That the more equal the society becomes, the divides between what men/women pick/like/etc does not change. In fact it is often the opposit. Are there any economical, social, law etc barriers for women to support female sports in western countries? No. Then why do they don't go watch (with few exeptions) them. There is not state standing above women with a stick and bashing them on the head, if they try to go and watch volley ball or basketball match.
Yeah and how is it going for all the other frenchises that tried it? comic books, super hero movies, D&D, etc all male dominated for decades. Companies decided to open it up for new consumers and what happens? sales go down for everything. And the more controversial or "controversial" the changes the more it drops. Meanwhile frenchises that don't try to artificialy change are doing great. And the best thing women and men love Fallout, Dune, Godzilla. Mind blowing right. People do a proper Baldurs Gate and everyone loves it.
Lets take Godzilla as an example, a franchise originally meant for a Japanese audience (you know the whole giant walking nuclear distaster was kinda a big important cultural theme for the only country that has been nuked in war) and that was succesfully expanded to new customers (anyone not Japanese) to the point we have an entire new series within the IP made by non-Japanese for an international market.
Or Fallout, the series that just got a TV show that considerably expanded the target audience from gamers to a general audence (pretty much anyone that watches TV). Dune, expanding the target audience from people that read fiction sci-fi books to the larger general audience of people that watch movies.
Marvel literally shat gold in the billions by expanding from the minuscule audience of comics to the most succesfull cinematic franchise ever.
Karol wrote: Yeah, but I wasn't talking about my store. I am was talking in general. It is a male dominated hobby world wide.
You've missed the point entirely which is unsurprising. In the same way that your community has enforced competitive gaming and 2k games as your standard, some communities enforce an environment where women or minorities are not welcome.
There are a variety of reasons for this from blatant bigotry and hatred to a simple fear of losing a safe space. The latter is far more common than the former but they do absolutely still exist.
Most people don't realise they are creating or perpetuating a hostile environment because they have never had someone come to them and say "Hey that's not cool". If a community makes jokes about how their army "r*pred" the enemy or makes misogynistic/racist jokes, until someone feels comfortable enough to make a stand, they will likely keep making those jokes/comments and it is never easy to be the one to "ruin the fun" as it were because then you become an outcast.
You can't claim "Women don't want to do Warhammer" in one sentence and then say "But there is no way to know why" in the other when people are explicitly telling you its because they feel unwelcome.
If a woman publicly posts online about their Warhammer they get 50/50 of people being cool and the rest being misogynistic asshats who claim they're in it for the clout or to plug their OnlyFans.
Case in point Louise Sugden who has been in the hobby for years but going public with her social media led to the likes of this:
Are these people internet trolls? Yes. Are they a very loud and public face of the hobby? Also yes. You cannot claim that it's "economics" or "preferences" when the public reaction to women in Warhammer is to attack them. Get some perspective and actually listen this time.
Yeah and how is it going for all the other frenchises that tried it? comic books, super hero movies, D&D, etc all male dominated for decades. Companies decided to open it up for new consumers and what happens? sales go down for everything. And the more controversial or "controversial" the changes the more it drops. Meanwhile frenchises that don't try to artificialy change are doing great. And the best thing women and men love Fallout, Dune, Godzilla. Mind blowing right. People do a proper Baldurs Gate and everyone loves it.
Lets take Godzilla as an example, a franchise originally meant for a Japanese audience (you know the whole giant walking nuclear distaster was kinda a big important cultural theme for the only country that has been nuked in war) and that was succesfully expanded to new customers (anyone not Japanese) to the point we have an entire new series within the IP made by non-Japanese for an international market.
Or Fallout, the series that just got a TV show that considerably expanded the target audience from gamers to a general audence (pretty much anyone that watches TV). Dune, expanding the target audience from people that read fiction sci-fi books to the larger general audience of people that watch movies.
Marvel literally shat gold in the billions by expanding from the minuscule audience of comics to the most succesfull cinematic franchise ever.
I think that's Karols point. Godzilla, Fallout and Marvel (until recently) were just being more or less faithful to themselves, not "going woke" or whatever. Karol is saying that franchises falter when instead of sticking to their core themes or origins, they are changed for the sake of culture/politics in ham-fisted ways.
Karol wrote: Yeah, but I wasn't talking about my store. I am was talking in general. It is a male dominated hobby world wide.
You can't claim "Women don't want to do Warhammer" in one sentence and then say "But there is no way to know why" in the other when people are explicitly telling you its because they feel unwelcome.
That claim can be made. There's room in between the 99% of women who would never be interested in warhammer, and then the social pressure "ick factor" experienced by the 1% that might.
RaptorusRex wrote: There is definitely a web of factors involved in how play is gendered.
On top of that, I just did a search for the oft-cited "monkeys play with gendered toys" study, only to find that another study was done in 2023 that supposedly came up with the opposite result. So like, square that circle.
Insectum7 wrote: I think that's Karols point. Godzilla, Fallout and Marvel (until recently) were just being more or less faithful to themselves, not "going woke" or whatever. Karol is saying that franchises falter when instead of sticking to their core themes or origins, they are changed for the sake of culture/politics in ham-fisted ways.
Original Godzilla: the living representation of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and thus an extremely destructive and vicious monster.
Legendary (and Heisei) Godzilla: basically a superhero.
Yeah no lol.
That aside I fail to see how male only Custodes are apparently a core theme of the IP when the Custodes themselves were a snippet of background lore until 7th ed.
Of course we could also talk about how many of the original concepts of Rogue Trader era 40k have been twisted or even outright dropped in modern 40k (like funnily enough: female Space Marines, insert rant of greedy GW betraying their original egalitarian principles for evil patriarchy money or whatever), all of which arguably far more deserving of criticism than female Custodes.
Insectum7 wrote: I think that's Karols point. Godzilla, Fallout and Marvel (until recently) were just being more or less faithful to themselves, not "going woke" or whatever. Karol is saying that franchises falter when instead of sticking to their core themes or origins, they are changed for the sake of culture/politics in ham-fisted ways.
Original Godzilla: the living representation of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and thus an extremely destructive and vicious monster.
Legendary (and Heisei) Godzilla: basically a superhero.
Yeah no.
That aside I fail to see how male only Custodes are apparently a core theme of the IP when the Custodes themselves were a snippet of background lore until 7th ed.
I think we're talking past each other here, and I think you missed Karols(and my) point. But I'm low on time so I'm just going to have to leave it at that.
Well, in 35 years of playing this game, I've encountered very few women who play. Generally, it was a spouse or significant other who would play for a bit and quit. Overall, they weren't interested in the game.
Granted, this is just the U.S. in multiple states but I'd imagine there is not a lot of women who play 40K in other countries.
Like many IPs, companies are trying to expand their audience to make more money. The challenge seems to be the more the company changes things to try and appeal to more people, it tends to have the opposite effect and appeal to less people. It is not about taking a comic and making it a movie. It is making significant changes to the core of the characters that is off-putting. It becomes bland and simply uninteresting.
I don't really care for this type of business as it feels very lazy and lacks a lot of creativity which is what made many of these IPs so popular and beloved.
40K is transitioning to become a lifestyle brand, though I guess it could be argued it already is. Do they make 40K plushies?
Noting I only read the past page, but I don't quite follow karol's argument anyways. They talk of how stuff like Dungeons and Dragons have lost popularity for pandering to women, when up until about 1 year ago when Hasbro decided to basically knife itself in the gut with piles of new 'influencer rules', the franchise was on a decade long growth amongst basically all demographics. The argument seems to be that since fewer women buy into 40k, that means fewer nods towards women existing need to be there, considering they specifically called out Age of Sigmar and its use of female models.
I mean, just anecdotally, even before its mainstream burst in popularity with 5th edition I played Dungeons and Dragons with several women, and it was my girlfriend who convinced me to get into 40k. It just seems odd to me that making even basic nods to women and minorities is marked as pandering and a method of leading to financial ruin.
It just seems like a bit of common courtesy, acknowledging traditionally 'other' groups as existing. Plus it leads to the fun of making more options to make your models 'your guys' - mixed gender group, or maybe you have an all lady guard regiment, or a gentleman's club, etc. A lot of this stuff existed in the lore in the past anyways, and there have been far worse retcons in 40k than letting Custodians be women.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: gender is far more complicated than a lot of people want to give it credit for, and all of those complications cascade into myriad other complications in each other way that gender intersects with our life. it's rarely simple!
Only it is. Simple economics show us it isn't. Just look at the most free, democratic and equal societies in the world, with a history of equality dating back centuries. And what do we see in them? That the more equal the society becomes, the divides between what men/women pick/like/etc does not change. In fact it is often the opposit. Are there any economical, social, law etc barriers for women to support female sports in western countries? No. Then why do they don't go watch (with few exeptions) them. There is not state standing above women with a stick and bashing them on the head, if they try to go and watch volley ball or basketball match.
No, it really isn't that simple - I say that as someone who realized they were trans just a year ago, and I'm in my 40's. While I surely continue to display some masculine mannerisms (transitioning doesn't happen overnight), it doesn't change how I see myself or who I am. And I, for one, welcome this change to the Custodes and would absolutely welcome female Marines. Seeing oneself on the tabletop matters, no matter who one is.
As some one who plays with an almost half female group i get the feeling that some of you are the problem and not a lack of females in the hobby. Quoting one of my friends when i suggested that we should play at our local store "it is full of weirdos that stare".
As for the whole first born sons of nobles thing, why cant both be true. Though i am also of the opinion that chapters like the blood angels that to my understanding care less for the genetic integrity of the aspirants could potentially throw female aspirants into to their magic blood coffins and get regular sexy male vampire out of it.
Yeah and how is it going for all the other frenchises that tried it? comic books, super hero movies, D&D, etc all male dominated for decades. Companies decided to open it up for new consumers and what happens? sales go down for everything. And the more controversial or "controversial" the changes the more it drops. Meanwhile frenchises that don't try to artificialy change are doing great. And the best thing women and men love Fallout, Dune, Godzilla. Mind blowing right. People do a proper Baldurs Gate and everyone loves it.
Lets take Godzilla as an example, a franchise originally meant for a Japanese audience (you know the whole giant walking nuclear distaster was kinda a big important cultural theme for the only country that has been nuked in war) and that was succesfully expanded to new customers (anyone not Japanese) to the point we have an entire new series within the IP made by non-Japanese for an international market.
Or Fallout, the series that just got a TV show that considerably expanded the target audience from gamers to a general audence (pretty much anyone that watches TV). Dune, expanding the target audience from people that read fiction sci-fi books to the larger general audience of people that watch movies.
Marvel literally shat gold in the billions by expanding from the minuscule audience of comics to the most succesfull cinematic franchise ever.
I think that's Karols point. Godzilla, Fallout and Marvel (until recently) were just being more or less faithful to themselves, not "going woke" or whatever. Karol is saying that franchises falter when instead of sticking to their core themes or origins, they are changed for the sake of culture/politics in ham-fisted ways.
Karol wrote: Yeah, but I wasn't talking about my store. I am was talking in general. It is a male dominated hobby world wide.
You can't claim "Women don't want to do Warhammer" in one sentence and then say "But there is no way to know why" in the other when people are explicitly telling you its because they feel unwelcome.
That claim can be made. There's room in between the 99% of women who would never be interested in warhammer, and then the social pressure "ick factor" experienced by the 1% that might.
RaptorusRex wrote: There is definitely a web of factors involved in how play is gendered.
On top of that, I just did a search for the oft-cited "monkeys play with gendered toys" study, only to find that another study was done in 2023 that supposedly came up with the opposite result. So like, square that circle.
Heh, half of science is collation.
At this point I ask "only half?"
The fact you resort to using the word woke scuttles your arguement from the start
Gaen wrote: As some one who plays with an almost half female group i get the feeling that some of you are the problem and not a lack of females in the hobby. Quoting one of my friends when i suggested that we should play at our local store "it is full of weirdos that stare".
there's a reason i don't play at my local gamestore but gladly engage with the hobby in spaces where i feel more comfortable (including this place, most of the time)
Gaen wrote:As some one who plays with an almost half female group i get the feeling that some of you are the problem and not a lack of females in the hobby. Quoting one of my friends when i suggested that we should play at our local store "it is full of weirdos that stare".
As for the whole first born sons of nobles thing, why cant both be true. Though i am also of the opinion that chapters like the blood angels that to my understanding care less for the genetic integrity of the aspirants could potentially throw female aspirants into to their magic blood coffins and get regular sexy male vampire out of it.
Yes, the simple fact is that people arguing here are doing so from personal experience and opinion, rather than data. Whether posters here understand it or not, representation does empirically matter. It has been studied to death. Women are more likely to apply for jobs in environments with other women, than environments with only men. Children a socialised by silent exclusion, you don't have to verbally say 'girls can't be doctors' to a girl, to ingrain in her mind that doctors are men with nothing but male (white) doctors in all environmental contexts.
The unconscious bias that affects how we act is in many ways more pernicious than the conscious, because you get people who don't recognise it and argue against it happening, as is clear in this thread.
The blood angels have been my favourite go to for the stupidty of antigirl geneseed - they take mutant runts and turn them into adonises, that requires far more genetic tampering than putting organs into a woman. The amount of deliberate backflips and stretching required to specifically prevent this working in women is ridiculous. It's like genetic gerrymandering...
The only real argument for female exclusion in fantasy is one of tradition. That traditionally, in our patriarchal society, realworld examples are mostly male. And thus, by tradition, we should keep it that way. Because those who enjoyed it within that traditional paradigm would find it unfamiliar outside that paradigm (this itself is the fallacy of tradition, but it continues to live throughout society). But that ignores everyone else outside it (and women have always been a catch-all demographic for gender/sex minority support, so they bring along all other identities) who could enjoy it where it not stuck in that paradigm.
The same argument was used against integration of non white actors, of representation of non-white characters. Whoopi Goldberg famously quoted as a child in the 60s pointing out Uhura was black and NOT a maid on primetime tv, affecting her outlook on what she could accomplish.
All of this is basically down to an inability to truly empathise with someone other than yourself, to empathise with someone who's lived experience differs. To trust them when they say that their experience affects them differently to your experience and that impacts them in society. This is where the concept of privilege comes from, if you cannot understand these experiences, it's because you were privileged to never have to live them. But that doesn't mean they didn't happen just because you don't understand.
It's a sad fact that men rarely see these things, and when they do only through the lens of women they are actually invested in - daughters for example.
The only real argument for female exclusion in fantasy is one of tradition. That traditionally, in our patriarchal society, realworld examples are mostly male. And thus, by tradition, we should keep it that way. Because those who enjoyed it within that traditional paradigm would find it unfamiliar outside that paradigm (this itself is the fallacy of tradition, but it continues to live throughout society). But that ignores everyone else outside it (and women have always been a catch-all demographic for gender/sex minority support, so they bring along all other identities) who could enjoy it where it not stuck in that paradigm.
The same argument was used against integration of non white actors, of representation of non-white characters. Whoopi Goldberg famously quoted as a child in the 60s pointing out Uhura was black and NOT a maid on primetime tv, affecting her outlook on what she could accomplish.
All of this is basically down to an inability to truly empathise with someone other than yourself, to empathise with someone who's lived experience differs. To trust them when they say that their experience affects them differently to your experience and that impacts them in society. This is where the concept of privilege comes from, if you cannot understand these experiences, it's because you were privileged to never have to live them. But that doesn't mean they didn't happen just because you don't understand.
It's a sad fact that men rarely see these things, and when they do only through the lens of women they are actually invested in - daughters for example.
This is also why I think representation matters not just directly to those being represented, but also for the way those people are perceived by everyone else. When the 'other' is properly represented in the media we consume, it eventually stops being 'other'.
The only real argument for female exclusion in fantasy is one of tradition. That traditionally, in our patriarchal society, realworld examples are mostly male. And thus, by tradition, we should keep it that way. Because those who enjoyed it within that traditional paradigm would find it unfamiliar outside that paradigm (this itself is the fallacy of tradition, but it continues to live throughout society). But that ignores everyone else outside it (and women have always been a catch-all demographic for gender/sex minority support, so they bring along all other identities) who could enjoy it where it not stuck in that paradigm.
The same argument was used against integration of non white actors, of representation of non-white characters. Whoopi Goldberg famously quoted as a child in the 60s pointing out Uhura was black and NOT a maid on primetime tv, affecting her outlook on what she could accomplish.
All of this is basically down to an inability to truly empathise with someone other than yourself, to empathise with someone who's lived experience differs. To trust them when they say that their experience affects them differently to your experience and that impacts them in society. This is where the concept of privilege comes from, if you cannot understand these experiences, it's because you were privileged to never have to live them. But that doesn't mean they didn't happen just because you don't understand.
It's a sad fact that men rarely see these things, and when they do only through the lens of women they are actually invested in - daughters for example.
This is also why I think representation matters not just directly to those being represented, but also for the way those people are perceived by everyone else. When the 'other' is properly represented in the media we consume, it eventually stops being 'other'.
Yes absolutely. 'Strong female characters' only exist because they are the exception. Eventually they will just be 'characters' (but you have to go through this process or you'll never get to that new normal). The representation of non white characters and gay characters in TV have been a good example of this. 30 years ago 'gay' was the entire identity of the character, because it was an exception and unusual. Now, we see characters who also happen to be gay, so normalised has it become, it no longer defines the character.
You can't build the empathy of individuals without giving them something to work with. Boys need to see as many types of female characters as girls need to see. Everyone needs to see many types of male characters, beyond the masculine stereotype so that they don't feel othered or wrong. And of course all other identities.
Yeah and how is it going for all the other frenchises that tried it? comic books, super hero movies, D&D, etc all male dominated for decades. Companies decided to open it up for new consumers and what happens? sales go down for everything. And the more controversial or "controversial" the changes the more it drops. Meanwhile frenchises that don't try to artificialy change are doing great. And the best thing women and men love Fallout, Dune, Godzilla. Mind blowing right. People do a proper Baldurs Gate and everyone loves it.
Lets take Godzilla as an example, a franchise originally meant for a Japanese audience (you know the whole giant walking nuclear distaster was kinda a big important cultural theme for the only country that has been nuked in war) and that was succesfully expanded to new customers (anyone not Japanese) to the point we have an entire new series within the IP made by non-Japanese for an international market.
Or Fallout, the series that just got a TV show that considerably expanded the target audience from gamers to a general audence (pretty much anyone that watches TV). Dune, expanding the target audience from people that read fiction sci-fi books to the larger general audience of people that watch movies.
Marvel literally shat gold in the billions by expanding from the minuscule audience of comics to the most succesfull cinematic franchise ever.
I think that's Karols point. Godzilla, Fallout and Marvel (until recently) were just being more or less faithful to themselves, not "going woke" or whatever. Karol is saying that franchises falter when instead of sticking to their core themes or origins, they are changed for the sake of culture/politics in ham-fisted ways.
Karol wrote: Yeah, but I wasn't talking about my store. I am was talking in general. It is a male dominated hobby world wide.
You can't claim "Women don't want to do Warhammer" in one sentence and then say "But there is no way to know why" in the other when people are explicitly telling you its because they feel unwelcome.
That claim can be made. There's room in between the 99% of women who would never be interested in warhammer, and then the social pressure "ick factor" experienced by the 1% that might.
RaptorusRex wrote: There is definitely a web of factors involved in how play is gendered.
On top of that, I just did a search for the oft-cited "monkeys play with gendered toys" study, only to find that another study was done in 2023 that supposedly came up with the opposite result. So like, square that circle.
Heh, half of science is collation.
At this point I ask "only half?"
The fact you resort to using the word woke scuttles your arguement from the start
How dismissive of you. I put it in quotes to denote that I'm not really on board with the language, just recognizing that it's in the vernacular. I implore you to try and get past it.
This is also why I think representation matters not just directly to those being represented, but also for the way those people are perceived by everyone else. When the 'other' is properly represented in the media we consume, it eventually stops being 'other'.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Unfortunately for me one of the first great examples for positive minority representation that comes to mind is The Cosby Show, which of course now makes me wince. :/
This is also why I think representation matters not just directly to those being represented, but also for the way those people are perceived by everyone else. When the 'other' is properly represented in the media we consume, it eventually stops being 'other'.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Unfortunately for me one of the first great examples for positive minority representation that comes to mind is The Cosby Show, which of course now makes me wince. :/
Damnit.
Ummmm.......maybe think of the Jeffersons, instead?
Also, female Custodes. Cool. I hope everyone enjoys their increased modeling options and representation, sincerely.
This is also why I think representation matters not just directly to those being represented, but also for the way those people are perceived by everyone else. When the 'other' is properly represented in the media we consume, it eventually stops being 'other'.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Unfortunately for me one of the first great examples for positive minority representation that comes to mind is The Cosby Show, which of course now makes me wince. :/
Damnit.
Ummmm.......maybe think of the Jeffersons, instead?
A good idea, but for better or for worse Cosby is the one my family watched.
This is also why I think representation matters not just directly to those being represented, but also for the way those people are perceived by everyone else. When the 'other' is properly represented in the media we consume, it eventually stops being 'other'.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Unfortunately for me one of the first great examples for positive minority representation that comes to mind is The Cosby Show, which of course now makes me wince. :/
Damnit.
Ummmm.......maybe think of the Jeffersons, instead?
A good idea, but for better or for worse Cosby is the one my family watched.
I see with some of my younger friends it’s Blizzard, clearly a lot of passionate people working for the company that want to do the best.
And management that needs a thorough shake through.
Also this made it onto the defranco show on YouTube, a little embarrassing.
I have some thoughts, which I may write up later.
Here we go, down into the fire and the flames, but frig it. I hate doing this; I don't want the anxiety and waste my time debating again online. But here we go.
Female Custodes shouldn't be a thing. There, I said it: one compelling lore argument is that the big reason why the Emperor made the Astartes only male is because he was afraid that if they were made both out of males and females is the danger they might find a way to reproduce. This would mean if they could create Space Marine children, they would, in all likelihood, take control over humanity.
So, if the Emperor felt that way about the Astartes, wouldn't he have the same sentiment toward the Custodes?
Now, on to the "real world" reason why there shouldn't be female Space Marines or Custodes. I find it incredibly ironic and hypocritical that the people who accuse those of not liking the Femcustodes do so out of a "lack of empathy" because their wish to have female Astartes and Custodes shows an incredible level of lack of empathy. The definition of empathy or one of them is (and this is the definition they refer to is: "Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding." This is also shown by using such demeaning terms as "incel", "misogynist", and assuming race, gender, etc.
This shows that they need to have shallow physical similarities, such as race and gender, to identify with a character or faction, etc and believe that a lot of people who share these facets need these things as much. Those who agree with them but do not share these things show a level of arrogance that they believe people who are part of minorities need to share such skin-deep similarities to identify with these things. Yes, there are people who are women who demand female Astartes, by the Emperor. I've seen many online, and some have shown an incredible level of bigotry and misandry. But in truth, each person, whether they be a minority or not, is an individual, and many can identify with people who have different skin tones, genders, etc. I'll use myself as one example; I sympathise a lot with Nico Robin from One Piece not because I have an equally tragic backstory (I've had a bad one, sure, but not the same) but because we're both bookish introverts with a thirst for knowledge and love for weird things most people find ugly, etc. The difference in gender and that she's an animated character is irrelevant.
Another incredibly anecdotal example, which I feel is a powerful one, is a few years back, I got a PM on fanfiction dot net from a man telling me that he named his son after the main character from my Secret War stories, Attelus Kaltos; he also happened to be black and from Africa. Why did he do this? Because he found identification with Attelus, who so happened to be a pale, white dude. He empathised with Attelus' struggles and outlooks. If he cared about the level of melanin in the skin of a character over their personality and strifes, he would've named his son after Marcel Torris, who so happened to have similar levels of melanin. Do the people who want not to have female Custodes are they superhuman Adonises? No, well, probably not. I haven't met any of them face-to-face, but that doesn't stop them from liking them or maybe even finding something of their personalities in them.
We find this again and again in 40k, the personalities aligning with a faction so choosing them. The big, loud guy who loved the Orks so collects them, yelling WAAAGHHH! When declaring it during their game of 40k.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of people love to see themselves physically represented in fiction, and that's an understandable sentiment, but there are other ways to get that. Make your own Space Marine chapter of female marines and give them heads with feminine features, and if you really want to, green stuff on boob plates. More power to you! They're your minis and headcanon. Paint your marines like the pride flag or Trans flag. Sure, idiots like me might find it a bit cringeworthy, but that's your prerogative. Your minis are your minis, and that's that. Many struggles are inherent due to your gender or skin colour, but a lot of fiction is allegorical. The X-men is allegorical to the struggle of black people fighting for equal rights in the 20th century. But do you think that having a female Custodes would have any struggles that are in line with a woman of the current year? Frig no, she'd be just like the other Custodes, dutiful to a greater or lesser extent, big, strong etc. Because all the change is that she might have slightly more feminine features and maybe boob plates and longer hair, and that'd be it! The change is superficial and drains out some of the uniqueness of the setting. Why? I'm pretty sure there aren't many Science Fantasy settings that have four gendered factions, two of which work closely with one another, and this, I believe, decreases representation if you make even one of them mixed because it allows four unique options for people to play. Making them more like Spartans, or as people have pointed out, Stormcast Eternals. Also, the big reason why people liked female Stormcast Eternals is because there's no need for extensive and painstaking genetic modification to make them; it's just pure magic to make them.
I now go back, again, to the obvious lack of empathy of people who celebrate this change and/or demand female Space Marines and likely why they argue from a "real world" perspective while those who don't like it argue from a lore perspective? It's because, in all likelihood, those who don't want the change love the lore and accept it for what it is. They hold it in much higher regard and very likely see how shallow this change it, even if on a subconscious level. The pro-change side seems to lack the empathy to even try to understand why people don't want the change. This is one of the many reasons why this change shouldn't happen; the change is to appeal to people who believe their perspective is above all others and won't even try to emphasise with their detractors, which is a damned red flag if you ask me.
Thank you for reading my big wall of text, and I hope you're having a good day.
Adrassil wrote: Here we go, down into the fire and the flames, but frig it. I hate doing this; I don't want the anxiety and waste my time debating again online. But here we go.
Female Custodes shouldn't be a thing. There, I said it: one compelling lore argument is that the big reason why the Emperor made the Astartes only male is because he was afraid that if they were made both out of males and females is the danger they might find a way to reproduce. This would mean if they could create Space Marine children, they would, in all likelihood, take control over humanity.
So, if the Emperor felt that way about the Astartes, wouldn't he have the same sentiment toward the Custodes?
Now, on to the "real world" reason why there shouldn't be female Space Marines or Custodes. I find it incredibly ironic and hypocritical that the people who accuse those of not liking the Femcustodes do so out of a "lack of empathy" because their wish to have female Astartes and Custodes shows an incredible level of lack of empathy. The definition of empathy or one of them is (and this is the definition they refer to is: "Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding." This is also shown by using such demeaning terms as "incel", "misogynist", and assuming race, gender, etc.
This shows that they need to have shallow physical similarities, such as race and gender, to identify with a character or faction, etc and believe that a lot of people who share these facets need these things as much. Those who agree with them but do not share these things show a level of arrogance that they believe people who are part of minorities need to share such skin-deep similarities to identify with these things. Yes, there are people who are women who demand female Astartes, by the Emperor. I've seen many online, and some have shown an incredible level of bigotry and misandry. But in truth, each person, whether they be a minority or not, is an individual, and many can identify with people who have different skin tones, genders, etc. I'll use myself as one example; I sympathise a lot with Nico Robin from One Piece not because I have an equally tragic backstory (I've had a bad one, sure, but not the same) but because we're both bookish introverts with a thirst for knowledge and love for weird things most people find ugly, etc. The difference in gender and that she's an animated character is irrelevant.
Another incredibly anecdotal example, which I feel is a powerful one, is a few years back, I got a PM on fanfiction dot net from a man telling me that he named his son after the main character from my Secret War stories, Attelus Kaltos; he also happened to be black and from Africa. Why did he do this? Because he found identification with Attelus, who so happened to be a pale, white dude. He empathised with Attelus' struggles and outlooks. If he cared about the level of melanin in the skin of a character over their personality and strifes, he would've named his son after Marcel Torris, who so happened to have similar levels of melanin. Do the people who want not to have female Custodes are they superhuman Adonises? No, well, probably not. I haven't met any of them face-to-face, but that doesn't stop them from liking them or maybe even finding something of their personalities in them.
We find this again and again in 40k, the personalities aligning with a faction so choosing them. The big, loud guy who loved the Orks so collects them, yelling WAAAGHHH! When declaring it during their game of 40k.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of people love to see themselves physically represented in fiction, and that's an understandable sentiment, but there are other ways to get that. Make your own Space Marine chapter of female marines and give them heads with feminine features, and if you really want to, green stuff on boob plates. More power to you! They're your minis and headcanon. Paint your marines like the pride flag or Trans flag. Sure, idiots like me might find it a bit cringeworthy, but that's your prerogative. Your minis are your minis, and that's that. Many struggles are inherent due to your gender or skin colour, but a lot of fiction is allegorical. The X-men is allegorical to the struggle of black people fighting for equal rights in the 20th century. But do you think that having a female Custodes would have any struggles that are in line with a woman of the current year? Frig no, she'd be just like the other Custodes, dutiful to a greater or lesser extent, big, strong etc. Because all the change is that she might have slightly more feminine features and maybe boob plates and longer hair, and that'd be it! The change is superficial and drains out some of the uniqueness of the setting. Why? I'm pretty sure there aren't many Science Fantasy settings that have four gendered factions, two of which work closely with one another, and this, I believe, decreases representation if you make even one of them mixed because it allows four unique options for people to play. Making them more like Spartans, or as people have pointed out, Stormcast Eternals. Also, the big reason why people liked female Stormcast Eternals is because there's no need for extensive and painstaking genetic modification to make them; it's just pure magic to make them.
I now go back, again, to the obvious lack of empathy of people who celebrate this change and/or demand female Space Marines and likely why they argue from a "real world" perspective while those who don't like it argue from a lore perspective? It's because, in all likelihood, those who don't want the change love the lore and accept it for what it is. They hold it in much higher regard and very likely see how shallow this change it, even if on a subconscious level. The pro-change side seems to lack the empathy to even try to understand why people don't want the change. This is one of the many reasons why this change shouldn't happen; the change is to appeal to people who believe their perspective is above all others and won't even try to emphasise with their detractors, which is a damned red flag if you ask me.
Thank you for reading my big wall of text, and I hope you're having a good day.
You got a reference for that baby thing, heard it said a lot but never seen it written anywhere, I’m not a reader of the heresy books so could easy have missed it.
As for the rest of your post, you are truly missing the point of representation and how it works.
It’s been said plenty on here already but “just make your marines” female doesn’t work. Because the community lambasts anyone who does. From not getting games to getting vile hate messages online. It isn’t that simple.
One thing that gives me hope for his community is over the years each time the topic comes up it is a bit less toxic and more accepting. We are making progress. A few years again I raised a thread about female marines and it was shut in minutes because of the horrific stuff said in it. Now for the most part we can have the discussion. Still no compelling reason to keep the lore as is but a more civilised discussion. And it’s great to see more people on here who are able to open about who they are, still work to do but this move by gw is a good one, please marines next.
Adrassil wrote: Here we go, down into the fire and the flames, but frig it. I hate doing this; I don't want the anxiety and waste my time debating again online. But here we go.
Female Custodes shouldn't be a thing. There, I said it: one compelling lore argument is that the big reason why the Emperor made the Astartes only male is because he was afraid that if they were made both out of males and females is the danger they might find a way to reproduce. This would mean if they could create Space Marine children, they would, in all likelihood, take control over humanity.
So, if the Emperor felt that way about the Astartes, wouldn't he have the same sentiment toward the Custodes?
Now, on to the "real world" reason why there shouldn't be female Space Marines or Custodes. I find it incredibly ironic and hypocritical that the people who accuse those of not liking the Femcustodes do so out of a "lack of empathy" because their wish to have female Astartes and Custodes shows an incredible level of lack of empathy. The definition of empathy or one of them is (and this is the definition they refer to is: "Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding." This is also shown by using such demeaning terms as "incel", "misogynist", and assuming race, gender, etc.
This shows that they need to have shallow physical similarities, such as race and gender, to identify with a character or faction, etc and believe that a lot of people who share these facets need these things as much. Those who agree with them but do not share these things show a level of arrogance that they believe people who are part of minorities need to share such skin-deep similarities to identify with these things. Yes, there are people who are women who demand female Astartes, by the Emperor. I've seen many online, and some have shown an incredible level of bigotry and misandry. But in truth, each person, whether they be a minority or not, is an individual, and many can identify with people who have different skin tones, genders, etc. I'll use myself as one example; I sympathise a lot with Nico Robin from One Piece not because I have an equally tragic backstory (I've had a bad one, sure, but not the same) but because we're both bookish introverts with a thirst for knowledge and love for weird things most people find ugly, etc. The difference in gender and that she's an animated character is irrelevant.
Another incredibly anecdotal example, which I feel is a powerful one, is a few years back, I got a PM on fanfiction dot net from a man telling me that he named his son after the main character from my Secret War stories, Attelus Kaltos; he also happened to be black and from Africa. Why did he do this? Because he found identification with Attelus, who so happened to be a pale, white dude. He empathised with Attelus' struggles and outlooks. If he cared about the level of melanin in the skin of a character over their personality and strifes, he would've named his son after Marcel Torris, who so happened to have similar levels of melanin. Do the people who want not to have female Custodes are they superhuman Adonises? No, well, probably not. I haven't met any of them face-to-face, but that doesn't stop them from liking them or maybe even finding something of their personalities in them.
We find this again and again in 40k, the personalities aligning with a faction so choosing them. The big, loud guy who loved the Orks so collects them, yelling WAAAGHHH! When declaring it during their game of 40k.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of people love to see themselves physically represented in fiction, and that's an understandable sentiment, but there are other ways to get that. Make your own Space Marine chapter of female marines and give them heads with feminine features, and if you really want to, green stuff on boob plates. More power to you! They're your minis and headcanon. Paint your marines like the pride flag or Trans flag. Sure, idiots like me might find it a bit cringeworthy, but that's your prerogative. Your minis are your minis, and that's that. Many struggles are inherent due to your gender or skin colour, but a lot of fiction is allegorical. The X-men is allegorical to the struggle of black people fighting for equal rights in the 20th century. But do you think that having a female Custodes would have any struggles that are in line with a woman of the current year? Frig no, she'd be just like the other Custodes, dutiful to a greater or lesser extent, big, strong etc. Because all the change is that she might have slightly more feminine features and maybe boob plates and longer hair, and that'd be it! The change is superficial and drains out some of the uniqueness of the setting. Why? I'm pretty sure there aren't many Science Fantasy settings that have four gendered factions, two of which work closely with one another, and this, I believe, decreases representation if you make even one of them mixed because it allows four unique options for people to play. Making them more like Spartans, or as people have pointed out, Stormcast Eternals. Also, the big reason why people liked female Stormcast Eternals is because there's no need for extensive and painstaking genetic modification to make them; it's just pure magic to make them.
I now go back, again, to the obvious lack of empathy of people who celebrate this change and/or demand female Space Marines and likely why they argue from a "real world" perspective while those who don't like it argue from a lore perspective? It's because, in all likelihood, those who don't want the change love the lore and accept it for what it is. They hold it in much higher regard and very likely see how shallow this change it, even if on a subconscious level. The pro-change side seems to lack the empathy to even try to understand why people don't want the change. This is one of the many reasons why this change shouldn't happen; the change is to appeal to people who believe their perspective is above all others and won't even try to emphasise with their detractors, which is a damned red flag if you ask me.
Thank you for reading my big wall of text, and I hope you're having a good day.
You got a reference for that baby thing, heard it said a lot but never seen it written anywhere, I’m not a reader of the heresy books so could easy have missed it.
As for the rest of your post, you are truly missing the point of representation and how it works.
It’s been said plenty on here already but “just make your marines” female doesn’t work. Because the community lambasts anyone who does. From not getting games to getting vile hate messages online. It isn’t that simple.
One thing that gives me hope for his community is over the years each time the topic comes up it is a bit less toxic and more accepting. We are making progress. A few years again I raised a thread about female marines and it was shut in minutes because of the horrific stuff said in it. Now for the most part we can have the discussion. Still no compelling reason to keep the lore as is but a more civilised discussion. And it’s great to see more people on here who are able to open about who they are, still work to do but this move by gw is a good one, please marines next.
Only the Emperor himself has any understanding of the gene-alchemy. Some Custodes probably understand enough to work it, but have no desire to try and alter it.
Female Custodes shouldn't be a thing. There, I said it: one compelling lore argument is that the big reason why the Emperor made the Astartes only male is because he was afraid that if they were made both out of males and females is the danger they might find a way to reproduce. This would mean if they could create Space Marine children, they would, in all likelihood, take control over humanity.
I don't think this is actually a lore argument though. Don't get me wrong, it is a plausible explanation for things depicted in the lore, but unless it actually appears in the lore, it is not a lore argument, no matter how plausibly it might explain things that do appear in the lore.
Now, on to the "real world" reason why there shouldn't be female Space Marines or Custodes. I find it incredibly ironic and hypocritical that the people who accuse those of not liking the Femcustodes do so out of a "lack of empathy" because their wish to have female Astartes and Custodes shows an incredible level of lack of empathy. The definition of empathy or one of them is (and this is the definition they refer to is: "Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding." This is also shown by using such demeaning terms as "incel", "misogynist", and assuming race, gender, etc.
Some people on the pro-fem side have described others as having a lack of empathy (I think- more on this later), and some of us have made assumptions about both gender and race of posters based on what they post. However, I mentioned earlier in the thread that I don't think I've actually seen anyone in this thread use the term incel or misogyny other than those who say people here are calling them incels or misogynists.
Now a couple caveats on that: the thread is long enough now that rechecking the whole thing is burdensome, and I'm not going to do it- I'm sure I've read every post in the thread at least once, and I don't remember it, but of course I could have missed something, especially if any posts have been removed by mods. If someone else feels the need, please correct me if I'm wrong (and quote the offence as proof). Also, we may have said that there are misogynists and incels in the hobby, some of whom play in stores and consciously or unconsciously make women feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, but that is not the same as accusing a fellow Dakkanaught of being an incel or a misogynist.
To get back to the empathy issue: I find it useful to differentiate between intellectual understanding and visceral understanding. The first is a product of the mind; the second is better descried as being a product of the heart.... Although that isn't really accurate, because the actual organ of the heart is not responsible for emotions at all, despite what romantics say.
Those who consider themselves empathic can intellectually understand the PTSD of a soldier who comes back from a theatre of war changed. We feel sympathy, we alter our behaviour to make that person feel safe and welcome in our company, and we defend them when others criticize them for actions that result from their PTSD because we understand their circumstances. But it's all just intellectual understanding.
The person who has the visceral understanding? That's the person who has also been to war and come home changed.
The difference between the two is that if they're out for a walk with their soldier friend, and a car backfires loudly and causes their friend to hit the deck, the one with intellectual understanding will get it; the one with visceral understanding will hit the deck with their friend, likely covering or being covered by them, because they've fething been there. They don't just get it, they've lived it.
There is a difference, and no matter who proud ANY of us (including myself) are of our powers of empathy, I think it's prudent to acknowledge that in most cases, empathy provides intellectual understanding at best.
This shows that they need to have shallow physical similarities, such as race and gender, to identify with a character or faction, etc and believe that a lot of people who share these facets need these things as much.
I don't think people are actually saying this either.
Yes, people feel more included when they see a model in the game or a character in the lore who shares their physical characteristics, and yes, that will make them more likely to develop a lasting interest in the hobby- but that's not the same as "needing the model or character to share their characteristics in order to relate to it."
I think that one thing affecting everyone in the debate, and really, any debate in the media-driven, online world of the 21st century (again, myself included) is that when we react to people who take the opposite point of view, we aren't just reacting to that person and what they specifically have said- we're reacting to ALL of the people who take the opposite point of view and EVERYTHING that ALL of them have said. This is how we become polarized... Or radicalized, depending upon context and your point of view.
Adrassil wrote: I now go back, again, to the obvious lack of empathy of people who celebrate this change and/or demand female Space Marines and likely why they argue from a "real world" perspective while those who don't like it argue from a lore perspective? It's because, in all likelihood, those who don't want the change love the lore and accept it for what it is. They hold it in much higher regard and very likely see how shallow this change it, even if on a subconscious level. The pro-change side seems to lack the empathy to even try to understand why people don't want the change. This is one of the many reasons why this change shouldn't happen; the change is to appeal to people who believe their perspective is above all others and won't even try to emphasise with their detractors, which is a damned red flag if you ask me.
You make a well reasoned post, but this bit screams of "be tolerant of my intolerance"
Sarigar wrote: Well, in 35 years of playing this game, I've encountered very few women who play. Generally, it was a spouse or significant other who would play for a bit and quit. Overall, they weren't interested in the game.
Granted, this is just the U.S. in multiple states but I'd imagine there is not a lot of women who play 40K in other countries.
Like many IPs, companies are trying to expand their audience to make more money. The challenge seems to be the more the company changes things to try and appeal to more people, it tends to have the opposite effect and appeal to less people. It is not about taking a comic and making it a movie. It is making significant changes to the core of the characters that is off-putting. It becomes bland and simply uninteresting.
I don't really care for this type of business as it feels very lazy and lacks a lot of creativity which is what made many of these IPs so popular and beloved.
40K is transitioning to become a lifestyle brand, though I guess it could be argued it already is. Do they make 40K plushies?
Because men would make inappropriate jokes, hit on them, and occasionally actively harass and threaten them.
there are a lot of women gamers, of all sorts. Gary Gygax literally said the same thing that you did right here about DnD. Which now has a SIGNIFICANT amount of women playing it. Why was gygax wrong? Because Gygax was a misogynist.
Gaen wrote: As some one who plays with an almost half female group i get the feeling that some of you are the problem and not a lack of females in the hobby. Quoting one of my friends when i suggested that we should play at our local store "it is full of weirdos that stare".
there's a reason i don't play at my local gamestore but gladly engage with the hobby in spaces where i feel more comfortable (including this place, most of the time)
Dakkadakka is a bastion for more conservative gamers who don't want women in the hobby though.
I mean it's better than twitter or reddit, but those bars are subterranean.
Adrassil wrote: I now go back, again, to the obvious lack of empathy of people who celebrate this change and/or demand female Space Marines and likely why they argue from a "real world" perspective while those who don't like it argue from a lore perspective? It's because, in all likelihood, those who don't want the change love the lore and accept it for what it is. They hold it in much higher regard and very likely see how shallow this change it, even if on a subconscious level. The pro-change side seems to lack the empathy to even try to understand why people don't want the change. This is one of the many reasons why this change shouldn't happen; the change is to appeal to people who believe their perspective is above all others and won't even try to emphasise with their detractors, which is a damned red flag if you ask me.
You make a well reasoned post, but this bit screams of "be tolerant of my intolerance"
Not all viewpoints deserve equal treatment.
We also understand why people don't want the change. They don't want women in the hobby. A large set of men have always been incredibly hostile to women entering what are seen as traditionally male spaces. It's created long lasting active political movements.
Or maybee people don't like beeing told what they have to believe or do or dislike beeing considered something they aren't. Hence why even Harvard had to admit that compelled diversity programms don't work at all since the statistics were rather compelling in 2016 no less published in their Harvard buissness review magazine as an exemple.
Not Online!!! wrote: Or maybee people don't like beeing told what they have to believe or do or dislike beeing considered something they aren't.
Hence why even Harvard had to admit that compelled diversity programms don't work at all since the statistics were rather compelling in 2016 no less published in their Harvard buissness review magazine as an exemple.
Not Online!!! wrote: Or maybee people don't like beeing told what they have to believe or do or dislike beeing considered something they aren't.
Hence why even Harvard had to admit that compelled diversity programms don't work at all since the statistics were rather compelling in 2016 no less published in their Harvard buissness review magazine as an exemple.
Sarigar wrote: Well, in 35 years of playing this game, I've encountered very few women who play. Generally, it was a spouse or significant other who would play for a bit and quit. Overall, they weren't interested in the game.
Granted, this is just the U.S. in multiple states but I'd imagine there is not a lot of women who play 40K in other countries.
Like many IPs, companies are trying to expand their audience to make more money. The challenge seems to be the more the company changes things to try and appeal to more people, it tends to have the opposite effect and appeal to less people. It is not about taking a comic and making it a movie. It is making significant changes to the core of the characters that is off-putting. It becomes bland and simply uninteresting.
I don't really care for this type of business as it feels very lazy and lacks a lot of creativity which is what made many of these IPs so popular and beloved.
40K is transitioning to become a lifestyle brand, though I guess it could be argued it already is. Do they make 40K plushies?
Because men would make inappropriate jokes, hit on them, and occasionally actively harass and threaten them.
there are a lot of women gamers, of all sorts. Gary Gygax literally said the same thing that you did right here about DnD. Which now has a SIGNIFICANT amount of women playing it. Why was gygax wrong? Because Gygax was a misogynist.
Gaen wrote: As some one who plays with an almost half female group i get the feeling that some of you are the problem and not a lack of females in the hobby. Quoting one of my friends when i suggested that we should play at our local store "it is full of weirdos that stare".
there's a reason i don't play at my local gamestore but gladly engage with the hobby in spaces where i feel more comfortable (including this place, most of the time)
Dakkadakka is a bastion for more conservative gamers who don't want women in the hobby though.
I mean it's better than twitter or reddit, but those bars are subterranean.
Adrassil wrote: I now go back, again, to the obvious lack of empathy of people who celebrate this change and/or demand female Space Marines and likely why they argue from a "real world" perspective while those who don't like it argue from a lore perspective? It's because, in all likelihood, those who don't want the change love the lore and accept it for what it is. They hold it in much higher regard and very likely see how shallow this change it, even if on a subconscious level. The pro-change side seems to lack the empathy to even try to understand why people don't want the change. This is one of the many reasons why this change shouldn't happen; the change is to appeal to people who believe their perspective is above all others and won't even try to emphasise with their detractors, which is a damned red flag if you ask me.
You make a well reasoned post, but this bit screams of "be tolerant of my intolerance"
Not all viewpoints deserve equal treatment.
We also understand why people don't want the change. They don't want women in the hobby. A large set of men have always been incredibly hostile to women entering what are seen as traditionally male spaces. It's created long lasting active political movements.
Nice try. I reject the broad generalization you espouse against all male gamers. I've played RPGs since the early 80's and 40K since the late 80's. Those who want to participate do. If your experience has been all women are treated poorly in gaming, you may want to look within yourself.
Gaen wrote: As some one who plays with an almost half female group i get the feeling that some of you are the problem and not a lack of females in the hobby. Quoting one of my friends when i suggested that we should play at our local store "it is full of weirdos that stare".
there's a reason i don't play at my local gamestore but gladly engage with the hobby in spaces where i feel more comfortable (including this place, most of the time)
Dakkadakka is a bastion for more conservative gamers who don't want women in the hobby though.
I mean it's better than twitter or reddit, but those bars are subterranean.
the last time i was at my LGS buying a new kit, there was a man at one of the painting tables loudly talking about his fantasy to mutilate and kill the people who had recently stolen his truck. conversely, this place, being strictly over the internet, means i can pick and choose when i want to engage with people. if someone is being sexist (or just has an opinion i don't like), i can choose whether i want to engage or not. even a place like this on the internet is still nicer than a place with similar attitudes irl (most of the time; the last few days have certainly been rocky!)
Adrassil wrote:Female Custodes shouldn't be a thing. There, I said it: one compelling lore argument is that the big reason why the Emperor made the Astartes only male is because he was afraid that if they were made both out of males and females is the danger they might find a way to reproduce. This would mean if they could create Space Marine children, they would, in all likelihood, take control over humanity.
So, if the Emperor felt that way about the Astartes, wouldn't he have the same sentiment toward the Custodes?
This has never been written in any BL book, or GW product. This is entirely a fanon position. This is not "one compelling lore argument" or a "big reason", because it is not rooted at all in any material GW have produced.
There is no reason to suggest that Custodes and Astartes are even capable of reproduction.
Not Online!!! wrote: Or maybee people don't like beeing told what they have to believe or do or dislike beeing considered something they aren't.
Hence why even Harvard had to admit that compelled diversity programms don't work at all since the statistics were rather compelling in 2016 no less published in their Harvard buissness review magazine as an exemple.
Gaen wrote: As some one who plays with an almost half female group i get the feeling that some of you are the problem and not a lack of females in the hobby. Quoting one of my friends when i suggested that we should play at our local store "it is full of weirdos that stare".
there's a reason i don't play at my local gamestore but gladly engage with the hobby in spaces where i feel more comfortable (including this place, most of the time)
Dakkadakka is a bastion for more conservative gamers who don't want women in the hobby though.
I mean it's better than twitter or reddit, but those bars are subterranean.
the last time i was at my LGS buying a new kit, there was a man at one of the painting tables loudly talking about his fantasy to mutilate and kill the people who had recently stolen his truck. conversely, this place, being strictly over the internet, means i can pick and choose when i want to engage with people. if someone is being sexist (or just has an opinion i don't like), i can choose whether i want to engage or not. even a place like this on the internet is still nicer than a place with similar attitudes irl (most of the time; the last few days have certainly been rocky!)
Well, you can do that IRL, but I understand your concern. That sounds like a really scary experience. More generally, I think a lot of nerds are just unfamiliar with women, or they do need to learn how to take care of themselves (being clean not only helps others' perception of you, but your perception of yourself, go figure).
We can encourage each other and discourage bad behavior as communities; it's not hard.
Adrassil wrote: I now go back, again, to the obvious lack of empathy of people who celebrate this change and/or demand female Space Marines and likely why they argue from a "real world" perspective while those who don't like it argue from a lore perspective? It's because, in all likelihood, those who don't want the change love the lore and accept it for what it is. They hold it in much higher regard and very likely see how shallow this change it, even if on a subconscious level. The pro-change side seems to lack the empathy to even try to understand why people don't want the change. This is one of the many reasons why this change shouldn't happen; the change is to appeal to people who believe their perspective is above all others and won't even try to emphasise with their detractors, which is a damned red flag if you ask me.
You make a well reasoned post, but this bit screams of "be tolerant of my intolerance"
Not all viewpoints deserve equal treatment.
We also understand why people don't want the change. They don't want women in the hobby. A large set of men have always been incredibly hostile to women entering what are seen as traditionally male spaces. It's created long lasting active political movements.
No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
Insectum7 wrote: No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
So you're perfectly happy for women to visit the hobby on your terms.
Insectum7 wrote: No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
So you're perfectly happy for women to visit the hobby on your terms.
We also understand why people don't want the change. They don't want women in the hobby.
well, that is sexism if you think woman want only to play with female models or armies containing female models
this change is mostly there for man who want female models because sex sells
from experience, woman chose Eldar/DarkEldar for aesthetics, Orks because they are funny or Chaos Marines rather than imperial factions, simply because the background of what the Imperium is turns them off and not because there are not enough female models
And this is not the first time that woman appear in the background or would be a model in 40k, acting like this is the change needed to bring woman in because somehow all the other female models did not work, you may should think about why it did not work with the other armies
the other point is, "the hobby" as plenty of woman and nobody has a problem with, this is something exclusive to the "warhammer hobby" and it starts looking like those problems are exclusive to the "following exclusive games workshop products" hobby
Insectum7 wrote: No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
So you're perfectly happy for women to visit the hobby on your terms.
Bad faith much?
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
Insectum7 wrote: No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
So you're perfectly happy for women to visit the hobby on your terms.
Bad faith much?
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
And the woman who likes the lore, paints up a Tyranid army and joins her local club is "just visiting" apparently?
Being honest here with personal experience, which isn't worth the digital ink, but here it is.
I have never seen a signal woman or person who identifies as female play this game that wasn't asked to "try it out". This game has, in my experience, been so blatantly hostile and anti-female in every respect, that it's frightening. I have seen women play AOS, and that's about the closest I've come to seeing women in this hobby. And please, show me the mental gymnastics of trying to conflate how AOS and 40K are the same player base. 40K is the DBZ Cell Saga.
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
I'm going to be 100% real here.
Is there being male only and female only factions genuinely hostile?
Insectum7 wrote: No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
So you're perfectly happy for women to visit the hobby on your terms.
Bad faith much?
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
And the woman who likes the lore, paints up a Tyranid army and joins her local club is "just visiting" apparently?
There's a dissonance here.
It's pretty much schroedinger's minority with these people. Only those who kowtow to or match their narrative of what they see matches with the ills of the hobby is acknowledged, anyone else who is able to enjoy it and doesn't make a fuss about the lack of females in the subfactions THEY want to change is conveniently ignored. Which is funny for people who like to profess hating stereotypes stereotyping themselves into seeing that women only want to play factions that have explicit women in them.
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
I'm going to be 100% real here.
Is there being male only and female only factions genuinely hostile?
I don’t want to speak for Student…, but I found for me and my wife the main faction, the one that has all the flavors, almost of the new shinies and the novels and the epic series and new kits and old kits refreshed, the one on all the posters and all the video game covers, that one being explicitly “no women” comes across as hostile to women. Half of the setting is male dominated with some inclusion and some gender specific subfactions; the other half of the setting is Space Marines. It’s a lot to ignore.
Adrassil wrote:Female Custodes shouldn't be a thing. There, I said it: one compelling lore argument is that the big reason why the Emperor made the Astartes only male is because he was afraid that if they were made both out of males and females is the danger they might find a way to reproduce. This would mean if they could create Space Marine children, they would, in all likelihood, take control over humanity.
So, if the Emperor felt that way about the Astartes, wouldn't he have the same sentiment toward the Custodes?
This has never been written in any BL book, or GW product. This is entirely a fanon position. This is not "one compelling lore argument" or a "big reason", because it is not rooted at all in any material GW have produced.
There is no reason to suggest that Custodes and Astartes are even capable of reproduction.
This. The real lore reason that all space marines are male is that the Emperor was a closeted misogynist and wanted to hang out with beefcake men, no icky girls allowed. How else do you explain the Custodes uniform being a cape and a banana hammock?
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
I'm going to be 100% real here.
Is there being male only and female only factions genuinely hostile?
not inherently, but with 40k as it exists (aka, the poster boy faction being loudly and inarguably all male), the lack of female diversity in other areas of the game is an issue. for example, AOS is a game where the box art faction has a variety of gender representation, which makes all-male armies like fyreslayers or kharadron (edit: iirc the new fyreslayer warband has some women but that's a recent unit so the army was all-male until recently) not an issue. it's not an inherent issue, but a contextual one. if we're talking about gender in the context of 40k, the all-male faction of space marines is an ever-present elephant in the room
I'd also like to ask those who think representation isn't needed-why do you think women have so little presence in the hobby? Plenty of us know a woman or two in the hobby, but I'd wager that most of us know a lot more men who play 40k than women.
that is general a problem with GW deciding to make a Space Marines game and add NPC factions
is if this "everything being Marines" won't turn off male people as well
yet for the message, I think that the Imperium has the male focus send a clear message of what the Imperium is, so newcomers don't get trapped into thinking they are playing the good guys
if Marines would just be one faction among many not the full game being all about them, it would be less of a problem
and why women don't like the 40k hobby but are fine with miniature gaming in general, might be a combination of mediocre rules, high price for armies, short lifespan, and bad writing and a setting that appeals to boys of a certain age who are excited to play space Nazis and pretend those being the good guys because mankind had no other choice to survive
or because GW is not selling female mass-murders so girls have something they can relate
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
I'm going to be 100% real here.
Is there being male only and female only factions genuinely hostile?
I don’t want to speak for Student…, but I found for me and my wife the main faction, the one that has all the flavors, almost of the new shinies and the novels and the epic series and new kits and old kits refreshed, the one on all the posters and all the video game covers, that one being explicitly “no women” comes across as hostile to women. Half of the setting is male dominated with some inclusion and some gender specific subfactions; the other half of the setting is Space Marines. It’s a lot to ignore.
This is kind of why I'm hesitant to engage on the subject too much. It feels like a damned if I do, damned if I don't for discussing it in the context I'd like to.
I feel like a genuine part of this is a feedback loop: people go in expecting to find Marines, they'll find Marines no matter what you show them. I could point you to the Minka Lesk series or a huge chunk of the recent Guard novels which have women front and center on them or the WH+ series Pariah Nexus, which had a Sister of Battle as the central focus.
not inherently, but with 40k as it exists (aka, the poster boy faction being loudly and inarguably all male), the lack of female diversity in other areas of the game is an issue. for example, AOS is a game where the box art faction has a variety of gender representation, which makes all-male armies like fyreslayers or kharadron (edit: iirc the new fyreslayer warband has some women but that's a recent unit so the army was all-male until recently) not an issue. it's not an inherent issue, but a contextual one. if we're talking about gender in the context of 40k, the all-male faction of space marines is an ever-present elephant in the room
And this is where I get lost in the weeds. I've explained it already, but I would way rather see existing factions lifted up rather than just slapping an "all-new inclusiveness!" label on existing ones.
I don't want to see males in the Sisters of Battle. I don't want to see females in the Astartes.
I want to see Sisters of Battle see a genuine uplifting to being a faction that could carry the franchise, whether they're on box art or not.
Insectum7 wrote: No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
So you're perfectly happy for women to visit the hobby on your terms.
Bad faith much?
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
And the woman who likes the lore, paints up a Tyranid army and joins her local club is "just visiting" apparently?
There's a dissonance here.
I do think you are missing a bit here in that women and other groups have largely been pushed out of the hobby for decades and our thoughts on the development within the game ignored. Leading to the place it’s in now.
It’s why the lore being held up as such an important thing, but the actual themes and meaning to the setting often gets dragged down in these groups is such a big issue.
Men get to be cool, women need to justify their existence in the setting at all. It’s also why I don’t think sisters of battle are particularly popular with women, and sisters of silence don’t really do much to help.
Even if expanding the sisters of silence comes with issues within the setting, they could do it but it would be an undertaking of effort.
Also I think a big issue is a lot of men put gender issues into settings when they don’t really understand them, and don’t want to talk about them. Which leads to issues internally and externally.
I also think media for women try’s to tackle this often, it’s really common in books I read and shows trying to present it all thoughtfully.
It’s why I think space marines can actually work, but it kinda falls flat when every time we listen to discussions of lore it’s basically about how cool they are, and never any of the issues they present or what they may represent within the setting.
Sorry about my English here, hopefully it’s coming across ok. You made some good posts that I appreciate reading.
I kind of just want them because it adds more variety to models instead of it always being men. GW has made a little effort for stuff like women in the guard, but you have to go out of your way to accumulate enough head bits for an entire unit of them. Just hoping this time they put more effort into actually providing a way to show the variety
The novels have generally been better about inclusion than the games and codices. And books give an insight into people’s inner lives that make it easier to cross empathy gaps than with artwork or miniatures.
My wife enjoyed the Eisenhorn and first Ciaphas Cain omnibuses. But she got tired of the setting quickly, and prefers to read urban fantasy or harder Sci Fi. Urban fantasy has a lot more female leads, generally, and hard Sci Fi is more about the concept or puzzle than about the characters. Now that I think about it, she might like the Priests of Mars omnibus…
(Sisters of Battle also bother her because she had a bad religious upbringing, and finds the satirical theocratic elements of the setting more stressful than amusing.)
However, when it comes to painting minis, she only wants to paint her (female) characters for Shadows of Brimstone or monsters.
Apple fox wrote: I do think you are missing a bit here in that women and other groups have largely been pushed out of the hobby for decades and our thoughts on the development within the game ignored. Leading to the place it’s in now.
It’s why the lore being held up as such an important thing, but the actual themes and meaning to the setting often gets dragged down in these groups is such a big issue.
that is a problem for your "hobby" being 40k exclusive as this would already change if you look into other GW games like Lord of the Rings or expanding your hobby to settings from other companies
kodos wrote: that is general a problem with GW deciding to make a Space Marines game and add NPC factions
is if this "everything being Marines" won't turn off male people as well
yet for the message, I think that the Imperium has the male focus send a clear message of what the Imperium is, so newcomers don't get trapped into thinking they are playing the good guys
if Marines would just be one faction among many not the full game being all about them, it would be less of a problem
or because GW is not selling female mass-murders so girls have something they can relate
I don’t think I follow your logic here or you always mean Marines instead of "Imperium".
Because "the Imperium", despite being a fascist dictatorship with catholic Symbols doesn't have a male focus. The Imperial Guard is more diverse than any real life human Military, the Admech is a faction of non-binary Cyborgs, Sisters of Battle and Silence are women only, Assassins, Rogue Traders, Navy, Arbites, Knights and now Custodes are all mixed gender.
Even concerning just Space Marines you really think them being male only immediately shows an outside observer that this is a totalitarian faction? You don't think they rather see an army of Captain Americas, or maybe Space Romans, or hell, a poor man's StarCraft Marines ?
I get your basic approach for why you dislike the change and why you'd dislike female Marines. And I'd also like an explanation along the lines of: no women in Marines because according to this unreadable decree from 10K years ago our Master doesn't want woman Marines and who are we to question the Führer's orders?
But Marines and Custodes being men only is hardly the most important thing to give the Imperium away as oppressive.
Apple fox wrote:Men get to be cool, women need to justify their existence in the setting at all.
A very good post overall, but I want to highlight (and hence why I've only quoted this section) this snippet.
On the whole, people are *used* to the idea of only seeing men in their fantasy militaries and universes. It's not considered odd or out of place or even particularly noteworthy that a group appears all male. It requires no conceit, no justification, it is just... ordinary.
In contrast, a faction that is all-women or even *mostly* femme-presenting will be remarked on as being such most of the time. Them being women is a novelty, or something that needs explanation, or is otherwise pointed out. I could be very wrong here, but when people introduce the Sisters of Battle, them being all-women is usually mentioned in part of the pitch that people give. It's usually a long the lines of "they're an all-women group of warrior nuns with power armour, unshakeable faith, and love burning heretics". With Space Marines, it's never "they're an all-male group of genetically enhanced superhuman soldiers" - it's usually just the "genetically enhanced superhuman soldiers" part*.
As Apple fox says: women need to JUSTIFY their existence. I think that, for a lot of people, the idea of an all-women, or even majority femme, group is something which would be immediately noticeable in a way that an all-male group wouldn't be. There would be confusion, possibly outrage or laughs. And the group would need a *justification* to exist.
Yes, I'm aware that there are "justifications" for Space Marines being how they are, but let's not beat around the bush here - those "justifications" are not always mentioned in canon material, and can often slip notice. They're hardly front and centre requirements in the same way the Decree Passive is.
Let us not also forget that people don't tend to argue to justify the status quo - a status quo that benefits a predominantly male aesthetic. In this thread, we have plenty of folks saying "well, why should we change anything" or "justify your feelings to me" - instead of addressing the necessity of their own position, and justifying their own feelings first.
Ultimately, I've written a lot more than I need to on a very small, but incredibly salient point, and I'd like to hope that this highlights a little bit more of the "diverse gender" argument being made.
*I am making an assumption, but I don't think I'm far from the mark. When people pitch 40k factions, gender is only really noted in regards to the all-women factions and groups.
wanna focus on this little bit here to say, the admech are probably the most popular imperium faction among trans people i know. transhumanist themes like body modification really resonate with trans people, so it's not really a surprise, but i think it's a good example of how the imperium has a lot of themes outside of the reduction to "they're bad people", and in particular, how different people will see themselves in different things, and in doing so, will come away from stories with different themes in mind (necrons are equally popular for similar reasons)
if we're talking about gender representation, then the importance of factions being weird with it is also worth focusing on!
Apple fox wrote: I do think you are missing a bit here in that women and other groups have largely been pushed out of the hobby for decades and our thoughts on the development within the game ignored. Leading to the place it’s in now.
It’s why the lore being held up as such an important thing, but the actual themes and meaning to the setting often gets dragged down in these groups is such a big issue.
that is a problem for your "hobby" being 40k exclusive as this would already change if you look into other GW games like Lord of the Rings or expanding your hobby to settings from other companies
Because LotR and 40K are incredibly similar games and share many of the same themes and settings. Telling someone to find another game from the one your playing is straight up gatekeeping.
Apple fox wrote:Men get to be cool, women need to justify their existence in the setting at all.
A very good post overall, but I want to highlight (and hence why I've only quoted this section) this snippet.
On the whole, people are *used* to the idea of only seeing men in their fantasy militaries and universes. It's not considered odd or out of place or even particularly noteworthy that a group appears all male. It requires no conceit, no justification, it is just... ordinary.
In contrast, a faction that is all-women or even *mostly* femme-presenting will be remarked on as being such most of the time. Them being women is a novelty, or something that needs explanation, or is otherwise pointed out. I could be very wrong here, but when people introduce the Sisters of Battle, them being all-women is usually mentioned in part of the pitch that people give. It's usually a long the lines of "they're an all-women group of warrior nuns with power armour, unshakeable faith, and love burning heretics". With Space Marines, it's never "they're an all-male group of genetically enhanced superhuman soldiers" - it's usually just the "genetically enhanced superhuman soldiers" part*.
As Apple fox says: women need to JUSTIFY their existence. I think that, for a lot of people, the idea of an all-women, or even majority femme, group is something which would be immediately noticeable in a way that an all-male group wouldn't be. There would be confusion, possibly outrage or laughs. And the group would need a *justification* to exist.
Yes, I'm aware that there are "justifications" for Space Marines being how they are, but let's not beat around the bush here - those "justifications" are not always mentioned in canon material, and can often slip notice. They're hardly front and centre requirements in the same way the Decree Passive is.
Let us not also forget that people don't tend to argue to justify the status quo - a status quo that benefits a predominantly male aesthetic. In this thread, we have plenty of folks saying "well, why should we change anything" or "justify your feelings to me" - instead of addressing the necessity of their own position, and justifying their own feelings first.
Ultimately, I've written a lot more than I need to on a very small, but incredibly salient point, and I'd like to hope that this highlights a little bit more of the "diverse gender" argument being made.
*I am making an assumption, but I don't think I'm far from the mark. When people pitch 40k factions, gender is only really noted in regards to the all-women factions and groups.
This is an excellent point. Think of all the various fighting forces you can. Think about what stands out about them, and the first thing people think of when thinking about those forces.
Then apply that thought experiment to Amazons and see what happens.
Apple fox wrote: I do think you are missing a bit here in that women and other groups have largely been pushed out of the hobby for decades and our thoughts on the development within the game ignored. Leading to the place it’s in now.
It’s why the lore being held up as such an important thing, but the actual themes and meaning to the setting often gets dragged down in these groups is such a big issue.
that is a problem for your "hobby" being 40k exclusive as this would already change if you look into other GW games like Lord of the Rings or expanding your hobby to settings from other companies
Because LotR and 40K are incredibly similar games and share many of the same themes and settings. Telling someone to find another game from the one your playing is straight up gatekeeping.
And? Not everything is for everyone for good reasons in many cases.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: I get your basic approach for why you dislike the change
you don't because I don't dislike the change or even care about it
I simply disagree with the standpoint that female Custodes (or female Space Marines) being to key change needed to get more woman playing 40k because this changes nothing about the game as it is
and if people think that a female Space Marine (or the Imperium as it is) is a good role models for girls, it makes things even worse as those are no role models for anyone no matter if male or female and switching gender does not change that
the overall setting of 40k is not there to feel represented, relate to a hero or find an idol it is the dark version of a future were everything went wrong and the galaxy is of the edge of destruction
in the best case it is a satire and wanting changes so you can point out the good points of the bad guys
big E made a galaxy wide google maps that needs 1000 people killed a day to run and they throw in woman in children because they wanted to use the grown man for war, but woman in his bodyguard are now a sign for representation of woman and make girls like the setting?
because "the Imperium", despite being a fascist dictatorship with catholic Symbols doesn't have a male focus.
everything big E created was male, except for those that are not allowed to talk, which should make it clear to everyone which person he was and this is the message that 40k sends out, the poster boys are not the good guys
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DeathKorp_Rider wrote: telling someone to find another game from the one your playing is straight up gatekeeping.
if someone is reducing "the hobby" to a single game and than complains that there are people out there not liking that game, it is not "the hobby" that is the problem
if you want more woman in "your hobby" and woman don't like 40k, it is on you to change and expand your hobby and not on the woman to start changing and liking 40k
this is not gatekeeping, pretending "the hobby" is 40k and 40k only is
Yes, I'm aware that there are "justifications" for Space Marines being how they are, but let's not beat around the bush here - those "justifications" are not always mentioned in canon material, and can often slip notice. They're hardly front and centre requirements in the same way the Decree Passive is.
Also, 40K is a fictional world. Those justifications for why space marines must be male are not actual biological reality, but fictional creations of a writer. In that way, they are completely arbitrary. If someone in GW's employ writes tomorrow that only humans with blonde hair and blue eyes with head circumference measurements of X" were capable of surviving the transition from human to space marine, it would have the exact same basis in biological, scientific reality as the requirement that they be male. That is to say, none whatsoever.
And those kinds of decisions and choices in a story can be questioned and challenged. That's what media criticism is.
because "the Imperium", despite being a fascist dictatorship with catholic Symbols doesn't have a male focus.
everything big E created was male, except for those that are not allowed to talk, which should make it clear to everyone which person he was and this is the message that 40k sends out, the poster boys are not the good guys
Further evidence for my "Emperor Is A Raging, Misogynistic Incel Who Loves Beefcake Dudes" lore hypothesis.
Yes, I'm aware that there are "justifications" for Space Marines being how they are, but let's not beat around the bush here - those "justifications" are not always mentioned in canon material, and can often slip notice. They're hardly front and centre requirements in the same way the Decree Passive is.
Also, 40K is a fictional world. Those justifications for why space marines must be male are not actual biological reality, but fictional creations of a writer. In that way, they are completely arbitrary. If someone in GW's employ writes tomorrow that only humans with blonde hair and blue eyes with head circumference measurements of X" were capable of surviving the transition from human to space marine, it would have the exact same basis in biological, scientific reality as the requirement that they be male. That is to say, none whatsoever..
Especially when the only reason they wrote it that way was because the hobby had tried to push female marines but no one was buying them. If it was a decision solely made on the basis of “people aren’t interested in female marine models right now,” it seems like now that we’re at a time when that ride is turning around it should be changed to fit this.
I don't want to see males in the Sisters of Battle.
They've actually been there since 2nd ed and in every edition since, and you can bet that they'll be in the 10th dex when it drops.
Arcos, missionaries, preachers, named heroes like Jacobus and Kyrinov, PE pilots and Frateris Militia in the few editions that have bothered to include them. I know, it ain't a lot, but it's a stronger presence than femmes in Astartes, and it has been consistently present in every edition. In 10th, they even get to use AoF (which I personally think dilutes the lore, but that's not really a big deal in the context of this thread).
It is true that there are no men in Adepta Sororitas convents, and it's also true that the males aren't part of the Sororitas proper... But there have been male characters and units in every Sisters dex ever printed.
kodos wrote: that is a problem for your "hobby" being 40k exclusive as this would already change if you look into other GW games like Lord of the Rings or expanding your hobby to settings from other companies
Telling a woman who wants to play 40k that other games have stronger female representation a) isn't helping the player and b) proves that there is a 40k problem.
And though it's not relevant to this thread, Lord of the Rings, love it or hate it, isn't a GW Game; it's a Tolkien Game that happens to be manufactured and produced by Games Workshop. Personally, I wish some other company had made it, because I'd rather see that production space and those White Dwarf pages devoted to actual GW IP. If not for indulging in other people's IP, who knows- we could have had EC for two editions by now, or maybe been done with Finecast for every faction already, or maybe we'd have BFG back or a new Warhammer Quest game for the 40k setting- heck, they might have even felt they had the resources to develop LI as a 40k game with a full suite of factions, rather than confining it to 30k and excluding Xenos. Sorry, tangent, but one of my pet peeves. Not saying it's a bad game, or that I don't like the models... I just don't think of it as GW product because it doesn't exist in a world they created.
I don't want to see males in the Sisters of Battle.
They've actually been there since 2nd ed and in every edition since, and you can bet that they'll be in the 10th dex when it drops.
Arcos, missionaries, preachers, named heroes like Jacobus and Kyrinov, PE pilots and Frateris Militia in the few editions that have bothered to include them. I know, it ain't a lot, but it's a stronger presence than femmes in Astartes, and it has been consistently present in every edition. In 10th, they even get to use AoF (which I personally think dilutes the lore, but that's not really a big deal in the context of this thread).
It is true that there are no men in Adepta Sororitas convents, and it's also true that the males aren't part of the Sororitas proper... But there have been male characters and units in every Sisters dex ever printed.
Which means nothing, because you don't call the Ecclesiarchy items "Sisters of Battle" in a colloquial terminology. Don't try to pretend like the intention of my statement is vague there. You could run an entire Sisters of Battle army, now, with zero males in it.
It's also worth mentioning that those same "male units" you mentioned? They aren't. Arco-Flagellants are mixed gender for the plastic set. The Penitent Engine pilots are the same mixed gender setup. Missionaries and Preachers are using the same models that they were when I first started paying attention to them, and Jacobus and Kyrinov are both gone from production.
because "the Imperium", despite being a fascist dictatorship with catholic Symbols doesn't have a male focus.
everything big E created was male, except for those that are not allowed to talk, which should make it clear to everyone which person he was and this is the message that 40k sends out, the poster boys are not the good guys
Further evidence for my "Emperor Is A Raging, Misogynistic Incel Who Loves Beefcake Dudes" lore hypothesis.
I like to go with the theory "the Emperor didn't know what he was actually doing, and just nodded along to the people in the room that he thought were smarter than him".
It goes along with the idea of the "Carrion Throne" too; with the Emperor basically being a vulture who was able to push out the other scavengers and get the choice bits first...while also making him absolutely clueless about what to do with those choice bits!
Basically, I like to imagine that the Emperor is Mr. Bean. Constantly failing upwards.
Like, how do you think this interacts with the idea of target demographics? Can products be made for certain sub-demographics and retain those aims? I'm no expert, but I imagine Barbie has a pretty small array of male dolls compared to its female line, and that just seems like a reflection of the typical purchasing consumer. There's all manner of products and media that are aimed at specific audiences, and I think it's healthy to have those sub-ecosystems sitting alongside other products/media that are aimed more at "general" audiences, where I'd expect to see more inclusivity.
This is a really simple question that rapidly spirals out of control in complexity, ultimately becoming unanswerable.
My gut is that I don't mind things having a niche. So long as entertainment products the world over are not a single hand-sized grey ball that says "Fun" there will always be different types, and so long as there are different types they will appeal to different people. Even along gendered lines to an extent. However I think the targeting is where it becomes problematic. Because all forms of purchasable entertainment are forms of art (most toys can be said to be sculptures of a sort, media is stories / pictures, so on and so forth) and art says something about the people which create it and the society which created them. And that often leads to problems because of the choices made from Barbie's figure, to representation in comics, and the boys-only club of SM.
To kind of draw that back to the topic at hand, let's address the "Emperor wanted it that way," justification: The justification of the Emperor only wanting male supersoldiers to prevent reproduction is totally valid and understandable.. If the Emperor is a real person. But he's not. He's a fictional character, which means that someone made that choice and decided it was okay. That passes on and carries weight. And that doesn't even make it inherently bad; there's plenty of media which has racism / sexist / otherwise awful characters making choices along those lines. However those forms of media are often times attempting to explore that and conveying a message. Satire is also a thing. 40k is not; it's making no attempt to explore gendered issues nor is it particularly interested in being a satire of that nature. It used to be interested in being a satire about fascists and religious extremists, but frankly it's come close to dropping the satire element there.
TLDR: 40k was made by straight white guys who had their own bias (if you disagree, go look up the pgymies from WHFB) and made un-ironic choices along those biased lines. This created a product which uncritically presented various norms and, in doing so, helps to cultivate that same bias in its viewership while also giving them a (bad) justification to argue that it should not be changed, while pretending that they themselves do not have such bias' and neither did the creators. The only way to counter-act that bias is to include it's opposites.
It's pretty much schroedinger's minority with these people. Only those who kowtow to or match their narrative of what they see matches with the ills of the hobby is acknowledged, anyone else who is able to enjoy it and doesn't make a fuss about the lack of females in the subfactions THEY want to change is conveniently ignored. Which is funny for people who like to profess hating stereotypes stereotyping themselves into seeing that women only want to play factions that have explicit women in them.
While my experience is again anecdotal, it has been incredibly consistent: The factions which my various nerd girlfriends have shown interest in is firstly Tyranids, then Necrons, and lastly Dark Eldar. Basically genderless animals, genderless evil undead, and equal opportunity BDSM sex elves.
While the reasons they've given have had a bit of variety they've hit a lot of the same points. And frankly, the unifying factor is less wanting a faction which is built "for women" so much as it is liking the ones which are NOT built "for men".
Space Marines are a teenage boy power fantasy. They're massive dudes with big guns and bigger muscles who shoot the bad guys real good and crush their skulls with their hands when they come close. Sure there's some nuance in the depth but that's not what's presented; they are sold on their being big manly men who do manly things for men, and appeal to men for that reason. The same is very much true of IG and, if we're being honest, Sisters of battle. They're built on male power fantasies of being soldier that're supposed to appeal to little boys who like playing soldier.
There's nothing wrong with this. It can absolutely exist and be unproblematic, and some women will even be drawn to that sort of thing. Different strokes. The issue comes along when everything is that, which almost all of it is in 40k. As I said in my above response to someone else, art / media has downstream effects based on the people and culture that produces it. And this is the entire point of art; we seek out art to be effected by it in someway. Each of us here enjoys 40k because it makes us feel and think things, and we like those things. The issue comes into play when the entire message is "Big muscly men doing men stuff while the ladies stay at home unless they're also big muscly men", as that creates an environment which is hostile to anyone who doesn't enjoy that. And that becomes an issue because making that environment is a CHOICE; 40k is not a historically accurate retelling of, say, Spartan and Athenian conflicts of ancient Greece, where there historically were not women. Someone decided for 40k to be the way it is.
Now Warhammer at large, and even 40k, is actively striding to correct this. It's happening whether people like it or not. And that's a good thing.
I don't care how people model their minis, its your hobby do what you want. However where people are coming from in WHY they want female marines/custodes/etc is usually nonsense.
1. "Less of a boys club!/More women in the hobby!" Look, I got female nerd friends, we play video games, board games, dnd, they've even painted a model or two and have expressed interest in fantasy. But 40k? There are few exceptions but orks fighting super marines is like female kryptonite. Adding female marines and custodes isn't going to make women suddenly want to drop thousands of dollars on sci-fi wargames. Sure you might get a couple more painters since women tend to skew towards the painting aspect, but as far as sales you are wasting your time. No amount of marketing is going to make knitting a less-female centric hobby either. People like what they like, and thats fine. Not everything is a 'problem' that needs to be solved.
2. "The lore is stupid!" Yes, yes it is.
3. "Space Marines are the poster boys!" Yes, as others have said its a marketing thing mainly. However changing the poster boys to include women is again, not going to drive women to buy 40k in a meaningful capacity. Does Halo have a significant female playerbase? They had spartan women from the start. Did Gears of War 4-5 bring in a lot of female players? What about Starship Troopers? How many women rank that in their top 5 movies of all time?
4. The fetish people that just want dommy-mommies. No, I am not making it up, its where a lot of people advocating for this stuff on social media come from. Porn artists and just people that want to be spooned by amazon women. Nothing wrong with that, but like, that's got nothing to do with 40k, wargaming, or lore in general. There are a lot of weirdos on the internet.
All in all I just see a lot of people wanting change for the sake of change. Nobody is stopping you from making your models the way you want. 40k is fine the way it is.
Which means nothing, because you don't call the Ecclesiarchy items "Sisters of Battle" in a colloquial terminology. Don't try to pretend like the intention of my statement is vague there. You could run an entire Sisters of Battle army, now, with zero males in it.
Sorry Kan, didn't mean to offend. When you said "I don't want to see males in the Sisters of Battle" I genuinely thought you meant you didn't want to see males in Sisters of Battle armies, so I felt that I should point out that you can, and always have been able to include at least some men in SoB armies.
I agree with you that the few males who do appear in the dex aren't true sisters- I even said so in my post and you quoted me saying it. To expand on that a bit: in all of the editions where a Keyword system has been used, the units that include males have always lacked the Adeptus Sororitas keywords, meaning they could not use AoF. This reinforces the separation of these units from "True" Sisters; I always kinda liked that- men were in the army, but they didn't truly appear as equals. But 10th ed changed that: every single unit in the Index has the Faction Keyword: Adeptus Sororitas, and therefore they can use AoF. Like I said in my post, I'm not so sure I like that- I suspect you don't either, so again, we agree here.
It's also worth mentioning that those same "male units" you mentioned? They aren't. Arco-Flagellants are mixed gender for the plastic set. The Penitent Engine pilots are the same mixed gender setup. Missionaries and Preachers are using the same models that they were when I first started paying attention to them, and Jacobus and Kyrinov are both gone from production.
Look, again, I didn't mean to offend. You said you didn't want to see males, and by definition, mixed gender groups include them, and that's why I included those units in the list of ways that male models can be included in a Sisters army.
Also, regarding Missionaries and Preachers: while the classic models are still available, the loadout of both the 9th and 10th ed units makes it clear that Taddeus the Purifier and Pious Vorne could be used to represent them, and Pious is female- meaning you can choose to represent preachers with either a male or a female model. I also think it would be cool to add a female missionary option.
Anyway, in trying to figure out how to respond, I reread both of our posts a few times, and I think probably the line I should have paid more attention to is this one:
I want to see Sisters of Battle see a genuine uplifting to being a faction that could carry the franchise, whether they're on box art or not.
I couldn't agree more. Generic HQ with a jump pack, bikes, bike HQ, drop shrine, an Aircraft, a plastic Repressor, a superheavy and a named character from each of the five subfactions that don't already have one. Hell yeah! Git on it GeeDubs!
And you know what? Bring back armies of Faith! These (along with Torchbearer Fleets) were my favourite rules in 9th: they let you take a mixed force of Sisters, Marines and Guard, much like the 9th ed trailer and Pariah animations. I think that using the three together provides a diverse and unique collection that allows for very intricate narratives. In such an army, Space Marines need not compromise their maleness, because the army includes women and Sisters don't need to include boys from their book because the other factions in the army have more and better boys to choose from.
Anyway man, I think we're pretty much on the same side, and sorry if my tone made it feel otherwise.
morganfreeman wrote: while the ladies stay at home unless they're also big muscly men
So before I begin, I want to say that I think the post this line comes from is excellent, and agree with everything in it except this. Now certainly, there ARE people who choose sisters based on the preference you describe here... But for me, the defining characteristic of sisters is their Faith, not their muscles or their armour. And if pressed for a further marker of their identity, I would probably say Martyrdom before I'd say strength and armour. Add to that the nuance of army construction that Kan and I were discussing above, where Ecclesiarchal units can really alter the feel of a Sisters army. I think the faction is far more nuanced than you make it out to be.
One of my favourite Sisters builds is the Penitent Legion (hence the forum handle). The build changes from edition to edition, but it's always heavy on Missionaries, Priests, Battle Conclave units, Morties, Pennies and Repentia. I want a Repentia Superior style Cannoness to lead it, but a Dogmata can work. Karamazov + Arbites fit nicely with the theme too; the repentant units are those Karamazov has judged, and the Arbites are the Agents he uses to impose and enforce the sentence, be it flagellation, entombment in an engine or the Penitent Oath.
The only "sistes" in such an army are Repentia, Morties and the mandatory HQ.
I'm not saying it's competitive, but I don't care if I win or lose as I tend to play Agendas, which don't confer VP, but grow the army and drive the story of the Crusade.
kodos wrote: that is a problem for your "hobby" being 40k exclusive as this would already change if you look into other GW games like Lord of the Rings or expanding your hobby to settings from other companies
Telling a woman who wants to play 40k that other games have stronger female representation a) isn't helping the player and b) proves that there is a 40k problem.
if a woman already wants to play 40k you don't need female Custodes either to convince her playing 40k (yet if yo tell a woman who wants to play 40k that she now finally can play the game because female Custodes are canon, that is sexism)
it is telling the people who want woman in "their" hobby, but woman don't like "their" hobby, that the easy solution is to not limit the "hobby" to the things the woman don't like
If no woman want to date me in the spider house, screaming online that the spider house need to change and add kittens so more woman will go there is an option, but woman who don't like spiders won't date me there no matter how many kittens are running around.
Insectum7 wrote: No no no, jesus no. Don't paint with that broad brush. I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen.
So you're perfectly happy for women to visit the hobby on your terms.
Bad faith much?
women are telling you what makes us comfortable in the hobby, and in return, you're telling us that such things are unacceptable. so we're allowed to exist in the hobby, but only when it's hostile to us
And the woman who likes the lore, paints up a Tyranid army and joins her local club is "just visiting" apparently?
There's a dissonance here.
I do think you are missing a bit here in that women and other groups have largely been pushed out of the hobby for decades and our thoughts on the development within the game ignored. Leading to the place it’s in now.
It’s why the lore being held up as such an important thing, but the actual themes and meaning to the setting often gets dragged down in these groups is such a big issue.
Men get to be cool, women need to justify their existence in the setting at all. It’s also why I don’t think sisters of battle are particularly popular with women, and sisters of silence don’t really do much to help.
Even if expanding the sisters of silence comes with issues within the setting, they could do it but it would be an undertaking of effort.
Also I think a big issue is a lot of men put gender issues into settings when they don’t really understand them, and don’t want to talk about them. Which leads to issues internally and externally.
I also think media for women try’s to tackle this often, it’s really common in books I read and shows trying to present it all thoughtfully.
It’s why I think space marines can actually work, but it kinda falls flat when every time we listen to discussions of lore it’s basically about how cool they are, and never any of the issues they present or what they may represent within the setting.
Sorry about my English here, hopefully it’s coming across ok. You made some good posts that I appreciate reading.
First off, I want to say that I'd like to revise my statement "I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the hobby with women, I just don't think the background has to change to make that happen." to "I don't think too much of the background has to change to make that happen." I'm on record as advocating for the Custodes change, and I think it's a good/helpful one.
I would argue that women have been part of the setting for a long time, both as grunts and as figures of authority (Inquisitors in particular come to mind there). It's just that their representation has almost never been readily apparent, and if it is there it can often look like tokenism. (I'm pretty sure that accusation has been leveled at the SoBs, an entire faction too.) I tend to chalk much of that up to 40K being a product mostly designed by boys/men and targeted at boys/men, and I would defend that as mostly being an OK thing on principle. Imo it should be acceptable for sub demographics to make products designed for their particular niche. What's clear though, is that 40k is not the small niche hobby it once was. Having seen it's growth for the 25+ years I've been in it has been quite something. But my point is really that, much of the foundation for gender equality is already there in the lore. There are female planetary governors, assassins, infantry, pilots, etc. that are generally treated no differently than their male counterparts. The problem is that most of the time, historically, we haven't seen it. So when you say "women have been pushed out of the hobby for decades", yeah, that resonates too. I get it. I don't think it was intended, it's just a byproduct of it's history and probably some poor managerial decisions.
And some of the issue in the past is certainly because there were very few female models in what should have been more integrated armies, such as Guard. But of course a lot of it is because of all the god&$*# focus on Space Marines. Obviously in terms of representation, Space Marines just tend to be front and center, over and over again. So even if in the background gender equality is part of the setting, it's those "saviors of humanity" which are always stealing the show along with their female-exclusionary identity. I can 1000% get why that's very obnoxious. Space Marines are my main army and I'm tired of it too. The other issue with Space Marines is that they've just been better. For a long time they held the spot as humanity's top-notch warriors with very few exceptions (assassins being a potential counterpoint, but again, very niche). So yeah, I get that having a fictional world in which only men can be the elite of the elite is off putting.
Which is why I support the Custodes change, because on the one hand, while I'm irritated at yet another "Marine+1 or 2 or 3" Imperial subfaction, it does give that gender equality at the best-of-the-best level. It means women have a spot at the top-tier, which is just good optics for the brand, but also kinda nice as way of setting the Custodes apart too. I feel like it's a reminder that Custodes are individually made, hyper-special entities, and gives them a bit more gravitas as symbols of authority.
But circling back, I think another thing it does for Marines is give them more breathing room as a male-only faction (the part of the background I wouldn't like changed). It means, and I hope GW recognizes, that Space Marines don't always have to be front-and-center as the poster child for 40k, because Marines can be up there with other visually-high-impact "heroes", sharing the space with more gender inclusive factions. But at the same time GW can keep Marines as that designed-by-men/boys and aimed at men/boys power fantasy faction identity that so many obviously love.
Apple Fox writes: "Also I think a big issue is a lot of men put gender issues into settings when they don’t really understand them, and don’t want to talk about them. Which leads to issues internally and externally.
I also think media for women try’s to tackle this often, it’s really common in books I read and shows trying to present it all thoughtfully." I confess I don't know what you mean by this, but I'm interested in hearing more.
Apple Fox also writes: "It’s why I think space marines can actually work, but it kinda falls flat when every time we listen to discussions of lore it’s basically about how cool they are, and never any of the issues they present or what they may represent within the setting." I very much agree with this, but I do think that a little but of interpretation gets us to really interesting places, see the response below.
Like, how do you think this interacts with the idea of target demographics? Can products be made for certain sub-demographics and retain those aims? I'm no expert, but I imagine Barbie has a pretty small array of male dolls compared to its female line, and that just seems like a reflection of the typical purchasing consumer. There's all manner of products and media that are aimed at specific audiences, and I think it's healthy to have those sub-ecosystems sitting alongside other products/media that are aimed more at "general" audiences, where I'd expect to see more inclusivity.
This is a really simple question that rapidly spirals out of control in complexity, ultimately becoming unanswerable.
My gut is that I don't mind things having a niche. So long as entertainment products the world over are not a single hand-sized grey ball that says "Fun" there will always be different types, and so long as there are different types they will appeal to different people. Even along gendered lines to an extent. However I think the targeting is where it becomes problematic. Because all forms of purchasable entertainment are forms of art (most toys can be said to be sculptures of a sort, media is stories / pictures, so on and so forth) and art says something about the people which create it and the society which created them. And that often leads to problems because of the choices made from Barbie's figure, to representation in comics, and the boys-only club of SM.
To kind of draw that back to the topic at hand, let's address the "Emperor wanted it that way," justification: The justification of the Emperor only wanting male supersoldiers to prevent reproduction is totally valid and understandable.. If the Emperor is a real person. But he's not. He's a fictional character, which means that someone made that choice and decided it was okay. That passes on and carries weight. And that doesn't even make it inherently bad; there's plenty of media which has racism / sexist / otherwise awful characters making choices along those lines. However those forms of media are often times attempting to explore that and conveying a message. Satire is also a thing. 40k is not; it's making no attempt to explore gendered issues nor is it particularly interested in being a satire of that nature. It used to be interested in being a satire about fascists and religious extremists, but frankly it's come close to dropping the satire element there.
TLDR: 40k was made by straight white guys who had their own bias (if you disagree, go look up the pgymies from WHFB) and made un-ironic choices along those biased lines. This created a product which uncritically presented various norms and, in doing so, helps to cultivate that same bias in its viewership while also giving them a (bad) justification to argue that it should not be changed, while pretending that they themselves do not have such bias' and neither did the creators. The only way to counter-act that bias is to include it's opposites.
It's pretty much schroedinger's minority with these people. Only those who kowtow to or match their narrative of what they see matches with the ills of the hobby is acknowledged, anyone else who is able to enjoy it and doesn't make a fuss about the lack of females in the subfactions THEY want to change is conveniently ignored. Which is funny for people who like to profess hating stereotypes stereotyping themselves into seeing that women only want to play factions that have explicit women in them.
While my experience is again anecdotal, it has been incredibly consistent: The factions which my various nerd girlfriends have shown interest in is firstly Tyranids, then Necrons, and lastly Dark Eldar. Basically genderless animals, genderless evil undead, and equal opportunity BDSM sex elves.
While the reasons they've given have had a bit of variety they've hit a lot of the same points. And frankly, the unifying factor is less wanting a faction which is built "for women" so much as it is liking the ones which are NOT built "for men".
Space Marines are a teenage boy power fantasy. They're massive dudes with big guns and bigger muscles who shoot the bad guys real good and crush their skulls with their hands when they come close. Sure there's some nuance in the depth but that's not what's presented; they are sold on their being big manly men who do manly things for men, and appeal to men for that reason. The same is very much true of IG and, if we're being honest, Sisters of battle. They're built on male power fantasies of being soldier that're supposed to appeal to little boys who like playing soldier.
There's nothing wrong with this. It can absolutely exist and be unproblematic, and some women will even be drawn to that sort of thing. Different strokes. The issue comes along when everything is that, which almost all of it is in 40k. As I said in my above response to someone else, art / media has downstream effects based on the people and culture that produces it. And this is the entire point of art; we seek out art to be effected by it in someway. Each of us here enjoys 40k because it makes us feel and think things, and we like those things. The issue comes into play when the entire message is "Big muscly men doing men stuff while the ladies stay at home unless they're also big muscly men", as that creates an environment which is hostile to anyone who doesn't enjoy that. And that becomes an issue because making that environment is a CHOICE; 40k is not a historically accurate retelling of, say, Spartan and Athenian conflicts of ancient Greece, where there historically were not women. Someone decided for 40k to be the way it is.
Now Warhammer at large, and even 40k, is actively striding to correct this. It's happening whether people like it or not. And that's a good thing.
Ok ok ok, that was a great post and I like a lot of what was said, but I also don't know how to respond to it and address everything that's there. Much of my response to Apple Fox above addresses some of this, I think. So I invite you to take a look at that first. I also fully acknowledge that 40K was originally penned by a bunch of white dudes from the 80's, and there's just gonna be some aspects of that that'll be in the fabric of the created thing, for better or for worse.
I do wish 40K had more of it's satirical beginnings still present on it's face. Or just more reminders that the Imperium is bad/evil/oppressive and that Space Marines are really not the heroes they're so often made out to be today. I do think its a setting which wisely chose, for the sake of a gritty-action-movie war game set in a universe of perpetual conflict and mass casualties, to create a society which was crude, barbaric, and wildly violent Not just wildly violent, but worshipping it. Rogue Trader went hard, and it's imagery didn't pull punches.
Trigger Warning: Space Marine parade illustration compared with nazi parade historical photo (swastikas removed)
Spoiler:
But we have what we have now. Space Marines are marketed as the "Saviors of Humanity" and they're all men. And even though the all-male military has it's historical resonance, yeah that's problematic in the context of the 40K poster child. As I mention above, this is why I like the Custodes change. Both men and women can be the golden representatives of the Emperor himself, and the pinnacle of human science and biomanipulation, etc. And they can all exist together in the promotional material. I think that's very helpful.
But while the marketing is all heroic, I do think that the all-male lore of the Space Marines gives us an interesting opportunity for interpretation and critique.
So you have this self titled Emperor of Mankind see? And he goes on to create this hyper-patriarchy in the form of the Primarchs, right? And those Primarchs lead legions of all-male, separated-from-families and given poor role models by being indoctrinated into rigid hierarchies promoting supreme levels of violence, then given the best weapons and equipment that humanity had to offer and let loose on the galaxy in an orgy of conquest "for humanity!". Surely, what could possibly go wrong? . . . Well it created the greatest catastrophe that humanity has ever suffered, in the form of the Horus Heresy, and humanity is still feeling the repercussions of it. So like, "go men"?
Probably the best way to destabilize any society is to have a surplus of weapons in a population filled with disaffected young men, and the whole story of the Horus Heresy basically maps right on top of that. And it's great. Imo it's art. And again in my opinion, Space Marines being all male makes that resonate in a way that it really wouldn't if they were integrated. Like, it's street gangs on a galactic scale. It's a lesson. And I love that one of the first things Guilliman did after the Heresy was say "F that", we're gonna split everything up and make sure that can never happen again, while incidentally boosting power of the more integrated military branches. You can have these hyper focused groups of super-male aggression, and try to use that where appropriate. But you can't allow that aggression to have too much power because it's gonna go sideways.
So you get your designed-by-men/boys and aimed-at-men/boys power fantasy faction, but it comes with what I would consider to be a very masculine lesson. I think this is compelling in a good way, and I would argue for it's preservation.
And though it's not relevant to this thread, Lord of the Rings, love it or hate it, isn't a GW Game; it's a Tolkien Game that happens to be manufactured and produced by Games Workshop. Personally, I wish some other company had made it, because I'd rather see that production space and those White Dwarf pages devoted to actual GW IP. If not for indulging in other people's IP, who knows- we could have had EC for two editions by now, or maybe been done with Finecast for every faction already, or maybe we'd have BFG back are a new Warhammer Quest game for the 40k setting- heck, they might have even felt they had the resources to develop LI as a 40k game with a full suite of factions, rather than confining it to 30k and excluding Xenos. Sorry, tangent, but one of my pet peeves. Not saying it's a bad game, or that I don't like the models... I just don't think of it as GW product because it doesn't exist in a world they created.
This reminds me of 14year old me looking through the WD 20 years ago and be like: man, why is there only 5 pages of lotr and the rest are those fugly Warhammer and 40K minis nobody cares about. I get your position from a today's perspective where lotr is hardly supported and someone like Archon could do wonders with it. But 20 years ago noone but GW could have pulled that of what they did with lotr up until about 2010. And they produced their best minis back then, I'd say the warhammers needed at least 7 more years to reach minis of the lotr quality.
So, I'm highly triggered by your post, also seeing how little support lotr got the last 2 years(you could even make that 10 and not be wrong) the notion about HH and LI getting little support because of middle earth makes no sense at all. Lotr shares a position with the Old World in that the only things we get are occasional FW characters and otherwize have to rely on 20 year old kits.
funnily enough that Lord of the Rings is still GWs best game, and one could say because they are just the distributor and not involved in either model design nor background
Further evidence for my "Emperor Is A Raging, Misogynistic Incel Who Loves Beefcake Dudes" lore hypothesis.
This idea is a secondary reason that I'm glad for women characters getting into every class and subfaction in 40k
The initial, bedrock reason that women in all subfactions is good is the same as the DnD combat wheelchair. It's obligatory, it's non-negotiable. Of course we have a berserker in a wooden wheelchair and we be a woman in any and all chapters of the space pigs. This is a very good thing.
But the incipient fact of women in the custodes also corrects this quote about the emperor, and the notion all over the thread that somehow being all-men shows that Marines are bad. That's a very obfuscatory concept to be propagating through a piece of mass media.
There are hundreds of Sabrina Harmans in the world. Harman and Lynndie England got convicted for things they did as prison guards but there are women doing bad stuff during combat and not getting charged, because you usually don't get convicted of stuff that happens in combat. The banality of evil applies just as well when there are some women involved.
And obviously for many people, Marines being all men has absolutely no connotation of being villains, they just think it's the natural state of things. People point out all the time that warfare is mainly about carrying the most weight in bullets.
It's much more straightforward if you want to portray Marines as bad to just show them doing bad things. You can have a villainous character be for any Chapter. There are already captain Vilyard, Stibor Lazaerek, all characters from the Space sharks, Iron Hands, and most from chapters of the blood. They team kill and they kidnap civilians. Just put character models for them in the army list. People already play bad guy armies in historical, and belive it or not, they play bad elves orks and chaos armies in 40k.
to the extent that guard are the stand in for people who like historicals but only know 40k players, if you're a character in the guard you're much more likely to either commit or be subject to sexual assault. There's a lot to be said for being in a unit like custodes or Marines where we have decided to just eliminate that part of reality from the fiction.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: i'm a big fan of breaking down the barriers between genders. there's no meaningful differences between men, women, or anything else, anyway, so it shouldn't really matter on the tabletop, either
That is just a big fat lie. There are MASSIVE differences between men and women in terms of physical capability. For example, punching: the weakest-hitting male still hits far harder than the strongest-hitting female. There is literally no overlap (and that was a study of college kids, not trained athletes where differences would be even greater).
Men have larger hearts and larger lungs, which means that they can sustain high degree of effort for longer.
Men have different muscle insertions, especially in the upper body and shoulders. This means that they can exert larger forces in terms of punching, grappling and carrying.
Lower body structure is also significantly different. Structure of the hips and knees in particular means that women are more capable of e.g. sideways movement, but men are better and more efficient at running and jumping. And this increased range of motion women have is not necessarily a good thing, as it leads to more injuries.
All and all, it is frankly a better idea to employ early pubescent men in combat than it is to employ adult women.
And if you say "but this is fiction"!!! Yes, it is. But if you think that is a permission to do anything, why would it matter that Space Marines are all male? You already have female Space Marines anyway, and they are called Sisters of Battle.
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