some bloke wrote: Okay, I understand that. I feel perhaps that the need to feel included in the space marines is misplaced, but then I consider them to be kind of outside humanity.
Perhaps you feel that, but not everyone does. I have to ask why other people getting to be represented might be a problem for you, if you don't care either way?
In response to your counter question - I don't have an issue with people being represented. My personal views are that by insisting that people of all >insert your preferred method of dividing people up here< are represented in everything, you exacerbate the issue of >that method of dividing people<, because people start feeling they need to see >their division of people< in everything.
I don't think asking for women, 50% of the population, to be featured in a faction that makes up such a large portion of the hobby, is insisting on anything too radical here.
I want to see *fair* representation. Including women sounds very fair, no?
As a curiosity, what do we consider doing with Sisters of Battle, a faction entirely built around female characters. Nobody (that I've seen) has said we need male sisters of battle to make the faction representative of men. The only sisters player I've ever encountered was a guy, I doubt he had such issues.
The most important thing here is that Sisters of Battle aren't exactly as culturally dominant as Space Marines are.
If they were, this would be a very different issue, but Sisters don't come close to Astartes in a representative manner.
Inclusion is a far, far bigger issue than the models - it's the environment in GW stores, the general demeanor is often one of amazement that there's a woman in the store. I cringe when I'm in there and everyone just stares, it's a very awkward atmosphere to be in!
Absolutely agreed! But having visible representation, and that tacit endorsement of "yes, you're welcome, you can be part of the flagship faction!" would go a hell of a long way in encouraging a shift in those environments. Normalising women beyond just being Sisters of Battle, and in the most visible places possible - because as I've said representation means nothing without visibility.
some bloke wrote: On one hand, there's no reason why there can't be female marines if people want it. An easy headswap from a sisters sprue would do it without anything else needed. But the issue isn't the ability to make it, it's whether it's presented in the Canon.
Yes, because people use the canon to demean and stifle other people's creations.
A small example of what I mean - I'm in a 40k facebook group where people post pictures of Primaris Marines. One day, a user posted a diorama of two converted Space Marines holding hands. This was deleted by the moderators of that page because they were holding hands, and that was deemed "political" and "non-canon". That hobbyist's work was actively rejected because people used the canon to dictate what was and wasn't allowed - and yet I don't see custom Chapters taken down, even though they violate the same canon.
More importantly, it is also an issue of representation - even if GW say "yeah, you can go and make your own women Astartes, but we won't feature any of them", what kind of message is that sending about representing women?
It is worth remembering that the imperium of man is quite categorically evil. The people are heavily repressed, generally overpopulated, and space marines represent such a small proportion of humanity as to be negligible. The entire galaxy is existing in a post-apocalyptic wasteland style theme, and humanity is held ruthlessly under the Emperor by inquisitors who are willing to wipe out entire planets to drive out heresy.
It just seems in direct conflict of the theme for this immensely oppressive military-fanatic organization to consider gender equality in any way.
That's only true until you consider how the Imperium are marketed as heroic, and Space Marines being very easily cartoon-ified and used in a variety of merchandise.
If the Imperium were being portrayed by GW entirely as evil, then why would anyone want to have merch of a Space Marine? Yet, that merch sells. It's almost like Space Marines are a very iconic form of media, and people like being able to have a little bit of themselves reflected in that.
Also, no-one has answered whether we can expect male sisters of battle.
As I've said - when Sisters become as iconic as Space Marines, you can call me then.
some bloke wrote: I'm 100% for female imperial guard models, because that fits the current canon.
But why is the canon the way that it is?
To me, the fact that imperial guard is exclusively male is a far bigger problem than space marines, because marines have canonical reasons they are all male, and guard do not.
But what is the justification for those canonical reasons?
I would look to have a "Female Guard" version of all the guard kits, as opposed to additional options, as their bodies will be different shaped as well. That, to me, is a far bigger step in the right direction.
On one hand, we have "include women in the army made of normal humans!", and in the other, we have "rewrite the lore of this army for the sole purpose of including token female marines to appease those people claiming it's sexist not to!"
Seriously, if you add female marines but not female guard, you're making the problem worse - it becomes an obvious token offering to appease people instead of an acknowledgement that the models are 95% male, where applicable, in 40k.
The issue is that Space Marines make up the majority of those 95% male models. Fixing Guard doesn't change how Space Marines are still the flagship faction.
Fixing Space Marines fixes the issue that the most prominent 40k faction is an all boys club - and as I've said, representation only matter when it's visible.
some bloke wrote: I guess the majority of my feelings is that if they just give you different heads for one specific army and they don't add women to armies which don't need a lore change, it's literally going to sound like "we made this army have girls in it so that girls can play the game too".
That, to me, is far more sexist and problematic than saying "they're all men, because the story says so, so that's what they are".
But why does the story say so? The story didn't just spring into existence, why does the story say that women can't join? Seems like a pretty arbitrary reason to me.
Would people want historic games based on WW1 and WW2 to have mixed frontline soldiers? no, because they weren't - the "story" says so (inverted commas because, you know, it's not a story, it's true)
40k is fictional. WW1/2 have some basis in a historical reality.
40k is, as you just said above, a story, an entirely fictional one at at that.
Would people want sisters of battle to include men? No, because the story says they don't.
Why is it different with space marines?
Because why does the story say that women can't? I can see what having all-women Sisters does for the story for the Sororitas (and I'd also like to mention that men do play a significant role in both the story and can even feature on the tabletop for Sisters) - but what does Space Marines being men add to their identity? GW certainly don't focus on it, so if people are attributing something, is it anything more than headcanon?
@Insectum7:
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Insectum7 wrote: Imo there are two ways to take background that looks goofy on the face of it (fused ribcages being an example). One is to say "That's preposterous!" and forget about it because "pew, pew, pew fun!". Another way is to investigate it and look at ways to "solve" it using the tools existing within the problem space. The latter tends to give more interesting possibilities, and from a writing perspective, flesh out the world in a more engaging way.
But why does that problem exist in the first place?
the_scotsman wrote: boy, for a group of folks that apparently has absolutely zero skin in this particular game, you sure do seem dedicated to providing what I guess is just sort of a neutral, devil's advocate opposition for going on thirty pages.
I'm not willing to say that a fictional all male faction is automatically abhorrent because of 'the feels'. But that appears to be a major theme.
No-one said that being a fictional all-male faction was inherently a problem.
The issue, as I've said, is that the all-male faction just happens to be the flagship faction.
I also think the 'self identify' argument is a poor one, since many people are quite happy to play Tyranids, etc.
That's a very strong misunderstanding of what "self-identifying" and the whole point of representation are.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok so you're actually OK with an all-male faction. That's important to know.
Yes, I am. I never claimed I wasn't, if the faction had a good reason for it.
I'd argue that Custodes are better designed from an inclusion standpoint for two reasons:
1: They are individually made, rather than 'factory/formula printed' the way that Space Marines are.
I don't see why that would change anything. If anything, Space Marines being the "factory/formula printed" way they are makes more sense for mixed gender, because the Imperium just wants to get mass bodies out there - male and female alike, just like with the Guard.
From a design standpoint, Space Marines being male and female further establishes the dehumanising and eradicative properties of Astartes enhancement, so that no matter if you're a male or female, you're going to be an Astartes by the end.
2: If Custodes were all male, that keeps us in the paradigm of "Men make the best/elitest" soldiers.
Except that they're only that because they have been given specific enhancements - not because they got those enhancements because of "male tissue". Plus, if we're really complaining about "the paradigm of men make the best soldiers", then do you say we should make the Primarchs women too? Because Primarchs are better than Custodes.
Again - Custodes aren't the flagship faction. Them being all men is more acceptable because they're not as visible in the 40k sphere. Space Marines are - and that's the largest issue.
I genuinely think that the optics would be better and more interesting if the Space Marines stayed all male, but the absolute-top-tier-golden-Emperors-finest-warriors were both men and women.
And I genuinely don't see why Space Marines need to stay all-male, or be all-male in the first place.
And as I just said, Custodes aren't "the absolute top tier Emperor's finest warriors" - those were the Primarchs. Should the Primarchs be mixed gender?
The rest of your responses can more or less be reduced to the fact that Space Marines are marketed the most, and I feel that can be changed (and should be changed).
I agree. That can and should be changed. But it will take an absurd amount of time to do, and will not accommodate for the cultural legacy Space Marines will leave behind.
On the counterpoint, why can't we do both? Why is adding a sprue of women's heads such a faux pas?
The mere existence of women has nothing to do with it.
So what is it? All we're asking for is women to be more fairly represented, and the only way to properly achieve representation is through visibility.
Why are people conflating this with politics?
@RegularGuy:
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RegularGuy wrote: I'm not antagonistic to people wanting female marines.
Except that you're misrepresenting their arguments at every turn.
the general pattern is that a number of people do not appear capable of absorbing, considering, or tolerating other perspectives.
Agreed. This is especially evident in the people who ignore the testimony of women asking for representation, and dismiss it as entirely unnecssary because they don't understand what representation means.
I'd call that an excellent example of not appearing to be "capable of absorbing, considering or tolerating other perspectives".
I'm not sure how much of the problem comes from being unwilling or unable to read understand and empathize with other voices
This is exceptionally ironic.
The amount of times that women Astartes supporters have been called "activists", "Marxists", "culture warriors", "SJWs", or that women's experiences of feeling unrepresented "don't matter" is astounding - and yet you try and pin this as something *you're* the victim of?
RegularGuy wrote: I don't recall discussing harmfulness or harmlessness. Other than it does not seem obviously abhorent for a fraternal order to exist in a company's product / fiction profile.
No-one said it was.
The issue is that the fraternal order is the flagship faction of the company's product line.
Now when you say "relevance to the story", I'm going to asssume you mean the general 40k universe and space marines in particular, please correct me if I take that incorrectly. It seems from the fiction and asethetics that the Astartes are something like an order of warrior monks, who constantly say "brother" to each other as a fraternal order.
Are the Space Wolves an order of warrior monks? Because they certainly don't act like it. Same with the Raptors, who act more as tacticool spec ops. Same as the Emperor's Spears or White Scars, who have much stronger tribal designs, and less like monks.
Aside from using specific gendered pronouns, the "fraternity" aspect is never highlighted in Astartes design. By contrast, it is for the Custodes.
I also don't view it as neccessary for it to be critical to any story, narrative or arc. Just as I don't view it as neccessary for it NOT to exist.
Even though you can't really even justify *why* it's there, you're just happy to accept it being there, even though other people are giving personal reasons why it's harmful to them?
In the interest of respecting people who find it harmful, why don't you listen to them if you're so indifferent on the matter?
It strikes me as I read through the thread, that the demand to affirm female space marines really has much less to do with the game and the story in general, and more to do with a desire to dismantle popular literary or game instances of any sort of fraternal orders, with the general implications that such dismanlting is a moral and historic imperative for a better social order. At least that's a general outline of what I surmise from the comments.
That's because you're not reading them.
I've made it very clear that Custodes are fine as a fraternal order, because they actually use the tropes of a fraternal order much better than Space Marines do, and because they're not the Flagship Faction TM.
The issue isn't with fraternal orders existing. The issue is with fraternal orders existing *for no reason*, and when they're disproportionately represented.
How much clearer do I need to make this?
@The_Grim_Angel:
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The_Grim_Angel wrote: Because if there is a recurrent complain about W40k, is that the Space Marines are too overpowered to make the game really satisfactory for every player (trust me: I played the Eldar) and the idea to create a line of female space marines models wouldn't solve that issue in any way.
"a line of female Space Marine models"? No-one was discussing that.
We're discussing a headswap sprue.
If the purpose is improve the game experience, the solution is to create better rules and more balanced armies, not to create a new line of models which wouldn't change anything about the game experience.
We're not talking about the game experience though. We're talking about the hobby experience overall, such as collecting your own armies, converting your models, painting them, and generally just getting involved.
What I have to wonder is why you think that adding women Space Marines would negatively affect the game experience.
The_Grim_Angel wrote: If the introduction of the female space marines is a negligible change, why be so upset if some people thinks it isn't necessary?
Then I have to ask why it's not necessary.
If it's such a negligible change, why have there been 30 pages of people making vague allusions to this somehow being some kind of nail in the coffin of their enjoyment of 40k?
I would be upset if we were discussing about changes able to make the game more balanced and enjoyable, but someone opposed to it in order to protect the unfair advantage the rules give to his army, not about a negligible change.
Including women fairly *would* make the game more enjoyable though.
Maybe not for you perhaps, but then, would it negatively impact your enjoyment? Even if it didn't bring you enjoyment, would it make you enjoy it less? Why?
the_scotsman wrote: The value of lore that limits what you are allowed to do and make within the game is, in my opinion, the least valuable type of lore detail that exists. And almost all of the time, it's just an arbitrary restriction that exists to reflect the way the model range looks, and preclude third party miniiature makers from making a thing. "Chaos space marines don't use loyalist equipment because it breaks down in the warp" really? five minutes after a chapter of space marines goes renegade, their Hunter and Stalker and Razorback tanks all break down, crumbling into dust and blowing away in the breeze like Thanos snapped them, but their Vindicators and Predators and Rhinos are all fine? all their centurions instantly say 'mr. chaos lord, i dont feel so good...' There's no additive value to any of it. it's just silly IP puppyguarding.
I view space marines being all male as the same thing. And yes, it's not a gotcha, sisters of battle being all female as the same thing. But sisters of battle being women does actually serve as a defining attribute of the army. So change the lore to make them exactly the same as the eldar aspects - any aspirant can be called by the Emperor to become a member of the Adepta Sororitas, where they don the blessed armor and wield the blessed weapons and fight as one of the emperor's favored daughters. The grim darkness of the 41st millennium with its servitors and arco-flagellants and servo-skulls and servo-cherubs and techpriests does not appear to be a place where minor details of one's anatomy are considered to be particularly sacrosanct or even set in stone. Besides, an individual born less...naturally disposed towards serving in the role of one of the emperor's blessed daughters comes with but one more ready-made sacrifice by which to prove their unwavering devotion.
Very much agreed.
What does having Space Marines be all men actually *add* to the setting? GW don't utilise their fraternal side all that much, compared to the Custodes, who form a much tighter knit group. The only thing that Space Marines being men seems to do is act as a way to keep women out of Astartes power armour. It actively hinders creative choice, and for a faction which is so built on creative choice and "Your Dudes", this seems antithetical to that.
It's a bit strange that you asked me to provide like, a full scientific study with a representative statistically significant sample size of hate responses within the 40k community, but did not ask Some Bloke to provide anything similar for his claim that people would ask for, in his words:
"At risk of sounding like some crazy extreme type, the fact stands that a lot of outspoken people (as in, the ones who enjoy shouting about how offended they are and not the ones who actually are getting offended by it - the shouters, not the victims) are not happy unless they have something to shout about being offended by. They feel that being offended gives them power over the person who they consider offensive.
Women can be space marines - no problem there.
Then Women can be heroes - again, no problem there.
Then women can be Primarchs - well, we already have them, but if you really need a female one we can add a lost one...
Then "half of the Primarchs must be women or it's not equal" - seriously, the world doesn't work like that...
Then "There should be an Empress as well as an emperor", and this is where all those years of carefully crafted lore crumbles into a politically-correct grey powder."
All I proposed was a little experiment, to see if he would experience a similar response to what I have personally received, and which I have anecdotally observed within the community. i.e. zero evidence ever for this supposed subcommunity of eternally offended activists demanding things like 'a female emperor' and 'half of the primarchs should be female' and plenty of evidence for some people reacting negatively when you present female models neutrally as a thing that exists.
Grimskul wrote: I mean that's hardly a sample size that's conclusive and indicative of the instant persecution you seem to imply posting pics of female marines would bring.
Doing just a cursory search I could find one relatively recent Reddit post of female Primaris and there's little to no negative response to it.
Oooh! I've seen these Marines before!
Fun fact - that facebook group I referenced just earlier? They deleted these from their page, because they were women Astartes.
Just figured you might want to know that.
(Also, did you miss the comment at the bottom saying "But is it not that a problem that a woman have a smaller brain than a man?" Not sure I'd see that comment on a unit of male Astartes.)
Let's say you make a super-soldier-serum, and it takes 1000 years (for all I know, I don't know the SM lore off by heart) to perfect it. When used, it turns males into huge super soldiers, and it kills women.
Why, in a galaxy rife with overpopulation and beset by enemies, would they spend more time and resources making this serum, which already makes perfectly functional super soldiers, so that it can also make perfectly functional super soldiers with slightly different facial features?
SM are constantly shown as a dying breed, the "last line of defence that wears thin". If someone like Cawl found a way to stop this why would they not implement it? They already did with Primaris.
Assuming that someone is putting the work into making more space marines, they would start with the known system that works. If I say "your only way to survive this is to make a key" and I give you a key that needs filing to shape (male-serum) and a lump of iron ore (female serum), you are going to try and make the key work. You're not going to start from scratch and smelt iron to forge into a key. There's no logical reason for any in-hobby persons to be trying to make female marines.
Spoiler:
Furthermore, it's probably an aspect of Jurassic Park in here. If you created a race of human who were genetically and physically superior to humans in every way, you would not want to make both genders of this race, which if it shook off the shackles of human control and started populating its own worlds, would probably wipe out humanity. The reason they made all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park female is probably one of the reasons for making super soldiers all one gender.
SM are easier to control than animals. Also, it's a pretty consistent thing that they don't have the capability to reproduce and SM don't use frog DNA so they can't just evolve into the opposite sex.
They have proven to be easier to control - but the people making them didn't know that would be the case. They wouldn't have risked it. And I'm not suggesting "life will find a way" or they spontaneously shift to the opposite sex. I'm suggesting that making an army of extremely powerful Adams & Eves would be an incredibly poor decision, and one I suspect the Men of Iron would have taught them against doing.
Spoiler:
As for people saying "it's the flagship of the game, so it needs to include everyone" - This is a weird way to think. Because space marines are popular, let's change them to be more inclusive, but not do so on the less popular races? Regardless of whether people are against it (which I acknowledge that they aren't), this thread singles out space marines, specifically, because they are popular.
Show me where anyone said the other factions that have mixed armed forces shouldn't get better representation. Oh yeah, you can't because nobody said that.
This thread is dedicated to female marines, and saying that they should get it because they are the flagship of the company. This is literally adding a token female aspect to the game in an effort to make it feel more inclusive, putting it on display and saying "now girls can play too!". That, to me, sounds horrendous. That's the worst justification they could do.
Spoiler:
The problem is, you're going to get to a point where the game and its stories are sacrificed for the sake of appeasing the outspoken, despite all the thousands (or even millions) of people quietly enjoying the game and not giving a rats arse that the marines are all male, including women who don't feel that just because the models are all men they aren't allowed to play.
At risk of sounding like some crazy extreme type, the fact stands that a lot of outspoken people (as in, the ones who enjoy shouting about how offended they are and not the ones who actually are getting offended by it - the shouters, not the victims) are not happy unless they have something to shout about being offended by. They feel that being offended gives them power over the person who they consider offensive.
Lmao, that's literally never happened before. Did Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or Star Trek lose their entire fanbase because they added more women/LBGT+/non-white characters? No, they didn't. How do you know said "silent majority" won't react positively to female SM? It gives them more modeling options, stories to tell, and a chance to introduce female partners/friends/family to the hobby without relegating them to religious fanatics or BDSM space elves.
There's literally the most cringeworthy page from a comic earlier in this thread. Whilst people may not actively walk away from Marvel, the fact remains that the quality of that comic was made worse by trying to appease people.
Spoiler:
Women can be space marines - no problem there.
Then Women can be heroes - again, no problem there.
Then women can be Primarchs - well, we already have them, but if you really need a female one we can add a lost one...
Then "half of the Primarchs must be women or it's not equal" - seriously, the world doesn't work like that...
Then "There should be an Empress as well as an emperor", and this is where all those years of carefully crafted lore crumbles into a politically-correct grey powder.
I know this sounds extreme, and it's not a call to not include female space marines. The concern is whether this is actually an issue that is affecting people, or if it is an issue which people are choosing to shout about so that they can feel powerful.
If it's extreme and not part of the discussion why make the point? "Slippery Slope" is the dumbest and most worthless argument ever made because it never takes into account anything but hyperbole.
As for the issue of misogyny/sexism/harassment and threat towards women hobbyists, yes this is absolutely a real issue that shouldn't have to be explained every 3 days because someone didn't actually read the thread.
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I honestly thing an army of female marines would be very cool to see. But the reason for doing it has to be to add to the game, not to appease the outspoken shouters of the internet age.
First off 40k isn't just a game, it's a hobby with multiple facets. Someone can be into 40k and never touch a mini or play the game. The reason is to make the hobby more accessible and indeed safe to women hobbyists. How is that not adding to the hobby?
I'm sorry, but adding female space marines will not make the hobby more accessible and safe for female gamers.
When a female gamer walks into the local GW, and everyone stops talking in stunned silence, most of the men in the room turn to stare at her as if they have never seen a woman before, and continue to stare like the eyes of haunted paintings, she's not going to go "wow, the fact that the models in the picture in the window are all men has put me right off, I'm leaving!".
The problem with accessibility and safety is firmly and permanently an issue with the people who play the game, not the game itself.
Tygre wrote: That's an Escher Matriarch. Not a male. Looks quite masculine from the front, but looks more feminine from different angles. Still a butch "lady".
Or they just use feminine pronouns. Might be part of the Escher way of life, be any sex you want but use feminine pronouns to give the illusion of only women in the gang.
Aren't Custodes actually built, not bred? Like, one of the reasons I would be against female custodes is it would be pointless. They are essentially automatons. They are incapable of emotion, free will, or disobeying a command according to the fluff. Female Astartes might be able to display a level of individualism and thinking/spirited personality that a Custodian is literally incapable of.
The only one who does seem capable of disobeying a command or showing any form of emotion is Valarian. Who is viewed as something of a failure by his cohorts, because he disobeyed the command to stand by the emperor.
some bloke wrote: Let's say you make a super-soldier-serum, and it takes 1000 years (for all I know, I don't know the SM lore off by heart) to perfect it. When used, it turns males into huge super soldiers, and it kills women.
Why, in a galaxy rife with overpopulation and beset by enemies, would they spend more time and resources making this serum, which already makes perfectly functional super soldiers, so that it can also make perfectly functional super soldiers with slightly different facial features?
My counterpoint - why does the super-soldier-serum kill women? It's entirely made up - so why is there a made-up rule that it has to kill women?
Furthermore, it's probably an aspect of Jurassic Park in here. If you created a race of human who were genetically and physically superior to humans in every way, you would not want to make both genders of this race, which if it shook off the shackles of human control and started populating its own worlds, would probably wipe out humanity. The reason they made all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park female is probably one of the reasons for making super soldiers all one gender.
Just because you have male and female Astartes doesn't mean that they're fertile. In fact, I seem to think most people have said that Space Marines are sterile, even in their current all-male form.
As for people saying "it's the flagship of the game, so it needs to include everyone" - This is a weird way to think. Because space marines are popular, let's change them to be more inclusive, but not do so on the less popular races? Regardless of whether people are against it (which I acknowledge that they aren't), this thread singles out space marines, specifically, because they are popular.
Yes, it absolutely singles them out, because they're popular, because representation is nothing without visibility.
The problem is, you're going to get to a point where the game and its stories are sacrificed for the sake of appeasing the outspoken, despite all the thousands (or even millions) of people quietly enjoying the game and not giving a rats arse that the marines are all male, including women who don't feel that just because the models are all men they aren't allowed to play.
What part of including some women into the flagship faction would "sacrifice" anything? What is lost from doing that?
What I have to ask is, all those thousands and millions of people quietly enjoying the game and not giving a rat's arse about a blatant lack of representation: would they be negatively affected if representation were to happen?
At risk of sounding like some crazy extreme type, the fact stands that a lot of outspoken people (as in, the ones who enjoy shouting about how offended they are and not the ones who actually are getting offended by it - the shouters, not the victims) are not happy unless they have something to shout about being offended by. They feel that being offended gives them power over the person who they consider offensive.
Uh, no. That's very much a pretty baseless assertion on your part there.
Women can be space marines - no problem there. Then Women can be heroes - again, no problem there. Then women can be Primarchs - well, we already have them, but if you really need a female one we can add a lost one... Then "half of the Primarchs must be women or it's not equal" - seriously, the world doesn't work like that... Then "There should be an Empress as well as an emperor", and this is where all those years of carefully crafted lore crumbles into a politically-correct grey powder.
That's one hell of a slippery slope you've invented there.
I know this sounds extreme, and it's not a call to not include female space marines. The concern is whether this is actually an issue that is affecting people, or if it is an issue which people are choosing to shout about so that they can feel powerful.
As I've said - there's been links to efforts from women hobbyists who *have* been affected. It's not hard to find women who feel ostracised from the community.
Why are y'all so reluctant to hear their voices?
I honestly thing an army of female marines would be very cool to see. But the reason for doing it has to be to add to the game, not to appease the outspoken shouters of the internet age.
Why is representation "appeasement"? More importantly, why would adding them take away from the game?
We have a reason to add them: representation, and new ways to convert and design your Marines. What's the reason not to have them?
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some bloke wrote: Assuming that someone is putting the work into making more space marines, they would start with the known system that works. If I say "your only way to survive this is to make a key" and I give you a key that needs filing to shape (male-serum) and a lump of iron ore (female serum), you are going to try and make the key work. You're not going to start from scratch and smelt iron to forge into a key. There's no logical reason for any in-hobby persons to be trying to make female marines.
There's also no logical reason that female marines shouldn't be possible in the first place.
They have proven to be easier to control - but the people making them didn't know that would be the case. They wouldn't have risked it. And I'm not suggesting "life will find a way" or they spontaneously shift to the opposite sex. I'm suggesting that making an army of extremely powerful Adams & Eves would be an incredibly poor decision, and one I suspect the Men of Iron would have taught them against doing.
Also irrelevant because Astartes are sterile.
This thread is dedicated to female marines, and saying that they should get it because they are the flagship of the company. This is literally adding a token female aspect to the game in an effort to make it feel more inclusive, putting it on display and saying "now girls can play too!". That, to me, sounds horrendous. That's the worst justification they could do.
Adding a few members from 50% of the population into a faction which has no reason not to include them isn't tokenism in the slightest.
Featuring women isn't tokenistic, it's *accurate*.
There's literally the most cringeworthy page from a comic earlier in this thread. Whilst people may not actively walk away from Marvel, the fact remains that the quality of that comic was made worse by trying to appease people.
Or, perhaps it's because people didn't like what they saw?
I'm just saying, I'm not exactly buying these "facts".
I'm sorry, but adding female space marines will not make the hobby more accessible and safe for female gamers.
Why not?
When a female gamer walks into the local GW, and everyone stops talking in stunned silence, most of the men in the room turn to stare at her as if they have never seen a woman before, and continue to stare like the eyes of haunted paintings, she's not going to go "wow, the fact that the models in the picture in the window are all men has put me right off, I'm leaving!".
The problem with accessibility and safety is firmly and permanently an issue with the people who play the game, not the game itself.
And so perhaps if those people who play the game had active visibility of women front and centre, making it clear that they're part of the hobby, and belong at the forefront like everyone else, instead of relegated to side factions and obscure 5 kit "armies", maybe that might change some of the people playing the game.
Removing the illusion that it's a "boy's thing" by featuring women in the forefront, like, say, being a Space Marine, would go a hell of a distance in changing the attitudes of the people playing the game.
You say "most of the men stare as if they'd never seen a woman" - so make them see women Space Marines.
Assuming that someone is putting the work into making more space marines, they would start with the known system that works. If I say "your only way to survive this is to make a key" and I give you a key that needs filing to shape (male-serum) and a lump of iron ore (female serum), you are going to try and make the key work. You're not going to start from scratch and smelt iron to forge into a key. There's no logical reason for any in-hobby persons to be trying to make female marines.
If making a SM was a single step of serum injection then sure I would agree with you but it isn't so the same logic doesn't apply. The only issue seems to stem from gene-seed. The logical in-universe reason would be getting the other 50% of the human population viable as recruits and double the chances of the process going well and increasing the vitally needed troops.
Spoiler:
They have proven to be easier to control - but the people making them didn't know that would be the case. They wouldn't have risked it. And I'm not suggesting "life will find a way" or they spontaneously shift to the opposite sex. I'm suggesting that making an army of extremely powerful Adams & Eves would be an incredibly poor decision, and one I suspect the Men of Iron would have taught them against doing.
[spoiler]
Take out the reproductive organs during the surgery to implant the others. Done.
[spoiler]
This thread is dedicated to female marines, and saying that they should get it because they are the flagship of the company. This is literally adding a token female aspect to the game in an effort to make it feel more inclusive, putting it on display and saying "now girls can play too!". That, to me, sounds horrendous. That's the worst justification they could do.
Ignoring my point doesn't justify your one chief. Also, that's how marketing works and considering the corner GW has knowingly or otherwise backed itself into with SM unless SoB and SM are brought to the exact same standard of marketing and media presence in the coming years and there is a large enough base of women/girl hobbyists that adding female SM wouldn't feel like pandering, adding female SM relatively soon is the only real option.
Spoiler:
There's literally the most cringeworthy page from a comic earlier in this thread. Whilst people may not actively walk away from Marvel, the fact remains that the quality of that comic was made worse by trying to appease people.
So one page from one comic means no adding representation ever. Ok.
Spoiler:
I'm sorry, but adding female space marines will not make the hobby more accessible and safe for female gamers.
When a female gamer walks into the local GW, and everyone stops talking in stunned silence, most of the men in the room turn to stare at her as if they have never seen a woman before, and continue to stare like the eyes of haunted paintings, she's not going to go "wow, the fact that the models in the picture in the window are all men has put me right off, I'm leaving!".
The problem with accessibility and safety is firmly and permanently an issue with the people who play the game, not the game itself.
If GW were to show that the hobby is intended to be enjoyed by all and makes it very obvious that sexism/racism/transphobia/homophobia/etc. aren't going to be welcome then making the flagship product the face of that policy would be a right step. Nobody is saying it will change the environment overnight but if after a couple of years of SM being a mixed faction, someone posts a female SM on social media and doesn't get death threats and harassment then I'd say that's a win.
the_scotsman wrote: ....I would propose you undertake a little experiment. Dig a little bit online and find a picture of a basic converted female space marine headswap that's not painted to any kind of 'museum quality paintjob' or conversion or whatever, and post it up online somewhere like I guess reddit with a neutral title like "painted a marine."
Then, do the same thing, but grab a quick picture of a unit of space marines where every marine is male. Just like, 10 intercessors or something. Post it up to the same place, with a neutral title like 'painted some marines.'
My guess is, given my own experience with posting pictures of my deathwatch, which have names and include some helmeted models with names like "Sister Artemis - Huntresses" alongside "Brother Invictus - Sons of Ultramar" that a small minority of people are going to come along, and exercise a degree of power by being offended and sending you anonymous hate over the internet.
I would hypothesize, just again, based on experience, that you would get absolutely zero of that minority of people getting offended and sending you anonymous hate for not including any women in your squad of all-male space marines, and you could get 100% of that minority sending you anonymous hate because of the post you put up of a space marine who happened to have a female head, or in my case, name.
I mean that's hardly a sample size that's conclusive and indicative of the instant persecution you seem to imply posting pics of female marines would bring.
Doing just a cursory search I could find one relatively recent Reddit post of female Primaris and there's little to no negative response to it.
Just from the comments (don't see this person's PMs, which was where I got the "kill yourself t****y" "slit your wrists" "F*** like you have no place here" comments)
"Actually, within the fluff, yes there is a reason. I mean, if you want to make female Marines, hey, more power to you, but yes, there is a reason they can’t go through the process."
"While i'm all for the female space marines. Unless some of the original 18 primarchs were female all space marines are men.
What i'm saying is create your own 2nd/eleventh primarch who's female."
"But is it not that a problem that a woman have a smaller brain than a man?"
Some Bloke's post was talking about a small minority of people who exercise power in a community by acting offended at something. What I have never seen, is that, when someone posts up pics of all-male space marines.
What you do see - like in this post - is a small minority of people exercising power in a community by acting offended at the existence of someone else's models being female whenever that gets posted up. And my own experience is that that offense is pretty minor on the actual comments of the actual post, and then you get several much nastier hate PMs from sock puppets afterwards.
I did say little to no, not none at all, and I wasn't signed into Reddit at the time, so I couldn't see the last comment that was downvoted so I couldn't see it. One trollsy comment ain't exactly a huge persecution movement compared to like the 80% positive comments towards her work on that post. And the other ones I would say are pretty much civilly discussing the lore basis behind it if you wanted to justify them being female, which is fair since if you did want to stick to the lore, you would have to resort to the missing Primarchs/headcanon.
Fair point regarding that I didn't consider the PM's being toxic, but I feel like that is an aspect of being able to be anonymous online and the nature of social media moreso than something unique to female SM modellists.
Grimskul wrote: I did say little to no, not none at all, and I wasn't signed into Reddit at the time, so I couldn't see the last comment that was downvoted so I couldn't see it. One trollsy comment ain't exactly a huge persecution movement compared to like the 80% positive comments towards her work on that post. And the other ones I would say are pretty much civilly discussing the lore basis behind it if you wanted to justify them being female, which is fair since if you did want to stick to the lore, you would have to resort to the missing Primarchs/headcanon.
I also again mention that these very same models were reposted on a similar 40k facebook group, and were taken down for being "political".
Last note, but I don't believe the creator for these Marines is a woman, from what I remember on that facebook group.
Fair point regarding that I didn't consider the PM's being toxic, but I feel like that is an aspect of being able to be anonymous online and the nature of social media moreso than something unique to female SM modellists.
There's still no excuse for it, and if they're using "muh lore" as an excuse, then what's wrong with removing that excuse from their arsenal of hatred? Why not delegitimise their hatred and bigotry?
Again - these comments would not be made if these were male Astartes.
the_scotsman wrote: ....I would propose you undertake a little experiment. Dig a little bit online and find a picture of a basic converted female space marine headswap that's not painted to any kind of 'museum quality paintjob' or conversion or whatever, and post it up online somewhere like I guess reddit with a neutral title like "painted a marine."
Then, do the same thing, but grab a quick picture of a unit of space marines where every marine is male. Just like, 10 intercessors or something. Post it up to the same place, with a neutral title like 'painted some marines.'
My guess is, given my own experience with posting pictures of my deathwatch, which have names and include some helmeted models with names like "Sister Artemis - Huntresses" alongside "Brother Invictus - Sons of Ultramar" that a small minority of people are going to come along, and exercise a degree of power by being offended and sending you anonymous hate over the internet.
I would hypothesize, just again, based on experience, that you would get absolutely zero of that minority of people getting offended and sending you anonymous hate for not including any women in your squad of all-male space marines, and you could get 100% of that minority sending you anonymous hate because of the post you put up of a space marine who happened to have a female head, or in my case, name.
I mean that's hardly a sample size that's conclusive and indicative of the instant persecution you seem to imply posting pics of female marines would bring.
Doing just a cursory search I could find one relatively recent Reddit post of female Primaris and there's little to no negative response to it.
Just from the comments (don't see this person's PMs, which was where I got the "kill yourself t****y" "slit your wrists" "F*** like you have no place here" comments)
"Actually, within the fluff, yes there is a reason. I mean, if you want to make female Marines, hey, more power to you, but yes, there is a reason they can’t go through the process."
"While i'm all for the female space marines. Unless some of the original 18 primarchs were female all space marines are men.
What i'm saying is create your own 2nd/eleventh primarch who's female."
"But is it not that a problem that a woman have a smaller brain than a man?"
Some Bloke's post was talking about a small minority of people who exercise power in a community by acting offended at something. What I have never seen, is that, when someone posts up pics of all-male space marines.
What you do see - like in this post - is a small minority of people exercising power in a community by acting offended at the existence of someone else's models being female whenever that gets posted up. And my own experience is that that offense is pretty minor on the actual comments of the actual post, and then you get several much nastier hate PMs from sock puppets afterwards.
I did say little to no, not none at all, and I wasn't signed into Reddit at the time, so I couldn't see the last comment that was downvoted so I couldn't see it. One trollsy comment ain't exactly a huge persecution movement compared to like the 80% positive comments towards her work on that post. And the other ones I would say are pretty much civilly discussing the lore basis behind it if you wanted to justify them being female, which is fair since if you did want to stick to the lore, you would have to resort to the missing Primarchs/headcanon.
Fair point regarding that I didn't consider the PM's being toxic, but I feel like that is an aspect of being able to be anonymous online and the nature of social media moreso than something unique to female SM modellists.
It is not unique to female sm modelling. Obviously. That was never my point, and it's very strange how much you really want to talk about the contribution I made as a response to another person, but not the original proposition of the person I responded to.
My point, the entire extent of my premise, is:
1) a small minority contingent of people who will use their being offended as an excuse to throw anonymous abuse comments your way when you do not model your space marines including female models, or when you discuss, make posts about, draw art of or paint primarchs, the emperor, custodes, or any other all-male group within 40k, does not appear to exist by any observable metric. I have looked into the comments of a couple dozen reddit posts showing all-male units of space marines at this point, and have not found a single angry feminist anywhere.
2) a small minority contingent of people who will use their being offended as an excuse to throw anonymous abuse comments your way when you DO model your space marines including female models, or when you discuss, make posts about, draw art of or paint primarchs, custodes...I guess the emperor idk that was Some Bloke's thing but, whatever, or any other all-male group within 40k as including women, or being all women DOES appear to exist by an observable metric.
If you really want scientific levels of rigor for a similar claim, there have actually been sociological studies done on the level of abuse received by people online making the exact same comments with the exact same intonations with a male voice and a female voice in video games. Just because 'reddit PMs you get posting images of female space marines' is an incredibly niche subcategory of a similar phenomenon such that a sufficient data sample is basically impossible to get, doesn't mean it's unreasonable to extrapolate that the level of anonymous abuse would be similar or worse in a community like wargaming, which has less female representation than the broader sphere of gaming.
Sister of battle are not a good form of female representation. I keep saying this. They are exclusively female. Making women something “other” in 40K. The have a very sexualised presentation. Corsets, armoured boobs. There are even high heals. They have the aesthetic of a sexy Joan of arc or a fetishised nun. Objectified female representation isn’t a good thing. It is like saying porn is very good for women because they feature in it a lot. While I think you would find most women would agree porn is not remotely representative but entirely objectifying. Sister of battle were a bad pun 25 years ago. Now they are with sone nice models.
I mean they are...literally objects, it is a miniatures game, so you got it there for sure.
And I don't know. Sisters seem to be less objectified than...most female superheroes, for example. I know reaction from female hobbyists towards the female stormcast has been generally better than the reaction towards the new SoB, but basically 1 in every 2 40k cosplays you get people posting pictures of online is a sister of battle.
And they don't have high heels, that's just the one limited release finecast model based on the 2nd ed art. All the new design plastic sisters are wearing flat shoes. Their full suit of armor does include (fairly restrained, by general miniature industry standard) boobplate and a corset, that's true.
Andykp wrote: Sister of battle are not a good form of female representation. I keep saying this. They are exclusively female. Making women something “other” in 40K. The have a very sexualised presentation. Corsets, armoured boobs. There are even high heals. They have the aesthetic of a sexy Joan of arc or a fetishised nun. Objectified female representation isn’t a good thing. It is like saying porn is very good for women because they feature in it a lot. While I think you would find most women would agree porn is not remotely representative but entirely objectifying. Sister of battle were a bad pun 25 years ago. Now they are with sone nice models.
This roughly covers my feelings on the whole "but SoB" argument. The only female-dominated faction in 40k is an order of religious zealots obsessed with burning and purging, with fairly sexualised armour designs. Yeah, they aren't as bad as certain other properties female characters but we also know GW can do fairly tasteful renditions of female armour seen with the Stormcast.
I think we all know the sexist jokes that go hand-in-hand with SoB ranging from "Bolter B " to ones a bit too vulgar for this forum.
It's great that GW is making more stories about them to try and get rid of the general ideas and give nuance to the faction but the SoB aren't exactly "role model" material.
Sisters are considerably sexualized. Sure modern sister models are better than most super-heroines, or older sister models as a matter of fact (old Repentia were just awful). That doesn't necessarily mean SoB are bad. How women react to sexualized designs varies, some hate it, some roll with it, some like it (There are women that do like to flaunt their sexuality after all, nothing wrong with that). But they cannot be the only female representation.
BTW I do find it weird there are no codpieces in 40k armors. Historically, men did like to flaunt their sexuality.
I agree. It's even worse if you try to recognize the topos behind which the GW female presence is located:
- pious dogmatic and faithful (SoB)
- nuns with guns (SoB - admittedly, the "fully crazy fanatic" card in the army is covered by males)
- exotic Bdsm mistresses (DE)
- some gals who do not talk by definition (SoS - worth to remember that their male counterpart become Culexus instead...)
On the other hand, if we consider more sensible ranges we have:
- Necromunda and other specialist games.
- Genestealer Cults.
- maybe the Inquisitors are overall more equal?
Come on, it could be better. It should be better. It should have been better already half a decade ago.
A couple of more female models is good, but we're really far away from any decent and sensible standard... And some kulture shock like female SM I think will be a catalyst in this sense
the_scotsman wrote: I mean they are...literally objects, it is a miniatures game, so you got it there for sure.
And I don't know. Sisters seem to be less objectified than...most female superheroes, for example. I know reaction from female hobbyists towards the female stormcast has been generally better than the reaction towards the new SoB, but basically 1 in every 2 40k cosplays you get people posting pictures of online is a sister of battle.
And they don't have high heels, that's just the one limited release finecast model based on the 2nd ed art. All the new design plastic sisters are wearing flat shoes. Their full suit of armor does include (fairly restrained, by general miniature industry standard) boobplate and a corset, that's true.
I don’t think that saying it’s not as bad as x or y is a valid defence. I’m not arguing to change sisters but don’t hold them up as a paragon for representation. I also doubt the cosplay community or those who host its pictures are a good barometer for objectification.
The fact is given a clean slate then GW do it very well. The stormcast models are great. Clearly women but clearly heroic and clearly stormcast.
Tyran wrote: Sisters are considerably sexualized. Sure modern sister models are better than most super-heroines, or older sister models as a matter of fact (old Repentia were just awful). That doesn't necessarily mean SoB are bad. How women react to sexualized designs varies, some hate it, some roll with it, some like it (There are women that do like to flaunt their sexuality after all, nothing wrong with that). But they cannot be the only female representation.
BTW I do find it weird there are no codpieces in 40k armors. Historically, men did like to flaunt their sexuality.
What exactly constitutes a woman?
In order to establish who needs representation I think we first need to agree on that definition because I'm confused on what people want. I.E If you spruce up a human full of growth hormone and steroids they will look like they are currently represented as far as I understand... So what exactly needs to change?
Argive wrote: What exactly constitutes a woman?
In order to establish who needs representation I think we first need to agree on that definition because I'm confused on what people want. I.E If you spruce up a human full of growth hormone and steroids they will look like they are currently represented as far as I understand... So what exactly needs to change?
Can somebody define woman for me?
What do you want, woman or female?
"Woman" is a gender. An individual's gender has no bearing on whether or not they fit sex classification A or B. However, women tend to have longer hair than men and that is a basic signifier of gender. There are of course other ways to show ones gender but considering SM all wear the same PA, fashion isn't exactly an option here.
"Female" is a biological sex that is defined by having different reproductive cells (gametes) to a male.
We know that male SM cannot reproduce so it stands to reason the same would apply to female SM. The gametes are still present from their formation of the child so removing the ability to reproduce does not stop the SM from being female.
Easy solution? Next wave of Primaris releases, change half the bare heads given in a kit to basically carbon copies of the female Stormcast and some of the SoB heads. Problem solved.
Argive wrote: What exactly constitutes a woman?
In order to establish who needs representation I think we first need to agree on that definition because I'm confused on what people want. I.E If you spruce up a human full of growth hormone and steroids they will look like they are currently represented as far as I understand... So what exactly needs to change?
Can somebody define woman for me?
Wow. You are really reaching now.
The male SM heads look typically male. Not typical of a male pumped up on GH and testosterone, generally. So the female SM heads would just need to look typically female. There are some very good examples out there. Stormcast ones, new guard ones, 3rd party ones. They don’t need to be pigtails and big pouty lips if that’s what you’re thinking. Nor do they need to be masculine and overly effected by the hormones. The male ones aren’t so the female ones not. Don’t think it would hurt with the SM heads to have some androgynous ones where you can’t instantly tell if they are female or male. To represent the effects of the process. Just like there are some very squared jawed SM and some prettier ones (aka blood angels).
That is a good point I forgot to add in my post. The gene-seed of a Chapter could have a hundred different effects on the looks of a SM. With the Blood Angels and their successors, it ranges from outright beauty in the guise of Sanguinius himself to a horrific pale-skinned, pointy-eared monster like a traditional vampire. Not to mention battle-scars and bionics that could change the entire shape of an SM's face.
Argive wrote: What exactly constitutes a woman? In order to establish who needs representation I think we first need to agree on that definition because I'm confused on what people want. I.E If you spruce up a human full of growth hormone and steroids they will look like they are currently represented as far as I understand... So what exactly needs to change?
Can somebody define woman for me?
What do you want, woman or female?
"Woman" is a gender. An individual's gender has no bearing on whether or not they fit sex classification A or B. However, women tend to have longer hair than men and that is a basic signifier of gender. There are of course other ways to show ones gender but considering SM all wear the same PA, fashion isn't exactly an option here.
"Female" is a biological sex that is defined by having different reproductive cells (gametes) to a male. We know that male SM cannot reproduce so it stands to reason the same would apply to female SM. The gametes are still present from their formation of the child so removing the ability to reproduce does not stop the SM from being female.
Easy solution? Next wave of Primaris releases, change half the bare heads given in a kit to basically carbon copies of the female Stormcast and some of the SoB heads. Problem solved.
I dont know you tell me which definition we need to use. Who are you advocating representation for ?
Female and a woman are two separate different things?
Do you need to be both woman and a female in order to deserve representation?
A woman has no bearing on their sex, so a woman is a woman because has long hair?
A female is female because of gametes - Why are gametes relevant to 40k? Why do you assume 40k humans have gametes?
According to your definition shrike is a woman because he has longer hair then uriel ventris?
Something seemed off, I wasn't sure about your definition so I did a quick google online. I assume google is up to date. The definition for woman is as follows according to the online dictionary:
This is incorrect according to UK law as its a hate crime. Just FYI - I am sharing this purely for reference.
How can you argue you want representation for women if you are not able to even define what a woman is?
Andykp wrote:
Argive wrote: What exactly constitutes a woman? In order to establish who needs representation I think we first need to agree on that definition because I'm confused on what people want. I.E If you spruce up a human full of growth hormone and steroids they will look like they are currently represented as far as I understand... So what exactly needs to change?
Can somebody define woman for me?
Wow. You are really reaching now.
The male SM heads look typically male. Not typical of a male pumped up on GH and testosterone, generally. So the female SM heads would just need to look typically female. There are some very good examples out there. Stormcast ones, new guard ones, 3rd party ones. They don’t need to be pigtails and big pouty lips if that’s what you’re thinking. Nor do they need to be masculine and overly effected by the hormones. The male ones aren’t so the female ones not. Don’t think it would hurt with the SM heads to have some androgynous ones where you can’t instantly tell if they are female or male. To represent the effects of the process. Just like there are some very squared jawed SM and some prettier ones (aka blood angels).
Excuse me? Don't we need to know and agree who we are trying to represent? I think you're the one doing the reaching... And your language comes off really exclusionary and transphobic. How can you say anything looks "typically female" without being exclusionary to the trans and non binary and gender fluid community or females who don't look "typically female". What exactly do you mean?
Why are you excluding women without hair or short hair? Are they not worthy or representation because they are not typically female? I don't see how that achieves representation.. You'd need a bald/bland head without any distinctive features no?
We have a member of our community who is trans, I'd need to ask her how she feels about this but not sure I want to bother her for the sake of an argument
I dont know you tell me which definition we need to use. Who are you advocating representation for ?
Female and a woman are two separate different things?
Do you need to be both woman and a female in order to deserve representation?
A woman has no bearing on their sex, so a woman is a woman because has long hair?
A female is female because of gametes - Why are gametes relevant to 40k? Why do you assume 40k humans have gametes?
According to your definition shrike is a woman because he has longer hair then uriel ventris?
Something seemed off, I wasn't sure about your definition so I did a quick google online. I assume google is up to date.
The definition for woman is as follows according to the online dictionary:
This is incorrect according to UK law as its a hate crime. Just FYI - I am sharing this purely for reference.
How can you argue you want representation for women if you are not able to even define what a woman is?
Good to see you didn't read what I said regarding gender and cherry-picked it to suit what your arguments were. I said one indicator of gender is hair length and yeah there are loads but when you stick 100 people in identical armour that has no features, the way you would determine masculinity or femininity would be through things like hair length or facial hair.
If you'd actually bothered to read the Wikipedia article beyond the first seven words, you'd have seen that it makes distinctions between sex and gender, even more so if you go into articles on sex and gender. Common vernacular tends to mix gender and sex to the point where most people don't actually know the difference between the two.
As for representation, most people identify by their gender be it man, woman, girl, boy, trans or cis. So how about you drop the stupid questions and argue in good faith.
Also, wt are you on about "its a hate crime"?
Spoiler:
Excuse me?
Don't we need to know and agree who we are trying to represent? I think you're the one doing the reaching... And your language comes off really exclusionary and transphobic. How can you say anything looks "typically female" without being exclusionary to the trans and non binary and gender fluid community or females who don't look "typically female". What exactly do you mean?
Why are you excluding women without hair or short hair? Are they not worthy or representation because they are not typically female?
I don't see how that achieves representation.. You'd need a bald/bland head without any distinctive features no?
We have a member of our community who is trans, I'd need to ask her how she feels about this but not sure I want to bother her for the sake of an argument
Do their feelings not matter?
Again you seem to have trouble actually reading what people write.
Andy specifically said that a female head didn't need to have thing like pigtails and pouty lips to look feminine and even suggested more androgynous designs as well to show those who don't fit into the masculine/feminine categories.
I dont know you tell me which definition we need to use. Who are you advocating representation for ?
Female and a woman are two separate different things?
Do you need to be both woman and a female in order to deserve representation?
A woman has no bearing on their sex, so a woman is a woman because has long hair?
A female is female because of gametes - Why are gametes relevant to 40k? Why do you assume 40k humans have gametes?
According to your definition shrike is a woman because he has longer hair then uriel ventris?
Something seemed off, I wasn't sure about your definition so I did a quick google online. I assume google is up to date. The definition for woman is as follows according to the online dictionary:
This is incorrect according to UK law as its a hate crime. Just FYI - I am sharing this purely for reference.
How can you argue you want representation for women if you are not able to even define what a woman is?
Good to see you didn't read what I said regarding gender and cherry-picked it to suit what your arguments were. I said one indicator of gender is hair length and yeah there are loads but when you stick 100 people in identical armour that has no features, the way you would determine masculinity or femininity would be through things like hair length or facial hair. If you'd actually bothered to read the Wikipedia article beyond the first seven words, you'd have seen that it makes distinctions between sex and gender, even more so if you go into articles on sex and gender. Common vernacular tends to mix gender and sex to the point where most people don't actually know the difference between the two. As for representation, most people identify by their gender be it man, woman, girl, boy, trans or cis. So how about you drop the stupid questions and argue in good faith. Also, wt are you on about "its a hate crime"?
Spoiler:
Excuse me? Don't we need to know and agree who we are trying to represent? I think you're the one doing the reaching... And your language comes off really exclusionary and transphobic. How can you say anything looks "typically female" without being exclusionary to the trans and non binary and gender fluid community or females who don't look "typically female". What exactly do you mean?
Why are you excluding women without hair or short hair? Are they not worthy or representation because they are not typically female? I don't see how that achieves representation.. You'd need a bald/bland head without any distinctive features no?
We have a member of our community who is trans, I'd need to ask her how she feels about this but not sure I want to bother her for the sake of an argument
Do their feelings not matter?
Again you seem to have trouble actually reading what people write. Andy specifically said that a female head didn't need to have thing like pigtails and pouty lips to look feminine and even suggested more androgynous designs as well to show those who don't fit into the masculine/feminine categories.
What article? Its a definition of a word. Why are my questions stupid? I think they are perfectly valid for the discussion and the responses you gave. If you don't want to answer the questions or cant just say so.
Saying the definition for woman = "adult human female" can get you charged with a hate crime against the trans people... Some lady tried to put this up on bilboards and was reported for being part of hate group. Therefore I am under the assumption you are not allowed to use this in a public space. I don't need police coming around my house..
We are talking about aesthetic representation of a concept here. So you want an androgynous genderless sexless head in order to represent female/women to attract them to 40K?
Someone who identifies as one.
For the purposes of inanimate toys, one would assume it is one that has been identified as one by the creators, and potentially with signifiers commonly associated with that identification.
For example - the Stormcast women, who are made of the same plastic as every other Stormcast, but are signified with traits commonly associated with the performativity of womanhood.
Argive wrote: I dont know you tell me which definition we need to use. Who are you advocating representation for ?
Female and a woman are two separate different things?
Yes, they are. We are advocating representation for women, and the performative appearance of that, because representation requires visibility.
According to your definition shrike is a woman because he has longer hair then uriel ventris?
No, because you just referred to Shrike with masc pronouns, and he is referred to by GW with masc pronouns. This, by definition, means he's not identified as a woman.
Something seemed off, I wasn't sure about your definition so I did a quick google online. I assume google is up to date.
The definition for woman is as follows according to the online dictionary:
This is incorrect according to UK law as its a hate crime. Just FYI - I am sharing this purely for reference.
Link is broken, can't see it. But I will say that online dictionary definitions are rarely correct with modern gender understandings, in general.
How can you argue you want representation for women if you are not able to even define what a woman is?
I can point at the ostensible women in the Stormcast lineup and say "I want that" though.
Now why is that a problem?
Excuse me?
Don't we need to know and agree who we are trying to represent?
Well first, that would require you to say that you care for representation, which you haven't yet.
So I'd like to see you make it very clear that you *do* believe representation is important.
And your language comes off really exclusionary and transphobic. How can you say anything looks "typically female" without being exclusionary to the trans and non binary and gender fluid community or females who don't look "typically female". What exactly do you mean?
In regards to gender performativity, they are being quite accurate.
Womanhood, like all genders, is entirely constructed, but constructed based off of understood performed actions and behaviours. These performed actions and behaviours can be accepted and rejected on an individual basis, but there are commonly accepted performative traits that lend more strongly to one than another. However, yes, a woman does not need to look "female" to be a woman. However, admitting that there is a performative standard is not "exclusionary and transphobic". What *is* exclusionary is making up excuses why women can't be Space Marines, but I don't see you complaining.
Why are you excluding women without hair or short hair? Are they not worthy or representation because they are not typically female?
I don't see how that achieves representation.. You'd need a bald/bland head without any distinctive features no?
As you brought up bald heads, I'd like to direct you to the bald heads on the Sisters sprue, and how, despite being bald, are still noticeably feminine, and even more distinctly different from the very masculine bald heads of the Space Marines. Even without hair, they are built with very different performative signifiers.
I think the point I'm getting at is that Space Marines all use masculine pronouns, and all have masculine features. They are, ostensibly, all men. And, if some were to use feminine pronouns, that would be a form of representation - but without also including feminine featured faces (and for this, I refer to Stormcast women, who are very much identifiable as such without looking fragile or any weaker than their male counterparts), this representation is shallow. The representation I ask for should cover enough to provide heads, between the masculine existing ones, and the feminine proposed ones, so that any Space Marines could go by any assigned pronoun, and have a physical appearance equally as varied, if the creator so wanted it.
So, for example, I would actually lend towards feminine faces for my Blood Angels, even if they used masculine pronouns.
Do their feelings not matter?
Funny, I seem to remember you saying that feelings didn't matter? When was your change of heart? Would you care to amend your previous comments regarding lore being more important than representation?
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Argive wrote: What article? Its a definition of a word.
Saying the definition for woman = "adult human female" can get you charged with a hate crime against the trans people... Some lady tried to put this up on bilboards and was reported for being part of hate group.
Definitions aren't always correct, and yeah, "woman = adult human female" is an incorrect definition under modern understanding. Just so we get that cleared up.
We are talking about aesthetic representation of a concept here.
So you want an androgynous genderless sexless head in order to represent female/women to attract them to 40K?
Nope - just copy what the Stormcast got, and we're pretty good to go. Let people use the heads that they feel suit their characters most appropriately, be that more androgynous heads, more masculine heads (that we have a dearth of already), or feminine ones.
To summarise, in order to achieve the objective of satisfing the representation criteria you need:
1. Pronouns, 2. An aesthetic representation of "not masculine - I will know it when I see it"(please clarify this as I'm not sure how to describe this) of the head of the marine.
Is that accurate ?
But Storm casts are not humans pumped full of Genehanced pseudo science cocktail of hormones/bio stuff. Why would storm casts look the same as marines?
Saying the definition for woman = "adult human female" can get you charged with a hate crime against the trans people... Some lady tried to put this up on bilboards and was reported for being part of hate group.
We are talking about aesthetic representation of a concept here.
So you want an androgynous genderless sexless head in order to represent female/women to attract them to 40K?
You can't take everything as its dictionary definition chief. As I explained in the post, common vernacular mixes gender and sex to the point of irritating irrelevance.
Have you got evidence for the incident you describe, preferably a news article from a company that isn't dedicated to clickbait nonsense? If she was part of a hate group then I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that was why they were reported.
Again, read what I said regarding the way female SM would be represented. The FW Stormcast upgrades are a perfect example of how GW could do this.
TBH I'm done having arguments with you when you clearly have no intention of either reading what I have posted nor answering with actual responses describing your position on the matter.
Argive wrote: To summarise, in order to achieve the objective of satisfing the representation criteria you need:
1. Pronouns, 2. An aesthetic representation of "not masculine - I will know it when I see it"(please clarify this as I'm not sure how to describe this) of the head of the marine.
Is that accurate ?
No. Both, at the same time.
In order to achieve the "objective", just do what GW did with the Stormcast lore and heads. It's that simple. Not one and/or the other, both.
Someone who identifies as one.
For the purposes of inanimate toys, one would assume it is one that has been identified as one by the creators, and potentially with signifiers commonly associated with that identification.
For example - the Stormcast women, who are made of the same plastic as every other Stormcast, but are signified with traits commonly associated with the performativity of womanhood.
Argive wrote: I dont know you tell me which definition we need to use. Who are you advocating representation for ?
Female and a woman are two separate different things?
Yes, they are. We are advocating representation for women, and the performative appearance of that, because representation requires visibility.
According to your definition shrike is a woman because he has longer hair then uriel ventris?
No, because you just referred to Shrike with masc pronouns, and he is referred to by GW with masc pronouns. This, by definition, means he's not identified as a woman.
Something seemed off, I wasn't sure about your definition so I did a quick google online. I assume google is up to date.
The definition for woman is as follows according to the online dictionary:
This is incorrect according to UK law as its a hate crime. Just FYI - I am sharing this purely for reference.
Link is broken, can't see it. But I will say that online dictionary definitions are rarely correct with modern gender understandings, in general.
How can you argue you want representation for women if you are not able to even define what a woman is?
I can point at the ostensible women in the Stormcast lineup and say "I want that" though.
Now why is that a problem?
Excuse me?
Don't we need to know and agree who we are trying to represent?
Well first, that would require you to say that you care for representation, which you haven't yet.
So I'd like to see you make it very clear that you *do* believe representation is important.
And your language comes off really exclusionary and transphobic. How can you say anything looks "typically female" without being exclusionary to the trans and non binary and gender fluid community or females who don't look "typically female". What exactly do you mean?
In regards to gender performativity, they are being quite accurate.
Womanhood, like all genders, is entirely constructed, but constructed based off of understood performed actions and behaviours. These performed actions and behaviours can be accepted and rejected on an individual basis, but there are commonly accepted performative traits that lend more strongly to one than another. However, yes, a woman does not need to look "female" to be a woman. However, admitting that there is a performative standard is not "exclusionary and transphobic". What *is* exclusionary is making up excuses why women can't be Space Marines, but I don't see you complaining.
Why are you excluding women without hair or short hair? Are they not worthy or representation because they are not typically female?
I don't see how that achieves representation.. You'd need a bald/bland head without any distinctive features no?
As you brought up bald heads, I'd like to direct you to the bald heads on the Sisters sprue, and how, despite being bald, are still noticeably feminine, and even more distinctly different from the very masculine bald heads of the Space Marines. Even without hair, they are built with very different performative signifiers.
I think the point I'm getting at is that Space Marines all use masculine pronouns, and all have masculine features. They are, ostensibly, all men. And, if some were to use feminine pronouns, that would be a form of representation - but without also including feminine featured faces (and for this, I refer to Stormcast women, who are very much identifiable as such without looking fragile or any weaker than their male counterparts), this representation is shallow. The representation I ask for should cover enough to provide heads, between the masculine existing ones, and the feminine proposed ones, so that any Space Marines could go by any assigned pronoun, and have a physical appearance equally as varied, if the creator so wanted it.
So, for example, I would actually lend towards feminine faces for my Blood Angels, even if they used masculine pronouns.
Do their feelings not matter?
Funny, I seem to remember you saying that feelings didn't matter? When was your change of heart? Would you care to amend your previous comments regarding lore being more important than representation?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Argive wrote: What article? Its a definition of a word.
Saying the definition for woman = "adult human female" can get you charged with a hate crime against the trans people... Some lady tried to put this up on bilboards and was reported for being part of hate group.
Definitions aren't always correct, and yeah, "woman = adult human female" is an incorrect definition under modern understanding. Just so we get that cleared up.
We are talking about aesthetic representation of a concept here.
So you want an androgynous genderless sexless head in order to represent female/women to attract them to 40K?
Nope - just copy what the Stormcast got, and we're pretty good to go. Let people use the heads that they feel suit their characters most appropriately, be that more androgynous heads, more masculine heads (that we have a dearth of already), or feminine ones.
After all, variety is the spice of life.
I never said I dotn care about peoples feelings. i said I don't care about the feelings of people that are not part of my community, insult me or actively try to damage me or things I care about. I think I made that pretty clear the last time.
Argive wrote: I never said I dotn care about peoples feelings. i said I don't care about the feelings of people that are not part of my community, insult me or actively try to damage me or things I care about. I think I made that pretty clear the last time.
What part of me is: Not part of your community? What do you see as your "community"? Anyone who you can conveniently ignore and dismiss because you can't see them? Insulting you, by asking for women Space Marines? Damaging anything by including women Space Marines? And before you say it, how is the lore damaged by women Space Marines - why is that an issue? Or more importantly, why does the lore come before a person?
Argive wrote: I never said I dotn care about peoples feelings. i said I don't care about the feelings of people that are not part of my community, insult me or actively try to damage me or things I care about. I think I made that pretty clear the last time.
What part of me is:
Not part of your community?
Insulting you, by asking for women Space Marines?
Damaging anything by including women Space Marines?
I don’t want to be part of his community.
He has no argument, he has no basis for his opposition that he is willing to write on here. He just continues to run around misrepresenting, misquoting and misdirecting things. And claim to have a complete lack of empathy for anyone not part of “his” community it a pretty grim state of affairs.
Andykp wrote: Don’t think it would hurt with the SM heads to have some androgynous ones where you can’t instantly tell if they are female or male.
This, incidentally, jives with my approach to assembling drukhari; within the general theme of the unit (helmets, half-masks, bare heads, yea or nay to bayonets, etc. to aid in visual squad identificalion) I randomise head to body pairings in the interests of not "doing" gender per human socialisation.
Andykp wrote: Don’t think it would hurt with the SM heads to have some androgynous ones where you can’t instantly tell if they are female or male.
This, incidentally, jives with my approach to assembling drukhari; within the general theme of the unit (helmets, half-masks, bare heads, yea or nay to bayonets, etc. to aid in visual squad identificalion) I randomise head to body pairings in the interests of not "doing" gender per human socialisation.
Andykp wrote: And claim to have a complete lack of empathy for anyone not part of “his” community it a pretty grim state of affairs.
This especially - outright admitting not to care about people they have "Othered" is frankly alarming.
What's alarming is your continual LYING about how this is not a political discussion whenever exposed. You keep REPEATDLY say "ohh saying women exist is political ?".
As if a single person in this thread said women don't exist... That's such a bald face faced misrepresentation of peoples comments, how do you expect anyone to care what you have to say if that's your counter argument or take you seriously?
What I and other have argued is that this is inherently a political discussion because the suggested premise is that: Popular Male SM = Mysoginy enabling and sexism gatekeeping in 40k.
The only way that statement can be true is 40k Male SM is part of the patriarchal structure which holds women back on purpose somehow and therefore needs to be attacked. WHICH IS AN OVERTLY POLITICAL FEMINIST POSITION.
And that's a good enough reason to keep it as it is. And keep political and ideological agendas out of 40k. The premise that EVERYTHING is sexist homophobic and racist is simply not true... Because otherwise my Nans farm would have to be sexist..
People have repeatedly told you nobody cares about what's between players legs, or what you choose to do with your models.
People have repeatedly said why they don't think the status Quo needs changing
People like the way the things are for a myriad of reasons which always boils down to "ohh well and don't give me the me the lore crap" and "ohh thats not a good reason". I'm sorry I don't know what else to tell you.. Some people like it so much they have been buying models for 40k for night on 25+ years.. Some people dont. Which is fair enough.
Nobody at all in this entire thread has said that making female space marines is bad if that's what you want to do.
Some have pointed out that if you do, its against current convention... so naturally not everyone is going to like that. You seem oblivious probably purposefully to the fact that conventions matter to people or people give them weight. Just like putting my eldar on raprots will be against convention as opposed to jet bikes and some people will have issues with that.
Nobody in this entire thread said they don't want female gamers in the hobby or that they wish harm on anybody
Solutions and compromises were offered which would be both beneficial to the hobby and result in more representation which would be more readily accepted. If you are unable to compromise then how is this a debate or a discussion rather than a gunshot hold up ?
You have actively turned this into a political culture war. This thread has divided people, made people resent each other, block each other and just generly fostered a very very very bad experience. Do you think any of these good people will not remember each other on other topics?
So I'd say you are doing a very good job of damaging the thing I care about which is the space, hobby and general spirit of community. So why should I care about your feelings?
Ultimately I don't even know why you are stoking this argument on forum. If this is such a deep personal issue to you, perhaps you should write to GW and ask for them to include Storm Cast heads with SM boxes so that people can build SM as females and they need to have SM use correct inclusive pronouns.
I wish you luck in your venture.
If GW decides this will make them money they will do it.
What's alarming is your continual LYING about how this is not a political discussion whenever exposed.
You keep REPEATDLY say "ohh saying women exist is political ?".
Why don't you do us a favor and define for us what is a political discussion for you.
And just fyi, even if you consider this a political discussion does not make the concern raised any less valid. If you want an entirely apolitical hobby, you picked the wrong one that was based on satire that outright mocks tropes from the 80's and 90's.
As if a single person in this thread said women don't exist... That's such a bald face faced misrepresentation of peoples comments, how do you expect anyone to care what you have to say if that's your counter argument or take you seriously?
Women don't exist in the Space Marine lineup. Women models barely exist in the hobby as a whole. Women are barely acknowledged in the marketing or any media associated with the property. The primary army in the hobby that may as well be the entire hobby has been specifically stated to be a boys only club.
And there is a large subset of people in the hobby that will lie, cheat, steal, and screech like harpies at the idea that GW open up Space Marines to include women.
What I and other have argued is that this is inherently a political discussion because the suggested premise is that:
Popular Male SM = Mysoginy enabling and sexism gatekeeping in 40k.
The discussion is that some people want women in the astartes, and the counter discussion is NO YOU CAN'T BECAUSE REASONS.
And all the reasons listed are stupid. All people are wanting is a head sprue change and acknowledgement in canon that women space marines exist so that backward grognards can't whine at them that "you're not following the lore!"
Imagine walking into GW five years ago as a girl and wanting to start an army that looked like you. If you wanted an army that was predominantly female, your only choice is the SoB, who at the time were expensive, had 20+ year old models, and probably on the verge of getting squatted. Your other choice is evil rape elves that exist literally to inflict as much pain and torment in the galaxy as possible. Even now, your choices are between religious extremists and space BDSM elves. It would be very much doubtful that you would start the hobby. To which I imagine your thoughts are that it's a good thing and that girls should only play 40k as long as it's by your rules.
The only way that statement can be true is 40k Male SM is part of the patriarchal structure which holds women back on purpose somehow and therefore needs to be attacked.
WHICH IS AN OVERTLY POLITICAL FEMINIST POSITION.
Space Marines are, by far, the largest part of the 40k hobby. By having it specifically male only, that's sending quite a message to anyone that wants to play it, doesn't it? By having such a minor change argued against so stringently without actually having grounds to argue on sends an even stronger message about the kinds of people we'll find in the hobby too.
And that's a good enough reason to keep it as it is. And keep political and ideological agendas out of 40k.
The premise that EVERYTHING is sexist homophobic and racist is simply not true... Because otherwise my Nans farm would have to be sexist..
I'd like to point out that there was a time not too long ago that your Nan wouldn't be able to own a farm because women couldn't own property. The reason she can? Because of those evil bleeding heart progressives. Y'know, the sort of people that would look at a predominantly male hobby, see requests from a sizeable minority asking for equal representation, and at the very least thinking, wow, this will effect me in absolutely no way but if it makes other people feel better, let's do it.
People have repeatedly said why they don't think the status Quo needs changing
The status quo has already changed. The status quo will continue to change. GW gives zero gak about the integrity of the lore except inasmuch as it generates profits. I wonder why some people are willing to swallow primaris, necron rewrites, and so on, but will absolutely die on the hill of space marines with a long hair sprue.
People like the way the things are for a myriad of reasons which always boils down to "ohh well and don't give me the me the lore crap" and "ohh thats not a good reason". I'm sorry I don't know what else to tell you..
Then maybe you should be honest? Just say that you don't want women space marines, and no amount of logic or appeals to basic human decency will change your desire to say no to people who want to be represented without harassment.
Some have pointed out that if you do, its against current convention... so naturally not everyone is going to like that. You seem oblivious probably purposefully to the fact that conventions matter to people or people give them weight. Just like putting my eldar on raprots will be against convention as opposed to jet bikes and some people will have issues with that.
Yes, and one of the asks is to make it conventional so that no one can complain about the specific existence of female space marines.
Solutions and compromises were offered which would be both beneficial to the hobby and result in more representation which would be more readily accepted. If you are unable to compromise then how is this a debate or a discussion rather than a gunshot hold up ?
"Go to your corner and accept whatever scraps you're thrown" is neither a solution nor a compromise.
Although I like scotsman's idea of making every other 40k release female, including orks, necrons, and tyranids, to balance out the 100% male representation that is the space marines.
You have actively turned this into a political culture war.
This thread has divided people, made people resent each other, block each other and just generly fostered a very very very bad experience.
Do you think any of these good people will not remember each other on other topics?
"Won't somebody please think of the children?!"
Let's turn this around. Let's say that this is a political discussion and a social issue and for the sake of discussion, that there's only two sides: pro female space marines and anti female space marines. I don't know about you, but if I was taking a social position and I happened to notice on my side that it included all of the misogynists, bigots, and so on, I might re-examine my position and what I was really asking for.
So I'd say you are doing a very good job of damaging the thing I care about which is the space, hobby and general spirit of community.
So why should I care about your feelings?
So a head sprue and thirteen words from thirty years ago is where you draw the line. So you'll stop treating people like people if they insist that the primary faction include equal representation for all genders instead of being an uninviting boys club?
Such a change wouldn't actually impact your ability to play the hobby, and if your enjoyment hinges on male-only space marines to the detriment of others, I ask you why should anyone care about your feelings if you're that self-centered?
Ultimately I don't even know why you are stoking this argument on forum.
Probably the same reason you are--because they feel strongly about including women among space marines because it sends a message about this hobby. It's unfortunate that you're taking the stance to exclude women from being represented by default from 50% of the hobby, which also sends a message.
Someone who identifies as one.
For the purposes of inanimate toys, one would assume it is one that has been identified as one by the creators, and potentially with signifiers commonly associated with that identification.
For example - the Stormcast women, who are made of the same plastic as every other Stormcast, but are signified with traits commonly associated with the performativity of womanhood.
Argive wrote: I dont know you tell me which definition we need to use. Who are you advocating representation for ?
Female and a woman are two separate different things?
Yes, they are. We are advocating representation for women, and the performative appearance of that, because representation requires visibility.
According to your definition shrike is a woman because he has longer hair then uriel ventris?
No, because you just referred to Shrike with masc pronouns, and he is referred to by GW with masc pronouns. This, by definition, means he's not identified as a woman.
Something seemed off, I wasn't sure about your definition so I did a quick google online. I assume google is up to date.
The definition for woman is as follows according to the online dictionary:
This is incorrect according to UK law as its a hate crime. Just FYI - I am sharing this purely for reference.
Link is broken, can't see it. But I will say that online dictionary definitions are rarely correct with modern gender understandings, in general.
How can you argue you want representation for women if you are not able to even define what a woman is?
I can point at the ostensible women in the Stormcast lineup and say "I want that" though.
Now why is that a problem?
Excuse me?
Don't we need to know and agree who we are trying to represent?
Well first, that would require you to say that you care for representation, which you haven't yet.
So I'd like to see you make it very clear that you *do* believe representation is important.
And your language comes off really exclusionary and transphobic. How can you say anything looks "typically female" without being exclusionary to the trans and non binary and gender fluid community or females who don't look "typically female". What exactly do you mean?
In regards to gender performativity, they are being quite accurate.
Womanhood, like all genders, is entirely constructed, but constructed based off of understood performed actions and behaviours. These performed actions and behaviours can be accepted and rejected on an individual basis, but there are commonly accepted performative traits that lend more strongly to one than another. However, yes, a woman does not need to look "female" to be a woman. However, admitting that there is a performative standard is not "exclusionary and transphobic". What *is* exclusionary is making up excuses why women can't be Space Marines, but I don't see you complaining.
Why are you excluding women without hair or short hair? Are they not worthy or representation because they are not typically female?
I don't see how that achieves representation.. You'd need a bald/bland head without any distinctive features no?
As you brought up bald heads, I'd like to direct you to the bald heads on the Sisters sprue, and how, despite being bald, are still noticeably feminine, and even more distinctly different from the very masculine bald heads of the Space Marines. Even without hair, they are built with very different performative signifiers.
I think the point I'm getting at is that Space Marines all use masculine pronouns, and all have masculine features. They are, ostensibly, all men. And, if some were to use feminine pronouns, that would be a form of representation - but without also including feminine featured faces (and for this, I refer to Stormcast women, who are very much identifiable as such without looking fragile or any weaker than their male counterparts), this representation is shallow. The representation I ask for should cover enough to provide heads, between the masculine existing ones, and the feminine proposed ones, so that any Space Marines could go by any assigned pronoun, and have a physical appearance equally as varied, if the creator so wanted it.
So, for example, I would actually lend towards feminine faces for my Blood Angels, even if they used masculine pronouns.
Do their feelings not matter?
Funny, I seem to remember you saying that feelings didn't matter? When was your change of heart? Would you care to amend your previous comments regarding lore being more important than representation?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Argive wrote: What article? Its a definition of a word.
Saying the definition for woman = "adult human female" can get you charged with a hate crime against the trans people... Some lady tried to put this up on bilboards and was reported for being part of hate group.
Definitions aren't always correct, and yeah, "woman = adult human female" is an incorrect definition under modern understanding. Just so we get that cleared up.
We are talking about aesthetic representation of a concept here.
So you want an androgynous genderless sexless head in order to represent female/women to attract them to 40K?
Nope - just copy what the Stormcast got, and we're pretty good to go. Let people use the heads that they feel suit their characters most appropriately, be that more androgynous heads, more masculine heads (that we have a dearth of already), or feminine ones.
After all, variety is the spice of life.
I never said I dotn care about peoples feelings. i said I don't care about the feelings of people that are not part of my community, insult me or actively try to damage me or things I care about. I think I made that pretty clear the last time.
You have summed up my feelings pretty concisely and precisely. When a group bases itself on hating me or people and things i love and essentially utterly disempowering meand people i care for in all ways I tend to say nasty things about them.
So I wrote this whole multiparagraph thing trying to give some of the opposition an out for clinging overmuch to the perceived integrity of an escapist fantasy world rather than necessarily being outright bigoted - and let's face it, recently there's been a lot of reason to want to cling to an escapist fantasy, even if it's a galaxy where genocide is more common than unscarred faces - but then I read Argive's post.
This is a complete misunderstanding of what politics is and what it needs to stay out of. The *lack* of female representation is itself a political statement, because 40K is a living setting still being commercially sold by a major company with a thousand hands on the wheel that has happily undergone dozens of retcons since its Rogue Trader days, and recently had the perfect excuse to include them in evolving lore via the Primaris Marines, and still utterly failed to do so in an ostensibly modern time. THAT is a political statement.
Every day that women do not exist in the Space Marines (and the Imperium is not explicitly and repeatedly called out on this fact being an example of the Imperium being an archaic theocratic backwards misogynistic shithole) then even if this is not what GW means to say, they ultimately do say "We need to keep women out of the core part of our manly hobby of playing acrylic dressup with overpriced plastic spacemen." And - again, even if this is not what you mean to say, it is what you say when you say that shouldn't change.
What I and other have argued is that this is inherently a political discussion because the suggested premise is that:
Popular Male SM = Mysoginy enabling and sexism gatekeeping in 40k.
The discussion is that some people want women in the astartes, and the counter discussion is NO YOU CAN'T BECAUSE REASONS.
And all the reasons listed are stupid. All people are wanting is a head sprue change and acknowledgement in canon that women space marines exist so that backward grognards can't whine at them that "you're not following the lore!"
[…]
Actually it is the opposite: the "misogynist faction" has already (and pretty well) stated that the main reason against the creation of the female space marines is that is a not necessary change, hoped only for ideological reasons (a fight against a supposed misogyny culture among the W40k players) and the only apparently rational reason used to justify this "moral crusade" (more representation means more female players) is totally deceptive. In fact, not only in the comic industry a higher number of female main characters didn't increase the number of female readers, but the yaoi manga is a genre which talk only about stories of homosexual men reads almost exclusively by heterosexual female readers.
So it would be only fair if the "pro-female space marines faction" stop this tiresome habit to decide what the other faction think, accordingly with their prejudices on it; it doesn't help this discussion and the reciprocal understanding.
I think female space marines opens up a huge world of possibilities to explore-to the ones that are attached to space marines being male only, we have the unique opportunity for your male exclusive chapter to explore why it is actually male exclusive in a meaningful and characteristic way. Are they misogynists? Traditionalists? An actual fraternity, choosing to exclude women for a feeling of brotherhood?
Is your chapter a coed chapter, and does it strip them of their gender? Does it forcibly assign a gender identity? Is your chapter libertarian with gender identity? Is it conservative with gender identity?
Is your chapter perhaps patriarchal or matriarchal?
Is your chapter even exclusively female? Is this perhaps shaped by the politics or culture of the system/planet that they draw their recruits from?
Gender identity in various cultures can vary wildly, and cultures in space marine chapters can be equally diverse. That alone is a wonderful and exceptionally deep reason to include women in space marine chapters. It also gives the gender of space marines actual meaning, as well as the anti-female space marine crowd all sorts of tools to keep what they are attached to. Having an all male space marine chapter would mean WAY more if it was so in a universe where that isn't necessarily the case, and gives the opportunity for your chapter being all male actual meaning to their identity. I think that is awesome.
Yes, it absolutely singles them out, because they're popular, because representation is nothing without visibility.
Representation needs to happen, I agree. And I also agree that it would be cool to see female marines. But, as it stands, the lore would have to change for that to happen, which again isn't a bad thing. I'm not against the result here.
I am against the reasoning. Female marines should be added because that would be a cool thing to add. Retconning the fluff to let it happen, or even having it as a recent development, all perfectly acceptable in my book. But adding female marines just to make the hobby seem more open to women? I'm sorry, but this smacks of "we added girls so now girls can play".
Perhaps the problem is less that marines have no women, and is instead that women think that this is a reason not to play?
There's also no logical reason that female marines shouldn't be possible in the first place.
It's written into the fluff. There's no logical reason why Orks should be masculine either, but no-one's asking for female orks. That would probably kick up a far larger storm of anti-fluff then space marines. But I digress from the point - the reason why the fictional space marines are the way they are is because it was how they were written. They are no more than the sum of their lore, that's all they are. So what the lore says is, infallably, what they are. But I'm not adverse to changing or adding to that lore, only to the reasons behind doing so.
Adding a few members from 50% of the population into a faction which has no reason not to include them isn't tokenism in the slightest.
Featuring women isn't tokenistic, it's *accurate*.
It's not accurate to include women in an army which has established lore describing why, with utter absolution, they are all men, always. Yes, women make up 50% of the population, but the fictional population of Astartes is 100% men, because they can't or don't make women. Saying "make half the marines women for accuracy" is exactly like saying "make half the WW1 soldiers women for accuracy". Half the people were women, all the soldiers were men. Same deal with marines, with the current fluff. So "accuracy" is the opposite of an argument for female marines.
So one page from one comic means no adding representation ever. Ok.
Wow, those words tumbled out of my mouth so fast I didn't even realise I was saying them.
Yes, add women to the game. Female guard models, and female marine models, and anywhere else it will make sense to add them. Retcon the fluff to make it realistic - but do it because it will add to the game, not so that you can wave around a new chapter of pink armoured long haired space marines and say "now gurlz can play too!". That's just insulting.
Take that comic. They could have made Thor a woman and then had her kicking ass like being a woman made no difference, which it shouldn't, and they would have improved the comic for being some cool stuff going on. Instead, they tried to pander to the women of the world and were all like "oh no, let's not fight because we respect you for being a woman, we'll come quietly because you're sooooo brave for being a woman and doing all this whilst being a woman", and the comic became appalling.
I want to see female marines. But I want to see them in a grim dark setting, being gritty and realistic, taking one everything that the men do without any fuss. It needs to be a change they make without remark. I don't want to see banners saying "now with female marines!". I just want to see them start appearing in the pictures and in the stores. I don't want to see any female marines getting "girl treatment" in the stories (unless it's someone saying "ignore her, she's just a woman" before she literally rips his head off).
TL;DR: Female marines, hell yes. Slapping it everywhere like it's a big deal, and doing it just so women can play 40k, hell no.
So, let me summarize, we all agree female marine should be there, we're are simply disagreeing about the "motivations" behind the change????
...but then it's perfectly fine! We all agreed! Rejoice and hails to the Dakkadakka miracle!
Because, really, motivation are almost entirely irrelevant. Practical and factual consequences are what we should care about.
Motivation are, at best, an alleviating or aggravating factor (but bear no importance whatsoever on the topic itself). A killing is a killing both if it's homicide or manslaughter.
A discrimination is a discrimination both if it has historical reasons, or political ones.
People intentions are always irrelevant. Good people do terrible thing with good motivations: what they do is are bad anyway. And the opposite is true too (bad people that do good things for bad reasons).
There are only facts, and your interpretation of them. But the second element is eminently private, it is worth something only for you: it's not the job of the world or other people to reconcile what you believe or understand with reality: it's you own.
That's why a few pages ago I've written that I don't give a gak about what your ideas are (notes: other in the topic seems genuinely interested to understand).
The point is that something could be better: let's make it better.
In my mind the same goes other ways: I won't include female Marine to empower people the need representation, I would include them BECAUSE THE EXCLUSION DOESN'T MAKE SENSE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Even if not a single woman will play WH40K thanks to that, it's the right thing to do anyway.
Whatever the "motivation" are, whatever faction you ascribe yourself to, we've all ONLY something to gain adding female Marines.
Because even if you want to keep you marine boys club (like I keep the Primaris put of my collection), that's an ADDITION to the hobby, not a subtraction (as macluvin clearly descrive above).
[You may also have noticed that I won't ever purchase a female Marine. That's a fact, because GW will only produce Primaris, and I don't care about them and don't want them. But that's not a reason to stop other having good things...]
Cybtroll wrote: So, let me summarize, we all agree female marine should be there, we're are simply disagreeing about the "motivations" behind the change????
...but then it's perfectly fine! We all agreed! Rejoice and hails to the Dakkadakka miracle!
Because, really, motivation are almost entirely irrelevant. Practical and factual consequences are what we should care about.
Motivation are, at best, an alleviating or aggravating factor (but bear no importance whatsoever on the topic itself). A killing is a killing both if it's homicide or manslaughter.
A discrimination is a discrimination both if it has historical reasons, or political ones.
People intentions are always irrelevant. Good people do terrible thing with good motivations: what they do is are bad anyway. And the opposite is true too (bad people that do good things for bad reasons).
There are only facts, and your interpretation of them. But the second element is eminently private, it is worth something only for you: it's not the job of the world or other people to reconcile what you believe or understand with reality: it's you own.
That's why a few pages ago I've written that I don't give a gak about what your ideas are (notes: other in the topic seems genuinely interested to understand).
The point is that something could be better: let's make it better.
In my mind the same goes other ways: I won't include female Marine to empower people the need representation, I would include them BECAUSE THE EXCLUSION DOESN'T MAKE SENSE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Even if not a single woman will play WH40K thanks to that, it's the right thing to do anyway.
Whatever the "motivation" are, whatever faction you ascribe yourself to, we've all ONLY something to gain adding female Marines.
Because even if you want to keep you marine boys club (like I keep the Primaris put of my collection), that's an ADDITION to the hobby, not a subtraction (as macluvin clearly descrive above).
[You may also have noticed that I won't ever purchase a female Marine. That's a fact, because GW will only produce Primaris, and I don't care about them and don't want them. But that's not a reason to stop other having good things...]
Actually there are 3 things to consider:
Whether to do it - we all agree that we should.
Why to do it - as you said, this is personal, but it impacts the third thing
How to do it. This is the issue to me.
The driving force in this thread is saying "We need to make female marines so women can play the game without feeling excluded". That is a good reason to do it, but the concern is how this is implemented. The Why drives the How, and the How matters a lot.
If they just add female marines, and make no song or dance about it, just adjust the lore, add them, and then include them in advertising, then that will be perfect. They will probably attract women who think they can't play because the marines are all men, if such women exist, and hopefully will improve the vibe of GW stores (I took that on board when someone posted it, and I hadn't thought of it like that, IE that all male models would make women seem more of a rare thing to the hobbyists. I can see the truth there).
If they add female marines and then say "introducing the all new GIRL MARINES! Everyone look, now girls can play too! We've even added a special all-girl unit to this thing!" Then this would be an appalling thing. Imagine this same approach, but instead of "Girls" you replace it with any race, or any sexuality? See how it becomes a serious problem?
Whilst I stand by that changing the lore just to include female marines just so that women don't feel like this all-male race of super soldiers who are all male for reasons in the fluff is ostracizing them, the reason, as you say, is private. As long as they don't make the change in a way that screams this, then it's not a problem. We've already changed the fluff to let them make new machines, make new primaris, upgrade heroes to primaris, and so forth. Adding female marines is no stretch in the fluff - but the justification that comes across from doing so matters.
Cybtroll wrote: So, let me summarize, we all agree female marine should be there, we're are simply disagreeing about the "motivations" behind the change????
...but then it's perfectly fine! We all agreed! Rejoice and hails to the Dakkadakka miracle!
Because, really, motivation are almost entirely irrelevant. Practical and factual consequences are what we should care about.
Motivation are, at best, an alleviating or aggravating factor (but bear no importance whatsoever on the topic itself). A killing is a killing both if it's homicide or manslaughter.
A discrimination is a discrimination both if it has historical reasons, or political ones.
People intentions are always irrelevant. Good people do terrible thing with good motivations: what they do is are bad anyway. And the opposite is true too (bad people that do good things for bad reasons).
There are only facts, and your interpretation of them. But the second element is eminently private, it is worth something only for you: it's not the job of the world or other people to reconcile what you believe or understand with reality: it's you own.
That's why a few pages ago I've written that I don't give a gak about what your ideas are (notes: other in the topic seems genuinely interested to understand).
The point is that something could be better: let's make it better.
In my mind the same goes other ways: I won't include female Marine to empower people the need representation, I would include them BECAUSE THE EXCLUSION DOESN'T MAKE SENSE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Even if not a single woman will play WH40K thanks to that, it's the right thing to do anyway.
Whatever the "motivation" are, whatever faction you ascribe yourself to, we've all ONLY something to gain adding female Marines.
Because even if you want to keep you marine boys club (like I keep the Primaris put of my collection), that's an ADDITION to the hobby, not a subtraction (as macluvin clearly descrive above).
[You may also have noticed that I won't ever purchase a female Marine. That's a fact, because GW will only produce Primaris, and I don't care about them and don't want them. But that's not a reason to stop other having good things...]
Actually there are 3 things to consider:
Whether to do it - we all agree that we should.
Why to do it - as you said, this is personal, but it impacts the third thing
How to do it. This is the issue to me.
The driving force in this thread is saying "We need to make female marines so women can play the game without feeling excluded". That is a good reason to do it, but the concern is how this is implemented. The Why drives the How, and the How matters a lot.
If they just add female marines, and make no song or dance about it, just adjust the lore, add them, and then include them in advertising, then that will be perfect. They will probably attract women who think they can't play because the marines are all men, if such women exist, and hopefully will improve the vibe of GW stores (I took that on board when someone posted it, and I hadn't thought of it like that, IE that all male models would make women seem more of a rare thing to the hobbyists. I can see the truth there).
If they add female marines and then say "introducing the all new GIRL MARINES! Everyone look, now girls can play too! We've even added a special all-girl unit to this thing!" Then this would be an appalling thing. Imagine this same approach, but instead of "Girls" you replace it with any race, or any sexuality? See how it becomes a serious problem?
Whilst I stand by that changing the lore just to include female marines just so that women don't feel like this all-male race of super soldiers who are all male for reasons in the fluff is ostracizing them, the reason, as you say, is private. As long as they don't make the change in a way that screams this, then it's not a problem. We've already changed the fluff to let them make new machines, make new primaris, upgrade heroes to primaris, and so forth. Adding female marines is no stretch in the fluff - but the justification that comes across from doing so matters.
Look at how they added female stormcast. Wave 1, all male. Wave 2 female. Females in the fluff, female named characters. No muss, no fuss, no need to cuss. Now 40K is a bit trickier in that some hang on to ancient and irrelevant fluff. I personally would be happy to have it happen with no talk of fluff. It’s just always been that way you just didn’t notice. They have done this before with marines when adding new units and no one batted an eyelid. But I think it would end being addressed. Simple way is primaris can be women. Done.
I would love to see the geek rage if they said that when marines crossed the rubicon some came out the other end as girls. There would be some angry incels out there if they made their fave named character a girl.
Actually it is the opposite: the "misogynist faction" has already (and pretty well) stated that the main reason against the creation of the female space marines is that is a not necessary change, hoped only for ideological reasons (a fight against a supposed misogyny culture among the W40k players) and the only apparently rational reason used to justify this "moral crusade" (more representation means more female players) is totally deceptive. In fact, not only in the comic industry a higher number of female main characters didn't increase the number of female readers, but the yaoi manga is a genre which talk only about stories of homosexual men reads almost exclusively by heterosexual female readers.
So it would be only fair if the "pro-female space marines faction" stop this tiresome habit to decide what the other faction think, accordingly with their prejudices on it; it doesn't help this discussion and the reciprocal understanding.
People who have been pandered to for literal decades think everything is just fine the way it is. I think you're proving my point. But keep going, I almost have reactionary bingo.
You might think everything is fine the way it is, other people disagree. And frankly, they have better arguments than you, since your arguments boil down to the 'lore' (that's always changing in significant sweeps eg primaris), that it's always been this way (it hasn't), or now that it won't increase the number of people who play warhammer because comics have women in them and female readers only make up 20-40% of the comic market, so feth all the people who want female space marines because women aren't buying a product that purposely goes out of its way to look like a boys' club? It may increase women playing 40k, it might not, but marketing supports that if you market to a demographic, there's a better chance of pulling them in--AoS doesn't even market to women, just includes them in their models and have more women playing there than 40k.
Regardless of what you think, people are asking for this change. People want this change. A lot of people don't care about it but realize it's not going to affect them either way, but aren't going to go out of their way to say that they disagree with it.
Here is an article from 2018:
When asked about women playing, Bays explained he would love to see more women playing, explaining that the skills learned in tabletop games are easily transferred to other areas. He touched on how to get women involved as well, explaining that one way would be to promote more female centric armies like the Sisters of Battle.
“This isn’t a boy’s club,” he said. “We always welcome girls in and we always invite them to play. If guys’ girlfriends or anyone come in, we always try to get them involved as well. We do demo games all the time where everyone is welcome to come and play. It falls more on the gamers getting interest in females that they know or friends that they have who are girls to start looking at it.”
Bays also explained that women tend to be better at painting the models themselves, explaining that some of the best painters he knows are female.
Iliea Roe, a long time hobby enthusiast who has painted and played Warhammer for over five years, offered very insightful commentary on both the Warhammer community and the tabletop community as a whole.
“You want to see models that look like you, so there really weren't any if you were a female and having someone say ‘well you could play Sisters of Battle,’”
Roe said.
She said that at the time, the Sisters of Battle were barely supported, and while most armies moved over to plastic, sisters were still outdated metal models only available online.
“It’s this huge hurtle for one army where as a female you felt represented in Warhammer 40,000,” she said.
Now, if Space Marines had female representation, do you think that this person might have had a different take on the situation?
Don't answer that; I'll just post the rest of the article.
Roe also explained the issue with sexualization in models in Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar, explaining that while she and a lot of women don’t have an issue with it, they don’t want it to be the only option.
“They want to see Paladin Women, and now Stormcast Eternals…the largest army in Age of Sigmar now has female Stormcast,” she said.
According to Roe, the new coreset for Age of Sigmar will be the first time they have released a core set with female models in it, adding that because a lot of armies were male centric, being the odd one out tends to lead to intimidation. She said it “takes more women to get more women in the hobby.”
She specifically calls out the exact situation in AoS that we're discussing here. The largest product for AoS was only men which led to feelings of under representation and discomfort which disappeared once the second wave showed up and included women in the army.
Itd be really tough to narratively justify adding female astartes, too. you'd probably need some kind of major catastrophe happening in the universe, stretching the lines of the astartes thin, multiple iconic chapters getting decimated as well as the populations on their recruiting worlds. You'd also want to have it coincide with some major technological changes in the makeup of astartes, and a change in the leadership of the imperium as a whole - maybe like, one of the primarchs could return and start trying to bring the imperium out of its millennia long decay, maybe he could instate a woman as a high lord of terra, someone who knows and respects the power of women on the battlefield and might be able to convince the rest of the group that exapnding the recruitment pool for astartes by 100% would be beneficial to the imperium overall.
I'm just like, speculating though, obviously this is a lot of wild stuff that is unlikely to happen.
Anyway i'm typing this through a sort of wibbly time portal so I figured I'd ask - what year is it for y'all? for me it's 2015, how does the rest of the decade turn out?
Andykp wrote: And claim to have a complete lack of empathy for anyone not part of “his” community it a pretty grim state of affairs.
This especially - outright admitting not to care about people they have "Othered" is frankly alarming.
What's alarming is your continual LYING about how this is not a political discussion whenever exposed.
Because it's not political. End of story.
You keep REPEATDLY say "ohh saying women exist is political ?".
As if a single person in this thread said women don't exist... That's such a bald face faced misrepresentation of peoples comments, how do you expect anyone to care what you have to say if that's your counter argument or take you seriously?
No. But y'all are saying that including women is political. Why?
What I and other have argued is that this is inherently a political discussion because the suggested premise is that:
Popular Male SM = Mysoginy enabling and sexism gatekeeping in 40k.
The only way that statement can be true is 40k Male SM is part of the patriarchal structure which holds women back on purpose somehow and therefore needs to be attacked.
WHICH IS AN OVERTLY POLITICAL FEMINIST POSITION.
You're not reading my comments then. I'm going to bother repeating them once more here, as you're clearly not discussing this in good faith.
Being male is fine. Being the flagship, and being all male is not, and contributes to a sense that "male = default".
And that's a good enough reason to keep it as it is. And keep political and ideological agendas out of 40k.
You're about 40 years too late for that.
People have repeatedly told you nobody cares about what's between players legs, or what you choose to do with your models.
Except, actually, that's not been the case, because we've had several users imply that women are biologically driven away from wargaming, one saying that women *should* be driven away by toxic behaviour, and the examples of women Astartes models have been riddled with comments criticising their models for having female heads.
People have repeatedly said why they don't think the status Quo needs changing
And invariably, those reasons have been some flavour of "I don't care about women's feelings" to "women Space Marines are a nebulously defined problem which I won't elaborate on".
Hardly very reasonable explanations.
People like the way the things are for a myriad of reasons which always boils down to "ohh well and don't give me the me the lore crap" and "ohh thats not a good reason". I'm sorry I don't know what else to tell you.
The lore's made up, mate. There's no excuse to use the lore to defend the lore, which I what I'm pointing out.
It's like a maths equation - I'm asking you to explain why 5=5, and all you can do is say "because 5=5", instead of "2+3=5".
Some people like it so much they have been buying models for 40k for night on 25+ years.. Some people dont. Which is fair enough.
And why would adding women Space Marines stop those people buying models for 25+ years? Why is it women Space Marines which would stop them?
This is the question you've not answered.
Nobody at all in this entire thread has said that making female space marines is bad if that's what you want to do.
In this thread, but that's ignoring all the people *in the wider world* who do say that, which is what we're trying to deal with.
Some have pointed out that if you do, its against current convention... so naturally not everyone is going to like that. You seem oblivious probably purposefully to the fact that conventions matter to people or people give them weight. Just like putting my eldar on raprots will be against convention as opposed to jet bikes and some people will have issues with that.
So why didn't those players leave when Primaris happened? When Necrons changed? When Tau started having Riptides and Stormsurges? When Knights became commonplace? When Guilliman sat up and started taking control?
You imply that adding women Space Marines would uproot the entire convention of 40k like nothing else ever has - why?
Nobody in this entire thread said they don't want female gamers in the hobby or that they wish harm on anybody
Empirically untrue, we literally *did* have a user say that they supported communities making the environment toxic to keep women out.
It might not have been you, but yes, we *did* have users saying that.
Solutions and compromises were offered which would be both beneficial to the hobby and result in more representation which would be more readily accepted. If you are unable to compromise then how is this a debate or a discussion rather than a gunshot hold up ?
Similarly, I have to ask why a compromise is needed. Why should I be expected to compromise when I have no idea why simply having women Space Marines is such an issue in the first place?
Why are women Space Marines a problem?
You have actively turned this into a political culture war.
What's political or cultural about it? We just want women Space Marines. I don't know why you're looking to make this political.
This thread has divided people, made people resent each other, block each other and just generly fostered a very very very bad experience.
If that's because they hate the idea of women Space Marines so much, why?
Do you think any of these good people will not remember each other on other topics?
I frankly don't care?
So I'd say you are doing a very good job of damaging the thing I care about which is the space, hobby and general spirit of community.
By asking for women Space Marines? Why is that a problem?
So why should I care about your feelings?
Strange argument, considering that you were apparently opposed to women Space Marines before I'd said anything, simply because you didn't care about the feelings of women compared to the Sacred Lore.
You're not explaining why you ignored people's feelings in the first place.
Ultimately I don't even know why you are stoking this argument on forum.
So, you're saying we shouldn't discuss things on these forums?
After all - it's not political to include women.
If this is such a deep personal issue to you, perhaps you should write to GW and ask for them to include Storm Cast heads with SM boxes so that people can build SM as females and they need to have SM use correct inclusive pronouns.
I wish you luck in your venture.
Bold to assume I haven't?
If GW decides this will make them money they will do it.
Agreed. And if that means retconning the Sacred Lore, they absolutely will.
That's why all these arguments about "but the lore says" are stupid, because GW will retcon that lore in a heartbeat if they can make money from it.
Yes, it absolutely singles them out, because they're popular, because representation is nothing without visibility.
Representation needs to happen, I agree. And I also agree that it would be cool to see female marines. But, as it stands, the lore would have to change for that to happen, which again isn't a bad thing. I'm not against the result here.
I am against the reasoning. Female marines should be added because that would be a cool thing to add. Retconning the fluff to let it happen, or even having it as a recent development, all perfectly acceptable in my book. But adding female marines just to make the hobby seem more open to women? I'm sorry, but this smacks of "we added girls so now girls can play".
Perhaps the problem is less that marines have no women, and is instead that women think that this is a reason not to play?
I mean, adding women Marines would be a cool thing to add, lore or not. It's just that also, the fluff has no business excluding women in the first place, and by keeping that remnant of ridiculous made up fiction, we're both preventing cool ideas, and contributing to a sense of "only boys allowed".
Obviously, girls can play anyway. But there's also a large section, like it or not, of girls who would very much like women Space Marines to exist to validate their own integration into 40k culture.
There's also no logical reason that female marines shouldn't be possible in the first place.
It's written into the fluff.
I know - and the fluff is all made up. There's no logical reason that the fluff had to say that women Space Marines weren't possible in the first place.
There's no logical reason why Orks should be masculine either, but no-one's asking for female orks.
Orks aren't the face of 40k though.
But I digress from the point - the reason why the fictional space marines are the way they are is because it was how they were written.
But that writing has clearly changed, not just for Space Marines, but for every faction over time.
Yet "no women" is still considered this sacred cornerstone that can't be touched? Why? Why did it exist in the first place, and why should it exist now?
They are no more than the sum of their lore, that's all they are. So what the lore says is, infallably, what they are.
But this implies that the lore isn't all just made up anyway.
But I'm not adverse to changing or adding to that lore, only to the reasons behind doing so.
Because there's no reason why 50% of the population should be excluded in the first place, and because it's cool?
Adding a few members from 50% of the population into a faction which has no reason not to include them isn't tokenism in the slightest.
Featuring women isn't tokenistic, it's *accurate*.
It's not accurate to include women in an army which has established lore describing why, with utter absolution, they are all men, always.
You say "established lore", I say "made up excuses for no good reason".
When Space Marines were being rewritten (because they *did have women at one point*), someone consciously made up reasons why they couldn't have women. That's the part I'm calling out on here.
Yes, women make up 50% of the population, but the fictional population of Astartes is 100% men, because they can't or don't make women.
Yes, the fictional population of Astartes, who can't have women because of fictional reasons that are entirely arbitrary.
Why do Space Marines have an entirely arbitrary fictional rules saying "no women"?
Saying "make half the marines women for accuracy" is exactly like saying "make half the WW1 soldiers women for accuracy". Half the people were women, all the soldiers were men. Same deal with marines, with the current fluff. So "accuracy" is the opposite of an argument for female marines.
Except that WW1 was real. Space Marines aren't real, and so are the reasons that women can't be one.
I want to see female marines. But I want to see them in a grim dark setting, being gritty and realistic, taking one everything that the men do without any fuss. It needs to be a change they make without remark. I don't want to see banners saying "now with female marines!". I just want to see them start appearing in the pictures and in the stores. I don't want to see any female marines getting "girl treatment" in the stories (unless it's someone saying "ignore her, she's just a woman" before she literally rips his head off).
Uh, yeah. That's what I want too.
I don't want a big song and dance about it, I just want to see women Space Marines treated like every other kind of Space Marine.
TL;DR: Female marines, hell yes.
Alright! That's all I'm after.
some bloke wrote: If they just add female marines, and make no song or dance about it, just adjust the lore, add them, and then include them in advertising, then that will be perfect. They will probably attract women who think they can't play because the marines are all men, if such women exist, and hopefully will improve the vibe of GW stores (I took that on board when someone posted it, and I hadn't thought of it like that, IE that all male models would make women seem more of a rare thing to the hobbyists. I can see the truth there).
If they add female marines and then say "introducing the all new GIRL MARINES! Everyone look, now girls can play too! We've even added a special all-girl unit to this thing!" Then this would be an appalling thing. Imagine this same approach, but instead of "Girls" you replace it with any race, or any sexuality? See how it becomes a serious problem?
I don't recall anyone asking for the latter, and everyone who is pro-women Astartes is calling for the former.
I'm not seeing the issue here.
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the_scotsman wrote: Itd be really tough to narratively justify adding female astartes, too. you'd probably need some kind of major catastrophe happening in the universe, stretching the lines of the astartes thin, multiple iconic chapters getting decimated as well as the populations on their recruiting worlds. You'd also want to have it coincide with some major technological changes in the makeup of astartes, and a change in the leadership of the imperium as a whole - maybe like, one of the primarchs could return and start trying to bring the imperium out of its millennia long decay, maybe he could instate a woman as a high lord of terra, someone who knows and respects the power of women on the battlefield and might be able to convince the rest of the group that exapnding the recruitment pool for astartes by 100% would be beneficial to the imperium overall.
I'm just like, speculating though, obviously this is a lot of wild stuff that is unlikely to happen.
Anyway i'm typing this through a sort of wibbly time portal so I figured I'd ask - what year is it for y'all? for me it's 2015, how does the rest of the decade turn out?
Ha! Very nice.
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Altima wrote: Don't answer that; I'll just post the rest of the article.
Roe also explained the issue with sexualization in models in Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar, explaining that while she and a lot of women don’t have an issue with it, they don’t want it to be the only option.
“They want to see Paladin Women, and now Stormcast Eternals…the largest army in Age of Sigmar now has female Stormcast,” she said.
According to Roe, the new coreset for Age of Sigmar will be the first time they have released a core set with female models in it, adding that because a lot of armies were male centric, being the odd one out tends to lead to intimidation. She said it “takes more women to get more women in the hobby.”
She specifically calls out the exact situation in AoS that we're discussing here. The largest product for AoS was only men which led to feelings of under representation and discomfort which disappeared once the second wave showed up and included women in the army.
I hope that all the people saying "BUT WHAT DO WOMEN REALLY WANT?!?!" read this, especially the bolded sections, and I'd like to see what they say about it.
That was a massive post, I'm only going to pick up on one aspect of it as we seem to agree that marines should have females but not on why.
Being male is fine. Being the flagship, and being all male is not, and contributes to a sense that "male = default".
Orks aren't the face of 40k though.
My issue (and it's a big one for me) is the idea that the reason for changing marines isn't because female marines would be cool (which is in the spirit of equality yadda yadda but is ultimately because it would be awesome), but because they are the flagship.
You say that it's ok for them to be all male if they weren't the flagship. That is the most flawed logic I can think of. It's either a problem, or it isn't. It can't be "not a problem because it's not in peoples faces". That's like saying it's ok to be sexist as long as no-one can see.
Let me try to explain it by switching the target out, for two hypothetical situations. I'll ask you not to say "but that's not how it is", because that won't help this to move anywhere.
What if Orks were the flagship? Let's say Orks become super popular, space marines become less so, and Orks become the flagship product. Orks are on all the banners, Orks are on the website, and in nearly every starter box.
Would you expect them to change the lore (which only exists because it was written, as we've established) so that Orks are no longer asexual mushroom people who reproduce via spores, and instead expect them to produce a 50/50 mix of male and female orks?
Fundamentally this is on the same level. The reason orks all appear masculine is because they do. The reason marines all appear male is because they do. Both armies have an established lore behind why they appear as they do (orks are strong and don't have genders. Marines can only be made male. all this only exists because they wrote it that way.) but it makes no sense to adjust Orks to have female orks. The implication by your claims that it's not acceptable to have an all-male flagship product means to have Orks as a flagship, you would want female Orks. Is that correct?
Now, let's say that sisters of battle are the flagship. Would you say it's unacceptable to have an all female faction be the flagship as it suggests female = normal?
Do you see the flaw in the logic?
Now apply the different reasoning. "We want female marines because it is a cool idea". That holds water regardless of whether it is done to pander to the people.
I hope you can see what I'm getting at. Saying "they can't all be men because they are at the forefront of the marketing department!" is sexist. Saying "They shouldn't all be men because it would be cool to have women as well" is not sexist.
I don't want to derail the thread (even if probably that's exactly what this post will do) but just so you know:
When you say"That is the most flawed logic I can think of. It's either a problem, or it isn't"... You're wrong.
Specifically, you're still using the Aristotelic first order logic... Which is fine in itself, but requires A LOT of additional axioms to be used properly. It works in math (even here only under certain condition) but is dramatically inadequate to describe the real world.
In the real world, very rarely something "is" or "isn't". Usually the answer is "it depends".
Is this person a man or a woman?
Is the light a wave or a particle?
Is the cat dead or alive?
Will this radioactive particle decay today or not?
Is the air conditioner on or off?
All those questions apparently VERY OBVIOUS in fact are not obvious at all (the last one refers to fuzzy logic, just so you know where to check why such a simple statement is in fact much more complex).
THE SAME EXACT THING can either be sexist or not depending exclusively on the circumstances. Truth is not an object or an entity, it is a status that a predicament possess in relationships with certain assumption.
That said, I'll be more than happy to investigate the argument in another thread.
In the case of the Sister of Battle as a flagship faction: do you mean WITH ALL THE OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES AS THEY ARE?
The answer is: partially.
It won't be as much sexist as an only male flagship faction, and definitely willhave created a different environment in the various gaming club that we currently don't have... but will be sexist anyway: because they represent woman in a very stereotyped way.
But say: Sister of Battle as flagship faction and at the same time a faction like Adeptus Mechanicus all-female? Then I will think that Space Marine can remain all male without any issue.
To put another way, if there’s a disease with an 80% fatality rate, that can be a big problem.
If it can affect 95% of people, Is highly transmissible, and difficult to treat, that’s a huge problem.
If it’s a genetic disease that affects one in every ten million people, it’s still a problem-but not nearly the urgency that the former has.
So, if Custodes stay all men, it can be viewed as an issue-but it’s not nearly the issue that Marines being all men is.
Cybtroll wrote: I don't want to derail the thread (even if probably that's exactly what this post will do) but just so you know:
When you say"That is the most flawed logic I can think of. It's either a problem, or it isn't"... You're wrong.
Specifically, you're still using the Aristotelic first order logic... Which is fine in itself, but requires A LOT of additional axioms to be used properly. It works in math (even here only under certain condition) but is dramatically inadequate to describe the real world.
In the real world, very rarely something "is" or "isn't". Usually the answer is "it depends".
Is this person a man or a woman? Is the light a wave or a particle? Is the cat dead or alive? Will this radioactive particle decay today or not? Is the air conditioner on or off?
All those questions apparently VERY OBVIOUS in fact are not obvious at all (the last one refers to fuzzy logic, just so you know where to check why such a simple statement is in fact much more complex).
THE SAME EXACT THING can either be sexist or not depending exclusively on the circumstances. Truth is not an object or an entity, it is a status that a predicament possess in relationships with certain assumption. That said, I'll be more than happy to investigate the argument in another thread.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you suggesting that the schrodingers cat experiment, which was created to show the flaws in quantum theory and not to explain them, is a model on which you would determine whether something is or isn't sexist?
Ultimately sexism is very much based on motivations. If I hold a door open for someone, I am being polite. That is a fact. If I do it because they are a woman, I am also being sexist. If I do it because I'm a nice person and would hold the door open for whoever is walking behind me, I'm not being sexist.
Including female space marines is like holding the door open. It is a good thing to do, no matter the reasoning. But if it is done to appease people and say "now girls can play too", then it is sexist. If it's done "because it's cool", then it's not sexist. Do you see?
What I'm largely getting is that the only reason people want female space marines is because they are the flagship product and therefore cannot possibly be all men. That is the wrong reason for making a change.
It is not quantum physics. The sex of a person or the functioning of an air conditioner are not quantum physics... Yet they don't have a definitive answer for them neither.
Your last paragraph explain exactly what I mean: there is no "truth" unrelated to the condition it is expressed within.
So, unless I'm mistaken, EVERYONE advocating for female space marine recognized that under different conditions (or: not being the flagship product for example) they could be not (or less) sexist (like Custodes are).
Others said "it is not possible" speaking about a fantasy world.
And as I said, "the reason" to make something is worthless (unless you're making a review of an effective decision making process). Reasons bears no importance towards the effect that a change will produce.
So, the "wrong" reason is a double mistake. First there is no "wrong" outside your evaluation. Second, even admitting the reason are wrong, who cares if the results are good?
Cybtroll wrote: It is not quantum physics. The sex of a person or the functioning of an air conditioner are not quantum physics... Yet they don't have a definitive answer for them neither.
Your last paragraph explain exactly what I mean: there is no "truth" unrelated to the condition it is expressed within.
So, unless I'm mistaken, EVERYONE advocating for female space marine recognized that under different conditions (or: not being the flagship product for example) they could be not (or less) sexist (like Custodes are).
Others said "it is not possible" speaking about a fantasy world.
And as I said, "the reason" to make something is worthless (unless you're making a review of an effective decision making process). Reasons bears no importance towards the effect that a change will produce.
So, the "wrong" reason is a double mistake. First there is no "wrong" outside your evaluation. Second, even admitting the reason are wrong, who cares if the results are good?
Well, firstly I'm pretty sure air conditioners are actually on or off, with varying power settings. Not sure where you're going with that bit, but seeing as it seems to stray into gender identity instead of "should marines all be men" it seems irrelevant anyway.
Secondly, no, not everyone who is advocating for female marines agrees that it wouldn't be necessary if they weren't the flagship product. I would think it a good idea no matter where they sat on the popularity scale. I am against doing it exclusively because they are the flagship. As in "I am against (doing it because they are the flagship)", not "I am against doing it (because they are the flagship)". If you take my drift on where the emphasis is meant to be on those words!
Thirdly, the reasoning for it is absolutely important. If I hold a door open for a woman because I think the is incapable of doing it herself because she is a weak and feeble woman, then that is absolutely sexist. If I hold the door open for her because I think it's polite to do that for people, it is not sexist.
If you make space marines female exclusively because they are popular and all men and we can't possibly have popular things that are all men, then that is 100% sexist.
If you make space marines female because that would be cool, and start with marines as they have the bigger fanbase, then that is not sexist. It's a logical first step. If it's the only step, though, it becomes a token gesture that remains sexist, in the same way as letting people of a certain minority ride the bus, but only if they sit at the back. "you can join this community, and can have female models!" "oh cool, which armies?" "battle nuns or the ones we've added just for you, of course, because you couldn't have an army without girls in it could you, girlie?"
Isolating effect from reason is like saying that "How he did it was irrelevant, Hitler improved Germany's economy!" It was a good effect, so the way he did it is irrelevant, right?
Cybtroll wrote: It is not quantum physics. The sex of a person or the functioning of an air conditioner are not quantum physics... Yet they don't have a definitive answer for them neither.
Your last paragraph explain exactly what I mean: there is no "truth" unrelated to the condition it is expressed within.
So, unless I'm mistaken, EVERYONE advocating for female space marine recognized that under different conditions (or: not being the flagship product for example) they could be not (or less) sexist (like Custodes are).
Others said "it is not possible" speaking about a fantasy world.
And as I said, "the reason" to make something is worthless (unless you're making a review of an effective decision making process). Reasons bears no importance towards the effect that a change will produce.
So, the "wrong" reason is a double mistake. First there is no "wrong" outside your evaluation. Second, even admitting the reason are wrong, who cares if the results are good?
Well, firstly I'm pretty sure air conditioners are actually on or off, with varying power settings. Not sure where you're going with that bit, but seeing as it seems to stray into gender identity instead of "should marines all be men" it seems irrelevant anyway.
Secondly, no, not everyone who is advocating for female marines agrees that it wouldn't be necessary if they weren't the flagship product. I would think it a good idea no matter where they sat on the popularity scale. I am against doing it exclusively because they are the flagship. As in "I am against (doing it because they are the flagship)", not "I am against doing it (because they are the flagship)". If you take my drift on where the emphasis is meant to be on those words!
Thirdly, the reasoning for it is absolutely important. If I hold a door open for a woman because I think the is incapable of doing it herself because she is a weak and feeble woman, then that is absolutely sexist. If I hold the door open for her because I think it's polite to do that for people, it is not sexist.
If you make space marines female exclusively because they are popular and all men and we can't possibly have popular things that are all men, then that is 100% sexist.
If you make space marines female because that would be cool, and start with marines as they have the bigger fanbase, then that is not sexist. It's a logical first step. If it's the only step, though, it becomes a token gesture that remains sexist, in the same way as letting people of a certain minority ride the bus, but only if they sit at the back. "you can join this community, and can have female models!" "oh cool, which armies?" "battle nuns or the ones we've added just for you, of course, because you couldn't have an army without girls in it could you, girlie?"
Isolating effect from reason is like saying that "How he did it was irrelevant, Hitler improved Germany's economy!" It was a good effect, so the way he did it is irrelevant, right?
Yeah, you're right - we'd need to be adding female models to guard, tau, genestealer cults, chaos cults, making female inquisitors, female characters, new sculpts for classic female characters and untis like howling banshees, integrating female models for necromunda gangs...otherwise it'd just be a frustrating token bs effort.
My issue (and it's a big one for me) is the idea that the reason for changing marines isn't because female marines would be cool (which is in the spirit of equality yadda yadda but is ultimately because it would be awesome), but because they are the flagship.
You say that it's ok for them to be all male if they weren't the flagship. That is the most flawed logic I can think of. It's either a problem, or it isn't. It can't be "not a problem because it's not in peoples faces". That's like saying it's ok to be sexist as long as no-one can see.
Let me try to explain it by switching the target out, for two hypothetical situations. I'll ask you not to say "but that's not how it is", because that won't help this to move anywhere.
What if Orks were the flagship? Let's say Orks become super popular, space marines become less so, and Orks become the flagship product. Orks are on all the banners, Orks are on the website, and in nearly every starter box.
Would you expect them to change the lore (which only exists because it was written, as we've established) so that Orks are no longer asexual mushroom people who reproduce via spores, and instead expect them to produce a 50/50 mix of male and female orks?
Fundamentally this is on the same level. The reason orks all appear masculine is because they do. The reason marines all appear male is because they do. Both armies have an established lore behind why they appear as they do (orks are strong and don't have genders. Marines can only be made male. all this only exists because they wrote it that way.) but it makes no sense to adjust Orks to have female orks. The implication by your claims that it's not acceptable to have an all-male flagship product means to have Orks as a flagship, you would want female Orks. Is that correct?
Now, let's say that sisters of battle are the flagship. Would you say it's unacceptable to have an all female faction be the flagship as it suggests female = normal?
Do you see the flaw in the logic?
Now apply the different reasoning. "We want female marines because it is a cool idea". That holds water regardless of whether it is done to pander to the people.
I hope you can see what I'm getting at. Saying "they can't all be men because they are at the forefront of the marketing department!" is sexist. Saying "They shouldn't all be men because it would be cool to have women as well" is not sexist.
Mk, first off lots of people have said they want female SM because it gives them new modeling/story opportunites but also because they believe representation to be important. People are allowed to think multiple things. The reason you have mostly seen arguments regarding representation is because that's what all the counter-push is about, people not wanting/caring about representation.
As for your hypothetical, how would you present female Orks? Orks don't have body hair so hairstyles are removed as an aesthetic. If you change them away from being fungoid completely, will they be mammals? Fish? Insects? Only one of those has physical features that would portray a model as female.
Alternatively, very few things would need to change to present Orks as genderless fungi monsters. Basically, remove the use of male pronouns, instead opting for they/them, and change the use of "Boy/z" for other words. Ork Boyz? Ork Mob. Weirdboy? Weird/Waaagh-Prophet/Shaman. Stormboyz? Rocket-jumperz.
Altima wrote: Why don't you do us a favor and define for us what is a political discussion for you.
And just fyi, even if you consider this a political discussion does not make the concern raised any less valid. If you want an entirely apolitical hobby, you picked the wrong one that was based on satire that outright mocks tropes from the 80's and 90's.
I can't speak for Argive, but the political part is the idea that a piece of fiction must be changed because it doesn't correlate with the current vogue belief by certain politically active individuals, who claim that anything that doesn't match their perception of an equitable society is harmful and thereby is responsible for driving injustice in the real world.
By extension it denies the idea that fiction is divested from reality and therefor Space Marines being all male is the direct root cause of any bad behavior by individuals in the community and is responsible for the low participation of women in the hobby. Therefore by knowing this and refusing to act (or acting to preserve this current state) it is a perpetuating sexism, which mirrors Critical Race Theory's tenets of Institutional Racism and Structural Determinism.
It denies that individuals who act poorly do so without free will due to circumstances which embolden them that women's low participation is due to institutional discriminatory factors rather than any other explanation.
Additionally the very idea that we NEED more women in 40k presupposes that the lack of women in 40k is A) a problem and B) the result of some flaw within the community. It completely fails to consider that women not having an equal presence in the hobby can be due to self-determination (lack of interest for example), and attempts to remedy the supposed "problem" without fully understanding why this occurring or if it even truly is a problem.
Altima wrote: Women don't exist in the Space Marine lineup. Women models barely exist in the hobby as a whole. Women are barely acknowledged in the marketing or any media associated with the property. The primary army in the hobby that may as well be the entire hobby has been specifically stated to be a boys only club.
And there is a large subset of people in the hobby that will lie, cheat, steal, and screech like harpies at the idea that GW open up Space Marines to include women.
Yes Space Marines are all male. Yes, there is a lack of female models across many factions in the game that pretty much everyone here on both sides agrees should be addressed. How you can argue with a straight face that women are not acknowledged in the marketing is utterly baffling to me...
It might not be exactly 50/50, but GW has massively improved the level of female representation in it's marketing/media materials.
The Indomitus trailer features 3 guardsmen (1 female, 2 unidentifiable), a large number of Space Marines, and an equally large number of Sisters of Battle. Both the Sisters and the Marines get equal screen time, about equal lengths of dialogue, and are both depicted struggling with Necrons and heroically saving one another.
They also had Becca Scott doing how to play videos for many of the recent Specialist Games and new editions. Also, in the process of finding Becca's last Warhammer appearance (it appears to be the end of 2019 for the record), I noticed that they used female voice overs for the 9th edition how to play Warhammer videos.
Can they do more? Sure.
Will they do more? Probably/hopefully
Should they do more? I don't see why not.
But what we have now is a far cry from "barely acknowledging".
Altima wrote: The discussion is that some people want women in the astartes, and the counter discussion is NO YOU CAN'T BECAUSE REASONS.
And all the reasons listed are stupid. All people are wanting is a head sprue change and acknowledgement in canon that women space marines exist so that backward grognards can't whine at them that "you're not following the lore!"
Imagine walking into GW five years ago as a girl and wanting to start an army that looked like you. If you wanted an army that was predominantly female, your only choice is the SoB, who at the time were expensive, had 20+ year old models, and probably on the verge of getting squatted. Your other choice is evil rape elves that exist literally to inflict as much pain and torment in the galaxy as possible. Even now, your choices are between religious extremists and space BDSM elves. It would be very much doubtful that you would start the hobby. To which I imagine your thoughts are that it's a good thing and that girls should only play 40k as long as it's by your rules.
First off, it is NOT 5 years ago so that's completely irrelevant.
Second, the majority of people on both sides in this thread agree that there is a lack of female models in the factions which are already stated to have them. It is known, it's not that controversial that GW needs to fix it, and they have certainly been doing a little bit better recently. None of that has any relation to Space Marines being exclusively male other than people trying to force the argument that GW will never add more models female or otherwise to other factions (despite them doing exactly that recently) therefore Marines must be changed.
Third, if you write out a description for any of the factions in 40k they sound terrible. That's part of the point. I also don't remember (it has been a while) Sisters being depicted as anything other than dutiful arbiters of justice or compassionate defenders in most of the Imperial novels they appear in, though I will admit that I haven't had a chance to read the recent ones yet. But I'd hardly call psycho-indoctrinated emotionless shock-assault troops who follow the same Imperial creed of "if it doesn't espouse Imperial propaganda, blow it of the map" as being particularly heartwarming.
While we are at it let's address "wanting to start an army that looked like you". Wanting to look like WHO exactly? Is a 5' tall chubby Japanese woman supposed to identify with a >7' tall roided out white woman because they have long hair and were born with the same genitalia? I mean I'm not a woman but I can identify with aspects of all female factions and characters despite not sharing bodily traits with them. I certainly didn't convert female Stormcast or Chaos Cultists because they "looked like me"...
Also, the reasons people have given are not "stupid" you just don't like them... And I couldn't care less that you don't. I grew up with 40k and enjoy the heck out of it. I
Altima wrote: The status quo has already changed. The status quo will continue to change. GW gives zero gak about the integrity of the lore except inasmuch as it generates profits. I wonder why some people are willing to swallow primaris, necron rewrites, and so on, but will absolutely die on the hill of space marines with a long hair sprue.
GW corporate probably doesn't care, but the fans do. Which is why I care so much.
Also who said anyone defending all-male space marines is/was ok with Necrons, Primaris, ect?
I am very much of the belief that the Necron changes were horrible and cheapen the setting. I have believed that since their release and still believe that...
I also think that Primaris was a relatively stupid addition just because GW wanted an excuse to resell everyone their marine armies. But I'm willing to grudgingly accept that it finally got us a tougher stat-line and true-scaled models.
Altima wrote: Yes, and one of the asks is to make it conventional so that no one can complain about the specific existence of female space marines.
Also, no clue what raprots are.
Multiple people have claimed that and it is a gak reason every time they do. Making female space marines canon isn't going to stop gakheads from being gakheads, and I can say that with 100% certainty because I've seem plenty of gakheads say crap things to other people both IRL and online with no relation to race or gender involved.
Going out of their way to complain at someone about how they are breaking the lore because they didn't use the canonical colors for the space marine chapter they are fielding.
Interrupting someone else's game to tell them about a rules violation and then getting mad when the players decided it's fine they'll just ignore it because "you aren't respecting the integrity of the rules".
Implying someone is dumb or has mental condition because they brought a subpar army or made a tactical mistake in game.
Argive misspelled "raptors"...
Which is reminds me of another gakhole think I've seen:
People insisting someone else is cheating or their models should be illegal because their conversion changes the silhouette of a model. (specifically when the conversion wasn't being done in bad faith)
Nobody in this entire thread said they don't want female gamers in the hobby or that they wish harm on anybody
But they're strongly implying it.
Ok, who? Quote it. Because I haven't seen anyone imply it.
Not wanting the lore for space marines to change is not even close to the same thing as refusing to allow women in the hobby or inciting violence against them.
Altima wrote: "Won't somebody please think of the children?!"
Let's turn this around. Let's say that this is a political discussion and a social issue and for the sake of discussion, that there's only two sides: pro female space marines and anti female space marines. I don't know about you, but if I was taking a social position and I happened to notice on my side that it included all of the misogynists, bigots, and so on, I might re-examine my position and what I was really asking for.
As compared to what? The side that claims we are only as good as our skin color, gender, or sexuality and that we are wrong for refusing to agree with them? I think there's a word for that...
So I'd say you are doing a very good job of damaging the thing I care about which is the space, hobby and general spirit of community.
So why should I care about your feelings?
So a head sprue and thirteen words from thirty years ago is where you draw the line. So you'll stop treating people like people if they insist that the primary faction include equal representation for all genders instead of being an uninviting boys club?
Such a change wouldn't actually impact your ability to play the hobby, and if your enjoyment hinges on male-only space marines to the detriment of others, I ask you why should anyone care about your feelings if you're that self-centered?
How is not wanting canonical changes to Space Marines, "not treating people as people"? Rather than reducing anyone down to some monolith of their genitalia I simply believe in showing them the fiction and the hobby as it is and letting them determine for themselves if they like it and want to engage in it.
I actually did try to get my ex-girlfriend into Warhammer and basically ran her through the full catalogue of models asking what she liked and giving little explanations of everything. She ended up picking Gloomspite Gits because she thought it'd be funny to paint their robes pink. So I bought her a box of grots and a variety of pink paints.
Argive wrote: Ultimately I don't even know why you are stoking this argument on forum.
Probably the same reason you are--because they feel strongly about including women among space marines because it sends a message about this hobby. It's unfortunate that you're taking the stance to exclude women from being represented by default from 50% of the hobby, which also sends a message.
It's funny because I don't oppose female space marines because it "sends a message", as if somehow it'll attract this massive untapped market of people interested in sci-fi settings or miniature Wargames that didn't already make up their mind about 40k...
I oppose it because it's an arbitrary change to a fictional setting that I enjoy based on the assumption that somehow said change will make the community more welcoming to a hypothetical untapped segment of fans based on the anecdotal and emotional arguments of a small but vocal segment of the community. Also this change is supposedly so minuscule and unimportant that no one should be bothered by it, but also is somehow the singular thing making some people feel unwelcome. Also this piece of fiction is singularly responsible for the creation/encouragement of bad actors within the community, and this change will fix that but without doing any *actual* work to hold people accountable for their bad behavior or trying to build a healthy local community.
Oh and I also "love" how a small number of bad actors is apparently reflective of a large segment of the community, despite there being no evidence of that.
CEO Kasen wrote: So I wrote this whole multiparagraph thing trying to give some of the opposition an out for clinging overmuch to the perceived integrity of an escapist fantasy world rather than necessarily being outright bigoted - and let's face it, recently there's been a lot of reason to want to cling to an escapist fantasy, even if it's a galaxy where genocide is more common than unscarred faces - but then I read Argive's post.
This is a complete misunderstanding of what politics is and what it needs to stay out of. The *lack* of female representation is itself a political statement, because 40K is a living setting still being commercially sold by a major company with a thousand hands on the wheel that has happily undergone dozens of retcons since its Rogue Trader days, and recently had the perfect excuse to include them in evolving lore via the Primaris Marines, and still utterly failed to do so in an ostensibly modern time. THAT is a political statement.
Ok, so I want to politely ask you to answer a question for me. When is it acceptable to have a mono-gendered group in a fictional setting?
When it goes out of it's way to specifically criticize the concept as wrong?
When it sufficiently jumps through enough arbitrary hoops to justify why it was absolutely necessary from a literary perspective?
When the fiction is unknown enough to not be visible to most people?
Because judging by the responses in this thread I feel the answer is "never if men, though we'll ignore it if women, but if we get questioned about it then we'll say we think it shouldn't apply anywhere". Which seems ridiculously restrictive about what can be explored in fiction and also seems to deny peoples' ability to hold their real world morals and views separate from that of fiction.
It may not sound like it, and I apologize if that is the case, but I'm legitimately asking in good faith because I'm curious about your viewpoint.
And again, as I said in response to Altima, many people are assuming that I and others are for some reason supportive of, or at least okay with, other major changes that GW made to 40k for stupid reasons. I'd also argue that outside of Necrons and *sort of* Primaris there aren't really any other major changes to the identity of a faction that I can think of off the top of my head. But feel free to point them out.
CEO Kasen wrote: Every day that women do not exist in the Space Marines (and the Imperium is not explicitly and repeatedly called out on this fact being an example of the Imperium being an archaic theocratic backwards misogynistic shithole) then even if this is not what GW means to say, they ultimately do say "We need to keep women out of the core part of our manly hobby of playing acrylic dressup with overpriced plastic spacemen." And - again, even if this is not what you mean to say, it is what you say when you say that shouldn't change.
"Archaic theocratic shithole" sure, but I don't understand how exclusively making your chemically castrated, mind wiped shock troopers exclusively from men but then allowing women to participate in literally every other level of your society from bottom to top, including positions even hierarchically higher than the highest ranking Space Marine, translates to "backwards misogynistic".
Also do you not believe in people's ability to think critically of things, that you think they need a piece of media to shout at them about what values they should hold?
Because I can draw comparisons to other groups that thought the same, but you won't like them...
Yeah, you're right - we'd need to be adding female models to guard, tau, genestealer cults, chaos cults, making female inquisitors, female characters, new sculpts for classic female characters and untis like howling banshees, integrating female models for necromunda gangs...otherwise it'd just be a frustrating token bs effort.
Oh!
Damn, will you look at that!
That's a fair point you've made there. I stand corrected on it just being a token effort if they did it.
I still maintain my stance that if they do it for any reason other than because it would be cool to do, it's somewhat sexist.
Guard never had a reason to be all male. The addition of women in guard is more of a "hey, we have no female models, let's make some". I don't know, to be honest. I am really on the fence. On one hand, female marines would be a cool thing to have. On the other, it shouldn't be done "so that women can play marines". If the only reason for doing it is because marines are the flagship, then here's a suggestion - why don't they make someone else the flagship?
Seriously, the problem seems to be "women see GW, they see all male models, so they don't feel like they can play". Change that to "Women see GW, they see male and female guardsmen, so they feel that they can play".
I feel like if Orks were the flagship, people would say "change the flagship". If Marines are the flagship, people say "Change marines". It seems wrong.
Ultimately sexism is very much based on motivations. If I hold a door open for someone, I am being polite. That is a fact. .
No it isn't. Like most things, it depends how its handled.
Most people I see holding doors open are _amazingly_ dumb about it. They stand in the door way and block access, basically getting in the way of everyone else trying to get in and out of the building. The actual effect is incredibly inconvenient and rude.
If they're somewhat clever, they step out of the doorway and hold the door open from outside, getting out of the way of other people, but that's incredibly rare in my experience.
Again: painting in broad strokes cover the cracks, but don't paint a portrait.
None is saying that there is a direct cause/effect between sexist attitude, all male Space Marine and Games Workshop. Like any donkey-cave is responsability of GW.
Point is: you cannot prove the opposing neither.
Since it is a reasonable and well proven assumption that SOME relationship (in form of correlation) between the two exist, plus the fact that THERE IS NO DANGER IN HAVING AN EXTRA SPRUE RATHER THAN A SPRUE LESS...
Imagine you're at the restaurant. Another table want to add a plate to the menu. A plate you don't want, don't like and don't care about. But it is a plate you can't accept because... It will distract the chef, I suppose?
Do you go in the kitchen to safe the sanctity of the place before it will be contaminated?
What do you expect the chef to do to you?
Ultimately sexism is very much based on motivations. If I hold a door open for someone, I am being polite. That is a fact. .
No it isn't. Like most things, it depends how its handled.
Most people I see holding doors open are _amazingly_ dumb about it. They stand in the door way and block access, basically getting in the way of everyone else trying to get in and out of the building. The actual effect is incredibly inconvenient and rude.
If they're somewhat clever, they step out of the doorway and hold the door open from outside, getting out of the way of other people, but that's incredibly rare in my experience.
An excellent point, and well made. It's about how it's handled.
Saying "marines are girls now so girls can play the game too" is the equivalent of standing in the doorway making things worse despite trying to make things better.
Stepping through and holding the door is just adding female marines because they would be cool to add.
None is saying that there is a direct cause/effect between sexist attitude, all male Space Marine and Games Workshop.
I think that the phrase "Being male is fine. Being the flagship, and being all male is not, and contributes to a sense that "male = default"." is saying exactly that. They are saying "all male space marines is bad because space marines are popular". If space marines weren't popular, then they wouldn't need changing, is the gist of it. That sounds like the reason for the change is the wrong one.
Can we stop trying to make this a political discussion? We've made it 30 pages and some good back and forth, and making it political feels like people are trying to shut down the thread because they don't like what people in it are saying.
Just stop saying it's about politics and make your points.
I feel like if Orks were the flagship, people would say "change the flagship". If Marines are the flagship, people say "Change marines". It seems wrong.
I think the reason for this is: A large number of people pick marines as their chosen faction, because a large number of people when presented with an ensemble-cast sort of faction style game choose "me, but as like a cool, badass hero."
It's just an easy default choice. humans in WoW and DnD and Skyrim and whatever else are usually a pretty common pick, because people are just like 'i'm engaging with this setting because I want to imagine myself, being the cool badass and swinging the big sword and wearing the big armor.'
It's certainly the reason I picked Space Wolves as a blonde kid with a germanic family who'd always thought reading about norse mythology was cool.
It's not what everybody HAS to do, and it's not what everybody DOES do when presented with a setting like 40k, but it's pretty obvious from the massive appeal of marines vs everything else...a lot of people do that.
And yeah, sisters of battle are there, and that does allow someone who wants to do the whole 'just me, but a badass wearing cool armor' thing to do that as a woman.
It's just always been a little bit weird that they're space marines, but weaker. And not in any of the starter boxes. And you need twice as many of them to make an army. And 'theyre sexy' is an OPTIONAL component for space marines, but kind of a required component with SOB. And they can't be evil. And the only evil factions with women in them are the intrinsically sexy ones.
It's like if the only female superhero in the core DC cast was Wonder Woman. Powerful...but superman is way, way more powerful. And 'the girl one' is...kind of a huge defining aspect of who she is, she's from an all-girls society of Girl-landia and a whole lot of her villains are the woman villains, and she wears a skimpier sexier costume than superman and batman.
But hey, Supergirl's right there if you just want superman, but, a lady. So good, there you go.
Again to bring up AOS, I'd like to point out that there IS a faction of all bikini-clad hot murder ladies if that's your jam. But it's not the ONLY faction that has women in it - if you just want to play 'you, but buffer and awesomer and with a giant sword' there's women in the stormcast.
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Cybtroll wrote: Again: painting in broad strokes cover the cracks, but don't paint a portrait.
None is saying that there is a direct cause/effect between sexist attitude, all male Space Marine and Games Workshop. Like any donkey-cave is responsability of GW.
Point is: you cannot prove the opposing neither.
Since it is a reasonable and well proven assumption that SOME relationship (in form of correlation) between the two exist, plus the fact that THERE IS NO DANGER IN HAVING AN EXTRA SPRUE RATHER THAN A SPRUE LESS...
Imagine you're at the restaurant. Another table want to add a plate to the menu. A plate you don't want, don't like and don't care about. But it is a plate you can't accept because... It will distract the chef, I suppose?
Do you go in the kitchen to safe the sanctity of the place before it will be contaminated?
What do you expect the chef to do to you?
This is a pretty good analogy.
You're at your favorite restaurant, and they've still got all your favorite foods, but now they serve your least favorite food as well, it's on the menu.
Hasn't replaced anything, isn't in the foods you like, you don't have to order it, but it's there.
If GW were to make a change to their unreliably narrated lore, could they do a good job of it?
What would it take to make a seismic change valid?
Likely not, however the lore has to no more than "Hey PResto, They exist now". Which is exactly what they did with Primaris.
Just make female fluff equal or better to the worst fluff in the history of 40k, and we'll call it a win.
Also, completely missing the point. The main defense against inclusion of women is 13 words from an article over 20 years ago. Now it's just we don't want women in the Marines.
Any time GW changes any part of 40k lore people get mad anyway. Centurion suits, Primaris, the changes to the 13th Black Crusade, Guilliman/Magnus getting involved, and plenty more besides.
Was there an exodus because Primarchs joined in with 40k? What about Primaris, did hobbyists leave 40k en masse? No, they didn't because when it comes down to it people don't really care or simply adapt to change. For most of the people who played WHFB at my local GW, they were disappointed the Old World got blown up but they just moved on and played AoS anyway because new toys.
None is saying that there is a direct cause/effect between sexist attitude, all male Space Marine and Games Workshop. Like any donkey-cave is responsability of GW.
Point is: you cannot prove the opposing neither.
Since it is a reasonable and well proven assumption that SOME relationship (in form of correlation) between the two exist, plus the fact that
First off, "prove the opposite" is literally asking me to prove a negative which is unreasonably laborious as I would have to identify every possible point by which the intersection of Space Marines, GW, and sexism could occur then prove that they were in fact not causal to one another. So no...
Also there is no such thing as a "well proven assumption". Something either has significant recorded evidence by which it is "well proven" or it lacks sufficient evidence by which it is "assumption". And I have yet to see any evidence demonstrating that the described incidents are widespread or are caused by space marines being all male. If the relation is there then you should be able to prove it and then demonstrate why your requested change is the most reasonable path forward.
Imagine you're at the restaurant. Another table want to add a plate to the menu. A plate you don't want, don't like and don't care about. But it is a plate you can't accept because... It will distract the chef, I suppose?
Do you go in the kitchen to safe the sanctity of the place before it will be contaminated?
What do you expect the chef to do to you?
That's not even close to an accurate analogy...
To use your analogical framing,
I'm at a restaurant that I've eaten at for 10+ years. There are occasionally minor changes to the seasoning (and 1-2 unfortunate times dishes on the menu were replaced) but overall the food is consistently enjoyable for me and and many other people.
Most of the dishes say they feature shaved truffle, but had very little or none at all because people never used to ask about it and the chef assumed it was okay to not put very much.
Now people have started noticing that the dishes claiming to have truffle, had almost no truffle in it and they complain to the chef. So the chef starts adding more truffle to try matching the description they promised to customers.
There is however one section of the menu, spiced meats (two if you count the custards), which is unique in that it has no truffle in it because the chef forgot to type it when writing the menu. They then decided that the spiced meats not having truffle was significant and included that in the restaurant's concept. Since then spiced meats have become the most popular group of food on the menu.
Recently however a small number of truffle enthusiasts have started coming in and complaining loudly about how the spiced meats don't have truffle in them and that makes them feel excluded. So they want the chef to add truffle on top of all spiced meats from now on.
You are someone that likes truffle and doesn't mind it in your food, but you also appreciate the spiced meats as they are now. No one can take away your memories of the spiced meat you enjoyed, but as someone who enjoys the truffle-less spiced meat as it is, you don't want it to change or think it needs to change.
The truffle enthusiasts however say that your opinion is invalid, you are causing physical harm to truffle enthusiasts by not supporting them, and that you can just scrape the outer layer off of your spiced meats from now on. Also if for some reason you do that it just proves that you secretly hate truffles and have a unrefined pallette.
If you think that analogy was ridiculous, congratulations you picked it...
None is proposing to change anything at all in your plate. Truffle wasn't there at all before (meaning non-existent, like a female space marine), and is a side option now (that you can combine with your male space marine).
You can have EXACTLY what you had before without any changes.
But now there is ALSO a different variant.
The truffle example doesn't make sense at all, until you change the word "truffle" with "women". Then it makes a lot of sense, it's kind of an accurate description of the hobby and what is the reasoning behind the dislike towards female marines...
So: thank you very much! I don't know if you did that on purpose, but is an enlightening contribution. It really conveys the horror of the common man that became a stranger in his own safe space due to te invasion of an alien group of people. H.P.Lovercraft would be proud (that can be both an insult and a compliment at the same time, tbh).
By the way, to really argument against the restaurant examples, there were other venues you could have followed: a crunchy or smelly food that is either noisy or smelly and so ruin my experience would at least have made sense...but of course then you should motivate why a female head (or a female marine on White Dwarf) annoys you.
I suppose that the reason why you did great for "they're changing recipe!" knowing that it doesn't applies?
(You're wrong on the first part of course but will derail the thread further. Simply, there are situations like this one where you can't prove neither a positive or a negative. And by the way, you CAN prove a negative, but is impractical in the real world and you can always add accessory negligible conditions that will force you to prove the negative again. If you want to open a thread about logic works I'll participate gladly... sometime is really painful to see how people argument in YMTC and rules threads).
None is saying that there is a direct cause/effect between sexist attitude, all male Space Marine and Games Workshop. Like any donkey-cave is responsability of GW.
Point is: you cannot prove the opposing neither.
Since it is a reasonable and well proven assumption that SOME relationship (in form of correlation) between the two exist, plus the fact that
First off, "prove the opposite" is literally asking me to prove a negative which is unreasonably laborious as I would have to identify every possible point by which the intersection of Space Marines, GW, and sexism could occur then prove that they were in fact not causal to one another. So no...
Also there is no such thing as a "well proven assumption". Something either has significant recorded evidence by which it is "well proven" or it lacks sufficient evidence by which it is "assumption". And I have yet to see any evidence demonstrating that the described incidents are widespread or are caused by space marines being all male. If the relation is there then you should be able to prove it and then demonstrate why your requested change is the most reasonable path forward.
Imagine you're at the restaurant. Another table want to add a plate to the menu. A plate you don't want, don't like and don't care about. But it is a plate you can't accept because... It will distract the chef, I suppose?
Do you go in the kitchen to safe the sanctity of the place before it will be contaminated?
What do you expect the chef to do to you?
That's not even close to an accurate analogy...
To use your analogical framing,
I'm at a restaurant that I've eaten at for 10+ years. There are occasionally minor changes to the seasoning (and 1-2 unfortunate times dishes on the menu were replaced) but overall the food is consistently enjoyable for me and and many other people.
Most of the dishes say they feature shaved truffle, but had very little or none at all because people never used to ask about it and the chef assumed it was okay to not put very much.
Now people have started noticing that the dishes claiming to have truffle, had almost no truffle in it and they complain to the chef. So the chef starts adding more truffle to try matching the description they promised to customers.
There is however one section of the menu, spiced meats (two if you count the custards), which is unique in that it has no truffle in it because the chef forgot to type it when writing the menu. They then decided that the spiced meats not having truffle was significant and included that in the restaurant's concept. Since then spiced meats have become the most popular group of food on the menu.
Recently however a small number of truffle enthusiasts have started coming in and complaining loudly about how the spiced meats don't have truffle in them and that makes them feel excluded. So they want the chef to add truffle on top of all spiced meats from now on.
You are someone that likes truffle and doesn't mind it in your food, but you also appreciate the spiced meats as they are now. No one can take away your memories of the spiced meat you enjoyed, but as someone who enjoys the truffle-less spiced meat as it is, you don't want it to change or think it needs to change.
The truffle enthusiasts however say that your opinion is invalid, you are causing physical harm to truffle enthusiasts by not supporting them, and that you can just scrape the outer layer off of your spiced meats from now on. Also if for some reason you do that it just proves that you secretly hate truffles and have a unrefined pallette.
If you think that analogy was ridiculous, congratulations you picked it...
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous when you make an analogy and you choose to insert behaviors that are not in the original thing being discussed, and are also not a thing that makes sense at all in the analogy, either.
You are angry at the idea that an OPTION may be officially sanctioned and supported by the company that produces a canonical work, rather than the current state, where the canonical background of the work explicitly forbids people from taking that option.
YOU PERSONALLY are not being accused of causing harm - I'm going to skip the absurdity of 'physical harm' because...lol, OK - what is being pointed out is the fact that, extremely reliably, people are using the justification of that canonical detail to harass and be gakky towards people.
Nobody comes out of nowhere and bitches and moans about how anti-canonical it is when (and this is just gonna be examples I recall from recent posts on various social media platforms)
-someone converts a Tau genestealer cult army (canon says they can sniff 'em out somehow)
-someone draws a genestealer hybrid space marine
-someone converts or possibly 3d prints a cyborg necron-themed tyranid army
-someone makes underwater chaos space marines in bioshock diver helmets
-someone makes a Stormcast Eternal army using only male models. Or a guard army. Or a Genestealer Cult army. Or an Eldar army. Or a militarum tempestus army. Never ever ever, not once not one single time have I ever seen a post on any 40k related social media commenting 'hey canon says there should be men and women in that army, wheres the women you sexist?'
people JUST use that lore detail as a cudgel when it comes to space marines with female heads.
Your memories of how things were previously are not so sacred that a company must bow to your whim if a larger number of paying customers ask them to provide an option for them within their product. If 15 customers to your favorite restaurant are demanding that an item be AVAILABLE as an OPTION you do not have a right to say that you have been a customer longer and therefore the current state of that option being forbidden must continue indefinitely.
You're just bein' a hobby karen. I'm sorry. Businesses exist to make money, unless more people threaten to leave if the current state of option being unavailable continues than people say they'd join if option was presented, then the option will be added.
People didn't leave 40K when Abaddon burned down half of the Imperium. They didn't leave when all Imperial Fists were killed or when nearly all Blood Angels were killed. They also didn't leave when Cawl came out of nowhere and did what so far only Fabius Bile tried to do - alter most of what makes a Space Marine. They also didn't leave when GW had the great idea to put Space Marines inside of Space Marines, or when Space Marines suddenly took over the navy or when Space Wolves weren't afraid of flying anymore or when they made even better silver Space Marines or even betterer golden nearly-Space Marines.
I don't think they'll leave when the Imperium decides, after having lost so much territory, to open up the recruitment pool for the other half of the populace.
There are squats and halflings and Ogryns in the Imperium, there must be a planet where women have evolved enough muscles to be able to be transformed into Space Marines to calm down the "because of biological reasons" crowd
some bloke wrote: My issue (and it's a big one for me) is the idea that the reason for changing marines isn't because female marines would be cool (which is in the spirit of equality yadda yadda but is ultimately because it would be awesome), but because they are the flagship.
You say that it's ok for them to be all male if they weren't the flagship. That is the most flawed logic I can think of. It's either a problem, or it isn't. It can't be "not a problem because it's not in peoples faces". That's like saying it's ok to be sexist as long as no-one can see.
Well, no - there's no "it's either a problem, or it isn't" about it - because the problem is that the male factions are disproportionately representative, and additionally, for seemingly no reason other than "because made up reason".
Including women in a faction that has no reason not to have women in the first place isn't sexism at all.
Let me try to explain it by switching the target out, for two hypothetical situations. I'll ask you not to say "but that's not how it is", because that won't help this to move anywhere.
What if Orks were the flagship? Let's say Orks become super popular, space marines become less so, and Orks become the flagship product. Orks are on all the banners, Orks are on the website, and in nearly every starter box.
Would you expect them to change the lore (which only exists because it was written, as we've established) so that Orks are no longer asexual mushroom people who reproduce via spores, and instead expect them to produce a 50/50 mix of male and female orks?
If Orks became the flagship faction, this would still be very different as Orks, despite being masculine, are fundamentally not human, or even transhuman. They are unmistakably alien. I still wouldn't turn my nose up at orks that looked more feminine, in the same way that many orcs in media are handled, but as they're not "human" and therefore not a point of representation, they aren't the same as Space Marines.
Space Marines, for all the fluff of them being transhuman, are still noticeably "human" in their appearance - either Space Marines need to be less human by design, or represent a wider range of humans.
Fundamentally this is on the same level. The reason orks all appear masculine is because they do. The reason marines all appear male is because they do. Both armies have an established lore behind why they appear as they do (orks are strong and don't have genders. Marines can only be made male. all this only exists because they wrote it that way.) but it makes no sense to adjust Orks to have female orks. The implication by your claims that it's not acceptable to have an all-male flagship product means to have Orks as a flagship, you would want female Orks. Is that correct?
No, because Orks are not human, or human-appearing. Space Marines are, quite literally, transhuman.
An entirely made up fictional race with no basis in reality is very different from "normal humans upgraded by a fictional super soldier serum which arbitrarily has a gender restriction".
But, for what it's worth, I'm also not complaining about adding female coded Orks, so long as they're treated identically to masculine coded Orks.
Now, let's say that sisters of battle are the flagship. Would you say it's unacceptable to have an all female faction be the flagship as it suggests female = normal?
Yes, I would have an issue with any mono-gender faction as the flagship.
Do you see the flaw in the logic?
No, because you seem to misunderstand my point.
Now apply the different reasoning. "We want female marines because it is a cool idea". That holds water regardless of whether it is done to pander to the people.
I hope you can see what I'm getting at. Saying "they can't all be men because they are at the forefront of the marketing department!" is sexist.
In what way? Awareness of sex and sexual inadequacies in representation isn't sexist.
But, if you think that's sexist, how do you feel about lore that, for no reason, arbitrarily says that women can't be super soldiers? Is that not sexist?
Saying "They shouldn't all be men because it would be cool to have women as well" is not sexist.
It's not sexist, you're right. But neither is "hey, there's no women prominently featured here - can we have some?"
some bloke wrote: Ultimately sexism is very much based on motivations. If I hold a door open for someone, I am being polite. That is a fact.
Not necessarily factual, and additionally, highlighting that women aren't being represented fairly isn't sexist - if anything, surely acknowledging that women aren't being treated evenly is sexist?
The whole point is for equality. Asking for equality isn't sexism.
What I'm largely getting is that the only reason people want female space marines is because they are the flagship product and therefore cannot possibly be all men. That is the wrong reason for making a change.
I never said it's the only reason - my other reasons included that:
- It'd be cool, and provide a whole range of customisation options for a faction defined by their customisation
- There's no good reason for the lore to exclude women in the first place, and arguments that default to status quo fundamentally miss the point of critical reflection and the ephemeral nature of GW's lore
- Further solidifying the presence of women within the hobby, and integrating them from a holistic perspective, instead of feeling like women were relegated to exclusive side factions, as evidenced by the testimony earlier.
some bloke wrote: Secondly, no, not everyone who is advocating for female marines agrees that it wouldn't be necessary if they weren't the flagship product. I would think it a good idea no matter where they sat on the popularity scale. I am against doing it exclusively because they are the flagship. As in "I am against (doing it because they are the flagship)", not "I am against doing it (because they are the flagship)". If you take my drift on where the emphasis is meant to be on those words!
Good, because I'm not doing it for exclusively those reasons either.
If you make space marines female exclusively because they are popular and all men and we can't possibly have popular things that are all men, then that is 100% sexist.
Nothing wrong with Space Marines being popular. The issue is that they're not just popular, they're dominant. They're omnipresent in marketing, synonymous with "Warhammer 40k", absolutely iconic and recognisable. They go beyond popular, and into "cultural icon" status.
Popular? Custodes are quite popular. They're not the flagship by any stretch.
"you can join this community, and can have female models!" "oh cool, which armies?" "battle nuns or the ones we've added just for you, of course, because you couldn't have an army without girls in it could you, girlie?"
No-one implied that women only played factions with women in them. But did you literally miss the testimony earlier where a hobbyist said that she felt driven away because she felt that women were relegated to specific factions?
Including women isn't saying "hey, we know you only like playing with women so here's some women for you to play with", it's saying "hey, we've gotten rid of that stupid exclusionary rule that led to the face of our company being made up solely of men. You might not want to play that faction, but we're not hiding women in obscure sub-factions now!"
some bloke wrote: I still maintain my stance that if they do it for any reason other than because it would be cool to do, it's somewhat sexist.
And likewise, is excluding them for lore reasons also sexist? Because isn't that just the same "we excluded them because it would be cool to do so" logic at play?
Guard never had a reason to be all male.
Neither did Marines. GW just invented one - but there was no forcible reason to.
The addition of women in guard is more of a "hey, we have no female models, let's make some". I don't know, to be honest. I am really on the fence. On one hand, female marines would be a cool thing to have. On the other, it shouldn't be done "so that women can play marines". If the only reason for doing it is because marines are the flagship, then here's a suggestion - why don't they make someone else the flagship?
I've addressed why this isn't feasible, because it ignores the cultural weight Space Marines have amassed over decades and the inherent lead they'd have, and also how promoting another faction to the same tier as Space Marines would cost astronomically more than "a new head sprue and change of 13 words".
Seriously, the problem seems to be "women see GW, they see all male models, so they don't feel like they can play". Change that to "Women see GW, they see male and female guardsmen, so they feel that they can play".
If it was that easy to make Guard the flagship, sure. But it's not.
I feel like if Orks were the flagship, people would say "change the flagship". If Marines are the flagship, people say "Change marines". It seems wrong.
No, I'd say that regardless. The flagship should not be gender-locked. The question is, what is the easier option - change the flagship, or change the faction. In the current case of Space Marines, the ease of changing them to include women, and the massive cultural dominance they possess, changing the faction is easier.
some bloke wrote: An excellent point, and well made. It's about how it's handled.
Saying "marines are girls now so girls can play the game too" is the equivalent of standing in the doorway making things worse despite trying to make things better.
But no-one's saying that.
What they're saying is that "now women can see that they're not relegated to some obscure side faction, and have more options than 'sexualised battle nun'.".
I think that the phrase "Being male is fine. Being the flagship, and being all male is not, and contributes to a sense that "male = default"." is saying exactly that. They are saying "all male space marines is bad because space marines are popular". If space marines weren't popular, then they wouldn't need changing, is the gist of it. That sounds like the reason for the change is the wrong one.
Again, not that they're popular. T'au are popular. Knights are popular. Guard are popular. None of them are the Flagship Faction.
If Space Marines weren't the flagship, this would not be as much of a pressing matter - but as I've already said, there's no good reason for Space Marines to be all men anyway, because the lore excuse is entirely made up and explicitly exclusionary, and being all men contributes nothing to their factional identity (and actually weakens their role as 'customisable faction').
JNAProductions wrote: So, if Custodes stay all men, it can be viewed as an issue-but it’s not nearly the issue that Marines being all men is.
Exactly.
Space Marines being all male is a much larger problem than "waaaa all male factions are bad" (which is a blatant strawman), because Space Marines are such a prominent feature of 40k.
the_scotsman wrote: A large number of people pick marines as their chosen faction, because a large number of people when presented with an ensemble-cast sort of faction style game choose "me, but as like a cool, badass hero."
Spoiler:
It's just an easy default choice. humans in WoW and DnD and Skyrim and whatever else are usually a pretty common pick, because people are just like 'i'm engaging with this setting because I want to imagine myself, being the cool badass and swinging the big sword and wearing the big armor.'
It's certainly the reason I picked Space Wolves as a blonde kid with a germanic family who'd always thought reading about norse mythology was cool.
It's not what everybody HAS to do, and it's not what everybody DOES do when presented with a setting like 40k, but it's pretty obvious from the massive appeal of marines vs everything else...a lot of people do that.
And yeah, sisters of battle are there, and that does allow someone who wants to do the whole 'just me, but a badass wearing cool armor' thing to do that as a woman.
It's just always been a little bit weird that they're space marines, but weaker. And not in any of the starter boxes. And you need twice as many of them to make an army. And 'theyre sexy' is an OPTIONAL component for space marines, but kind of a required component with SOB. And they can't be evil. And the only evil factions with women in them are the intrinsically sexy ones.
It's like if the only female superhero in the core DC cast was Wonder Woman. Powerful...but superman is way, way more powerful. And 'the girl one' is...kind of a huge defining aspect of who she is, she's from an all-girls society of Girl-landia and a whole lot of her villains are the woman villains, and she wears a skimpier sexier costume than superman and batman.
But hey, Supergirl's right there if you just want superman, but, a lady. So good, there you go.
Again to bring up AOS, I'd like to point out that there IS a faction of all bikini-clad hot murder ladies if that's your jam. But it's not the ONLY faction that has women in it - if you just want to play 'you, but buffer and awesomer and with a giant sword' there's women in the stormcast.
[...]
This is a pretty good analogy.
You're at your favorite restaurant, and they've still got all your favorite foods, but now they serve your least favorite food as well, it's on the menu.
Hasn't replaced anything, isn't in the foods you like, you don't have to order it, but it's there.
Why would you complain about this?
Yup, agreed with just.. all this.
@Jack Flask:
Spoiler:
Jack Flask wrote: I can't speak for Argive, but the political part is the idea that a piece of fiction must be changed because it doesn't correlate with the current vogue belief by certain politically active individuals, who claim that anything that doesn't match their perception of an equitable society is harmful and thereby is responsible for driving injustice in the real world.
Having women represented fairly in a faction that has no reason to exclude them isn't political though.
By extension it denies the idea that fiction is divested from reality and therefor Space Marines being all male is the direct root cause of any bad behavior by individuals in the community and is responsible for the low participation of women in the hobby. Therefore by knowing this and refusing to act (or acting to preserve this current state) it is a perpetuating sexism, which mirrors Critical Race Theory's tenets of Institutional Racism and Structural Determinism.
The issue is that this is proven to be somewhat true by the testimonies of women presented in this thread, who very much make it clear that unrepresentative faction design in 40k is antagonistic to women.
Additionally the very idea that we NEED more women in 40k presupposes that the lack of women in 40k is A) a problem and B) the result of some flaw within the community. It completely fails to consider that women not having an equal presence in the hobby can be due to self-determination (lack of interest for example), and attempts to remedy the supposed "problem" without fully understanding why this occurring or if it even truly is a problem.
Yes, the lack of women *is* a problem when those women are explicitly saying "we'd be okay except we're getting a massive 'boy's only' mentality from this whole situation". Again, feel free to read those testimonies.
Yes Space Marines are all male. Yes, there is a lack of female models across many factions in the game that pretty much everyone here on both sides agrees should be addressed. How you can argue with a straight face that women are not acknowledged in the marketing is utterly baffling to me...
It might not be exactly 50/50, but GW has massively improved the level of female representation in it's marketing/media materials.
And it's still not enough. Improvement doesn't mean perfection, or even adequacy.
The Indomitus trailer features 3 guardsmen (1 female, 2 unidentifiable), a large number of Space Marines, and an equally large number of Sisters of Battle. Both the Sisters and the Marines get equal screen time, about equal lengths of dialogue, and are both depicted struggling with Necrons and heroically saving one another.
Wow. One promotional video for a boxed set that... doesn't include women.
It's also *one* video. I don't think that even begins to scratch at the surface of the amount of all-male content that exists.
Can they do more? Sure.
Will they do more? Probably/hopefully
Should they do more? I don't see why not.
But what we have now is a far cry from "barely acknowledging".
It's not close to fair representation though.
First off, it is NOT 5 years ago so that's completely irrelevant.
You're right, it's not.
By that same token, it's not 30 years ago where we had lore that claimed that "male tissue types" prevented women from being Space Marines. So why do we still stick by that lame excuse?
None of that has any relation to Space Marines being exclusively male other than people trying to force the argument that GW will never add more models female or otherwise to other factions (despite them doing exactly that recently) therefore Marines must be changed.
No-one said that GW wouldn't add them to other factions, or that they shouldn't. The issue was that representation only matters when it's visible - and without changing the most visible faction (either by changing who the visible faction is, which would be prohibitively expensive, or just changing a single detail of that faction), it's ultimately not enough.
Third, if you write out a description for any of the factions in 40k they sound terrible. That's part of the point. I also don't remember (it has been a while) Sisters being depicted as anything other than dutiful arbiters of justice or compassionate defenders in most of the Imperial novels they appear in, though I will admit that I haven't had a chance to read the recent ones yet. But I'd hardly call psycho-indoctrinated emotionless shock-assault troops who follow the same Imperial creed of "if it doesn't espouse Imperial propaganda, blow it of the map" as being particularly heartwarming.
And yet, who are the face of GW's marketing? Plus, Space Marines are described pretty commonly now as "heroic defenders of humanity" and "brave heroes and warriors" - not as "psycho-indoctrinated assault troops". I also encourage you to see the much more tame cartoon Space Marines GW use in their marketing, and tell me that they're not somewhat designed to be consumer-friendly?
While we are at it let's address "wanting to start an army that looked like you". Wanting to look like WHO exactly? Is a 5' tall chubby Japanese woman supposed to identify with a >7' tall roided out white woman because they have long hair and were born with the same genitalia? I mean I'm not a woman but I can identify with aspects of all female factions and characters despite not sharing bodily traits with them. I certainly didn't convert female Stormcast or Chaos Cultists because they "looked like me"...
That's yet another misrepresentation of what representation is.
Again, look at the actual testimony from women posted in this thread about the matter.
GW corporate probably doesn't care, but the fans do. Which is why I care so much.
I'm a fan too. Don't imply that "if you were a true fan, you'd never consider changing the lore!"
Also who said anyone defending all-male space marines is/was ok with Necrons, Primaris, ect?
All I'm saying is that if Necrons and Primaris were as bad as they make women Astartes out to be, this setting-destroying blight, they wouldn't be here any more.
Multiple people have claimed that and it is a gak reason every time they do. Making female space marines canon isn't going to stop gakheads from being gakheads, and I can say that with 100% certainty because I've seem plenty of gakheads say crap things to other people both IRL and online with no relation to race or gender involved.
You're right - it won't. But will it remove any sense of legitimacy and highlight just how much of a gakhead they're being? Absolutely.
Going out of their way to complain at someone about how they are breaking the lore because they didn't use the canonical colors for the space marine chapter they are fielding.
Interrupting someone else's game to tell them about a rules violation and then getting mad when the players decided it's fine they'll just ignore it because "you aren't respecting the integrity of the rules".
Implying someone is dumb or has mental condition because they brought a subpar army or made a tactical mistake in game.
Yeah, these are all true - but we can all largely agree that these are entirely unjustified and clearly wrong. But someone saying "but women Space Marines aren't canon!" isn't lying - they can defend their comment by saying that they're just "preserving the lore" or "just reminding people" - even though such a comment is rarely ever just that.
Nobody in this entire thread said they don't want female gamers in the hobby or that they wish harm on anybody
But they're strongly implying it.
Ok, who? Quote it. Because I haven't seen anyone imply it.
Not wanting the lore for space marines to change is not even close to the same thing as refusing to allow women in the hobby or inciting violence against them.
There was actually a user who *did* explicitly say that they endorsed communities acting in toxic ways towards women to keep them out of their hobby earlier in this thread. Thankfully, their comment was deleted by mods who very quickly came down on that, hence why I can't quote it, but it definitely did happen.
It wasn't even an implication, it was very much explicit in that.
The side that claims we are only as good as our skin color, gender, or sexuality and that we are wrong for refusing to agree with them? I think there's a word for that...
No-one's claiming that.
What we're wondering is why women can't be included as Space Marines.
How is not wanting canonical changes to Space Marines, "not treating people as people"? Rather than reducing anyone down to some monolith of their genitalia I simply believe in showing them the fiction and the hobby as it is and letting them determine for themselves if they like it and want to engage in it.
But why is the fiction like that in the first place?
Why didn't Space Marines have women from the start?
I oppose it because it's an arbitrary change to a fictional setting
To an arbitrary reason that women can't exist.
Don't call it an arbitrary change when the real arbitrary factor is why women couldn't be Astartes in the first place.
that I enjoy based on the assumption that somehow said change will make the community more welcoming to a hypothetical untapped segment of fans based on the anecdotal and emotional arguments of a small but vocal segment of the community.
It ain't hypothetical - I'm guessing you *didn't* read any of the testimonies of women hobbyists presented in this thread.
Also, what's wrong with "emotional" arguments? Surely the whole "I enjoy the lore so pwease don't change it" is an emotional argument as well?
Also this change is supposedly so minuscule and unimportant that no one should be bothered by it, but also is somehow the singular thing making some people feel unwelcome.
Not the singular, but definitely important.
The "miniscule and unimportant" part is that it doesn't force anyone to retroactively change their collections. Including women shouldn't be a problem for anyone, should it?
Also this piece of fiction is singularly responsible for the creation/encouragement of bad actors within the community
Yeah, now you're just making comments up, because no-one said that either.
and this change will fix that but without doing any *actual* work to hold people accountable for their bad behavior or trying to build a healthy local community.
Again, that's all made up.
Oh and I also "love" how a small number of bad actors is apparently reflective of a large segment of the community, despite there being no evidence of that.
Large? Not necessarily. Existent to the point where many women come forward about it? Large enough.
Ok, so I want to politely ask you to answer a question for me. When is it acceptable to have a mono-gendered group in a fictional setting?
When it goes out of it's way to specifically criticize the concept as wrong?
When it sufficiently jumps through enough arbitrary hoops to justify why it was absolutely necessary from a literary perspective?
When the fiction is unknown enough to not be visible to most people?
Because judging by the responses in this thread I feel the answer is "never if men, though we'll ignore it if women, but if we get questioned about it then we'll say we think it shouldn't apply anywhere". Which seems ridiculously restrictive about what can be explored in fiction and also seems to deny peoples' ability to hold their real world morals and views separate from that of fiction.
Then you weren't reading the responses.
I explicitly call out Custodes as fine as a mono-gendered concept, because they specifically draw from thematic elements of it, bolstering their factional identity, and are not the flagship faction.
I personally call out Sisters as fine as a mono-gendered concept, because they explicitly draw from thematic elements from it, bolstering their factional identity, are not the flagship faction, and have a compelling in-universe reason that serves to tell us something interesting about the setting, without the use of arbitrary "science" to justify it.
Space Marines do none of the above.
I'd also argue that outside of Necrons and *sort of* Primaris there aren't really any other major changes to the identity of a faction that I can think of off the top of my head. But feel free to point them out.
Tau switching from a faction that eschewed things like Titans in favour of aircraft strikes and were entirely relegated to a small region of space, into a giant mechsuit and entire galactically accessible realm is another large change. However, I'm pretty in favour of it.
Also do you not believe in people's ability to think critically of things, that you think they need a piece of media to shout at them about what values they should hold?
Then I ask why Space Marines are the vector for this, and not, say, the Custodes?
THERE IS NO DANGER IN HAVING AN EXTRA SPRUE RATHER THAN A SPRUE LESS...
People are asking for the Space Marine lore and identity to be altered, that's far more than just a sprue...
Their identity has already been altered. Them being "warrior monks" is a concept long side left by the wayside for nearly all Chapters, save for the Black Templars and Dark Angel variants.
And yes - changing 13 words of the lore. You're welcome.
I'm at a restaurant that I've eaten at for 10+ years. There are occasionally minor changes to the seasoning (and 1-2 unfortunate times dishes on the menu were replaced) but overall the food is consistently enjoyable for me and and many other people.
Most of the dishes say they feature shaved truffle, but had very little or none at all because people never used to ask about it and the chef assumed it was okay to not put very much.
Now people have started noticing that the dishes claiming to have truffle, had almost no truffle in it and they complain to the chef. So the chef starts adding more truffle to try matching the description they promised to customers.
So far, so good.
There is however one section of the menu, spiced meats (two if you count the custards), which is unique in that it has no truffle in it because the chef forgot to type it when writing the menu. They then decided that the spiced meats not having truffle was significant and included that in the restaurant's concept. Since then spiced meats have become the most popular group of food on the menu.
And here's where the analogy falls flat.
The problem is that the spiced meats are disproportionately marketed - they are the signature dish of this restaurant that claims to be truffle-inclusive, yet contain no truffle, because of what you literally frame as a mistake: "the chef forgot to type it". Firstly, this ignores that actually, the chef writing that there was no truffle wasn't a mistake but a deliberate, yet entirely arbitrary reason, one that explicitly states there are no truffles, which is pretty stupid from a restaurant that claims to be truffle-inclusive.
There was no reason for the spiced meats not to contain truffle in the first place. Secondly, even if it was later decided that the lack of truffle was important, such a concept and design philosophy in the preparation of these spiced meats has now long since been neglected, with the whole "there are no truffles in this dish" being forgotten and omitted.
What's perhaps more fitting is to say that the restaurant has a menu which says "all food items have truffle", except the spiced meats *used* to have a sign saying "no truffle here, we're the exception" - but then the spiced meats became the signature dish, heavily featured in all meal deals and promotional servings, and then also stopped making it clear that they didn't include truffles.
As you can see - the initial lack of truffles was the first mistake, but then the others just keep piling on.
Recently however a small number of truffle enthusiasts have started coming in and complaining loudly about how the spiced meats don't have truffle in them and that makes them feel excluded. So they want the chef to add truffle on top of all spiced meats from now on.
You are someone that likes truffle and doesn't mind it in your food, but you also appreciate the spiced meats as they are now. No one can take away your memories of the spiced meat you enjoyed, but as someone who enjoys the truffle-less spiced meat as it is, you don't want it to change or think it needs to change.
Then you can ask the chef not to include the truffle for your own meal.
The truffle enthusiasts however say that your opinion is invalid, you are causing physical harm to truffle enthusiasts by not supporting them, and that you can just scrape the outer layer off of your spiced meats from now on. Also if for some reason you do that it just proves that you secretly hate truffles and have a unrefined pallette.
No-one said it's invalid - only that you shouldn't stop other people from being able to have truffle on their spiced meats. If you don't like it, you can request the chef not to prepare any truffle for your spiced meat, and no-one's going to judge you for that, because you're not harming their enjoyment of their truffle and spiced meat.
If you think that analogy was ridiculous, congratulations you picked it...
It was a fine analogy, until you missed out the core issue that the spiced meats not having truffle was the first problem - either because of a mistake, as you put in your own analogy, or because of deliberate exclusion of truffle for no good reason, in the real world.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we stop trying to make this a political discussion? We've made it 30 pages and some good back and forth, and making it political feels like people are trying to shut down the thread because they don't like what people in it are saying.
Just stop saying it's about politics and make your points.
Absolutely. If the moderation team felt that this discussion was out of line we would have locked the thread already, the fact that we have not and that at least two moderators have posted in this thread clearly shows that we do not have an issue. I would ask that people please stop trying to close down the discussion by stating "Its political" as some sort of coverall.
Also, thank you to all have been participating in good faith so far as well, its gotten rocky occasionally but I am pretty proud of how most people have been comporting themselves on both sides of the debate. You rock.
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous when you make an analogy and you choose to insert behaviors that are not in the original thing being discussed, and are also not a thing that makes sense at all in the analogy, either.
So in the interest of upping my analogy game what part of it was inaccurate?
You are angry at the idea that an OPTION may be officially sanctioned and supported by the company that produces a canonical work, rather than the current state, where the canonical background of the work explicitly forbids people from taking that option.
It's not really an "option" when Space Marines' very identity is as the inheriting sons of the legacy of the Emperor's 20 geneforged sons. Restricted to being male because apparently said Emperor tied the technology of their creation to the male genetic code. And whose narrative framing is seeped with language and ritual making reference to warrior fraternities and monastic orders.
That's what most people would colloquially refer to as "a change".
Though I keep hearing people say that's all irrelevant or something because it's fiction so no one should care about anything.
OK - what is being pointed out is the fact that, extremely reliably, people are using the justification of that canonical detail to harass and be gakky towards people.
Gakky people use all sorts of things as justification to do gakky things. It has less to do with the cudgel and everything to do with the person wielding it.
I know full well that you're going to try claiming this comparison inaccurate, but it's like saying we should ban knives to prevent stabbings. At some point you have to acknowledge that sudden the increase in bludgeoning violence is because you didn't want to address the much harder issue of mental health.
You can add all the female space marines you want but it's not going to make a bully or someone with severe social issues stop coming up with reasons to abuse someone else.
Nobody comes out of nowhere and bitches and moans about how anti-canonical it is when (and this is just gonna be examples I recall from recent posts on various social media platforms)
-someone converts a Tau genestealer cult army (canon says they can sniff 'em out somehow)
-someone draws a genestealer hybrid space marine
-someone converts or possibly 3d prints a cyborg necron-themed tyranid army
-someone makes underwater chaos space marines in bioshock diver helmets
-someone makes a Stormcast Eternal army using only male models. Or a guard army. Or a Genestealer Cult army. Or an Eldar army. Or a militarum tempestus army. Never ever ever, not once not one single time have I ever seen a post on any 40k related social media commenting 'hey canon says there should be men and women in that army, wheres the women you sexist?'
people JUST use that lore detail as a cudgel when it comes to space marines with female heads.
Because the "it's not canon" is just an excuse for a gakky person to harass someone because they know it provokes a reaction. I've seen people make Chaos Orks and get comments saying "there are no Chaos Orks because all Orks worship Gork and Mork".
Do you know what the reaction from the owner was?
"Yeah, I know. I made them because I thought they were cool and I don't care." That's it.
The vast majority of people I've seen in person didn't care what you did with your own models and we even did have some regular women at our local store. And yes we did have a few known bad actors at our store.
I despise Angry Marines and I hate seeing armies of them, but I wouldn't ever say that to someone who made them. They are their models. The same way I wouldn't care if someone converted female space marines. They are their models...
Does my anecdotal experience trump anyone else's? No. But I'm also not trying to claim a large segment of a community is hateful based on a combination of someone else's anecdotal experiences in person *and* their internet experiences (which should not be used as a guage for anything).
If a larger number of paying customers ask them to provide an option for them within their product. If 15 customers to your favorite restaurant are demanding that an item be AVAILABLE as an OPTION you do not have a right to say that you have been a customer longer and therefore the current state of that option being forbidden must continue indefinitely.
Pray tell, by what evidence do you believe that there are a larger number of paying customers asking for this than ones who are fine with the way things are?
I'm not discounting your assertion offhand, but I assume you have some sort of evidence don't you?
I never claimed my length of engagement with the hobby entitled me to anything. I only mention it because it's the reason I "give a gak" so to speak.
You're just bein' a hobby karen. I'm sorry. Businesses exist to make money, unless more people threaten to leave if the current state of option being unavailable continues than people say they'd join if option was presented, then the option will be added.
I'm sorry, so I should what? Just not say anything when a handful of people attempt to claim they have some sort of false authority and run roughshod over something that has meaning to me because "they might think I'm a Karen"? As if you and your ilk are any more noble?
Also I love how when people were making noise about a lack of racial diversity in Warhammer a few years ago, they would say "GW had a moral imperative to help society". And the gakky counter response was always "GW is a business, they exist to make money lol" because they really didn't have an argument since the Imperium should have been racially diverse from the start per the lore...
Jack flask, we have addressed all you concerns time and time again. We have shown you how “lore” is no reason not to change. We have given examples of the problems that a lack of representation can cause and how fixing it is easy. Even in the same company. The politics have been discussed to death, and the I think most folk agreed that the oppression of poor white boys and left wing conspiracy plot was a non starter.
Yes GWs settings should have been diverse from the beginning, but they weren’t. They are addressing that now. Next step is the female marines.
Aight, to be fair in my post I did waffle between my stance on what GW should do (introduce female astartes) and what they will do (follow the money, whichever way it leads).
There are a number of people, like yourself, who threaten a degree of financial loss to games workshop through standard internet cancel culture if they introduce the option of making female astartes to the players. There is also a theoretical number of people who may join the hobby through seeing themselves represented in the standard, broadly appealing power fantasy human faction in 40k.
I don't have numbers for the financial value of the loss from the first group, or the financial value of the gain from the second group. It's pretty clear, by the way that they introduced primaris but kept firstborn marines around (despite primaris CLEARLY being designed as a replacement) that GW is highly concerned about the value of the first group.
And it's also clear, from the way that they've introduced female models to AOS, that they're curious about the value that may exist within the second group.
All this is my opinion on what GW will do. My opinion on what GW should do, is just based on my own experience. I started the hobby in middle school as a blonde nerdy kid who loved to read about norse mythology, and the fact that there were badass space vikings was a major factor in how I got into 40k.
I think there are some people who get into 40k, see Sisters of Battle, and get into them for the same reason, just like I think there are some people who get into comics and see Wonder Woman and that's their jam.
But I do think the fact that the sisters of battle are "good, but, you know. FAR from the BEST" - one sister being roughly half the value of one of the current primaris space marines - and the fact that they have a very defined theme of being catholic nuns while space marines come in every conceivable flavor and theme imaginable - you've got knights, romans, leather daddies, pet play, call of duty modern warfare, dirty dozen commandos, robed monks, every color and historical inspiration and gay subculture you can come up with, with roughly 1/2 of the model releases, 3/4 of the lore, and 1/2 of the media dedicated to marines, you'd probably get more people in on that angle if marines could also be women.
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous when you make an analogy and you choose to insert behaviors that are not in the original thing being discussed, and are also not a thing that makes sense at all in the analogy, either.
So in the interest of upping my analogy game what part of it was inaccurate?
I addressed that myself, most notably how even in your example, you state how the spiced meat not including truffles was a mistake.
It's time to fix that mistake.
Secondly, how multiple paying customers wanting truffle on their spiced meat, and not having to buy their own truffle from elsewhere to add to the spiced meat, shouldn't be a problem for you when you can just... not eat the truffle.
It's not really an "option" when Space Marines' very identity is as the inheriting sons of the legacy of the Emperor's 20 geneforged sons. Restricted to being male because apparently said Emperor tied the technology of their creation to the male genetic code. And whose narrative framing is seeped with language and ritual making reference to warrior fraternities and monastic orders.
Except the Space Marines have been moving further and further away from that "narrative framing seeped with language and ritual making reference to warrior fraternities and monastic orders".
Tell me, where's the monastic order in the Space Wolves? The Raven Guard? The Raptors? I'd also like to repeat that the whole "male coded tissue" was the reason for them being all men at first - a restriction that is completely and utterly made up, and is explicitly exclusive - and that it's not even mentioned in later books.
Space Marines are no more framed as this holy order of All Dudes than the Adeptus Mechanicus are, because GW don't see the "warrior fraternity and monastic order" part of Space Marines as their selling point any more. Their selling point now, if current trends are to be believed, is that Space Marines are the "blank canvas" faction, the ones that can be themed like whatever you like, can have any colour scheme that suits you, and are free to explore your themes through. That's why GW so heavily promote the whole "paint your own Primaris funko pop", or "Primaris Marine colour scheme template", or even the "create your own Chapter" rules which I believe first came with Space Marines. They're a blank canvas for creation first and foremost, and excluding women seems like a rejection of that ideal.
That's what most people would colloquially refer to as "a change".
Like when GW changed from Space Marines having women to... not having them?
Though I keep hearing people say that's all irrelevant or something because it's fiction so no one should care about anything.
So why do you have such an opposition to women Space Marines? If someone else cares enough to want it, why do you care so much to stop them?
Gakky people use all sorts of things as justification to do gakky things. It has less to do with the cudgel and everything to do with the person wielding it.
But you still stop them wielding the cudgel.
I know full well that you're going to try claiming this comparison inaccurate, but it's like saying we should ban knives to prevent stabbings. At some point you have to acknowledge that sudden the increase in bludgeoning violence is because you didn't want to address the much harder issue of mental health.
Cool - so, in this analogy, the "mental health" is the promotion of the "boys only" mentality, and by increasing exposure to women in prominent places in the marketing (like, the Space Marines), we tackle that issue of "mental health"?
You can add all the female space marines you want but it's not going to make a bully or someone with severe social issues stop coming up with reasons to abuse someone else.
It won't - but it makes it clear that they have no excuse to be abusing people. It's about delegitimising their excuses to exclude people and spread their hatred.
Does my anecdotal experience trump anyone else's? No. But I'm also not trying to claim a large segment of a community is hateful based on a combination of someone else's anecdotal experiences in person *and* their internet experiences (which should not be used as a guage for anything).
Why shouldn't they?
And again, are you suggesting the right thing to do when many people come forward and open up about feeling and being excluded is to... ignore them?
Your memories of how things were previously are not so sacred that a company must bow to your whim
Ok? Neither is anyone's feelings.
Why does lore come before feelings?
I'm sorry, so I should what? Just not say anything when a handful of people attempt to claim they have some sort of false authority and run roughshod over something that has meaning to me because "they might think I'm a Karen"? As if you and your ilk are any more noble?
There's no "false authority". Just asking why re-including women into Space Marines is such a problem.
Why would adding women Astartes be "running roughshod" over your Astartes? And, more importantly, isn't that just another "my feelings" argument?
Also I love how when people were making noise about a lack of racial diversity in Warhammer a few years ago, they would say "GW had a moral imperative to help society". And the gakky counter response was always "GW is a business, they exist to make money lol" because they really didn't have an argument since the Imperium should have been racially diverse from the start per the lore...
Yeah, pretty much. That's why I don't use the "money = everything" mindset. But, for what it's worth, I believe Scotsman is emphasising that the lore means absolutely nothing when compared with whatever is profitable. And if adding women is profitable...
I'm sorry, so I should what? Just not say anything when a handful of people attempt to claim they have some sort of false authority and run roughshod over something that has meaning to me because "they might think I'm a Karen"? As if you and your ilk are any more noble?
You have the right to say these things. We have the right to tell you're wrong, as many times as it takes.
I would pay between 15-20 dollars for an extra spru on top of my box of models, but my models only need 3 heads per box. I would pay a lot to support the move towards inclusivity.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I would pay between 15-20 dollars for an extra spru on top of my box of models, but my models only need 3 heads per box. I would pay a lot to support the move towards inclusivity.
I'm sure GW will be grateful for your $100..
I would like to point out they haven't made a plastic upgrade sprue for Storm guardians or other iconic conversion units (shining spears, noise marines etc.) as well as discontinued a bunch of awesome FW stuff..
Don't shoot, but I wager there is more demand for these than for female heads for marines.. So how exactly does this happen in your view at GWHQ? How do you push this through a board room meeting? When fans have been practically begging for non fail cast models for years and their surveys?
What evidence would you use to justify the price tag and R&D for the sprue?
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Also, as we are talking about the economics of the change.
Lets say for whatever reasons GW did think this was a good idea, and decided to include an extra sprue in all of their marine boxes.
In true GW fashion, they put up a price tag of a modest extra £10 per box (because its GW after all). Would that be acceptable to you? As in people who have no interest in the sprue, still having to purchase it and having to bear the financial brunt of the change?
Lots of people already barely able to afford 40k models because I think we can all agree the biggest barrier to entry is the cost, those people are now priced out of the hobby.
With covid redundancies& inflation and the general economic roller coaster of the last couple years, this will only get more common.
Argive wrote: How much are people willing to pay for extra heads?
Considering what the Genestealer Cult upgrade sprues cost, £8 to £9 is standard. However, the Stormcast women heads from FW sell for £13.
As resin goes, the FW version is fine, but I think GW could get away with a nice round £10 for a pack of 10 heads.
Argive wrote: I would like to point out they haven't made a plastic upgrade sprue for Storm guardians or other iconic conversion units (shining spears, noise marines etc.) as well as discontinued a bunch of awesome FW stuff..
Don't shoot, but I wager there is more demand for these than for female heads for marines.
I doubt that, actually. Plus, let's look at it from GW's perspective. They already have upgrade kits for those units. They don't have them for women Space Marines. Ergo, making new ones for existing products isn't filling a new niche, and is requiring them to re-cover ground they already have boots on. Whereas with women Space Marine heads, they don't have them yet - filling that market would be an entirely new revenue source.
And evidently, the "Space Marine upgrade" packs sell pretty damn well, because we've got one for basically every First Founding Chapter. It's almost like Space Marines sell well in general.
So how exactly does this happen in your view at GWHQ?
Just like it happened with the Forge World Stormcast heads, just like it happened with the Space Marine upgrade sprues, and just like it happened with the Genestealer Cult upgrade sprues.
How do you push this through a board room meeting?
"Hey, there's people out there who are happy to buy a whole new set of heads that don't even come in the box!"
When fans have been practically begging for non fail cast models for years and surveys?
Begging so hard that GW didn't release plastic sprues for every First Founding Chapter of Space Marines instead?
I'll be totally honest, I don't think GW cares about anything that's not Space Marines.
What evidence would you use to justify the price tag and R&D for the sprue?
*gestures at Genestealer Cult sprue, the new Cadian upgrade sprue, Space Marine upgrade sprues, Stormcast upgrade heads, and the sheer amount of Space Marine players*.
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Argive wrote: Lets say for whatever reasons GW did think this was a good idea, and decided to include an extra sprue in all of their marine boxes.
Ah, but that's not what people asked for.
We asked for an *optional* sprue, a la the Genestealer Cults upgrade sprue. You're not forced to buy one of them with Guardsmen kits, are you?
Additionally, if and when it came time to update the Marine kits, I'm sure that we can replace one or two of the obligatory bare headed male heads with female ones instead, for no extra cost, seeing as those are newly updated kits.
In true GW fashion, they put up a price tag of a modest extra £10 per box (because its GW after all). Would that be acceptable to you?
No, because that'd be like saying "in order to justify GW making Iron Hands upgrade sprues, they'd need to put them in every Space Marine box!!"
Sell them separately - that's clearly a model that works, as they're doing that with Genestealer Cultists and all the SM upgrade kits.
As in people who have no interest in the sprue, still having to purchase it and having to bear the financial brunt of the change?
No, because, as I said, they're optional upgrade sprues.
Lots of people already barely able to afford 40k models because I think we can all agree the biggest barrier to entry is the cost, those people are now priced out of the hobby. With covid redundancies& inflation and the general economic roller coaster of the last couple years, this will only get more common.
Remind me - did you have to cover the cost of the Iron Hands upgrade sprue at all? Did the cost of normal SM kits go up at all because of that?
Argive wrote: How much are people willing to pay for extra heads?
Considering what the Genestealer Cult upgrade sprues cost, £8 to £9 is standard. However, the Stormcast women heads from FW sell for £13.
As resin goes, the FW version is fine, but I think GW could get away with a nice round £10 for a pack of 10 heads.
Argive wrote: I would like to point out they haven't made a plastic upgrade sprue for Storm guardians or other iconic conversion units (shining spears, noise marines etc.) as well as discontinued a bunch of awesome FW stuff..
Don't shoot, but I wager there is more demand for these than for female heads for marines.
I doubt that, actually. Plus, let's look at it from GW's perspective. They already have upgrade kits for those units. They don't have them for women Space Marines. Ergo, making new ones for existing products isn't filling a new niche, and is requiring them to re-cover ground they already have boots on. Whereas with women Space Marine heads, they don't have them yet - filling that market would be an entirely new revenue source.
And evidently, the "Space Marine upgrade" packs sell pretty damn well, because we've got one for basically every First Founding Chapter. It's almost like Space Marines sell well in general.
So how exactly does this happen in your view at GWHQ?
Just like it happened with the Forge World Stormcast heads, just like it happened with the Space Marine upgrade sprues, and just like it happened with the Genestealer Cult upgrade sprues.
How do you push this through a board room meeting?
"Hey, there's people out there who are happy to buy a whole new set of heads that don't even come in the box!"
When fans have been practically begging for non fail cast models for years and surveys?
Begging so hard that GW didn't release plastic sprues for every First Founding Chapter of Space Marines?
I'll be totally honest, I don't think GW cares about anything that's not Space Marines.
What evidence would you use to justify the price tag and R&D for the sprue?
*gestures at Genestealer Cult sprue, the new Cadian upgrade sprue, Space Marine upgrade sprues, Stormcast upgrade heads, and the sheer amount of Space Marine players*.
I was talking about aspects and other junk people love. No more SM please. Thinks that's a pretty universal want.
We agree that SM are over saturated. Therefore wanting more Sm Sprues just seems like contradictory position.
Argive wrote: How much are people willing to pay for extra heads?
Considering what the Genestealer Cult upgrade sprues cost, £8 to £9 is standard. However, the Stormcast women heads from FW sell for £13.
As resin goes, the FW version is fine, but I think GW could get away with a nice round £10 for a pack of 10 heads.
Argive wrote: I would like to point out they haven't made a plastic upgrade sprue for Storm guardians or other iconic conversion units (shining spears, noise marines etc.) as well as discontinued a bunch of awesome FW stuff..
Don't shoot, but I wager there is more demand for these than for female heads for marines.
I doubt that, actually. Plus, let's look at it from GW's perspective. They already have upgrade kits for those units. They don't have them for women Space Marines. Ergo, making new ones for existing products isn't filling a new niche, and is requiring them to re-cover ground they already have boots on. Whereas with women Space Marine heads, they don't have them yet - filling that market would be an entirely new revenue source.
And evidently, the "Space Marine upgrade" packs sell pretty damn well, because we've got one for basically every First Founding Chapter. It's almost like Space Marines sell well in general.
So how exactly does this happen in your view at GWHQ?
Just like it happened with the Forge World Stormcast heads, just like it happened with the Space Marine upgrade sprues, and just like it happened with the Genestealer Cult upgrade sprues.
How do you push this through a board room meeting?
"Hey, there's people out there who are happy to buy a whole new set of heads that don't even come in the box!"
When fans have been practically begging for non fail cast models for years and surveys?
Begging so hard that GW didn't release plastic sprues for every First Founding Chapter of Space Marines?
I'll be totally honest, I don't think GW cares about anything that's not Space Marines.
What evidence would you use to justify the price tag and R&D for the sprue?
*gestures at Genestealer Cult sprue, the new Cadian upgrade sprue, Space Marine upgrade sprues, Stormcast upgrade heads, and the sheer amount of Space Marine players*.
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Argive wrote: Lets say for whatever reasons GW did think this was a good idea, and decided to include an extra sprue in all of their marine boxes.
Ah, but that's not what people asked for.
We asked for an *optional* sprue, a la the Genestealer Cults upgrade sprue. You're not forced to buy one of them with Guardsmen kits, are you?
Additionally, if and when it came time to update the Marine kits, I'm sure that we can replace one or two of the obligatory bare headed male heads with female ones instead, for no extra cost, seeing as those are newly updated kits.
In true GW fashion, they put up a price tag of a modest extra £10 per box (because its GW after all). Would that be acceptable to you?
No, because that'd be like saying "in order to justify GW making Iron Hands upgrade sprues, they'd need to put them in every Space Marine box!!"
Sell them separately - that's clearly a model that works, as they're doing that with Genestealer Cultists and all the SM upgrade kits.
As in people who have no interest in the sprue, still having to purchase it and having to bear the financial brunt of the change?
No, because, as I said, they're optional upgrade sprues.
Lots of people already barely able to afford 40k models because I think we can all agree the biggest barrier to entry is the cost, those people are now priced out of the hobby.
With covid redundancies& inflation and the general economic roller coaster of the last couple years, this will only get more common.
Remind me - did you have to cover the cost of the Iron Hands upgrade sprue at all?
I thought not.
No smuge.
IH/ DA/ BA or whatever chapter sprue is optional to the chapter...
An inclusive head sprue is relevant to every box and every marine. Not every marine is an IH marine. But every marine will be a nu-fem marine.
How long have you been a consumer of GW, do you think GW will not jump on an opportunity to fleece its customers?
Ultimately if GW did do this(put in extra sprue and charge extra), you would be against it I trust ?
Argive wrote: I was talking about aspects and other junk people love. No more SM please. Thinks that's a pretty universal want. We agree that SM are over saturated. Therefore wanting more Sm Sprues just seems like contradictory position.
And yet, GW didn't upgrade Aspect kits. They upgraded the Space Marine ones, despite the "fans practically begging for non-failcast models".
You implied that GW would prioritise Aspect kits because the fans were begging for them to be updated. Considering GW's treatment of those kits, I don't think that's likely at all.
I agree that Space Marines are oversaturated. I also think that it's actually more important to cover the uncovered ground of adding feminine heads to the Astartes range before re-making something that already has models.
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Argive wrote: IH/ DA/ BA or whatever chapter sprue is optional to the chapter... An inclusive head sprue is relevant to every box and every marine. Not every marine is an IH marine. But every marine will be a nu-fem marine.
Where on earth did you pull that nonsense from?
Adding women Astartes doesn't *force* anyone to make their Astartes women any more so than adding bare heads on a sprue forces you to take unhelmeted Space Marines.
If you don't want to add women Astartes to your army, you don't have to, in the same way that I don't have to add Ultramarine upgrade kits onto my Ultramarines models. Give us the *option* to do so, and the upgrade kit if we want to go that way - just like they did with optional Chapter upgrade sprues.
How long have you been a consumer of GW, do you think GW will not jump on an opportunity to fleece its customers?
I don't know - show me where GW forced me to buy Ultramarine upgrade kits to play Ultramarines.
Ultimately if GW did do this(put in extra sprue and charge extra), you would be against it I trust ?
Yeah, in the same way I'd oppose them putting the existing upgrade sprues in the kits. Leave them optional, because they're evidently a very good business model as is, given the amount of them.
EDIT: That doesn't mean that, if and when GW update the core kits themselves, that they don't put women heads in there. As we all know, Space Marine kits come with with several unhelmed heads - I'd expect that some of these unhelmed heads be feminine, if and when GW update the core kits, not that I'm rushing for that.
Argive wrote: I was talking about aspects and other junk people love. No more SM please. Thinks that's a pretty universal want. We agree that SM are over saturated. Therefore wanting more Sm Sprues just seems like contradictory position.
And yet, GW didn't upgrade Aspect kits. They upgraded the Space Marine ones, despite the "fans practically begging for non-failcast models".
You implied that GW would prioritise Aspect kits because the fans were begging for them to be updated. Considering GW's treatment of those kits, I don't think that's likely at all.
I agree that Space Marines are oversaturated. I also think that it's actually more important to cover the uncovered ground of adding feminine heads to the Astartes range before re-making something that already has models.
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Argive wrote: IH/ DA/ BA or whatever chapter sprue is optional to the chapter... An inclusive head sprue is relevant to every box and every marine. Not every marine is an IH marine. But every marine will be a nu-fem marine.
Where on earth did you pull that nonsense from?
Adding women Astartes doesn't *force* anyone to make their Astartes women any more so than adding bare heads on a sprue forces you to take unhelmeted Space Marines.
If you don't want to add women Astartes to your army, you don't have to, in the same way that I don't have to add Ultramarine upgrade kits onto my Ultramarines models.
How long have you been a consumer of GW, do you think GW will not jump on an opportunity to fleece its customers?
I don't know - show me where GW forced me to buy Ultramarine upgrade kits to play Ultramarines.
Ultimately if GW did do this(put in extra sprue and charge extra), you would be against it I trust ?
Yeah, in the same way I'd oppose them putting the existing upgrade sprues in the kits. Leave them optional, because they're evidently a very good business model as is, given the amount of them.
But smuge, they did make Banshees and jain zar.. I bought a bunch myself. They obviously listened.. And charged us £32.50 for 5 infantry models for the privilege.. of havign a dual head option.. obviously not listened as much as people wanted but still...
Every marine could be a potnetial Fem marine. I mean it makes sense you'd need to do this if you wanted to "normalise" this. Being a male or female will be as integral to a marine as his power armour.. All marines are is a collection of lore bullet points.
Ok, honestly and truthully, you do not think its explicit form of gatekeeping if in order to play female models of marines women will have to pay £10-20 extra for the privelage?
Remeber smuge you are the one asserting that women are not interested in 40k because there are not female marines. Are you telling me those women will be happy that they have to pay extra now to be represented? Essentially, its an inclusion tax... I dont know about you but if I was looking to start a new wargame where the chief faction was all females and I had to pay extra in order to be represented Id feel even more repelled.. (if that was a factor in deciding wether or not I was interested in the game) You seriously see nothing wrong with this picture?
Im not sure its such a leap GW would not want to risk being "called out" for making women pay more to be represented in their lead range. It would only be natural to just put this in every box and charge everyone accordingly.
Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
First, if someone wants to make their chapter of marines be all female or mixed gender.... Why does anyone other than the player care? Its like getting upset that someone repainted their car from green to blue. You don't drive it or hold the title so why is it anyone's concern other than the owner? Let people have an enjoy things, even if its just headcanon.
Second, diversity in marines would be a great thing. I'd run some female marines for sure, both loyal and traitor. It'd be grand!
Lastly, could you imagine the trailer or vid for a female space marine release? Run it like normal, spess mahreens show up to save the day, pop off the helmet and... is a woman. Heck of a plot twist, and a good one, in my book.
Anyways, two bits given. Off I go, now. The cess pools are perfectly lukewarm - just how I like it!
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
It reads like like a pretty standard gish gallop, tbh. No real engagement, just volley after volley of conversational chaff.
Argive wrote: But smuge, they did make Banshees and jain zar.. I bought a bunch myself.
And they made nine upgrade sprues for Space Marines.
Every marine could be a potnetial Fem marine.
They could be, if you wanted them to be. In the same way that every Space Marine you collect could be an Ultramarine, or a Salamander, or a White Scar, or a Space Wolf.
Did I have to buy an upgrade pack to make sure each model had the upgrade on them?
I mean it makes sense you'd need to do this if you wanted to "normalise" this.
I said to normalise them in marketing and as an option. I never said to force every player to fill a quota.
Quit making up arguments to fight against.
Ok, honestly and truthully, you do not think its explicit form of gatekeeping if in order to play female models of marines women will have to pay £10-20 extra for the privelage?
No more so than it's gatekeeping to Ultramarines players if they want to have Ultramarine specific details on their armour. No more so than it is gatekeeping against Deathwatch players for not including the Deathwatch shoulder pads in every Intercessor kit.
No, it's not gatekeeping at all. The only time it'll be "economic gatekeeping" is if, when it happens, when Space Marine kits are updated, if they don't include some women heads in lieu of some male heads.
Remeber smuge you are the one asserting that women are not interested in 40k because there are not female marines.
I never said that at all.
Don't make up what I said.
Are you telling me those women will be happy that they have to pay extra now to be represented?
As opposed to no representation at all? I think we can live.
Essentially, its an inclusion tax.
Is it an inclusion tax for Ultramarines too, to have to buy Ultramarine upgrade kits?
I dont know about you but if I was looking to start a new wargame where the chief faction was all females and I had to pay extra in order to be represented Id feel even more repelled.. (if that was a factor in deciding wether or not I was interested in the game)
But you don't *have* to pay extra any more so than a Space Wolf player *has* to pay extra. If you *want* that, then you have the option, and they're not horrifically expensive. You don't even need to make every Space Marine unhelmeted. You could actually very easily have an entirely helmeted force of women Astartes if you so wanted to. The important part is that there's the option at every step.
You seriously see nothing wrong with this picture?
No. The only reason one exists is because of your ridiculous strawmanning.
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
Hang on Andykp. Do I need to go back in this thread and dig out every isntance in which smuge or somebody esle have said something along the line of:
"We only want an upgrade sprue and change 13 words in the lore" "we dont want to force this on people that are not interested" " we dont want new SM
I believe those were maybe even your exact words. You now state in no uncertain terms that actually you would need to update marine kits to contain new heads and that is how this is going to be implemented...
Dear Andy, the reason it seems like I have many hooks etc because there are simply many many maaany holes in this proposed change. This whole thing is a farcical nonsensical argument that is solved by buying Storm casts heads for £13...
How exactly am I gatekeeping by trying to point out an issue with the economic aspect of this thing? You're the ones asking for an upgrade sprue. I merely point out potential issues with implementing it.
Is GW going to give out inclusive sprues away for free?
Argive wrote: But smuge, they did make Banshees and jain zar.. I bought a bunch myself.
And they made nine upgrade sprues for Space Marines.
Every marine could be a potnetial Fem marine.
They could be, if you wanted them to be. In the same way that every Space Marine you collect could be an Ultramarine, or a Salamander, or a White Scar, or a Space Wolf.
Did I have to buy an upgrade pack to make sure each model had the upgrade on them?
I mean it makes sense you'd need to do this if you wanted to "normalise" this.
I said to normalise them in marketing and as an option. I never said to force every player to fill a quota.
Quit making up arguments to fight against.
Ok, honestly and truthully, you do not think its explicit form of gatekeeping if in order to play female models of marines women will have to pay £10-20 extra for the privelage?
No more so than it's gatekeeping to Ultramarines players if they want to have Ultramarine specific details on their armour. No more so than it is gatekeeping against Deathwatch players for not including the Deathwatch shoulder pads in every Intercessor kit.
No, it's not gatekeeping at all. The only time it'll be "economic gatekeeping" is if, when it happens, when Space Marine kits are updated, if they don't include some women heads in lieu of some male heads.
Remeber smuge you are the one asserting that women are not interested in 40k because there are not female marines.
I never said that at all.
Don't make up what I said.
Are you telling me those women will be happy that they have to pay extra now to be represented?
As opposed to no representation at all? I think we can live.
Essentially, its an inclusion tax.
Is it an inclusion tax for Ultramarines too, to have to buy Ultramarine upgrade kits?
I dont know about you but if I was looking to start a new wargame where the chief faction was all females and I had to pay extra in order to be represented Id feel even more repelled.. (if that was a factor in deciding wether or not I was interested in the game)
But you don't *have* to pay extra any more so than a Space Wolf player *has* to pay extra. If you *want* that, then you have the option, and they're not horrifically expensive. You don't even need to make every Space Marine unhelmeted. You could actually very easily have an entirely helmeted force of women Astartes if you so wanted to. The important part is that there's the option at every step.
You seriously see nothing wrong with this picture?
No. The only reason one exists is because of your ridiculous strawmanning.
Smuge - You can just paint your marines blue.. you dotn need an upgrade sprue to be an ultra marine.. Anybody can be an IH if they paint their marines correctly to reflect the correct chapter they want to be. Can you paint your marines to show they are female?
Smuge, remind me again why do you want female marines?
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
Hang on Andykp. Do I need to go back in this thread and dig out every isntance in which smuge or somebody esle have said something along the line of:
"We only want an upgrade sprue and change 13 words in the lore" "we dont want to force this on people that are not interested" " we dont want new SM
I believe those were maybe even your exact words. You now state in no uncertain terms that actually you would need to update marine kits to contain new heads and that is how this is going to be implemented...
Uh, no. That's not what they said at all.
They said that when new kits are made, and you're a fool if you don't think that GW will never update a Space Marine kit again, they should include some women's heads too.
Quit making up arguments to fight against.
How exactly am I gatekeeping by trying to point out an issue with the economic aspect of this thing? You're the ones asking for an upgrade sprue. I merely point out potential issues with implementing it.
Are the Chapter upgrade sprues gatekeeping as well? The Cadian upgrade sprues?
So you think GW will jsut give inclusive sprues away for free?
No. I'm saying that *when* they upgrade the existing kits, and believe me, they will, they should include some women's heads in place of the multiple male ones we already get.
Smuge - You can just paint your marines blue.. you dotn need an upgrade sprue to be an ultra marine.. Anybody can be an IH if they paint their marines correctly to reflect the correct chapter they want to be. Can you paint your marines to show they are female?
I don't know if you've heard of it, but... a helmet?
When a Marine wears their helmet, they *could* be anything. As long as the option for them being a woman under the helmet is there, then it's just as likely to be a woman or a man.
Smuge, remind me again why do you want female marines?
Read the thread. Now remind me again why you oppose them?
Adding bits or even a sprue doesn’t force anyone to do anything. There is a space wolves upgrade sprue yet I manage to build my marines not as space marines somehow.
An upgrade sprue would be a decent stop gap until they get around to renew the Marine kits or release new ones. Then just add the option. Literally in the post above yours smudge stated he would prefer just a few heads on new kits.
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
It reads like like a pretty standard gish gallop, tbh. No real engagement, just volley after volley of conversational chaff.
Almost like I’m fed up of knocking back the same baseless objections again and again.
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
Hang on Andykp.
Do I need to go back in this thread and dig out every isntance in which smuge or somebody esle have said something along the line of:
"We only want an upgrade sprue and change 13 words in the lore"
"we dont want to force this on people that are not interested"
" we dont want new SM
I believe those were maybe even your exact words.
You now state in no uncertain terms that actually you would need to update marine kits to contain new heads and that is how this is going to be implemented...
Uh, no. That's not what they said at all.
They said that when new kits are made, and you're a fool if you don't think that GW will never update a Space Marine kit again, they should include some women's heads too.
Quit making up arguments to fight against.
How exactly am I gatekeeping by trying to point out an issue with the economic aspect of this thing? You're the ones asking for an upgrade sprue.
I merely point out potential issues with implementing it.
Are the Chapter upgrade sprues gatekeeping as well? The Cadian upgrade sprues?
So you think GW will jsut give inclusive sprues away for free?
No. I'm saying that *when* they upgrade the existing kits, and believe me, they will, they should include some women's heads in place of the multiple male ones we already get.
Smuge, remind me again why do you want female marines?
Read the thread. Now remind me again why you oppose them?
Now now smuge thats Im not the one asking for anything.. I'm quite happy with things how they are
But I'm very glad we agree. That 40k no female SM do not prevent women from entering the hobby and is not an issue of any relevance. That's a fantastic concession. Could have sworn you have said that at some point during this long arduous thread but I admit I might have misremembered. I apologise.
As 40k Male SM are not stopping women from playing or wanting to play 40k then I see zero value in creating more SM releases in an SM oversaturated 40k...
The problem is already being solved by a AOS storm cast bit buy from ebay for those that want it for assthetic reaosns. And we dont even need to change the lore and make more books about marines. Wonderful.
I explicitly call out Custodes...
I personally call out Sisters...
Space Marines do none of the above.
So, the fact that the entire genesis of the 41st Millennium is a civil war of brother versus brother and father versus son is not thematic? A story born out of and made possible by the fact that space marines are all male. (And the weapon that might be able to finally kill the Emperor just so happens to be a demon created when Cain slew Abel, which acts, how shall we say, as a thematic intensifier).
..the core issue that the spiced meats not having truffle was the first problem - either because of a mistake, as you put in your own analogy, or because of deliberate exclusion of truffle for no good reason, in the real world.
You keep reiterating this idea of 'no good reason' but, using the analogy, the chef can determine the composition of their dishes however they please, that is their perogative as the chef. Having created a specific menu item that does not include truffle, which then becomes the most popular item on the menu is entirely fine, there is no problem and whether it was made for a bad reason, or a good reason or no reason at all, just an idea "plucked from the cher's ass" if you will, is neither here nor there.
If you don't like it, you can request the chef not to prepare any truffle for your spiced meat, and no-one's going to judge you for that, because you're not harming their enjoyment of their truffle and spiced meat.
The truffle aficionados could just patronise another restaurant that already includes truffle with the spiced meat could they not? By what obligation must they patronise this restaurant and no other? Does this particular restaurant have some kind of institutional power within society meaning that their consumer rights will be affected if they patronsie another restaurant or make their own spiced meat with truffle at home?
If the spiced meat from this particular restaurant however, is so amazing, that all other restaurants offerings of spiced meats pale by comparison then they could transfer truffle from those dishes that do include truffle and add that to the spiced meat, the chef is not going to bar them from the restaurant for doing so. Sure, they can ask the chef to add truffle to their selection of spiced meat, and maybe the chef might do so, but if that request to the chef also necessitates a change to the menu, which then makes all future productions of the spiced meat contain truffle, then those customers who don't want truffle with their spiced meat are absolutely okay to say that they don't want the menu changed, especially when the rest of the menu includes items with truffle because their is no moral imperative for the inclusion of truffle with the spiced meat.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we stop trying to make this a political discussion? We've made it 30 pages and some good back and forth, and making it political feels like people are trying to shut down the thread because they don't like what people in it are saying.
Just stop saying it's about politics and make your points.
I couldn't agree with your more Fezzik, if only people weren't saying things like this:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: it's been far too cozy with the extreme right wing political spectrum for the last 20 years.
Cronch wrote: Having marines be only male is already a political statement.
Yeah, I've made this point and I'm not seeing it addressed anywhere.
It seems to me that the fundamental issue is about whether or not you perceive Games Workshop as a moral agent within society (which obliges the company to perform certain actions) or as just a company that makes toy soldiers. I don't really see how the two sides can be reconciled to each other's viewpoint, especially when one side is coming out with cryptic replies like this:
CEO Kasen wrote: We have the right to tell you're wrong, as many times as it takes.
As many times as it takes until what exactly? Sure enough, you can call someone "wrong", but it doesn't make it so.
Again, look at the actual testimony from women posted in this thread about the matter.
And I posted a quote from a woman who said the complete opposite, that she felt that those people calling for "representation" for women were, and I quote again, "...the type of person that pushed me away from this game for so long." I even recall seeing a woman attacked on Twitter by prominent women hobbyists for saying that she didn't want female space marines, they used patronising language like "oh honey" to tell this woman she had internalised mysogyny and was "sucking up" to neckbeards who would never accept her (they actually used sexualised language which I thought was well out of order but, y'know, what exactly can be done about it). I raise this point to say, what exactly do these testimonials really achieve other than to highlight that women hobbyists have pretty much the same spread of opinions and outlooks as the majority male population of hobbyists; some will see the lack of female marines as an issue, and others won't.
Adding bits or even a sprue doesn’t force anyone to do anything. There is a space wolves upgrade sprue yet I manage to build my marines not as space marines somehow.
An upgrade sprue would be a decent stop gap until they get around to renew the Marine kits or release new ones. Then just add the option. Literally in the post above yours smudge stated he would prefer just a few heads on new kits.
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
It reads like like a pretty standard gish gallop, tbh. No real engagement, just volley after volley of conversational chaff.
Almost like I’m fed up of knocking back the same baseless objections again and again.
I jus find it fascinating how everyone keeps changing their position when called out on BS.
I have been pretty consistent in why I think this is a pointless endeavour that achieves nothing and fixes a problem that's not there..
Argive wrote: Now now smuge thats Im not the one asking for anything.
No, you very much are. Your active involvement in this thread is telling that you are *actively* after something - even if that is to preserve the status quo.
Remember - fighting to preserve the status quo is still fighting for something.
But I'm very glad we agree. That 40k no female SM do not prevent women from entering the hobby and is not an issue of any relevance.
Uh, no, that's not what I said at all.
If you need refreshing, please scroll through my arguments, instead of cherrypicking from individual misquoted responses to individual questions. You know exactly how intellectually dishonest you're being.
Could have sworn you have said that at some point during this long arduous thread but I admit I might have misremembered.
No, I think it's more likely you ignored my *actual* comments.
Feel free to go look for them.
As 40k Male SM are not stopping women from playing or wanting to play 40k
Ah, now that's where you're mixing up what I said.
The presence of women Astartes won't make women suddenly play. Breaking the illusion of male hegemony will.
then I see zero value in creating more SM releases in an SM oversaturated 40k...
Aw, did a single sprue and 13 words of lore cause that much damage?
The problem is already being solved by a AOS storm cast bit buy from ebay for those that want it for assthetic reaosns. And we dont even need to change the lore and make more books about marines. Wonderful.
Actually, that doesn't work. The Stormcast heads, while they can be modified to, don't fit Space Marine heads perfectly. Additionally, unless GW explicitly change the lore and marketing, representation has still not been achieved, which has always been my primary concern, regardless if you could use a third party product to swap the head out.
It needs to be official - and that means changing the lore, marketing, and providing options to do so.
I'm glad we can agree here finally.
No, we can't. Nice try, but misrepresenting an argument won't win it for you.
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Argive wrote: I jus find it fascinating how everyone keeps changing their position when called out on BS.
No-one has changed their argument. You've either just not been reading those arguments, or you've been deliberately misrepresenting them.
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
Hang on Andykp.
Do I need to go back in this thread and dig out every isntance in which smuge or somebody esle have said something along the line of:
"We only want an upgrade sprue and change 13 words in the lore"
"we dont want to force this on people that are not interested"
" we dont want new SM
I believe those were maybe even your exact words.
You now state in no uncertain terms that actually you would need to update marine kits to contain new heads and that is how this is going to be implemented...
Uh, no. That's not what they said at all.
They said that when new kits are made, and you're a fool if you don't think that GW will never update a Space Marine kit again, they should include some women's heads too.
Quit making up arguments to fight against.
How exactly am I gatekeeping by trying to point out an issue with the economic aspect of this thing? You're the ones asking for an upgrade sprue.
I merely point out potential issues with implementing it.
Are the Chapter upgrade sprues gatekeeping as well? The Cadian upgrade sprues?
So you think GW will jsut give inclusive sprues away for free?
No. I'm saying that *when* they upgrade the existing kits, and believe me, they will, they should include some women's heads in place of the multiple male ones we already get.
Smuge - You can just paint your marines blue.. you dotn need an upgrade sprue to be an ultra marine.. Anybody can be an IH if they paint their marines correctly to reflect the correct chapter they want to be. Can you paint your marines to show they are female?
I don't know if you've heard of it, but... a helmet?
When a Marine wears their helmet, they *could* be anything. As long as the option for them being a woman under the helmet is there, then it's just as likely to be a woman or a man.
Smuge, remind me again why do you want female marines?
Read the thread. Now remind me again why you oppose them?
SMuge why would GW add female heads if a helmet already represents a woman?
Gogsnik wrote: So, the fact that the entire genesis of the 41st Millennium is a civil war of brother versus brother and father versus son is not thematic?
Why can't brother fight sister, and daughter fight father? Why the male-centric viewpoint?
A story born out of and made possible by the fact that space marines are all male.
Why do the siblings all need to be male for that to happen?
(And the weapon that might be able to finally kill the Emperor just so happens to be a demon created when Cain slew Abel, which acts, how shall we say, as a thematic intensifier).
Uh, what? Sounds like that's just pure speculation right there, because we don't know how that plot thread ends.
..the core issue that the spiced meats not having truffle was the first problem - either because of a mistake, as you put in your own analogy, or because of deliberate exclusion of truffle for no good reason, in the real world.
You keep reiterating this idea of 'no good reason' but, using the analogy, the chef can determine the composition of their dishes however they please, that is their perogative as the chef. Having created a specific menu item that does not include truffle, which then becomes the most popular item on the menu is entirely fine, there is no problem and whether it was made for a bad reason, or a good reason or no reason at all, just an idea "plucked from the cher's ass" if you will, is neither here nor there.
You clearly didn't read the original analogy - the anti-women Space Marine poster themselves said that omitting truffle from the spiced meat was an error, an oversight, a mistake.
And again - if Space Marines being all male was the intention (which is categorically untrue, considering that we literally have it from Alan Merritt that the whole "only men" thing was only invented to cover up that their women Space Marines didn't sell well at the time - and they were truly awful models too, who can blame people for not buying them?), then it's an intentional design choice that GW themselves have long since abandoned, because any thematic qualities that the whole "warrior monk" thing had doesn't exist for the whole faction any more. The Black Templars and Dark Angels? Sure, they've still got those vibes, but the Space Wolves? The Raven Guard? The White Scars? They're nowhere near that same design philosophy.
But again - this literally doesn't matter, because we have it from the good Mr Merritt that it was all just covering their ass.
If you don't like it, you can request the chef not to prepare any truffle for your spiced meat, and no-one's going to judge you for that, because you're not harming their enjoyment of their truffle and spiced meat.
The truffle aficionados could just patronise another restaurant that already includes truffle with the spiced meat could they not?
The spiced meat aficionados could patronise another restaurant if they don't like the truffles.
By what obligation must they patronise this restaurant and no other?
By what obligation do the restaurant have to standing by a clear mistake in their menu?
Does this particular restaurant have some kind of institutional power within society meaning that their consumer rights will be affected if they patronsie another restaurant or make their own spiced meat with truffle at home?
Actually - kinda. GW as a large figure within the hobby industry do get a degree of implicit market control and trending over the miniature wargaming hobby.
When GW do things, many other companies follow similar trends. And, more importantly, their fanbase is the largest, and most likely to be representative of the wider wargaming culture.
If the spiced meat from this particular restaurant however, is so amazing, that all other restaurants offerings of spiced meats pale by comparison then they could transfer truffle from those dishes that do include truffle and add that to the spiced meat, the chef is not going to bar them from the restaurant for doing so.
Except that the chef doesn't endorse it, and while many patrons might turn a blind eye, many others will express their dislike of those who have "tainted" the chef's work.
Sure, they can ask the chef to add truffle to their selection of spiced meat, and maybe the chef might do so, but if that request to the chef also necessitates a change to the menu, which then makes all future productions of the spiced meat contain truffle, then those customers who don't want truffle with their spiced meat are absolutely okay to say that they don't want the menu changed, especially when the rest of the menu includes items with truffle because their is no moral imperative for the inclusion of truffle with the spiced meat.
Yeah - as long as having truffle on the spiced meat is an option provided by the chef, then there's no issue. But the chef has to provide for it, because otherwise, the restaurant is not offering that service, despite it being something they really *should*, as a restaurant that so heavily features truffle..
The menu changing doesn't stop people from eating their meal without truffle. All they're doing is preventing other people having a dish that they should always have been able to have, except, as highlighted by someone on your own side of the argument, it was removed by mistake.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we stop trying to make this a political discussion? We've made it 30 pages and some good back and forth, and making it political feels like people are trying to shut down the thread because they don't like what people in it are saying.
Just stop saying it's about politics and make your points.
I couldn't agree with your more Fezzik, if only people weren't saying things like this:
Take it up with the mods - they don't say it's political, and I'm inclined to agree.
And I posted a quote from a woman who said the complete opposite, that she felt that those people calling for "representation" for women were, and I quote again, "...the type of person that pushed me away from this game for so long." I even recall seeing a woman attacked on Twitter by prominent women hobbyists for saying that she didn't want female space marines, they used patronising language like "oh honey" to tell this woman she had internalised mysogyny and was "sucking up" to neckbeards who would never accept her (they actually used sexualised language which I thought was well out of order but, y'know, what exactly can be done about it). I raise this point to say, what exactly do these testimonials really achieve other than to highlight that women hobbyists have pretty much the same spread of opinions and outlooks as the majority male population of hobbyists; some will see the lack of female marines as an issue, and others won't.
And they're entitled to not wanting their own women Space Marines.
But the majority of women wargamers I've spoken to, and as evidenced, there's a lot more than just the one you're using as your sole example, have asked for women Space Marines. So, yeah - there is a spread of opinions. But there's only one group of opinions that are rooted in preventing other people having options.
Also, you speak of "people having the same spread of opinions", but you really don't seem to like hearing people talking about how they don't feel represented. Almost like their opinions don't matter much?
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Argive wrote: SMuge why would GW add female heads if a helmet already represents a woman?
Because the option should exist, for people who want an exposed head. If bare male heads exist, then bare women ones should too. Again - the helmet does not "represent a woman". The helmet represents anything. There could be a man or woman under that helmet - that's the beauty of it. But if that becomes the *only* way to represent women, you're not representing women, because representation requires visibility.
But, more importantly, the lore needs to change to allow for the Marine under the helmet to be a woman - yes?
Couldn't, Did. It is how the story is, how it might have been had the story been written, if it ever did get written, or otherwise is immaterial.
Uh, what? Sounds like that's just pure speculation right there, because we don't know how that plot thread ends.
There's nothing speculative about it, the daemon was created by the act of the first murder. This daemon is seen as the weapon that could kill the Emperor.
categorically untrue
What Alan Merrett said (allegedly, since the Facebook conversation in which these comments were made apparently no-longer exists, but we'll just accept it for the sake of argument) was that "early citadel ranges" contained female versions of miniatures that customers did not want to purchase and that by the time of Rogue Trader they did not include female versions in blisters as per customer wishes and that by the time of the RTB01 box it didn't even occur to them to make any.
And Alan claims that this was why they included a line in the Space Marine lore but not for any other product range? Do you accept that? So, if he's correct, the customers in the early 80's that said, "no women models for us please" had to be appeased with actual lore but only for the space marines and not for anything else?
He also claimes it would have been impossible to include female bits in the box. Seriously? So, they could put a bare male head in but not a female one too? The only female space marine miniature produced by Games Workshop was sculpted by Kev White and was unreleased, sitting forgotten in Bryan Ansell's personal collection for ever twenty years so, literally no customer ever saw a female space marine model to object too. I'm no saying he's not remembering the events exactly as they occured but, as an explanation, it doesn't really hang together very well does it?
long since abandoned, because any thematic qualities that the whole "warrior monk" thing had doesn't exist for the whole faction any more.
And yet the current rulebook describes them as having a "monastic culture" page 28.
an oversight, a mistake.
Well good for that poster I guess, but that doesn't make me beholden.
Actually - kinda. GW as a large figure within the hobby industry do get a degree of implicit market control and trending over the miniature wargaming hobby.
All the more reason to give your money to another company if you don't like how Games Workshop do things.
But the chef has to provide for it, because otherwise, the restaurant is not offering that service, despite it being something they really *should*
WIthout mincing words, Games Workshop make heads that can be put on space marines, maybe not specific marine heads, maybe not in a marine box, but they make heads that can be kitbashed. *shrug* I understand your point of view and I just don't agree because we're talking about toy soldiers, not housing or healthcare or education or, y'know, real things, that women absolutely have a right to equal access to and absolutely need representation for/in, we're talking about toy soldiers, and if one product line is all male, and even if that product line has proven to be the most popular, then that's fine.
there's a lot more than just the one you're using as your sole example
Yeah, okay bud, you've got more friends than me and your Dad could totally beat up my Dad...
But there's only one group of opinions that are rooted in preventing other people having options.
Unless they want what they've already got, in which case there's only one group trying to end it. I can play this game too.
Also, you speak of "people having the same spread of opinions", but you really don't seem to like hearing people talking about how they don't feel represented. Almost like their opinions don't matter much?
Don't presume to know my feelings, or put words in my mouth. People keep telling you that you perceive a problem that they perceive doesn't exist but you don't seem to like hearing it, almost like their opinions don't matter much?
If you truly think that playing with toy soldiers is some kind of human rights issue and that's why the most popular toy soldiers absolutely cannot be described as all male then, all I can tell you is that that line of "logic", if you could charitably call it that, sounds completely demented.
If you need refreshing, please scroll through my arguments, instead of cherrypicking from individual misquoted responses to individual questions. You know exactly how intellectually dishonest you're being.
Could have sworn you have said that at some point during this long arduous thread but I admit I might have misremembered.
No, I think it's more likely you ignored my *actual* comments.
.
You Know what.. i did just that. Because I was bored. I am not being "intelectualy" dishonest. I certainly might have said some brash things thta upset people. Genuinely not happy about it. I am here demonstrating how you say one thing but then flat out denying things you have said...
How can anyone argue with your position, if your position keeps changing or you just say "youre wrong about my position"
Spoiler:
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Space Marines have that dominant position in culture, it doesn't matter if every other faction is mixed or all-women, because the flagship faction puts a very "boys only" message front and centre.
Animus wrote:Most people are just fine at empathising with others, those who can't do it or won't do it will not magically be corrected by female space marines.
But their arguments will be reduced to what I suspect it's always been - disliking women in their territory. They won't have lore to support their behaviour, won't have "but muh canon" - it will be reduced solely to "I just don't want women in my boys club".
And frankly, I don't think that's defensible.
You seem to think "boys only" message is an issue. Or that wanting to preserve the convention is parmount to "I dont want girls in my hobby" Rememeber you earlier quote when i said that you believe Male only SM in 40k gatekeeps women out of 40k" and you JUST said that is not your position. HERE:
Blinkfox wrote:One thing all those 'equality'-thirsting people do is seeing the game as a continuation of all the social problems, powers and processes of real life.
The game is played by people in real life. The game of toy soldiers we play is played by real life people, with real life concerns, and real life people gatekeeping their entry into the community. Sorry, but that's something you can't ignore.
Spoiler:
It's explicit that some people in this thread have made it clear that they only care about representation of females in SM because they're the most popular.
No, that's not the *only* reason. But it is the main reason as to "why Space Marines", because just adding random women faction into the game to have them immediately forgotten about *would* be false activism and false representation, and the biggest reason as to "why at all" is "why not". So far, the only reasons given for "why not" are "because that's the way it is", which is the weakest possible argument you could give.
Defend its validity from the ground up, not because it simply *is*. Justify its existence with more depth than the paper it's printed on. Tell me why some words mean that women should be excluded from the most iconic 40k faction, and why that's apparently fine.
Argive wrote: Bit like male only space mahrines are a sign of oppression that make women feel unwelcome nail?
I don't believe I mentioned oppression?
I said that they represent and justify exclusionary views, but "oppression"? When did I say that?
here you state in no uncertain terms There is gate Keeping (refering to Male SM) which is apprently making women not play 40k. Or that male only SM justify exclusionary views. But I dont see a shred of evidence..
3. Another aspect is the 'apparent' responsibility of GW to somehow police the behavior of their players. "There has to be female Space Marines because some players are donkey-caves to group X". I can't really get on board with this one. I see it as roughly the same "enabling/emboldening" issue with people showing up with "full-redband-swastika-IG armies" because the "Imperium is fascist, yo". Or for that matter, the accusations of video game violence causing real-world violence. It's a fictional setting, and people should understand it/treat as such. If people can't do that, that's more a problem with the individual player or local community than the game/setting itself.
Sorry, but no. If I produce something, and a considerable amount of people taking my products are using them to enact or support harmful ideals, I need to question why they're using *my* product to do so, and if I oppose those ideals (which I would hope everyone here does), is it not my responsibility to deny them that?
Please explain exactly what "harmful ideas" do Male Only SM do that are not "gatekeeping women out of the hobby"
This is what I mean by your defensiveness - no-one's stopping you from carrying on with *your* stuff. You won't be threatened, you won't have people enforcing diversity quotas on *your* models. You can have the sausage fest you've always dreamed of in your Space Marine collection - but what's so bad about literally just *allowing* women?
People know who these characters are for a reason, and trying to change that core aspect for the sake of diversity is effectively demonstrating a lack of respect for the core material.
Now, I'm very much of the opinion that *everything* is political, even neutrality, but going by your own standards that you can apparently have apolitical things, wanting representation isn't even political.
but that does not mean you get to force your views on others like some sort of by in ticket system
Wanting women Astartes isn't forcing you to do anything. If you don't like women Astartes, don't take them. No-one's forcing you.
Again - adding women doesn't stop people from rolling dice or collecting their own all-male armies. I don't see the panic.
How exactly does creating a whole new inclusive and diverse SM range NOT force people from havign a Sausage fest if they want to. Surely you will need a "quota" in order to ensure you have an all male or all female line up. If you change sprues and you cant have all female or all male build then you have actively taken that chocie away from people. But you claim you dotn want to control what peeople cant and cant do?
You STATE quite clearly "no thanks" to an all new line of SM in order to satisfy representation and want an upgrade sprue.
We now FINALY have found out that actualy you do want a whole new marine line upgraded. Inconsitent positions like this is why I say you keep gaslighting people and changign your positon.. It is impossibel to have both full male and full female SM units / chaarcters without having the quotas in the design to do so.
Sisters don't have the same marketability or customisability that Space Marines have though.
If an all-female faction can exist then an all male faction can exist. The issue becomes representation-of-faction in that case. Space Marines are the poster-child, but if they weren't . . . there would be less of an issue.
Absolutely, but I think it's a hell of a lot easier right now to just... let women be Space Marines. (Also, Space Marines do offer unique features that neither Sisters or many other factions offer - namely, the actual Astartes aesthetic, the customisation of Space Marines, the playstyle on tabletop, or the legacy/background of what Space Marines are.)
Because really, why *shouldn't* women be allowed to be Space Marines? Is it *only* the lore?
In no uncertain terms you think that shifting marketing to sisters and guard and making them more "prmotion" friendly is harder than re-releasing AND remarketing Fem marines?
We already established we cant just have an upgrade sprue. It needs to be new marines. So when people said this as acounter argument it was dismissed as "ohh no we dont want that" Well now we have established you do want that... Aren't you being a bit dishonest about what the end goal and initial objective is here?
I like how this has gone from "I like/want girl space marines and here's why" and "I don't like/want girl space marines and here's why" to "I'm gonna pick apart your arguments and points, find all the bits and pieces that contradict even when its a stretch, and throw it back at you because you're not agreeing with me at all/enough".
Can we, like... iunno, just sit back and realize its toy soldiers? Like, legit, expensive Army Guys? What we say here has no bearing on anything a Big Ole Corporation is doing, has done, or will do no matter how much we whine or argue in any direction?
We're literally grown ass men and women (or mostly grown ass men and women in teenagers' cases) arguing over plastic Toy Soldiers.
PappyNurgle wrote: We're literally grown ass men and women (or mostly grown ass men and women in teenagers' cases) arguing over plastic Toy Soldiers.
Oh, yeah, it's totally arguments over dress up with little plastic space soldiers, but you push for equality and do what good you can where you can. Most of us probably aren't in positions where big corporations or anyone in charge of landmark legislation will listen to us, but we're in the position where we can discuss this sort of thing with each other - and if we can change some of those attitudes in little ways, advance the conversation just a little, or at least give some lurkers a better basis for understanding, that's got to be at least as worthwhile as any other discussion on Dakka.
Adding bits or even a sprue doesn’t force anyone to do anything. There is a space wolves upgrade sprue yet I manage to build my marines not as space marines somehow.
An upgrade sprue would be a decent stop gap until they get around to renew the Marine kits or release new ones. Then just add the option. Literally in the post above yours smudge stated he would prefer just a few heads on new kits.
Andykp wrote: Smudge, and I are clearly calling for adding female heads to kits when they are next released, a bonus sprue would be nice but really I think the way to approach this is adding heads to kits as they are released, not extra sprues. Not gate keeping, other than what you are doing. Amazed at the lengths you will go to, Argive, to make this an issue where you are the only one who appears to be being reasonable. The desperation to find any hook to hang your objections is frankly amazing. It’s almost like there’s no real basis for them.
It reads like like a pretty standard gish gallop, tbh. No real engagement, just volley after volley of conversational chaff.
Almost like I’m fed up of knocking back the same baseless objections again and again.
I jus find it fascinating how everyone keeps changing their position when called out on BS.
I have been pretty consistent in why I think this is a pointless endeavour that achieves nothing and fixes a problem that's not there..
So you see the OR in my original list. OR. It’s important. It doesn’t go against what I just said. I would prefer no up grade sprue but one would be nice. Either OR.
it’s not a big change to put female marines in, it won’t change the world but it’s a little step towards a better place, especially in the 40K hobby. It addresses a real problem that exists. As much as some on here want to claim I doesn’t. Saying “go play something else because we don’t want girls” is a pretty crappy response to a problem and doesn’t make you come off very well (this is in response to the truffle analogy saying we should patronise another restaurant. That’s explicitly exclusionary not inclusive. So no, I won’t go eat else where because you want to keep this space just for boys.
And as for the heresey been based on the fact they were all men. Change brother to sister, father to mother? Same story. The original heresy story they were just comrades and friends even. Still worked. Plenty of Greek epics arc that are brother and sister screwing each other over. So sorry that won’t wash as a reason to keep excluding women from the hobby. Move on.
Papa nurgle, we are mostly grown ass men arguing, very few women.
About the Heresy: almost universally we're advocating for Primaris to be female, not for Firstborn, especially to neutralize those objections, and avoid unnecessary retconning.
Later down the line, the two missing Primarchs can become women, if needed. It will also play nicely adding an additional layer of sexism of the Emperor, and the more the old donkey-cave come out as unplesant, the better the background will be for that Remember that the Emperor is almost a literal caveman (he was born... 1000 BC?).
I won't be surprised if, even a few thousand years in the future, he'd kept alive some prejudice from a couple of thousand years ago.
So, lore can even change for the better with this addition of female marines, becoming even more grindark.
Cybtroll wrote: About the Heresy: almost universally we're advocating for Primaris to be female, not for Firstborn, especially to neutralize those objections, and avoid unnecessary retconning.
Later down the line, the two missing Primarchs can become women, if needed. It will also play nicely adding an additional layer of sexism of the Emperor, and the more the old donkey-cave come out as unplesant, the better the background will be for that Remember that the Emperor is almost a literal caveman (he was born... 1000 BC?).
I won't be surprised if, even a few thousand years in the future, he'd kept alive some prejudice from a couple of thousand years ago.
So, lore can even change for the better with this addition of female marines, becoming even more grindark.
I know a lot's happened since the restaurant analogy but I feel it needs revisiting.
This is based on the fact that:
1: Female kits are being introduced for every army that it makes sense for. This is represented by the rest of the menu.
2: People are saying marines are the flagship so they should be changed from what they are into something else just so they can have female models.
The restaurant analogy returns:
There's a restaurant called "Big Fred's Feasts".
The menu is diverse and full of different flavours (all the factions). In almost every section, there are vegetarian options (female models). But then, there is this one section called "Big Fred's Meat Feasts". This features dishes that all have meat in them, and are not just meaty versions of the other stuff, they are their own thing. This represents marines. The reason it is all meat dishes is because of an arbitrary rule he imposed when he wrote the one word "Meat" in, instead of, say, "Special". A decision was made that they would be meat dishes, and this has stuck.
Big Fred's becomes hugely popular because of his Meat Feasts. everyone refers to Fred's as "The place with the meat feasts". Lots of people go there to eat his other food, but the Meat Feasts is definitely the most popular section. He uses it for advertising, because it's so popular.
Then one day someone comes along and tells him "Hey, I know you have this thing where you have these dishes with meat in them? I know you have other vegetarian dishes in your restaurant, but can you just change the "Meat Feasts" so that some of them are vegetarian?"
Their reasoning is that, despite Fred having a vegetarian menu (SOB), and vegetarian options in most other sections of the menu (All those female model additions the_scotsman pointed out sarcastically which I hadn't realised were there), they feel like "Big Fred's Meat Feasts" is the flagship of his business and therefore has to be changed to feel inclusive to vegetarians. Any vegetarian who looked at the menu would see a selection of vegetarian dishes, but they want the flagship to include vegetarians too, even if it means changing the very definition of the flagship.
The only reason "Big Fred's Meat Feasts" is the way it is was because he decided, once upon a time, to make it that way. Now people are telling him to change it because it is the flagship of his business. Vegetarians could have almost any of his other dishes, and he does cater for them, but people have become fixated that because his Meat Feasts are what people see, they need to be changed to include vegetarian options. At which point they cease to be "Meat Feasts" any more, and become something else.
Does this make more sense? I think this is a far better comparison to SM.
Honestly? I'm starting to feel (having thought about it quite a bit) that adding female marines would detract from space marines. They are supposed to be superhuman fighting machines, not a balanced ratio of people representative of the population. They are supposed to give off a "these aren't just people" vibe. Regardless of whether the lore is adjusted to make it feasible for marines to be made from girl stock (as they start as children), they are supposed to feel artificial, to some extent. These are not organic creations representative of a natural population.
Flagship or not, adding female marines will make marines feel more human. They aren't supposed to feel human.
So, I am much more in favour of making them seem less human to emphasize their inhumanity than adding female models to emphasize that marines are an all-inclusive non discriminatory bunch of heretic-burning witch-hunting mutant-crushing fanatical supersoldiers bound to serve a corpse on a throne.
Well I think that you're biased (I mean, it's not an accusation, more of a statement. Everyone is biased until realizing it and try to remedy).
Also, forgive me if I skip the restaurant metaphor: metaphor are ok to exit from a stalemate, but aren't worth the fuss to perfectly reenact some dynamics.
Shortly: you're still thinking under your perspective: more inclusive marine, means more kind, gentle and humanized faction.
Wrong. woman can be extreme donkey-cave too.
Also: Marine ARE supposed to be representative of the organic population (at the last in the product): all the flavour of Marine available proves EXACTLY that. There's both a Marine for any world (in the lore) and a Marine for any customer (in real world).
Finally, "emphasize that they are inclusive" should deter their status?
It does ONLY if you conflate "inclusive" with a bunch of other stereotypes (many of them we've seen in this topic: snowflakes, left wing activist, if you're inclusive you're obsessed with not hurting anyone etc).
That is a reactionary skew view that is essentially moderns (and mostly derives from US cultural influence).
You know who was REALLY (at least in the surface) inclusive of gender? The communist USSR. Do you think it was less menacing for the West because of that, or more menacing?
Last (but not least): again I think it speaks volume that you would prefer to have genderless marine (just for curiosity: would be ok for you if, being genderless, they would call themselves "Sisters" rather than "Brothers"?) rather than female one.
Cybtroll wrote: Well I think that you're biased (I mean, it's not an accusation, more of a statement. Everyone is biased until realizing it and try to remedy).
Also, forgive me if I skip the restaurant metaphor: metaphor are ok to exit from a stalemate, but aren't worth the fuss to perfectly reenact some dynamics.
Shortly: you're still thinking under your perspective: more inclusive marine, means more kind, gentle and humanized faction.
Wrong. woman can be extreme donkey-cave too.
Also: Marine ARE supposed to be representative of the organic population (at the last in the product): all the flavour of Marine available proves EXACTLY that. There's both a Marine for any world (in the lore) and a Marine for any customer (in real world).
Finally, "emphasize that they are inclusive" should deter their status?
It does ONLY if you conflate "inclusive" with a bunch of other stereotypes (many of them we've seen in this topic: snowflakes, left wing activist, if you're inclusive you're obsessed with not hurting anyone etc).
That is a reactionary skew view that is essentially moderns (and mostly derives from US cultural influence).
You know who was REALLY (at least in the surface) inclusive of gender? The communist USSR. Do you think it was less menacing for the West because of that, or more menacing?
Last (but not least): again I think it speaks volume that you would prefer to have genderless marine (just for curiosity: would be ok for you if, being genderless, they would call themselves "Sisters" rather than "Brothers"?) rather than female one.
I do indeed think that making marines more representative of humans would make them seem more human. And that this is a bad thing, because they aren't there to represent humans, they're there to defend them. Whilst women have the same capacity for being unpleasant as men, this is irrelevant. Marines aren't there to be unpleasant, they are there to get the job done.
Gender is so far detached from what a marine does that it shouldn't factor into them at all. It's like if you make a robot that does the job perfectly and runs on tracks. You could make another that runs on wheels, but the one with tracks does the job just fine already. Wheels would work just as well, but there's no reason to make it when tracks is working fine. (this is all lore-related, because I think this is the only reason to change these things). Lore wise, making female marines would be extra work for no gain. They haven't got time to be perfecting it for both. I would be saying the same thing if marines were all women, lore-wise.
Now, what I could see working would be to create a lost chapter which rebuilt itself from women, perhaps on a world where males were extremely rare due to scifi reasons. They might be seen as heretics, but will fight for the emperor and the imperium, regardless of whether other marines declare them as the enemy. This would be a cool-as-hell addition to the game, another "good" faction but not integrated to the imperium, and not sexualized battle-nuns. All as long as the reason for the addition was to make a cool AF army with extra options, their own heroes, their own tactics, and all that jazz. It would be awesome. And as soon as someone says "and it'll be for women!", fire them. They would still be space marines, so can merge with the flagship representation, but they will also add to the game.
Marines are definitely not meant to be representative of the organic population. They have different flavours & marketing strategies, but they are very much not normal humans. That's half the appeal of them, I think. Just people in power armour < superhumans in power armour.
Trying to make marines, lore-wise, into an inclusive faction is like trying to make nazis, lore-wise, into the good guys. Their whole shindig is "kill heretics, witches and mutants". In their mind a Heretic is anyone living on a planet where there is at least one person who doesn't give praise to the emperor. They aren't nice guys. There's lore out there of marines telling the guard t ostand down, the guard saying that if they do the population will die, and then the marines killing the guard as heretics for not obeying their order (I don't know where that is from though). They definitely aren't an inclusive bunch.
As for your question about genderless marines, I would find it an odd choice to call each other sister when they are so masculine, and because the Sisters of Battle use that term, but I wouldn't be outspokenly against it. It would be like when people put gerkhins on burgers or mayonnaise on chips - they can if the ywant, but I sure as heck ain't going to!
Trying to make marines, lore-wise, into an inclusive faction is like trying to make nazis, lore-wise, into the good guys. Their whole shindig is "kill heretics, witches and mutants". In their mind a Heretic is anyone living on a planet where there is at least one person who doesn't give praise to the emperor. They aren't nice guys. There's lore out there of marines telling the guard t ostand down, the guard saying that if they do the population will die, and then the marines killing the guard as heretics for not obeying their order (I don't know where that is from though). They definitely aren't an inclusive bunch.
As for your question about genderless marines, I would find it an odd choice to call each other sister when they are so masculine, and because the Sisters of Battle use that term, but I wouldn't be outspokenly against it. It would be like when people put gerkhins on burgers or mayonnaise on chips - they can if the ywant, but I sure as heck ain't going to!
So now including women is being compared to including Nazis. Awesome.
Bolded for emphasis.
Also, the Minotaurs are not that. They were literally created to hunt other Astartes. Which is why they have the best relics, weapons, and armor. Not all Astartes were created to hunt and kill heretics.
Trying to make marines, lore-wise, into an inclusive faction is like trying to make nazis, lore-wise, into the good guys. Their whole shindig is "kill heretics, witches and mutants". In their mind a Heretic is anyone living on a planet where there is at least one person who doesn't give praise to the emperor. They aren't nice guys. There's lore out there of marines telling the guard t ostand down, the guard saying that if they do the population will die, and then the marines killing the guard as heretics for not obeying their order (I don't know where that is from though). They definitely aren't an inclusive bunch.
As for your question about genderless marines, I would find it an odd choice to call each other sister when they are so masculine, and because the Sisters of Battle use that term, but I wouldn't be outspokenly against it. It would be like when people put gerkhins on burgers or mayonnaise on chips - they can if the ywant, but I sure as heck ain't going to!
So now including women is being compared to including Nazis. Awesome.
Bolded for emphasis.
Also, the Minotaurs are not that. They were literally created to hunt other Astartes. Which is why they have the best relics, weapons, and armor. Not all Astartes were created to hunt and kill heretics.
10/10 would misread again. You did notice he meant that it would be like trying to make a Nazi faction inclusive? The SM are the effective Nazis not women. Especially since SM are basically the ubermensch that the Nazi eugenic ideology believed in creating. I would say that a good comparison is the Helghast from the Killzone series. They're literal space nazis and I'm pretty sure barring the exception of Echo from KS Shadowfall (which I feel is only there because she's half-Vektan/Helghast, and the granddaughter of Visari) pretty all of the Helghan army and their military are shown to be exclusively male, as even in MP and single player you only ever hear the male voice actor for them when they get shot or die. They're also the poster child of the series and the Helghast are everywhere in their covers and marketing, despite being the antagonists. I never saw any pushes for female representation there and I feel that's what Some Bloke was pointing towards.
So 40k is political now because the Imperium is fascist and SM are Nazi-fantasy ubermensch? I thought 40k couldn't be political and adding women to the flagship faction was injecting politics into the game? Y'know people really need to make up their minds about this sort of thing.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I would pay between 15-20 dollars for an extra spru on top of my box of models, but my models only need 3 heads per box. I would pay a lot to support the move towards inclusivity.
I'm sure GW will be grateful for your $100..
I would like to point out they haven't made a plastic upgrade sprue for Storm guardians or other iconic conversion units (shining spears, noise marines etc.) as well as discontinued a bunch of awesome FW stuff..
Don't shoot, but I wager there is more demand for these than for female heads for marines.. So how exactly does this happen in your view at GWHQ? How do you push this through a board room meeting? When fans have been practically begging for non fail cast models for years and their surveys?
What evidence would you use to justify the price tag and R&D for the sprue?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as we are talking about the economics of the change.
Lets say for whatever reasons GW did think this was a good idea, and decided to include an extra sprue in all of their marine boxes.
In true GW fashion, they put up a price tag of a modest extra £10 per box (because its GW after all). Would that be acceptable to you? As in people who have no interest in the sprue, still having to purchase it and having to bear the financial brunt of the change?
Lots of people already barely able to afford 40k models because I think we can all agree the biggest barrier to entry is the cost, those people are now priced out of the hobby.
With covid redundancies& inflation and the general economic roller coaster of the last couple years, this will only get more common.
...you don't add them to existing kits ala the guardsman box, you add them to the new kits you were going to put out anyway (which self-evidently have more demand for them than Storm Guardians etc else we would not be on Primaris Wave 9 or whatever) to fill the still-existing holes in the primaris lineup of soft-replacements for existing marine units.
We still have no Primaris units with Thunder Hammers, no jump pack assault primaris, no missile launcher unit, no whirlwind or vindicator.
And then maybe you sell a separate upgrade sprue. I'd bet you a shiny nickel there'd be more demand for a chapter-nonspecific primaris female head upgrade sprue than, for example, the Imperial Fists Upgrade Sprue GW currently sells to ONLY imperial fist chapter players...
Gert wrote: So 40k is political now because the Imperium is fascist and SM are Nazi-fantasy ubermensch? I thought 40k couldn't be political and adding women to the flagship faction was injecting politics into the game? Y'know people really need to make up their minds about this sort of thing.
I think the problem is that various people are arguing different things, so you're getting everyone else's opinions mixed up into a nonsensical one.
My point of view is that the marines are written as they are, and that makes them what they are. Rewriting the lore that makes them what they are will make them different to what they are.
Perhaps a better comparison is when the companies like Lucozade decided that people wanted sweeteners in their drinks, and changed it. Suddenly lucozade tastes like chemical dirt. They did it because they thought it would appeal to more people. They did not do it because they thought it would make their drink nicer.
Perhaps the fact that, for over decade, marines have been of such high popularity as to become iconic is in part because of the lore that makes them what they are? "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only equal opportunities employment" doesn't quite roll off the tongue so well.
Also, thanks Grimskul for responding to that one, quite how it got changed from "making marines nice is like making nazis nice" to "adding women is like adding nazis" is beyond me!
Trying to make marines, lore-wise, into an inclusive faction is like trying to make nazis, lore-wise, into the good guys. Their whole shindig is "kill heretics, witches and mutants". In their mind a Heretic is anyone living on a planet where there is at least one person who doesn't give praise to the emperor. They aren't nice guys. There's lore out there of marines telling the guard t ostand down, the guard saying that if they do the population will die, and then the marines killing the guard as heretics for not obeying their order (I don't know where that is from though). They definitely aren't an inclusive bunch.
Here's the issue with this take:
GW, BECAUSE THEY DONT WANT TO SHOVE REAL-WORLD POLITICS INTO THEIR SETTING, has historically AVOIDED depicting the imperium, or any alien race, doing things like:
-being racist to real-world political groups
-oppressing real-world religious groups
-being sexist and specifically excluding women from positions of power specifically Because Youre a Woman
Yes, the imperium is depicted as a fascist hellscape state, but the reason GW doesn't depict things like, hive cities rounding up the female population and using them as a breeding farm, or declaring that a sub-set of people are mutants because of their brown skin tone and eradicating them, or showing the great crusade in the HH series encountering a group of pre-DAOT humans who are Hindu and describing space marines shooting bolters at statues of vishnu and stomping gurus into the dirt is because GW uses things like 'mutants' and 'heretics' and 'alien/warp corruption' to sand the serial numbers off of real-world political issues. It's part of the reason why the series is depicted 40,000 years in the future - alllllllllllllllllllll the political problems from 38,000 years ago are safely and securely resolved and have been for 20,000 years or more, clap the dust off your hands and lets have a fun ride in the grimdark future.
So the whole 'even if they could make female marines they wouldn't because the imperium is sexist' is bs. The imperium has never been depicted as sexist, and EVERY TIME someone tries to sneakily exclude women from some role by making that claim, gw goes ahead and makes it canonical that women are included in that role and they just hadn't put them in explicitly because gw tends to just depict everyone as male by default and female as an "attribute."
Imperial knight pilots, ship captains, inquisitors, generals, imperial guard soldiers, and now HIGH LORDS OF TERRA can be female in the 40k setting. If there's a glass ceiling present in the imperium, it stops at the foot of the emperor's chair.
...............except for space marines and custodes.
Couldn't, Did. It is how the story is, how it might have been had the story been written, if it ever did get written, or otherwise is immaterial.
Uh, no, that's not the case, and it's an utterly abysmal excuse of an argument.
Just because something happened doesn't excuse it, and if you can't justify the lore beyond "durr, because it is", then that lore doesn't deserve justification. Sorry, but that's probably the absolute weakest argument you could possibly give right there. I hope you aren't relying on that one.
Uh, what? Sounds like that's just pure speculation right there, because we don't know how that plot thread ends.
There's nothing speculative about it, the daemon was created by the act of the first murder. This daemon is seen as the weapon that could kill the Emperor.
Many things *could* kill the Emperor. The Talon of Horus could kill him. The Lion Sword could kill him. Drach'nyen killing the Emperor is a plot hook that might lead to nothing. Treating it as this holy grail of fraternal symbolism in 40k is basically fanon, because we don't even know if it'll ever be used in that context.
What Alan Merrett said (allegedly, since the Facebook conversation in which these comments were made apparently no-longer exists, but we'll just accept it for the sake of argument)
It's not hard to find screenshots of it.
was that "early citadel ranges" contained female versions of miniatures that customers did not want to purchase and that by the time of Rogue Trader they did not include female versions in blisters as per customer wishes and that by the time of the RTB01 box it didn't even occur to them to make any.
Yeah - women Astartes sold absolutely awfully, so they didn't include them, didn't think to include them later down the line, and made up lore retroactively explaining why they didn't.
Women Space Marines existed prior to the lore which, in a particularly hamfisted and arbitrary line, excluded them. And these folks talk about hamfistedly adding women in like it's a bad thing, ignoring that the lore excluding them is equally bacon-handed.
And Alan claims that this was why they included a line in the Space Marine lore but not for any other product range? Do you accept that? So, if he's correct, the customers in the early 80's that said, "no women models for us please" had to be appeased with actual lore but only for the space marines and not for anything else?
Are we in the early 80's now? I thought not. So why are we still acting like exclusionary lore from the 80's is relevant to consumer interests now?
He also claimes it would have been impossible to include female bits in the box. Seriously? So, they could put a bare male head in but not a female one too? The only female space marine miniature produced by Games Workshop was sculpted by Kev White and was unreleased, sitting forgotten in Bryan Ansell's personal collection for ever twenty years so, literally no customer ever saw a female space marine model to object too.
Did you miss the model catalogues featuring said pair of women Space Marines?
I'm no saying he's not remembering the events exactly as they occured but, as an explanation, it doesn't really hang together very well does it?
I think it stems from a very overt "all boys club" culture prevalent in wargaming at the time - they simply didn't think to consider women. I think that is the most likely, and logical, reason.
But we're not in the early 80's any more, are we?
long since abandoned, because any thematic qualities that the whole "warrior monk" thing had doesn't exist for the whole faction any more.
And yet the current rulebook describes them as having a "monastic culture" page 28.
Where do the Space Wolves have a monastic culture? The Raven Guard? The Raptors? The Carcharadons? The Marines Malevolent?
Monastic culture doesn't mean they even follow all tenets of typical monk behaviour. I mean, how many monks do you know who don suits of power armour and go fight alien baddies?
All I'm saying is that in how Space Marines are now currently portrayed, they are defined by much larger stylistic qualities than "monks in space" - most notably, their customisation and different Chapter cultures.
an oversight, a mistake.
Well good for that poster I guess, but that doesn't make me beholden.
Still a mistake though.
Actually - kinda. GW as a large figure within the hobby industry do get a degree of implicit market control and trending over the miniature wargaming hobby.
All the more reason to give your money to another company if you don't like how Games Workshop do things.
Your solution to a problem is to run away and do something else? Hardly a very productive ideal.
But the chef has to provide for it, because otherwise, the restaurant is not offering that service, despite it being something they really *should*
WIthout mincing words, Games Workshop make heads that can be put on space marines, maybe not specific marine heads, maybe not in a marine box, but they make heads that can be kitbashed.
Yes, they can. But I'm talking about *lore*. Anyone can kitbash a women's head onto a Space Marine, but that's meaningless without GW removing their arbitrary limitation on women not being able to be Space Marines.
As I said - it needs endorsement.
*shrug* I understand your point of view and I just don't agree because we're talking about toy soldiers, not housing or healthcare or education or, y'know, real things, that women absolutely have a right to equal access to and absolutely need representation for/in, we're talking about toy soldiers, and if one product line is all male, and even if that product line has proven to be the most popular, then that's fine.
On the other hand, we're talking about toy soldiers. Why shouldn't women be allowed to be Space Marines? If you like the "monastic culture" part of Space Marines, don't include women in yours.
Why does there need to be explicit lore saying that my toy soldiers can't be women?
there's a lot more than just the one you're using as your sole example
Yeah, okay bud, you've got more friends than me and your Dad could totally beat up my Dad...
Cute, but showing that you really don't care for opinion if it differs from yours.
But there's only one group of opinions that are rooted in preventing other people having options.
Unless they want what they've already got, in which case there's only one group trying to end it. I can play this game too.
Ah, but this is a good one! Why would me, and so many like me, getting to have women Space Marines stop you from having what you've already got?
Why is "what you've already got" so rooted in preventing me from having my own? It's not about defending your own stuff, because no-one's trying to take that from you.
We want the canon option to have women Space Marines, and for those to be represented visibly. You can still keep your own models. Why is that a problem?
Also, you speak of "people having the same spread of opinions", but you really don't seem to like hearing people talking about how they don't feel represented. Almost like their opinions don't matter much?
Don't presume to know my feelings, or put words in my mouth. People keep telling you that you perceive a problem that they perceive doesn't exist but you don't seem to like hearing it, almost like their opinions don't matter much?
Except that when the problem they're failing to perceive is literally "hey, I don't feel welcome here because of a pervasive all-boys attitude", that's the kind of thing you really should be showing empathy and awareness of.
If you truly think that playing with toy soldiers is some kind of human rights issue and that's why the most popular toy soldiers absolutely cannot be described as all male then, all I can tell you is that that line of "logic", if you could charitably call it that, sounds completely demented.
Well, it's a good thing I never said that.
What I *said*, if you're done with "putting words in my mouth" (which you so vehemently commented just above), was that there is absolutely no reason to exclude women from the forefront of 40k, and that many women feel this is a failure of representation. Women existing is not a human rights issue - it is simply fairness.
What I would actually call demented is this idea that some made up fiction about some toy soldiers matters more to people than those women's feelings of exclusion and rejection, and that somehow, both are "equally valid".
Fiction isn't more important than people, I'm afraid.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: No, I think it's more likely you ignored my *actual* comments.
.
You Know what.. i did just that. Because I was bored.
Well until you can actually bother to read people's arguments, why should anyone read yours?
I am not being "intelectualy" dishonest.
You literally just said that you weren't even reading people's comments.
That's the textbook example of being intellectually dishonest. Like, it's the perfect example.
I am here demonstrating how you say one thing but then flat out denying things you have said...
How can anyone argue with your position, if your position keeps changing or you just say "youre wrong about my position"
Because my position isn't changing. You'd know this if you weren't "bored" and were actually reading my comments.
The reason I'm saying "you're wrong about my position" is because you're wrong about my position, probably because you're self-admittedly bored, and ignoring my comments.
You've done a masterful job of burying yourself in this one.
Now, as for the mess of a formatting that makes up the rest of your comment, I fully admit that I don't care enough to unpick all of it. You know, perhaps because "I'm bored". So, for the few bits I can actually see that don't make me want to try and create a flow chart to see how this thing is formatted, I'll actually address. If you can format this in a way I can read next time, and if I think you're being intellectually honest with me, maybe I'll address the rest too.
How exactly does creating a whole new inclusive and diverse SM range NOT force people from havign a Sausage fest if they want to.
Because they're your models, in the same way that GW releasing Primaris Marines doesn't mean you need to start a Primaris army, or that GW releasing Ultramarine upgrade sprues means I need to rip of fthe shoulder pads from my models and give them fancy new Ultramarine ones.
Your Space Marines can be whatever you want them to be, because there's more than enough heads and helmets around that you don't need to worry about a thing.
Surely you will need a "quota" in order to ensure you have an all male or all female line up.
No, you don't - no more than there's a quota to make sure that when a new player buys a box of Space Marines that they have an equal quota of Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels.
Marketing? There doesn't even need to be a "quota", just feature women and men. The exact ratio isn't important. If you feel like it, put it down to random chance. But marketing doesn't control what you do with your own models.
If you change sprues and you cant have all female or all male build then you have actively taken that chocie away from people. But you claim you dotn want to control what peeople cant and cant do?
Tell me, do you use every head on your Space Marine sprues? Do you have Space Marines running around with two heads? Because that's the only way what you can describe would happen.
There's more heads in a box of Space Marines than there are bodies. If you want all-helmeted Space Marines, you can have that. If you want your Space Marines to be all male, just use all the male-coded heads in the box, and then if you don't have enough, give the rest helmets - like you already have to do. Likewise, if you want all women, use all the female-coded heads in the box, and if you don't have enough, give the rest helmets. If you want mixed gender, then use whatever heads and helmets you like.
This is a complete non-issue, because there's always more than enough spare heads in the box.
You STATE quite clearly "no thanks" to an all new line of SM in order to satisfy representation and want an upgrade sprue.
We now FINALY have found out that actualy you do want a whole new marine line upgraded.
When did I say that?
What I said, if you weren't "bored" and were actually paying attention, was that the upgrade sprue is enough for the moment. When Space Marines get upgraded, because they will, then they should have multiple in-kit head options.
Pick up your glasses, and read.
Inconsitent positions like this is why I say you keep gaslighting people and changign your positon..
My position isn't inconsistent. You're just not reading it.
Seriously, don't blame me for your own self-admitted boredom and lack of attention. Learn to read, pay attention to what's being said, and maybe you might actually be able to avoid misrepresenting me.
It is impossibel to have both full male and full female SM units / chaarcters without having the quotas in the design to do so.
No, it's entirely possible. There's enough spare heads in every Space Marine kit that you could easily have no female-coded heads anywhere on your own models, in the same way that I'm not "forced" to have a quota of unhelmeted ones.
Next time you pick up a modern multipart Space Marine kit, tell me how many heads are in it. I'll wait.
In no uncertain terms you think that shifting marketing to sisters and guard and making them more "prmotion" friendly is harder than re-releasing AND remarketing Fem marines?
Yes. You'd need to release new kits for both factions (and entirely from the ground up for Guardsmen, who would need to be made entirely gender-neutral) to get anywhere near the saturation of Marine kits, scrap existing marketing, remake new marketing materials, all your third party merchandise and video games and media, try to play catchup with the massive media legacy Space Marines left behind, write two new Horus Heresy length novel series, as well as all the other assorted Space Marine media, and remake every starter set to include those factions.
Just a little bit harder, I think.
We already established we cant just have an upgrade sprue.
No, we didn't. That's something you made up.
An upgrade sprue is enough for now, coupled with future media including women Astartes. No need to retroactively edit anything.
It needs to be new marines.
When new Marines come out, you mean. Because no-one was pushing for a new Marine wave - only saying that when it inevitably comes out, that it should feature women Astartes.
So when people said this as acounter argument it was dismissed as "ohh no we dont want that" Well now we have established you do want that...
No, we haven't.
I have to ask, are you a seamstress? Because you're doing an excellent job fabricating stuff.
Aren't you being a bit dishonest about what the end goal and initial objective is here?
No, I'm not. My goal is what it's always been - which I've laid out, if you weren't too bored to read my comments.
But you, self-admitting to not reading people's posts and misrepresenting them? That's a whole different story.
@some bloke:
Spoiler:
some bloke wrote: I know a lot's happened since the restaurant analogy but I feel it needs revisiting.
This is based on the fact that:
1: Female kits are being introduced for every army that it makes sense for. This is represented by the rest of the menu.
2: People are saying marines are the flagship so they should be changed from what they are into something else just so they can have female models.
The issue is that:
1. Why doesn't it make sense for women to be Space Marines? The reasons given are that "it's explained by the lore", and that "they're representative of monastic orders and warrior fraternities".
Firstly, the lore is made up, and is a completely arbitrary reason in itself - it's not a justification alone. Why is the lore the way that it is?
Secondly, Space Marines being "representative of brotherhood and warrior fraternities" doesn't work with the vast range of Space Marine Chapters out there. The Space Wolves aren't a monastic order. The Raven Guard aren't a monastic order. The Carcharadons aren't a monastic order. The faction that actually *does* embody those traits of being a fraternal warrior culture and monastic/ascetic lifestyle are the Custodes, which I've explicitly said I don't mind being all-male, because it actually fits their design philosophy.
Space Marines are now more defined by their customisation and Chapter culture which the hobbyist can play around with - and deliberately saying "you can't do that" flies in the face of that philosphy.
2. Because they're the flagship, yes. Either Space Marines shouldn't be the flagship (which is simply unrealistic, from an economic point of view), or we need to evaluate what message an all-boys flagship is sending. And again, you say "into something else" - remember, Space Marines used to have women, and it was an entirely arbitrary reason that they now don't.
The restaurant analogy returns:
There's a restaurant called "Big Fred's Feasts".
The menu is diverse and full of different flavours (all the factions). In almost every section, there are vegetarian options (female models). But then, there is this one section called "Big Fred's Meat Feasts". This features dishes that all have meat in them, and are not just meaty versions of the other stuff, they are their own thing. This represents marines. The reason it is all meat dishes is because of an arbitrary rule he imposed when he wrote the one word "Meat" in, instead of, say, "Special". A decision was made that they would be meat dishes, and this has stuck.
So outright, there was a mistake made by writing "meat" instead of "special". Not off to a great start.
Secondly, why can't Big Fred's Meat Feasts have dishes that include both meat and veg? No onion rings, no chips, no potato, no salad to go along with the meat? Why can't I ask the chef to plate my greens on the same dish as my Meat Feasts, and why will they refuse? Because of an arbitrary mistake, and holding fast to that mistake even when the original owner has since left?
Big Fred's becomes hugely popular because of his Meat Feasts. everyone refers to Fred's as "The place with the meat feasts". Lots of people go there to eat his other food, but the Meat Feasts is definitely the most popular section. He uses it for advertising, because it's so popular.
This implies that Space Marines are only popular because they're all men though.
Do you believe this to be the case?
Then one day someone comes along and tells him "Hey, I know you have this thing where you have these dishes with meat in them? I know you have other vegetarian dishes in your restaurant, but can you just change the "Meat Feasts" so that some of them are vegetarian?"
But we're not trying to change them to be vegetarian. We're trying to change it so that I can have some mashed potato along with my steak, because that sounds like a pretty good thing to have with steak.
Their reasoning is that, despite Fred having a vegetarian menu (SOB), and vegetarian options in most other sections of the menu (All those female model additions the_scotsman pointed out sarcastically which I hadn't realised were there), they feel like "Big Fred's Meat Feasts" is the flagship of his business and therefore has to be changed to feel inclusive to vegetarians. Any vegetarian who looked at the menu would see a selection of vegetarian dishes, but they want the flagship to include vegetarians too, even if it means changing the very definition of the flagship.
However, when all the voucher deals are only applicable to "Big Fred's Meat Feasts", and all the other food options are either expensive, hidden in a scrappy side-menu, or just served out of a rusty bucket, can you see why either Big Fred's Meat Feasts needs to change, either to bring everything else up to parity (extremely expensive in this scenario), or Big Fred can learn to put a little bit of potato on their Meaty Feasts.
I'd like to mention again that Big Fred's Meat Feasts was an entirely arbitrary exclusion of non-meat products, and that, at this current point in time, they don't make a big deal of how they're deliberately only meat. Just so we're being honest with this analogy.
I also emphasis as well that every other patron of Big Fred's can still order the same thing they've always had. Adding veg options wouldn't change a damn thing for them.
The only reason "Big Fred's Meat Feasts" is the way it is was because he decided, once upon a time, to make it that way.
And maybe that would have flown decades ago, but the market has changed. There's more vegetarian diners now, and they're not happy with the meagre veg options that Big Fred's offers, because they don't apply for any meal deals, and Big Fred's marketing has been akin to putting up a big flashing sign saying "VEGETARIANS AREN'T WELCOME".
Now people are telling him to change it because it is the flagship of his business. Vegetarians could have almost any of his other dishes, and he does cater for them, but people have become fixated that because his Meat Feasts are what people see, they need to be changed to include vegetarian options. At which point they cease to be "Meat Feasts" any more, and become something else.
Vegetarians *could* have the other dishes, but the other dishes are perhaps cooked in a sauce they don't want, or are served in a rusty bucket, or are prohibitively expensive, or don't qualify for meal deals, or any other reason.
The thing you're getting stuck on too is that it's not just "meat versus veg" - it's people wanting meat *and* veg. Big Fred's Meat Feasts are only made up of meat, with no non-meat products. Why? What's so harmful about slapping a potato on there? If you don't want a potato, just don't have one.
Does this make more sense? I think this is a far better comparison to SM.
And I think it still misses the fundamental issue that the decision to not include women was entirely arbitrary, and serves no creative purpose going forward.
Why shouldn't women be allowed?
Honestly? I'm starting to feel (having thought about it quite a bit) that adding female marines would detract from space marines. They are supposed to be superhuman fighting machines, not a balanced ratio of people representative of the population.
Cool. So we make them all women then? Or we eradicate gender from them entirely? So why do they look like men, and use male pronouns if they're only meant to be superhuman fighting machines?
What part about being "superhuman fighting machines" mean they need to be all male?
They are supposed to give off a "these aren't just people" vibe.
So why do they use masculine pronouns and are male coded if we're trying to dehumanise them?
Regardless of whether the lore is adjusted to make it feasible for marines to be made from girl stock (as they start as children), they are supposed to feel artificial, to some extent. These are not organic creations representative of a natural population.
So why are they male-coded, and clearly not artificial?
Flagship or not, adding female marines will make marines feel more human. They aren't supposed to feel human.
If you don't want them to feel human, that's okay. In which case, why are you okay with them using masculine pronouns and having a male-coded appearance?
As I've said, there's two ways about this: make Space Marines entirely inhuman (which would require rebranding and redesigning models), or we realise that them excluding women but not men is a mistake, and we fix that.
some bloke wrote:So, I am much more in favour of making them seem less human to emphasize their inhumanity than adding female models to emphasize that marines are an all-inclusive non discriminatory bunch of heretic-burning witch-hunting mutant-crushing fanatical supersoldiers bound to serve a corpse on a throne.
And that's okay. But that's still going to require a change to what Space Marines currently are, and would actually require more resources to do, as opposed to changing 13 words of lore and adding a new sprue.
Hey, Argive! Which one do you prefer? Remaking all Space Marines to make them more inhuman, or adding a single sprue and changing 13 words of lore? Because I'm easy either way, but I know which is vastly cheaper.
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Grimskul wrote: The SM are the effective Nazis not women. Especially since SM are basically the ubermensch that the Nazi eugenic ideology believed in creating.
Just to check, 40k ain't political, right?
Just making sure we're all agreed it's not...
Nevertheless, the problem with the whole "BUT THE SPACE MARINES ARE NAZIS WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REPRESENTED BY NAZIS" idea is that GW don't portray them like that.
Have any of y'all read the comics on WarCom? I'm mostly referring to Big Brothers, a comic where a squad of Space Marines from different Chapters are babysitting a young girl. It's cute. I like it. And even the Black Templar of the group isn't portrayed like a Nazi. Because GW are very aware that Space Marines are really goddamn marketable - and that they're more marketable when they're not being overt Nazis, and when they're behaving like squabbling siblings with very cute marketable traits and cartoonified facial expressions, and nice Funko Pop/chibi designs.
And I'll be honest, I like those designs too. They're cute. But I think they stand as perfect proof that "Space Marines = evil Nazis, so you shouldn't want to be represented by them" is not exactly an accurate viewpoint.
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some bloke wrote: My point of view is that the marines are written as they are, and that makes them what they are. Rewriting the lore that makes them what they are will make them different to what they are.
They've already been written to move away from their "holy order of monks" origins. They're written now far more as "customisable heroic soldiers with cool equipment and cultures that you, yes you!, can feel free to go wild with creativity over!"
Clinging to "but they're an evil brotherhood of monks" is ignoring that the lore *has* made them different to what they were. And that it still never excuses writing out women over such a ridiculous line as "male tissue types".
Perhaps a better comparison is when the companies like Lucozade decided that people wanted sweeteners in their drinks, and changed it. Suddenly lucozade tastes like chemical dirt. They did it because they thought it would appeal to more people. They did not do it because they thought it would make their drink nicer.
But that implies that people couldn't still drink old Lucozade/Space Marines. They still can, if they want to.
Perhaps the fact that, for over decade, marines have been of such high popularity as to become iconic is in part because of the lore that makes them what they are? "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only equal opportunities employment" doesn't quite roll off the tongue so well.
So why are the Imperial Guard mixed gender?
And again, are you implying Space Marines are only popular because of them being all men? Space Marine players in this thread, care to corroborate that? Because I certainly don't.
Also, thanks Grimskul for responding to that one, quite how it got changed from "making marines nice is like making nazis nice" to "adding women is like adding nazis" is beyond me!
Yes, it was a case of something being lost in translation there, but as I've addressed on that point, Space Marines are already being portrayed as nice and wholesome by GW themselves.
The ship has already sailed on that one.
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the_scotsman wrote: Imperial knight pilots, ship captains, inquisitors, generals, imperial guard soldiers, and now HIGH LORDS OF TERRA can be female in the 40k setting. If there's a glass ceiling present in the imperium, it stops at the foot of the emperor's chair.
...............except for space marines and custodes.
Exactly. For everyone saying "but the Imperium's the bad guys, why would they have gender representation" - they *do*. The only reason that they apparently don't for Space Marines isn't because Space Marines are an exclusive bunch, or that they hate women. It's because of a made up biological reason that only exists because an author made it up.
And hell, if you really want to get into it, when asked by a Fenrisian native why women weren't Space Marines, the Space Wolf she was talking to outright says something along the lines of "you know what, I don't know - maybe we need to look into that".
the_scotsman wrote: The imperium has never been depicted as sexist, and EVERY TIME someone tries to sneakily exclude women from some role by making that claim, gw goes ahead and makes it canonical that women are included in that role and they just hadn't put them in explicitly because gw tends to just depict everyone as male by default and female as an "attribute."
Only because most of the 40k player base is male. I don't think GW would have an issue or any hesitation in adding female space marines if they have strong reasons to believe it would expand their fans/player base and customers to a noticeable extent. Its like that G.I. Joe and Barbie documentary on Netflix. There's a reason why there are two separate toy lines. Most girls were not interested in G.I. Joe dolls, and so Barbie was invented, and most boys were not interested in Barbie, and so most of the marketing and predecessing toys in that line never bothered to cater to boys.
That being said; again, I'd be very interested in adding female Astartes to my collection.
LumenPraebeo wrote: I don't think GW would have an issue or any hesitation in adding female space marines if they have strong reasons to believe it would expand their fans/player base and customers to a noticeable extent.
I think the problem is that various people are arguing different things, so you're getting everyone else's opinions mixed up into a nonsensical one.
My point of view is that the marines are written as they are, and that makes them what they are. Rewriting the lore that makes them what they are will make them different to what they are.
Perhaps a better comparison is when the companies like Lucozade decided that people wanted sweeteners in their drinks, and changed it. Suddenly lucozade tastes like chemical dirt. They did it because they thought it would appeal to more people. They did not do it because they thought it would make their drink nicer.
Perhaps the fact that, for over decade, marines have been of such high popularity as to become iconic is in part because of the lore that makes them what they are? "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only equal opportunities employment" doesn't quite roll off the tongue so well.
Also, thanks Grimskul for responding to that one, quite how it got changed from "making marines nice is like making nazis nice" to "adding women is like adding nazis" is beyond me!
The thing is that the Imperium is never really portrayed in the light it should be, nor are SM. The Imperium is bad, objectively. SM are the enforcers and propaganda of the regime, therefore they are also bad. But GW does not portray either as the "baddies" because that doesn't sell. SM are marketed as the saviours of mankind to real-world people as well as the people in-universe. Part of the Imperium being an awful place is that it is, as you put it, an "equal opportunity employer" at least to some degree if we ignore in-universe social class and politics. Women are just as equal as men because they are human, which is the baseline of the Imperium's dogma. So why not reflect that horrible state of affairs in the flagship faction?
Also;
My point of view is that the marines are written as they are, and that makes them what they are. Rewriting the lore that makes them what they are will make them different to what they are
Yeah? That's how things work. But what takes away from SM being the saviours of humanity that are super-soldiers if they aren't all guys?
The only bit in the current SM codex that makes any assertations that SM are exclusively male is when it talks about the Primarchs and their Gene-sons, which doesn't actually preclude a horrific possibility of gene-seed forcefully changing an individuals sex. All GW would have to change is "sons" to "children" and there isn't anything in the current codex IIRC that would be an issue.
the_scotsman wrote: The imperium has never been depicted as sexist, and EVERY TIME someone tries to sneakily exclude women from some role by making that claim, gw goes ahead and makes it canonical that women are included in that role and they just hadn't put them in explicitly because gw tends to just depict everyone as male by default and female as an "attribute."
Only because most of the 40k player base is male. I don't think GW would have an issue or any hesitation in adding female space marines if they have strong reasons to believe it would expand their fans/player base and customers to a noticeable extent. Its like that G.I. Joe and Barbie documentary on Netflix. There's a reason why there are two separate toy lines. Most girls were not interested in G.I. Joe dolls, and so Barbie was invented, and most boys were not interested in Barbie, and so most of the marketing and predecessing toys in that line never bothered to cater to boys.
That being said; again, I'd be very interested in adding female Astartes to my collection.
My overall point here is: GW adds women, racial minorities, etc to keep politics OUT of their game.
The people trying to shove real-world politics into 40k are not primarily the group of people who think it'd be good to make the model range more inclusive. They're the people who, time and time again, attribute when GW excludes everything but white males from a canonical group out of ignorance/just forgetting about it to GW purposefully excluding them for canonical reasons.
The first time people actually noticed/got outraged at a black space marine was the original dawn of war, when one was added to the ultramarines primarily for the reason of making the two models look more distinctive on the game map, according to the developer (you went thru the whole tutorial of the game controlling the two of them, and when you clicked on one a little portrait showed up in the bottom of the screen). People accused the game dev of 'shoving politics into warhammer' with the move because many people were under the impression that all space marines were, normally, white outside of chapters like Scars and Salamanders.
When the imperial knights codex came out initially, a similar thing happened, where there was a large argument about whether women were allowed to be imperial knight pilots. Of course not, their society is based on the archaic and backwards medieval feudalist society, obviously GW depicted all the pilots to be male because that society would be sexist as all hell, claimed the same folks. So in the next IK codex, there were fluff stories and references to knight pilots with honorifics like "Queen" and "Baroness" etc and a female knight pilot voice actor was in a video game.
Ditto with non-white sisters of battle. Every sister of battle in the early art is shown as...effectively like, clones. They all have the same haircut, face, etc, sometimes one is older or has a scar but theyre all basically just the same white lady. Why wouldn't they be explicitly all white women, the same crowd claimed, theyre inspired by joan of arc and catholic imagery of course the imperium is picking their purest most beautiful women to be their holy women soldiers! Nope...again....as always, just didn't think about it, and GW includes nonwhite sisters all over the new codex to make it explicitly clear that modern racial bias as we understand it does not exist in the imperium because they DO NOT WANT to use 40k to have modern political discussions.
People believe that GW painting models with dark skin, including heads that look like non-white ethnicities, including women in various roles and factions is GW 'getting woke' because they need to sustain a sense of persecution and paranoia, when in reality these things are just done because gw wants to avoid political discussions and historically the majority of those political discussions haven't come from triggered woke lefties, theyve come from channels like Arch with orders of magnitude more following and reach than any microscopic "feminists for 40k" facebook group or whatever with 300 people following it.
Seems the word "Nazi" has got peoples backs up. I just want to note than a comparison is not saying that the things are each other. "Having two apples and eating one is like having two oranges and eating one", doesn't mean "Apples are Oranges".
I was using Nazis as a "world renowned bad guys" analogy, not as "the political party". The way I was using it wasn't political, it was merely factual. They were bad guys who thought their actions were improving the gene pool of man. Now we see space marines, killing heretics and mutants. See how that compares? but anyway, let's drop that now.
The issue is that:
1. Why doesn't it make sense for women to be Space Marines? The reasons given are that "it's explained by the lore", and that "they're representative of monastic orders and warrior fraternities".
Firstly, the lore is made up, and is a completely arbitrary reason in itself - it's not a justification alone. Why is the lore the way that it is?
Secondly, Space Marines being "representative of brotherhood and warrior fraternities" doesn't work with the vast range of Space Marine Chapters out there. The Space Wolves aren't a monastic order. The Raven Guard aren't a monastic order. The Carcharadons aren't a monastic order. The faction that actually *does* embody those traits of being a fraternal warrior culture and monastic/ascetic lifestyle are the Custodes, which I've explicitly said I don't mind being all-male, because it actually fits their design philosophy.
Space Marines are now more defined by their customisation and Chapter culture which the hobbyist can play around with - and deliberately saying "you can't do that" flies in the face of that philosphy.
2. Because they're the flagship, yes. Either Space Marines shouldn't be the flagship (which is simply unrealistic, from an economic point of view), or we need to evaluate what message an all-boys flagship is sending. And again, you say "into something else" - remember, Space Marines used to have women, and it was an entirely arbitrary reason that they now don't.
But that is the lore. The game is nothing but the models and the stories behind them. The models represent the lore, and the lore defines the factions. Changing a grimdark lore to make genetically engineered super soldiers inclusive just to tick a box that it has equal representation between men and women is frankly absurd. Yes, it's only fiction, but there has to be some integrity in it. If every sharp edge is smoothed over in the name of avoiding offending people, then you're left with a shapeless blob with nothing to define it. This is along the same lines as saying "the >holy book< needs more females in it, they are all men! this is driving women away from >religion<!". When you change the story behind something, it changes the something. I'm all for adding a reason why female marines can happen in the future of the lore, but not in changing the past of it to make it seem like it has never not been a thing.
So outright, there was a mistake made by writing "meat" instead of "special". Not off to a great start.
No, Fred decided to make meat oriented meals for the special menu. The decision was arbitrary, but not a mistake.
Secondly, why can't Big Fred's Meat Feasts have dishes that include both meat and veg? No onion rings, no chips, no potato, no salad to go along with the meat? Why can't I ask the chef to plate my greens on the same dish as my Meat Feasts, and why will they refuse? Because of an arbitrary mistake, and holding fast to that mistake even when the original owner has since left?
You're taking it slightly too literally, and picking up on the finer details. This is like me saying "but what if the marines identify as women?". It adds nothing to the discussion.
This implies that Space Marines are only popular because they're all men though.
Do you believe this to be the case?
No, it's implying that the space marines are popular because they are popular. The meat feasts are popular because people like them, whether that's because they're lal meat is their opinion to keep to themselves. The fact is merely that they are popular.
But we're not trying to change them to be vegetarian. We're trying to change it so that I can have some mashed potato along with my steak, because that sounds like a pretty good thing to have with steak.
Again, you're going too literal. The marines faction is the menu, not the dish. "Vegetarian" is females, "Meat" is males. You can reverse this if you prefer, and have "Big Fred's Veg Dishes", and someone asking to add meat. So every dish (model) in the menu (faction) is meat (male). Apologies if that wasn't clear!
However, when all the voucher deals are only applicable to "Big Fred's Meat Feasts", and all the other food options are either expensive, hidden in a scrappy side-menu, or just served out of a rusty bucket, can you see why either Big Fred's Meat Feasts needs to change, either to bring everything else up to parity (extremely expensive in this scenario), or Big Fred can learn to put a little bit of potato on their Meaty Feasts.
I'd like to mention again that Big Fred's Meat Feasts was an entirely arbitrary exclusion of non-meat products, and that, at this current point in time, they don't make a big deal of how they're deliberately only meat. Just so we're being honest with this analogy.
I also emphasis as well that every other patron of Big Fred's can still order the same thing they've always had. Adding veg options wouldn't change a damn thing for them.
Okay, so suddenly the issue is that space marines are in all the deals and not that they are all male? Remove them from the deals and the problem goes away? Then it wasn't a real problem.
You've also added random extras to make the other meals (which I described as diverse, nice and flavorful, so don't ever go into the food critique business) unappetizing. I'm sure if marines came in a box filled with scorpions it would reduce their popularity. Notice how that is both irrelevant and not something that happens.
The arbitrary decision was made, and Meat Feasts was born. Changing that decision changes the menu, and changes it from "Meat Feasts". It's highlighting how the change to one small decision can impact what the thing actually is.
You are correct, as they could still only order meat dishes. But the issue is that they are no longer "Meat Feasts", as the cannot be "Meat Feasts" with vegetarian options in there. Adding "Veg Feasts" is not a solution, apparently, as he would have to make another poster to advertise them. What made them what they are is removed by changing things.
And maybe that would have flown decades ago, but the market has changed. There's more vegetarian diners now, and they're not happy with the meagre veg options that Big Fred's offers, because they don't apply for any meal deals, and Big Fred's marketing has been akin to putting up a big flashing sign saying "VEGETARIANS AREN'T WELCOME".
I said Fred's had an extensive veggie menu. Basically everything has veggie options - except "Meat Feasts". They are unique in being the menu without veggie options. Now vegetarians want them to be veggie too. Something will be lost in appeasing them.
Vegetarians *could* have the other dishes, but the other dishes are perhaps cooked in a sauce they don't want, or are served in a rusty bucket, or are prohibitively expensive, or don't qualify for meal deals, or any other reason.
At which point the vegetarians should probably either accept that only eating vegetarian dishes is a choice not a requirement, and either accept that their choice limits them or just eat some meat. You've also added unappealing aspects to the veggie dishes. What you're describing is in fact the Bacon Phenomenon - no matter how devout, a vegetarian will always like the smell of bacon and want to eat it. Ever eaten veggie bacon? You'll see how changing something can lose the key aspects of what makes it.
Same deal with marines. All the other armies are either alien or include females. If you impose a restriction on yourself to only buy armies with female representation, don't pick marines. Just like if someone imposed a limitation on themselves to only use armies with male representation should avoid sisters of battle, or tyranids. If you want marines but want female models, either kitbash or compromise. We don't make CC tau for people who want to have samurai. Though it would be cool.
The thing you're getting stuck on too is that it's not just "meat versus veg" - it's people wanting meat *and* veg. Big Fred's Meat Feasts are only made up of meat, with no non-meat products. Why? What's so harmful about slapping a potato on there? If you don't want a potato, just don't have one.
Again, that's the wrong thought. The dishes have meat and veg. The menu is the faction. the menu has no pure-veg units.
And I think it still misses the fundamental issue that the decision to not include women was entirely arbitrary, and serves no creative purpose going forward.
Why shouldn't women be allowed?
because warhammer 40k doesn't want to become homogenous. Yes, different armies are different from each other. That's just how it is.
Cool. So we make them all women then? Or we eradicate gender from them entirely? So why do they look like men, and use male pronouns if they're only meant to be superhuman fighting machines?
What part about being "superhuman fighting machines" mean they need to be all male?
No to all women because they're established as men. you'd be rewriting the whole book. Eh to eradicating gender, doesn't make much odds as they aren't sexualised anyway. Why do they look like men and act like men? because they're unfeeling violence machines. Very stereotypical male behaviour. sexual dimorphism in humans makes males larger and stronger, and woman more empathetic. Which of those features do you exaggerate to make a super-soldier? That's why they appear masculine - not because they are aiming for masculinity, but because masculinity lines up with what they were aiming for. You have cause & effect backwards there. As for the pronouns, it lines up with them appearing male.
So why do they use masculine pronouns and are male coded if we're trying to dehumanise them?
So why are they male-coded, and clearly not artificial?
If you don't want them to feel human, that's okay. In which case, why are you okay with them using masculine pronouns and having a male-coded appearance?
Again, because they look male. note that looking male is a side effect and not a goal. You have to call them something.
Nevertheless, the problem with the whole "BUT THE SPACE MARINES ARE NAZIS WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REPRESENTED BY NAZIS" idea is that GW don't portray them like that.
No-one said they were Nazis. Reread what I said, and what Grimskul added to correct someone else.
some bloke wrote: Seems the word "Nazi" has got peoples backs up. I just want to note than a comparison is not saying that the things are each other. "Having two apples and eating one is like having two oranges and eating one", doesn't mean "Apples are Oranges".
I was using Nazis as a "world renowned bad guys" analogy, not as "the political party". The way I was using it wasn't political, it was merely factual. They were bad guys who thought their actions were improving the gene pool of man. Now we see space marines, killing heretics and mutants. See how that compares?
The issue is that GW doesn't portray them as "the bad guys". They're portrayed, well, as whatever GW want to portray them as. In some content, they're emotionless killing machines, detached from humanity and ruthless examples of the Imperium's warmongering state. In other content, they're the noble and heroic saviours of humanity, the last line against unspeakable horrors and threats. In other content, they're friendly cartoon siblings and mascots, easily marketable and iconic to the brand.
The issue is that: 1. Why doesn't it make sense for women to be Space Marines? The reasons given are that "it's explained by the lore", and that "they're representative of monastic orders and warrior fraternities". Firstly, the lore is made up, and is a completely arbitrary reason in itself - it's not a justification alone. Why is the lore the way that it is? Secondly, Space Marines being "representative of brotherhood and warrior fraternities" doesn't work with the vast range of Space Marine Chapters out there. The Space Wolves aren't a monastic order. The Raven Guard aren't a monastic order. The Carcharadons aren't a monastic order. The faction that actually *does* embody those traits of being a fraternal warrior culture and monastic/ascetic lifestyle are the Custodes, which I've explicitly said I don't mind being all-male, because it actually fits their design philosophy. Space Marines are now more defined by their customisation and Chapter culture which the hobbyist can play around with - and deliberately saying "you can't do that" flies in the face of that philosphy.
2. Because they're the flagship, yes. Either Space Marines shouldn't be the flagship (which is simply unrealistic, from an economic point of view), or we need to evaluate what message an all-boys flagship is sending. And again, you say "into something else" - remember, Space Marines used to have women, and it was an entirely arbitrary reason that they now don't.
But that is the lore.
And the lore changes.
The game is nothing but the models and the stories behind them.
So why is it still around after decades of lore changes and tweaks? Is Space Marines being male so essential to the models and stories that including women would ruin them?
The models represent the lore, and the lore defines the factions. Changing a grimdark lore to make genetically engineered super soldiers inclusive just to tick a box that it has equal representation between men and women is frankly absurd.
The fact you see adding women as "ticking a box" is the problem here.
There was no reason not to have women in the first place. The lore was arbitrary, the business decision guided by logic that was barely fit for it's time, and the lore isn't more important than genuine real people!
Yes, it's only fiction, but there has to be some integrity in it.
Oh? Like Necrons? Like Primaris? Like Guilliman getting up for a little walk?
The lore has no integrity, and women Space Marines isn't the cornerstone on which it is built.
If every sharp edge is smoothed over in the name of avoiding offending people, then you're left with a shapeless blob with nothing to define it.
Is AoS a shapeless blob because they have women Stormcast?
This is along the same lines as saying "the >holy book< needs more females in it, they are all men! this is driving women away from >religion<!".
Are you really suggesting that a fictional toy soldier game is even close to a religious text with thousands of years of history?
And, for what it's worth, I can only speak of the Bible, but (at the risk of going off topic) it literally was edited to exclude women as well! The church have translated and requoted and rewritten their texts so many times, and quite often ended up removing references to stuff that the power bodies at the time did not approve of - women's agency being one of many.
So, actually, you might be totally onto something there - a text modified to exclude women, and treated as gospel. Hm.
When you change the story behind something, it changes the something.
The "something" has already been changed.
I'm all for adding a reason why female marines can happen in the future of the lore, but not in changing the past of it to make it seem like it has never not been a thing.
Fine. Just get women Space Marines in there, and I'm good.
So outright, there was a mistake made by writing "meat" instead of "special". Not off to a great start.
No, Fred decided to make meat oriented meals for the special menu. The decision was arbitrary, but not a mistake.
No, you very much phrased it as a mistake, something not done deliberately.
And again - while that may have been acceptable at the time, changing market values might disagree with it's relevance.
Secondly, why can't Big Fred's Meat Feasts have dishes that include both meat and veg? No onion rings, no chips, no potato, no salad to go along with the meat? Why can't I ask the chef to plate my greens on the same dish as my Meat Feasts, and why will they refuse? Because of an arbitrary mistake, and holding fast to that mistake even when the original owner has since left?
You're taking it slightly too literally, and picking up on the finer details. This is like me saying "but what if the marines identify as women?". It adds nothing to the discussion.
No, you're realising that your analogy doesn't work, because it doesn't accommodate for the finer details of the real life situation.
What if the Space Marines identify as women? Then that's great! But as I've said, representation means nothing without visibility. I made a previous comment that I was entirely on board with female recruits taking on masculine pronouns and identities (and vice versa) as part of their specific Chapter's culture. In this situation, you could have some Astartes with female-coded faces who still use masculine pronouns, and that would be cool!
But the important element is the visible representation and the options to do so.
This implies that Space Marines are only popular because they're all men though. Do you believe this to be the case?
No, it's implying that the space marines are popular because they are popular. The meat feasts are popular because people like them, whether that's because they're lal meat is their opinion to keep to themselves. The fact is merely that they are popular.
But why does them being all meat/all male have anything to do with their popularity?
The fact is that they're popular, and because of their popularity, they are disproportionately better quality than the other food options available. Something has to change, because the other options are not enough.
And, in the sake of the *real world* situation, changing the flagship dish to include *options* is cheaper.
But we're not trying to change them to be vegetarian. We're trying to change it so that I can have some mashed potato along with my steak, because that sounds like a pretty good thing to have with steak.
Again, you're going too literal.
No, your analogy doesn't account for the actual situation.
The marines faction is the menu, not the dish. "Vegetarian" is females, "Meat" is males. You can reverse this if you prefer, and have "Big Fred's Veg Dishes", and someone asking to add meat. So every dish (model) in the menu (faction) is meat (male). Apologies if that wasn't clear!
But that still doesn't accommodate that the problem is that you can't mix veg and meat together, despite there being no reason not to. Why can't the dishes with meat on them also have veg accoutrements? And similarly, why can't the veg dishes have some meat on them? If someone doesn't want that, then they can ask the chef not to include it on their specific meal, or just not eat it themselves.
However, when all the voucher deals are only applicable to "Big Fred's Meat Feasts", and all the other food options are either expensive, hidden in a scrappy side-menu, or just served out of a rusty bucket, can you see why either Big Fred's Meat Feasts needs to change, either to bring everything else up to parity (extremely expensive in this scenario), or Big Fred can learn to put a little bit of potato on their Meaty Feasts.
I'd like to mention again that Big Fred's Meat Feasts was an entirely arbitrary exclusion of non-meat products, and that, at this current point in time, they don't make a big deal of how they're deliberately only meat. Just so we're being honest with this analogy.
I also emphasis as well that every other patron of Big Fred's can still order the same thing they've always had. Adding veg options wouldn't change a damn thing for them.
Okay, so suddenly the issue is that space marines are in all the deals and not that they are all male? Remove them from the deals and the problem goes away? Then it wasn't a real problem.
The deals is representative of the additional attention, ease of access, and marketing focus that Space Marines get. They are afforded ease of access, visibility, and promotional materials out of the wazoo.
As I said - make Space Marines not the flagship, and you're going a distance in fixing the problem, but it still doesn't even begin to address why the meat dishes cannot, on pain of death, have a single carrot on them.
You've also added random extras to make the other meals (which I described as diverse, nice and flavorful, so don't ever go into the food critique business) unappetizing. I'm sure if marines came in a box filled with scorpions it would reduce their popularity. Notice how that is both irrelevant and not something that happens.
Because those things might be unappetising. Perhaps women don't want their flavour of power armour to be "nuns with guns". Perhaps they don't want to be locked into "nuns with guns" if they want a badass elite faction of women. Perhaps they don't want to settle for the factions which are so clearly inferior to the Mighty Space Marines.
The other meals are not good enough compared to the Meat Feasts, because the Meat Feasts are so head and shoulders above everything else, and you're a fool if you don't see the same with Space Marines.
The arbitrary decision was made, and Meat Feasts was born. Changing that decision changes the menu, and changes it from "Meat Feasts". It's highlighting how the change to one small decision can impact what the thing actually is.
And why is it so important that the Meat Feasts contain absolutely no trace of veg in them?
You are correct, as they could still only order meat dishes. But the issue is that they are no longer "Meat Feasts", as the cannot be "Meat Feasts" with vegetarian options in there.
I'm not talking "vegetarian options" - vegetarian options would imply all-female. I'm talking about having both meat and veg on the same dish.
And I say again, why is the meal being "only meat" such an integral part of their design, because, breaking from the analogy, GW don't treat Space Marines' all-male-ness as that important.
Adding "Veg Feasts" is not a solution, apparently, as he would have to make another poster to advertise them. What made them what they are is removed by changing things.
But the analogy fails here, because Space Marines are not "Space Marines" because they're all male. They're Space Marines because of all the other things GW choose to highlight about them instead - not because that they're men. You can argue with that, but GW themselves are moving further and further from it.
And maybe that would have flown decades ago, but the market has changed. There's more vegetarian diners now, and they're not happy with the meagre veg options that Big Fred's offers, because they don't apply for any meal deals, and Big Fred's marketing has been akin to putting up a big flashing sign saying "VEGETARIANS AREN'T WELCOME".
I said Fred's had an extensive veggie menu. Basically everything has veggie options - except "Meat Feasts". They are unique in being the menu without veggie options. Now vegetarians want them to be veggie too. Something will be lost in appeasing them.
Except he veggie options aren't good enough, and you're asking people to settle with stuff they don't want, and have no choice to change beyond going elsewhere.
And again, no-one's asking the Meat Feasts to be veggie. They're asking them to include some vegetables AS WELL AS the meat.
Vegetarians *could* have the other dishes, but the other dishes are perhaps cooked in a sauce they don't want, or are served in a rusty bucket, or are prohibitively expensive, or don't qualify for meal deals, or any other reason.
At which point the vegetarians should probably either accept that only eating vegetarian dishes is a choice not a requirement
So, get out of the hobby if you won't settle for what scraps we offer you?
How... welcoming.
You've also added unappealing aspects to the veggie dishes.
No, you forgot to mention in your analogy that the reason people want to add some vegetables to the meat dishes is because the meat dishes are so much better compared to the veg only ones.
Again - your analogy needs work.
All the other armies are either alien or include females. If you impose a restriction on yourself to only buy armies with female representation, don't pick marines.
But that doesn't address that there's no reason for Marines to be all male anyway. You're making an arbitrary restriction, and when people wonder why it's there, you tell them to get over it.
I remind you - it's an arbitrary restriction.
Just like if someone imposed a limitation on themselves to only use armies with male representation should avoid sisters of battle, or tyranids. If you want marines but want female models, either kitbash or compromise.
That's a lame excuse. I want to know why an arbitrary decision to exclude women from a representative position is so important - because GW haven't been laying into why Space Marines being men is so important. As I referenced earlier - a Space Wolf *in setting* didn't even know why.
We don't make CC tau for people who want to have samurai. Though it would be cool.
Except there *are* options - fusion blades for Farsight Tau, Farsight himself, Aun'Shi, and no matter what model, it can still *enter melee combat*. The options exist.
There are no options for women Space Marines, full stop. And when Space Marines are a faction now best known for their customisation and player freedom, a lack of options flies in the face of their design philosophy.
The thing you're getting stuck on too is that it's not just "meat versus veg" - it's people wanting meat *and* veg. Big Fred's Meat Feasts are only made up of meat, with no non-meat products. Why? What's so harmful about slapping a potato on there? If you don't want a potato, just don't have one.
Again, that's the wrong thought. The dishes have meat and veg. The menu is the faction. the menu has no pure-veg units.
But no-one's asking for pure veg units. They're asking for veg as part of the meat dishes, because there's no reason for the meat dishes to only include meat alone, or even that those who are after only meat can't ask for their veg to be taken off, and deal with it like the grown ups they're meant to be.
And I think it still misses the fundamental issue that the decision to not include women was entirely arbitrary, and serves no creative purpose going forward. Why shouldn't women be allowed?
because warhammer 40k doesn't want to become homogenous. Yes, different armies are different from each other. That's just how it is.
Adding women to Space Marines would make 40khomogenous? Is "we have no women!!" a role that needs filling? Why is that an important role?
And, even if that ridiculous idea that "we've just GOT to have a faction of only men!!" was true, Custodes exist to fill the "only men" role.
Why Space Marines?
Cool. So we make them all women then? Or we eradicate gender from them entirely? So why do they look like men, and use male pronouns if they're only meant to be superhuman fighting machines? What part about being "superhuman fighting machines" mean they need to be all male?
No to all women because they're established as men.
But you just said you wanted them to be superhuman fighting machines, because that's what they were established as. What part of being a superhuman fighting machine means they need to be men?
you'd be rewriting the whole book.
Yeah, you would be rewriting the whole book if you wanted to reaffirm that they're "only superhuman fighting machines and nothing else".
But that's what you said they were - unless maybe you're wrong, and they're not just inhuman machines, but *do* have human aspects. In which case, why can't those human aspects include women?
Eh to eradicating gender, doesn't make much odds as they aren't sexualised anyway.
Including women wouldn't sexualise them either. But the point stands that they're male coded. If they were inhuman fighting machines like you said, they shouldn't even be male-coded.
Why do they look like men and act like men? because they're unfeeling violence machines.
I don't follow. Why are onlt men capable of being violent killing machines. When I think of a machine, I don't think of a gender. I think of a genderless... well, machine. Sounds like your example isn't really holding up.
Very stereotypical male behaviour.
But they're not humans, like you said - they're machines, apparently. Why would human behaviour matter to a machine?
sexual dimorphism in humans makes males larger and stronger, and woman more empathetic.
Actually, humans have exceptionally LOW sexual dimorphism, which I've referenced earlier in this thread.
So, let's pop that bubble right now.
Which of those features do you exaggerate to make a super-soldier? That's why they appear masculine - not because they are aiming for masculinity, but because masculinity lines up with what they were aiming for. You have cause & effect backwards there. As for the pronouns, it lines up with them appearing male.
It's a made-up super serum - cause and effect are kinda irrelevant here, because there is no scientific basis for how it works.
There is literally no reason that the Magic Super Soldier Space Serum Juice would have any effect other than what the author says it does. And if that's the case... Why does it have the completely arbitrary limitation on women?
So why do they use masculine pronouns and are male coded if we're trying to dehumanise them? So why are they male-coded, and clearly not artificial? If you don't want them to feel human, that's okay. In which case, why are you okay with them using masculine pronouns and having a male-coded appearance?
Again, because they look male.
But why? They're fictional. They could look like anything. If they're meant to be inhuman, why do they look human?
note that looking male is a side effect and not a goal.
No, looking male is because the sculptors made them look male.
You have to call them something.
I know what you could call them: "Astartes".
Nevertheless, the problem with the whole "BUT THE SPACE MARINES ARE NAZIS WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REPRESENTED BY NAZIS" idea is that GW don't portray them like that.
No-one said they were Nazis.
I know you didn't call them Nazis specifically. You simply implied they were the bad guys. I used Nazi in the same context you did - in the way that GW don't treat them as bad guys.
"here's this faction that we've turned into a gigantic uber-customizable metagolem of infinite customizability, you can have them in a car on the ground in a plane, in every conceivable playstyle that exists in the game, every single represented aesthetic, ninety-trillion different armor marks and styles, historical inspirations, every color in the rainbow, every race and culture of humanity...
...but you CANT make them ladies. that is the sacred line across which we must throw our bodies and souls! Space Marines can be every conceivable configuration of 'your dudes' imaginable, SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT IMAGINE THEM AS YOUR DUDETTES!
the_scotsman wrote: "here's this faction that we've turned into a gigantic uber-customizable metagolem of infinite customizability, you can have them in a car on the ground in a plane, in every conceivable playstyle that exists in the game, every single represented aesthetic, ninety-trillion different armor marks and styles, historical inspirations, every color in the rainbow, every race and culture of humanity...
...but you CANT make them ladies. that is the sacred line across which we must throw our bodies and souls! Space Marines can be every conceivable configuration of 'your dudes' imaginable, SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT IMAGINE THEM AS YOUR DUDETTES!
Love this. Exalted. This to me sums up 34 pages of banging our heads against an unreasonable brick wall.
And credit to Sgt smudge for his apparent endless patients trying to explain to people that women marines is not that big a deal game wise.
And to those saying it doesn’t matter because it is only toy soldiers, tell that to the ones who are sending the death threats and hate to people who only want the core faction of their favourite game not to exclude women.
the_scotsman wrote: "here's this faction that we've turned into a gigantic uber-customizable metagolem of infinite customizability, you can have them in a car on the ground in a plane, in every conceivable playstyle that exists in the game, every single represented aesthetic, ninety-trillion different armor marks and styles, historical inspirations, every color in the rainbow, every race and culture of humanity...
...but you CANT make them ladies. that is the sacred line across which we must throw our bodies and souls! Space Marines can be every conceivable configuration of 'your dudes' imaginable, SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT IMAGINE THEM AS YOUR DUDETTES!
As I said before, while there are outliers to females being able to compete almost on par with men, you then also have to factor the extreme outliers to men themselves that they are also competing against. This is why most sports (well until recently with the stuff I won't go into since that moves towards the realm of politics) are delineated between men and women because you're already dealing with the cream of the crop for men in terms of genetics/biology, so even if you have the top performing women, they're still going to be far below the higher ceiling for men.
While i generally kinda agree with that part, the female outliers don't just almost compete with men, they absolutely smoke the majority of men in what they do, this freaking 119 lb woman here for example can lift more than the absolute majority of men on the planet(average men are significantly bigger, but well below that lifting weight):
And yes of course go male outliers even significantly higher than their female counterparts, but(and i'm not even the biggest fan of the female Space Marines idea, they should indeed just portray the SoB/SoS and especially characters like Celestine better) in a fictional over the top Verse(quite literally run by the Rule of Cool) 10000s of years in the future where even unaugmented female characters regularily perform blatantly superhuman feats is real world biology(especially for genetically engineered super soldiers) probably not the strongest argument.
Yeah... I exalted that as well. Scotsman wins the thread. I love his methodical, practical, and logical approach to the issue discussed in this thread. Sgt. Smudge in my opinion strayed a bit at a few points but I admire where smudges heart is. Argive has provided a vital role of the opposition and the material which kept this thread going this long and this peacefully; some of the other opposition have as well. I’ve learned a lot about why I hardly see women playing 40K; I started this thread because I just thought that it was weird that we got primaris before or sans female space marines, and I thought it would be interesting to explore the concept of the emperor being a misogynist, or at least biased in some way against women. I definitely had sigmarines in my mind when I pondered this. That explanation would have given real character to space marines being exclusively male in my opinion. I honestly didn’t have much of an opinion on the matter.
When I asked my wife if she would have played WOW as compulsively as she does if there weren’t female characters, she said she definitely wouldn’t have picked it up. She even typically prefers playing as a pandaran as she finds more representation with their body type; curvy/plump. This representation applies to the clothing she chooses to buy as well; she loves finding her body type represented in the ads and recently has taken to Admiring certain clothing lines for having a very realistic projection of their product on a realistic sample of people, like those with c section scarring prominently displayed or cellulite and what not. In marketing visible representation is VERY important and I’ve observed this effect with the successes of this company and similar reviews and praises.
I’ve learned that exclusively male marines without an explanation like “the emperor believed women to be inferior/prefers the company of men” adds nothing to the background and game, and maintains the status quo of this game and setting as a man cave and boys only club. I also find sociology a fascinating subject and have read quite a bit of literature that supports the talking points of Sgt Smudge, CEO Kasen, Insaniak, and others, whilst finding little research in any respectable academic database that supports the opposing view, meaning that the opposition in my eyes took a scientific debate and made it political. My research admittedly was more on race than gender, but the same concepts of sociodynamic equilibrium apply across different systems of people defined by whatever barriers we choose to apply to define the people observed. (no idea what the actual sociological term for it is, I kind of used my understanding of chemistry to develop that. Peer reviewed research seldom deigns to define basic theory and terminology XD). I thank all participants for what they have contributed to my growth and development in this subject matter.
macluvin wrote: Yeah... I exalted that as well. Scotsman wins the thread. I love his methodical, practical, and logical approach to the issue discussed in this thread. Sgt. Smudge in my opinion strayed a bit at a few points but I admire where smudges heart is. Argive has provided a vital role of the opposition and the material which kept this thread going this long and this peacefully; some of the other opposition have as well. I’ve learned a lot about why I hardly see women playing 40K; I started this thread because I just thought that it was weird that we got primaris before or sans female space marines, and I thought it would be interesting to explore the concept of the emperor being a misogynist, or at least biased in some way against women. I definitely had sigmarines in my mind when I pondered this. That explanation would have given real character to space marines being exclusively male in my opinion. I honestly didn’t have much of an opinion on the matter.
When I asked my wife if she would have played WOW as compulsively as she does if there weren’t female characters, she said she definitely wouldn’t have picked it up. She even typically prefers playing as a pandaran as she finds more representation with their body type; curvy/plump. This representation applies to the clothing she chooses to buy as well; she loves finding her body type represented in the ads and recently has taken to Admiring certain clothing lines for having a very realistic projection of their product on a realistic sample of people, like those with c section scarring prominently displayed or cellulite and what not. In marketing visible representation is VERY important and I’ve observed this effect with the successes of this company and similar reviews and praises.
I’ve learned that exclusively male marines without an explanation like “the emperor believed women to be inferior/prefers the company of men” adds nothing to the background and game, and maintains the status quo of this game and setting as a man cave and boys only club. I also find sociology a fascinating subject and have read quite a bit of literature that supports the talking points of Sgt Smudge, CEO Kasen, Insaniak, and others, whilst finding little research in any respectable academic database that supports the opposing view, meaning that the opposition in my eyes took a scientific debate and made it political. My research admittedly was more on race than gender, but the same concepts of sociodynamic equilibrium apply across different systems of people defined by whatever barriers we choose to apply to define the people observed. (no idea what the actual sociological term for it is, I kind of used my understanding of chemistry to develop that. Peer reviewed research seldom deigns to define basic theory and terminology XD). I thank all participants for what they have contributed to my growth and development in this subject matter.
Thanks for starting the thread. I consider the greatest move forward is that this thread has survived and lasted as long it has. This is a real shift in tone and support since I last tried a couple of years ago when it flamed out and got closed in hours. I asked the mods then to allow a frank thread where the debate could happen but it was too volatile a subject then and I respected their decision to not allow it. Too much hate and anger. It’s really nice to see the subject gain traction and support. Those against it have the same excuses/reasons but there are less of them and the most vitriolic of them seem to have moved on or lost their confidence to shout out. So I’m seeing this whole thing as a step in the right direction. Fingers crossed GW take the next step and do it. Then we can all see the game and world will survive and thrive.
- Ohh these guys are all about honour, loyalty, blah blah blah I wana get behind this.
- these guys are blood thirsty berserkers whose leader will likely chop you up if you standing next to him (praise be to kharne)
- These guys are demons who are all about excess etc etc.
- This is.. some sort of bioform that -" ohh my god my face is melted off!!!"
Id think when enetering 40k you pick the thing that speaks to you and I suppose represents what you like about the setting actors.
If the chief thing you care about the setting's faction is what dangles between the models legs, i think this is a problem unique to you and nobody should entertain changes based on this because the game/setting has nothing to do with genitelia...
If you have a problem with one particular group of toy soldiers all sporting penises at birth I think thats a 'you' problem ultimately...
Promoting an idea that there is something inherently wrong with people owning penises grouping together with other people who own penises is a bit strange...
the_scotsman wrote: "here's this faction that we've turned into a gigantic uber-customizable metagolem of infinite customizability, you can have them in a car on the ground in a plane, in every conceivable playstyle that exists in the game, every single represented aesthetic, ninety-trillion different armor marks and styles, historical inspirations, every color in the rainbow, every race and culture of humanity...
...but you CANT make them ladies. that is the sacred line across which we must throw our bodies and souls! Space Marines can be every conceivable configuration of 'your dudes' imaginable, SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT IMAGINE THEM AS YOUR DUDETTES!
Love this. Exalted. This to me sums up 34 pages of banging our heads against an unreasonable brick wall.
And credit to Sgt smudge for his apparent endless patients trying to explain to people that women marines is not that big a deal game wise.
And to those saying it doesn’t matter because it is only toy soldiers, tell that to the ones who are sending the death threats and hate to people who only want the core faction of their favourite game not to exclude women.
The police surely sorted them out already.. Why would we need to tell them anything if they scum...? But please show me where these people are I will educate them. They don't seem to be on here or my local club..
Nothing is stopping anyone from doing their models in any specific way. GW wont come around your house and burn your collection.
But you also cannot expect everyone to like what you do or think its a good idea. Like everything in life.
Argive wrote: When I look at a model/faction/unit Im like:
- Ohh these guys are all about honour, loyalty, blah blah blah I wana get behind this.
- these guys are blood thirsty berserkers whose leader will likely chop you up if you standing next to him (praise be to kharne)
- These guys are demons who are all about excess etc etc.
- This is.. some sort of bioform that -" ohh my god my face is melted off!!!"
Id think when enetering 40k you pick the thing that speaks to you and I suppose represents what you like about the setting actors.
If the chief thing you care about the setting's faction is what dangles between the models legs, i think this is a problem unique to you and nobody should entertain changes based on this because the game/setting has nothing to do with genitelia...
If you have a problem with one particular group of toy soldiers all sporting penises at birth I think thats a 'you' problem ultimately...
Promoting an idea that there is something inherently wrong with people owning penises grouping together with other people who own penises is a bit strange...
In closing.
Mad mad world..
But looking at a hobby and wondering why a fantasy future arbitrarily excluded my sex/gender from well over half the known/explored universe (lore, books, models, etc) is a bit of a turn off. Representation is a sociology concept; think chemical equilibrium but applied to people. It won’t apply to everyone but it is a stressor that moves the dynamic equilibrium state of the culture and player base.
The police surely sorted them out already.. Why would we need to tell them anything if they scum...?
But please show me where these people are I will educate them. They don't seem to be on here or my local club..
Well you’ll have to actually start talking to and listening to women to find them. Generally speaking men aren’t typically the focus point of misogyny, or sexual discrimination in a sausage fest like the 40K fan base. It’s sort of the same reason why a white person may be unaware of cross burnings in front lawns; they typically are not the subject of them.
Nothing is stopping anyone from doing their models in any specific way.
GW wont come around your house and burn your collection.
But you also cannot expect everyone to like what you do or think its a good idea.
Like everything in life.
Nothing is stopping that except the legions of passive aggressive comments like”space marines can’t be female” to death threats that still persist online and other misogynist harassment’s.
It’s fine if folk don’t like it, you are right that you cannot expect everyone to like what you do or think it’s a good idea. I think you should be able to at least expect not to receive sexist harassment and death threats and passive aggressive comments about how it’s not fitting to the lore though. I do all kinds of stuff I mention online, some of it honestly deserving of harassment, and I have yet to be harassed. This isn’t normal and I loathe to think what sort of messed up fantasy world you live in if you think it is.
Eh, I'm swayed. I was kind of clinging to the idea that the lore is an important thing, and I forgot just how much they had rewritten it already. I guess I was a grumpy old man shouting for the kids to get off his lawn, forgetting that the council had converted it to a playground over the last few years.
Why not just rewrite it so women are included? I already agreed it would be an awesome result.
Argive wrote: When I look at a model/faction/unit Im like:
- Ohh these guys are all about honour, loyalty, blah blah blah I wana get behind this.
- these guys are blood thirsty berserkers whose leader will likely chop you up if you standing next to him (praise be to kharne)
- These guys are demons who are all about excess etc etc.
- This is.. some sort of bioform that -" ohh my god my face is melted off!!!"
In which case, congratulations on not seeing gender? But gender representation is still very much a factor in 40k - after all, I'm sure you can tell which out of a Space Marine and Sister of Battle is supposed to be a woman.
Id think when enetering 40k you pick the thing that speaks to you and I suppose represents what you like about the setting actors.
And perhaps a lot of people pick something that might resemble something like them, because that speaks to them.
For example, someone might pick up Space Wolves because they have a strong connection to Norse heritage, or might pick up Guardsmen because they're a soldier themselves. For whatever reason, we *know* that there are women who feel alienated from Space Marines because they are a cool concept which is inexplicably all male for no good reason.
Why can't we fix that problem?
If the chief thing you care about the setting's faction is what dangles between the models legs,
There's nothing dangling between their legs. They're toy models. Hell, I don't even think there would be anything between a Space Marines' legs if they were left as is.
But you cannot deny that they are *representative* of gender, and when one group is represented more than another, I have to ask "why", and then secondly "why can't this be different".
i think this is a problem unique to you
Evidently not, considering how many people share it.
Perhaps, and here's a radical idea, it's actually quite a common issue?
and nobody should entertain changes based on this because the game/setting has nothing to do with genitelia...
You're right, the game has very little to do with genitalia. We're not talking about genitalia though. We're talking about gender presentation, and why, for a game that supposedly doesn't care about it, there's an awful lot of arbitrary rules on what genders can do what.
If you have a problem with one particular group of toy soldiers all sporting penises at birth I think thats a 'you' problem ultimately...
And likewise, if you have a problem with a group of toy soldiers being both male and female and everything in between (because there was no good reason they shouldn't anyway), is that not also a you problem?
Promoting an idea that there is something inherently wrong with people owning penises grouping together with other people who own penises is a bit strange...
No-one said that. But nice strawman.
In closing. Mad mad world..
I know! It's absolutely mad that people would care so much about so vociferously stopping women Space Marines. After all, these are toy soldiers - who cares about their genitals?
The police surely sorted them out already..
Because I'm sure the police will take that seriously...
Oh, you're being serious?
But please show me where these people are I will educate them. They don't seem to be on here or my local club..
I mean, there literally *was* a user several pages back who advocated for making their hobby environment specifically toxic to keep women out. I don't remember you "educating" them.
And hey, it's not hard to find those examples. There were several examples of people being antagonistic to others just because they made women Space Marines in the external threads linked, and you'd find plenty on Twitter. So, if you wanna go "educate" them, please do!
Nothing is stopping anyone from doing their models in any specific way.
Except there very much is a backlash to women Space Marines. You can say all you like "no-one's stopping you", but constant negative comments and snide remarks definitely accumulate.
But you also cannot expect everyone to like what you do or think its a good idea. Like everything in life.
But why should women Space Marines be a bad idea? And why such a commonly held one? It surpasses any kind of criticisms people have about bad paintjobs, or playing an unpopular Chapter, or even a different faction. Women Space Marines are exceptionally taboo. Why?
Despite being in the "yes for changing the lore for women space marines" camp now, I think this:
But you cannot deny that they are *representative* of gender, and when one group is represented more than another, I have to ask "why", and then secondly "why can't this be different".
Needs the extra step of "does this need to be changed?"
I agree that we need equal representation. But there are times when things also need to be left alone, and your method of thinking doesn't seem to account for that.
It seems like (from data we have from massive, millions-of-datapoints MMORPGs and the like) when people are presented with a wide array of factions and are asked to choose one, they often represent themselves within the game, particularly when the players are new.
I do not, and I think most people arguing here do not, think it is an inherently bad thing to have all-male factions present in the 40k setting. The fact that is has only ever been brought up as a slippery slope fallacy example that people will start demanding non-masculine orks should serve as evidence of that fact.
What I do think is that:
It is a non-ideal situation that if a person who is male, like myself, is starting 40k, the faction that looks like me but inserted into the setting and marketed in all the discounted starter materials is the one with by far the most customization when it comes to model appearance, aesthetic variation, cultural reference, and gameplay style but if a person who is female is starting 40k, their two choices for an army that has any significant number of models that looks like them are
1) evil sex demons
2) evil kinky leather elves
3) an all-female order of nuns
none of which come in discounted starter boxes, and all of which are among the more expensive armies in the game to collect, being relatively non-elite, and none of which have anywhere near the degree of customizability that space marines do.
If you look at Sisters in particular, they:
-must be based on catholic joan of arc imagery, if you are interested in any other cultural reference with your sisters you've basically got to get third party models
-cannot be evil (no "chaos sisters" like there are chaos space marines)
-cannot have psykers
Admittedly, now theyve got their wave two, you've got a good number of choices between other playstyles present in the game, about on par with any of the middle-size xenos factions. but theyre multiple degrees of magnitude less customizable and tailor-able than the gigantic blob that is the third of the armies in the game that make up 'space marines.'
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some bloke wrote: Despite being in the "yes for changing the lore for women space marines" camp now, I think this:
But you cannot deny that they are *representative* of gender, and when one group is represented more than another, I have to ask "why", and then secondly "why can't this be different".
Needs the extra step of "does this need to be changed?"
I agree that we need equal representation. But there are times when things also need to be left alone, and your method of thinking doesn't seem to account for that.
Custodes and orks are a pair of examples where I don't think things need to be changed. Because 'all male' is a perfectly fine defining trait for a faction, or unit, or whatever, to have narratively.
but to give another example, if we imagined a world where White Scars, Tallarn and Thousand Sons did not exist, and where you had represented in the setting references to the cultures of
-Romans (UM most strongly, among others)
-Vikings (SM)
-Russians (multiple guard regiments)
-Americans (Catachans)
-British (Cadians)
and no models painted in colors other than caucasian skin appeared in the various magazines and marketing materials, but space marines existed as they do now, I think it'd be a perfectly reasonable assertion to say "hey, its pretty clear people like making historical cultural references with their human 40k minis, maybe we should insert some other cultures into space marines and guard to do that, because it would expand the things people would be able to do with their collections."
some bloke wrote:I agree that we need equal representation. But there are times when things also need to be left alone, and your method of thinking doesn't seem to account for that.
Some things to be left alone? Yeah, sure, I can get behind that, but those things need to be *important* to be left alone, the setting-defining and critical aspects that 40k simply would not be without, the stuff that affects the whole setting from the ground up.
And I don't think women Space Marines is one of those things, and not by a long shot.
the_scotsman wrote:Custodes and orks are a pair of examples where I don't think things need to be changed. Because 'all male' is a perfectly fine defining trait for a faction, or unit, or whatever, to have narratively.
but to give another example, if we imagined a world where White Scars, Tallarn and Thousand Sons did not exist, and where you had represented in the setting references to the cultures of
-Romans (UM most strongly, among others)
-Vikings (SM)
-Russians (multiple guard regiments)
-Americans (Catachans)
-British (Cadians)
and no models painted in colors other than caucasian skin appeared in the various magazines and marketing materials, but space marines existed as they do now, I think it'd be a perfectly reasonable assertion to say "hey, its pretty clear people like making historical cultural references with their human 40k minis, maybe we should insert some other cultures into space marines and guard to do that, because it would expand the things people would be able to do with their collections."
Very much agreed. Custodes make use of the "all male" trope much better than Space Marines do, if we really needed an "all male" faction to tick the boxes, so to speak.
And as well, the point on representation - it wasn't so long ago that people didn't think that Ultramarines could be anything other than caucasian, I'm glad to see more people, GW included, to be breaking from the "white male default" that was so prevalent.
Space Marines are a faction defined by their player customisation and freedom. They get tons of units, with tons of options, with more canon colour schemes and subfactions than other factions get units, with a model range that lends perfectly towards this freedom of expression and creativity. Which is why it blows my mind that we don't lean further into that player freedom and get rid of the one thing that stands as this awkward weird hangover against it.
Argive wrote: When I look at a model/faction/unit Im like:
- Ohh these guys are all about honour, loyalty, blah blah blah I wana get behind this.
- these guys are blood thirsty berserkers whose leader will likely chop you up if you standing next to him (praise be to kharne)
- These guys are demons who are all about excess etc etc.
- This is.. some sort of bioform that -" ohh my god my face is melted off!!!"
Id think when enetering 40k you pick the thing that speaks to you and I suppose represents what you like about the setting actors.
If the chief thing you care about the setting's faction is what dangles between the models legs, i think this is a problem unique to you and nobody should entertain changes based on this because the game/setting has nothing to do with genitelia...
If you have a problem with one particular group of toy soldiers all sporting penises at birth I think thats a 'you' problem ultimately...
Promoting an idea that there is something inherently wrong with people owning penises grouping together with other people who own penises is a bit strange...
the_scotsman wrote: "here's this faction that we've turned into a gigantic uber-customizable metagolem of infinite customizability, you can have them in a car on the ground in a plane, in every conceivable playstyle that exists in the game, every single represented aesthetic, ninety-trillion different armor marks and styles, historical inspirations, every color in the rainbow, every race and culture of humanity...
...but you CANT make them ladies. that is the sacred line across which we must throw our bodies and souls! Space Marines can be every conceivable configuration of 'your dudes' imaginable, SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT IMAGINE THEM AS YOUR DUDETTES!
Love this. Exalted. This to me sums up 34 pages of banging our heads against an unreasonable brick wall.
And credit to Sgt smudge for his apparent endless patients trying to explain to people that women marines is not that big a deal game wise.
And to those saying it doesn’t matter because it is only toy soldiers, tell that to the ones who are sending the death threats and hate to people who only want the core faction of their favourite game not to exclude women.
The police surely sorted them out already.. Why would we need to tell them anything if they scum...?
But please show me where these people are I will educate them. They don't seem to be on here or my local club..
Nothing is stopping anyone from doing their models in any specific way.
GW wont come around your house and burn your collection.
But you also cannot expect everyone to like what you do or think its a good idea.
Like everything in life.
You say above that when some one looks at 40K they pick a faction that “speaks to you a represents what you like”. So surely if you are a young (or not so) female looking at 40K and the only place women appear to exist is in a fetish nun army or a handful of elves then you might be thinking this game isn’t meant for you. (Unless you are a nun fetishist) if the main faction the one one in every box and on the the covers of all the stuff etc, doesn’t allow women at all??? This is your own logic here. People are are drawn to factions that they find representative. It’s not about penis’s, it’s about being told you are not allowed or it’s not for you. It’s about saying half the game does not represent you at all.
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some bloke wrote: Eh, I'm swayed. I was kind of clinging to the idea that the lore is an important thing, and I forgot just how much they had rewritten it already. I guess I was a grumpy old man shouting for the kids to get off his lawn, forgetting that the council had converted it to a playground over the last few years.
Why not just rewrite it so women are included? I already agreed it would be an awesome result.
Thank you for saying so, it makes the whole thread worth while. Never going to convince everyone but a few at a time and we will make the game a nicer place eventually. Good on you.
Flinty wrote: Female marines look good to me. Other opinions may differ.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a starcraft model?
Also, it has pointy ears. Its a space elf.
I just want a space marine model with a female head. And I know I'm in the minority here, but I wish they would fix some proportions of Space Marines in the model lines and lore.
This has always been how I've wanted my Space Marines to look like. More form fitting suit, smaller pauldrons, slimmer legs and feet. Much larger range of motion than what typical artwork portrays and suggests. With the size of pauldrons depicted in typical artwork, You wouldn't even be able to raise your elbows 2 inches without squeezing your head with your armor.
Its simply more human proportioned. Which I find more believable.
Flinty wrote: Female marines look good to me. Other opinions may differ.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a starcraft model?
Not sure if joking, but no, to me its clearly a Reiver from the backpack and armament.
Also, it has pointy ears. Its a space elf.
umm, nope. comms gear, not ears
I just want a space marine model with a female head. And I know I'm in the minority here, but I wish they would fix some proportions of Space Marines in the model lines and lore.
This has always been how I've wanted my Space Marines to look like. More form fitting suit, smaller pauldrons, slimmer legs and feet. Much larger range of motion than what typical artwork portrays and suggests. With the size of pauldrons depicted in typical artwork, You wouldn't even be able to raise your elbows 2 inches without squeezing your head with your armor.
Its simply more human proportioned. Which I find more believable.
I've deliberately stayed out of the debate. I prefer a neutral stance on this.
In this case there's a lot of merit to the inclusion side, so long as their intro is 'tasteful' and written well (or even if gw just cut those 'thirteen words', referred to recruits with more gender neutral language like 'aspirants' or 'adolescents' in the lore and just shrugged their shoulders and 'left it up to the players' when asked. No sprue... but yet no barriers either... )but I also have nothing against the status quo, and this staying as it is either.
Also, can we call it astartestosterone in future?
That said that model is fantastic. Jesus, yes! All tne praise! I genuinely think its brilliant and i want it as my Minotaurs lt. I'm a 'primaris ONLY' player when it comes to marines. genuinely ambivalent about the primaris lore when they came out and still just shrug my shoulders at it, literally my only thoughts when I first saw them were 'damn I love these. These are the space marines I wish I had 20 years ago' and 'right, what am I getting.
Gw releases a line of these female reivers, or Valkyries or whatever you want to call then that looks even half as good as that model, and I'm utterly utterly sold. And buying all of them.
That said, I don't think female marines will attract more female players. I posted this in thr offtopic thread and I wont repeat it here, but sufficeth to say, I think female marines will appeal far more to guys who want female marine than girls looking in a gw window. Femarines are not a 'bad' thing. That said, I think the things holding girls back from 40k are a lot more due to the social dynamics of the hobby and its hobbyists than the models we plonk down. Like #meetoo and #blm, it's not female models that'll get girls interested here, it's an overall culture change in how we play and the community dynamics athat is required to affect the changes you want to see.
So the models will likely NOT attract females, but you know might? ALL THE SM Advertising, posters, and media spots. If one woman/they/them is persuaded to try putting money and time/effort into this hobby, then I saw it's worth it. Because we need someone in this hobby that knows how to shower.
Ultimately though, if the only goal is to coax women into the hobby, then surely it is simpler for GW to just give equal advertising space to all the factions and not have to worry about making new parts, additional packaging requirements (their stuff is mass produced, so adding a sprue is not just "chucking one in the box", it's routing through the factory), and then also amending the lore (again), and then making new posters anyway because they need the female marines on them.
If you feature marines fighting against or alongside sisters of battle, guard, and all the other factions with female models, the posters will still feature marines and be recognizable, but they will also show female models.
Just changing the posters is a far simpler way to achieve this goal. And don't give me "but marines are the flagship", because they are only there because GW put them there. With decent marketing they can show off their other ranges as well.
some bloke wrote: Ultimately though, if the only goal is to coax women into the hobby, then surely it is simpler for GW to just give equal advertising space to all the factions and not have to worry about making new parts, additional packaging requirements (their stuff is mass produced, so adding a sprue is not just "chucking one in the box", it's routing through the factory), and then also amending the lore (again), and then making new posters anyway because they need the female marines on them.
If you feature marines fighting against or alongside sisters of battle, guard, and all the other factions with female models, the posters will still feature marines and be recognizable, but they will also show female models.
Just changing the posters is a far simpler way to achieve this goal. And don't give me "but marines are the flagship", because they are only there because GW put them there. With decent marketing they can show off their other ranges as well.
They use marines as the key faction because they sell, that’s what folk want. That’s why it’s marines vs whatever. So the women need to be in the marines. I’ve said a few times how sisters are not good for representation so won’t again. A couple of guard heads and the odd elf isn’t going to cut. Representation in marketing works, that’s why companies go out of their way to have ethnically diverse adverts and staff up front. But sadly it works the other way too. Saying no women in the the key faction has the opposite effect. No other faction comes close in terms of clout as the marines. And they are the ones with the no women policy.
some bloke wrote: Ultimately though, if the only goal is to coax women into the hobby, then surely it is simpler for GW to just give equal advertising space to all the factions and not have to worry about making new parts, additional packaging requirements (their stuff is mass produced, so adding a sprue is not just "chucking one in the box", it's routing through the factory), and then also amending the lore (again), and then making new posters anyway because they need the female marines on them.
If you feature marines fighting against or alongside sisters of battle, guard, and all the other factions with female models, the posters will still feature marines and be recognizable, but they will also show female models.
Just changing the posters is a far simpler way to achieve this goal. And don't give me "but marines are the flagship", because they are only there because GW put them there. With decent marketing they can show off their other ranges as well.
They use marines as the key faction because they sell, that’s what folk want. That’s why it’s marines vs whatever. So the women need to be in the marines. I’ve said a few times how sisters are not good for representation so won’t again. A couple of guard heads and the odd elf isn’t going to cut. Representation in marketing works, that’s why companies go out of their way to have ethnically diverse adverts and staff up front. But sadly it works the other way too. Saying no women in the the key faction has the opposite effect. No other faction comes close in terms of clout as the marines. And they are the ones with the no women policy.
And it returns to the only reason being that marines are in the forefront. The only reason marines are in the forefront is because GW put marines in the forefront.
Frankly, their selling power has probably gone stagnant. If they put up posters with their other, more interesting/diverse/other factions then they would probably generate a lot of interest, not only from women (which I honestly don't think it would achieve anyway) but from people who aren't interested in space marines. Chuk a poster of Orks fighting Guard up (with female guard) and I bet they won't see sales drop.
Again I ask, if it wasn't marines, would it matter? If Orks were the poster boys, or Tyranids, or Guard, or Sisters?
"because they are the product used to advertise" is a reason to change the product used for advertising. If a company that sells power tools and makeup wants t oimprove their customer base to get more men through the doors, they would put up more posters for power tools, not try to make makeup more appealing to men.
After 35 pages if you are still confused as to why this is important, that's entirely on you.
If you think ANY other faction has the representation that Space Marines do, I honestly don't know how to respond to that. You are being willfully ignorant of the basic truth. Astartes are the single most promoted faction in the history of 40k. Look at all the media that comes out of the GWGT. I am betting you most of the "approved media" will be of Astartes focus. Maybe some Sisters or Deldar to pander, but mostly it will be Astartes of some flavor.
And it returns to the only reason being that marines are in the forefront. The only reason marines are in the forefront is because GW put marines in the forefront.
Frankly, their selling power has probably gone stagnant. If they put up posters with their other, more interesting/diverse/other factions then they would probably generate a lot of interest, not only from women (which I honestly don't think it would achieve anyway) but from people who aren't interested in space marines. Chuk a poster of Orks fighting Guard up (with female guard) and I bet they won't see sales drop.
The past 3 years would disagree with your belief that SM have gone stagnant in the marketing department. GW has seen record sales and 40k has continued to have SM at its core throughout all of this. SM are the single most profitable faction GW has across every single range it makes and while it would be nice to see more of the game factions represented in marketing, that isn't what is happening in reality which is what our arguments must be based on.
Spoiler:
Again I ask, if it wasn't marines, would it matter? If Orks were the poster boys, or Tyranids, or Guard, or Sisters?
"because they are the product used to advertise" is a reason to change the product used for advertising. If a company that sells power tools and makeup wants t oimprove their customer base to get more men through the doors, they would put up more posters for power tools, not try to make makeup more appealing to men.
The issue with the whole "but what if it wasn't SM as the flagship" is that we have absolutely no idea. Who knows what 40k would look like if SM weren't the poster faction for the entire thing.
As for your analogy, you've taken two entirely separate products and tried to equate them to a single product.
GW sells models and is trying to sell more models, by increasing representation and diversity in the model line (specifically the flagship model line) they can then sell more models to more people.
Asking if "X was Y why would this entire situation relating to X even matter?" is such a bad question.
some bloke wrote: Ultimately though, if the only goal is to coax women into the hobby, then surely it is simpler for GW to just give equal advertising space to all the factions and not have to worry about making new parts, additional packaging requirements (their stuff is mass produced, so adding a sprue is not just "chucking one in the box", it's routing through the factory), and then also amending the lore (again), and then making new posters anyway because they need the female marines on them.
If you feature marines fighting against or alongside sisters of battle, guard, and all the other factions with female models, the posters will still feature marines and be recognizable, but they will also show female models.
Just changing the posters is a far simpler way to achieve this goal. And don't give me "but marines are the flagship", because they are only there because GW put them there. With decent marketing they can show off their other ranges as well.
They use marines as the key faction because they sell, that’s what folk want. That’s why it’s marines vs whatever. So the women need to be in the marines. I’ve said a few times how sisters are not good for representation so won’t again. A couple of guard heads and the odd elf isn’t going to cut. Representation in marketing works, that’s why companies go out of their way to have ethnically diverse adverts and staff up front. But sadly it works the other way too. Saying no women in the the key faction has the opposite effect. No other faction comes close in terms of clout as the marines. And they are the ones with the no women policy.
And it returns to the only reason being that marines are in the forefront. The only reason marines are in the forefront is because GW put marines in the forefront.
Frankly, their selling power has probably gone stagnant. If they put up posters with their other, more interesting/diverse/other factions then they would probably generate a lot of interest, not only from women (which I honestly don't think it would achieve anyway) but from people who aren't interested in space marines. Chuk a poster of Orks fighting Guard up (with female guard) and I bet they won't see sales drop.
Again I ask, if it wasn't marines, would it matter? If Orks were the poster boys, or Tyranids, or Guard, or Sisters?
"because they are the product used to advertise" is a reason to change the product used for advertising. If a company that sells power tools and makeup wants t oimprove their customer base to get more men through the doors, they would put up more posters for power tools, not try to make makeup more appealing to men.
Pretty much this. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that marines are the most popular because of the sunk-cost of GW constantly updating and adding to the range that they at this point have dedicated entire financial quarters of the year to SM releases.
I'd also argue that AoS or even WFB in prior years are an example of what it would be like if you don't have only a single faction pushed as the flagship. Chaos Warriors were the closest to the iconic SM design as far as their armour goes, and while they got some decent attention they definitely didn't hog releases the way SM did and they were effectively an all-male presenting army barring Valkia. Certainly you'd have more variety in terms of how females are included while also fulfilling the need for other armies to be updated, killing two birds with one stone if you increased female representation amongst existing factions while lowering the output for SM marketing and releases.
As for your analogy, you've taken two entirely separate products and tried to equate them to a single product. GW sells models and is trying to sell more models, by increasing representation and diversity in the model line (specifically the flagship model line) they can then sell more models to more people. Asking if "X was Y why would this entire situation relating to X even matter?" is such a bad question.
Okay, let's take the product "Sport".
a Sport channel wants to sell people viewing rights to watch sport. Their flagship product in "American Football". American football is played by men, because of an arbitrary decision made during a time when sexism was worse. The poster boys wear bright colours, lots of armour, and are all masculine beefcakes. No women here except the cheerleaders, and that's not exactly helping. The sport itself is played by the big, masculine men in brightly coloured armour.
The channel also sells a variety of other sports, which include purely women, purely men, Mixed, and animal (greyhound racing). But the flagship product they advertise is American football.
Assuming for a moment that this channel has complete control over the sports they sell, so can make any change they want - and they want to improve representation. Is it better for them to change who their poster boys are to reflect a more balanced representation of people, or to instead add women to the American football games?
The problem with the idea of "add female marines to attract females" is that people want to represent themselves with kickass versions of not just what they are, but what they want to be. Marines are square-jawed superheroes with big guns and power armour, who do manly things like crushing their enemies in giant fists, and fire exploding ammo which blows up their enemies from machine guns. They are, for better or worse, very much marketed for the male market. Regardless of the head you put on them, they don't say "girl power".
The reason marines don't appeal to women as much as men is nothing to do with their heads, it's to do with the heads of the customers. I bet you that if they were made non-gender, just got helmets on all of them and called each other "Comrade" instead of brother, then they would remain popular for men and unpopular for women.
The issue is that what marines are is stereotypically masculine, and this is more of an issue with the stereotype than the models & lore. Just changing their heads won't change that. What marines do is all from their heads and not their hearts - stereotypically masculine - and they are soldiers who follow orders - stereotypically masculine - who's main traits are strength - stereotypically masculine - who use big guns as a solution for everything - stereotypically masculine - etc.
I am absolutely not saying the stereotype is right or justified, but it is there. And making female marines that act the same way as regular marines won't make them more appealing to women.
Marines are the flagship because they sell, and it sells because of marines. That’s simple economics, not because of GW loving them. It’s all about money. So women marines please.
some bloke wrote:Ultimately though, if the only goal is to coax women into the hobby, then surely it is simpler for GW to just give equal advertising space to all the factions and not have to worry about making new parts, additional packaging requirements (their stuff is mass produced, so adding a sprue is not just "chucking one in the box", it's routing through the factory), and then also amending the lore (again), and then making new posters anyway because they need the female marines on them.
Actually, I've been over this one. It's still easier to change Marines than it is to equal design space to all factions, because there's a lot of factions, and even the gender neutral ones are severely lacking in women representation - and as I said, representation is nothing without visibility.
And that's without still considering the cultural weight Space Marines will still continue to possess, and how women Space Marines still don't work from a faction design perspective (that design being that Space Marines are supposed to be massively customisable), and how the existence of completely arbitrary rules as to why no women are allowed contribute to the feeling of exclusion many women feel.
If you feature marines fighting against or alongside sisters of battle, guard, and all the other factions with female models, the posters will still feature marines and be recognizable, but they will also show female models.
Just changing the posters is a far simpler way to achieve this goal. And don't give me "but marines are the flagship", because they are only there because GW put them there. With decent marketing they can show off their other ranges as well.
Yeah, they're there because GW put them there - and it would be a massive market loss for them to remove them from there, considering the cultural weight Space Marines have now gained.
It's simply much more expensive (not to mention diminishing their flagship faction's influence) to re-invigorate every other faction (and still doesn't address the fundamental flaws of Space Marines being all male in the first place from an artistic level).
some bloke wrote:And it returns to the only reason being that marines are in the forefront. The only reason marines are in the forefront is because GW put marines in the forefront.
And the reason they stay in the forefront is because they sell well in the forefront.
They will continue to stay in the forefront as long as people are buying them.
Frankly, their selling power has probably gone stagnant.
Tell that to Primaris Marines, and the massive uptick in Space Marine sales/projects.
No, Space Marines are very much still the leading GW faction, and it's by a ridiculous margin.
If they put up posters with their other, more interesting/diverse/other factions then they would probably generate a lot of interest, not only from women (which I honestly don't think it would achieve anyway) but from people who aren't interested in space marines. Chuk a poster of Orks fighting Guard up (with female guard) and I bet they won't see sales drop.
But it's not just posters - its material, books, games, merch, and models - and without injecting a frankly ludicrous amount of money in, I don't think they'd hit anywhere near close to what Space Marines have, because Space Marines have such a ridiculous focus.
Contrasted with "a new sprue, change 13 words of redundant lore, and when we inevitably make new Marine stuff, chuck some women in there", and you're doing much better for cheaper - and you're fulfilling what many many hobbyists, male and female alike, have been clamouring for.
Again I ask, if it wasn't marines, would it matter? If Orks were the poster boys, or Tyranids, or Guard, or Sisters?
But the poster boys aren't Orks, Tyranids, Guard or Sisters. They're Marines.
Let's stick on topic.
"because they are the product used to advertise" is a reason to change the product used for advertising. If a company that sells power tools and makeup wants t oimprove their customer base to get more men through the doors, they would put up more posters for power tools, not try to make makeup more appealing to men.
I have no idea how this analogy is even supposed to make sense in context.
Why can't women Space Marines be "power tools"?
Grimskul wrote:It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that marines are the most popular because of the sunk-cost of GW constantly updating and adding to the range that they at this point have dedicated entire financial quarters of the year to SM releases.
Oh, agreed. And that's why, in practical terms, I don't believe that "just change who the flagship faction is is a realistic or even feasible idea, because GW have made it very clear that Space Marines are the focus.
I'd also argue that AoS or even WFB in prior years are an example of what it would be like if you don't have only a single faction pushed as the flagship. Chaos Warriors were the closest to the iconic SM design as far as their armour goes, and while they got some decent attention they definitely didn't hog releases the way SM did and they were effectively an all-male presenting army barring Valkia.
And not Stormcast? Even Stormcast aren't as heavily focused on as Space Marines are, and yet, they also have women members - to quite popular acclaim too.
Certainly you'd have more variety in terms of how females are included while also fulfilling the need for other armies to be updated, killing two birds with one stone if you increased female representation amongst existing factions while lowering the output for SM marketing and releases.
And then I still have to come back to "why are Space Marines all male in the first place", as well as highlighting how, if you want variety for how women are included in 40k, why can't they be in the faction that encourages the most variety?
some bloke wrote:Okay, let's take the product "Sport".
a Sport channel wants to sell people viewing rights to watch sport. Their flagship product in "American Football". American football is played by men, because of an arbitrary decision made during a time when sexism was worse. The poster boys wear bright colours, lots of armour, and are all masculine beefcakes. No women here except the cheerleaders, and that's not exactly helping. The sport itself is played by the big, masculine men in brightly coloured armour.
The channel also sells a variety of other sports, which include purely women, purely men, Mixed, and animal (greyhound racing). But the flagship product they advertise is American football.
Assuming for a moment that this channel has complete control over the sports they sell, so can make any change they want - and they want to improve representation. Is it better for them to change who their poster boys are to reflect a more balanced representation of people, or to instead add women to the American football games?
If there is a fundamental issue, it is that sports don't need to be single gender, or that the male sports are so much more heavily advertised and funded than the women-led ones. There definitely *should* be games of American football with women in, just like how here in the UK, we have football played by both men and women, in separate teams, but the sport itself is still mixed gender.
Your analogy, if I'm not mistaking, implies that the sports themselves are the factions, and that American football, as the whole sport itself, represents Space Marines and is only for men. I have to question why that is the case, when the broadcaster could simply also air matches done by women's American football teams - like the UK do with our football - making the sport/faction of football/Space Marines into something more representative.
Again, you act like "arbitrary decisions" can't be changed. Why not?
The problem with the idea of "add female marines to attract females" is that people want to represent themselves with kickass versions of not just what they are, but what they want to be.
And many women want to see themselves in badass power armour, with an easily customised design, with a big ass bolter that lets them do cool stuff.
Simple as that.
Marines are square-jawed superheroes with big guns and power armour, who do manly things like crushing their enemies in giant fists, and fire exploding ammo which blows up their enemies from machine guns. They are, for better or worse, very much marketed for the male market. Regardless of the head you put on them, they don't say "girl power".
If you look back in this thread, you'll see plenty of women's testimonies saying they want just that - but with women.
If you look at the Stormcast, you'll see square-jawed superheroes with big armour and big swords and big hammers, who do """""""manly""""""" things like crushing their enemies in their giant fists. And yet, they include women, and many women really like them.
So, perhaps the whole "marketed for men" is a bit of a silly argument when you consider that women still like that stuff.
The reason marines don't appeal to women as much as men is nothing to do with their heads, it's to do with the heads of the customers.
So what about the heads of the women who want women Space Marines? Are they simply not acting appropriately for their gender, so shouldn't be catered to?
I bet you that if they were made non-gender, just got helmets on all of them and called each other "Comrade" instead of brother, then they would remain popular for men and unpopular for women.
Actually, that's exactly what a lot of women have advocated for. I'd say, based on that, they'd be more popular, because it reflects a move away from male default dominance.
The issue is that what marines are is stereotypically masculine
And Stormcast aren't?
and this is more of an issue with the stereotype than the models & lore. Just changing their heads won't change that. What marines do is all from their heads and not their hearts - stereotypically masculine - and they are soldiers who follow orders - stereotypically masculine - who's main traits are strength - stereotypically masculine - who use big guns as a solution for everything - stereotypically masculine - etc.
I am absolutely not saying the stereotype is right or justified, but it is there.
And I'm saying that the stereotype also exists for Stormcast, and for Guardsmen, and for nearly all 40k factions, because war, by your own definitions of masculinity, is masculine.
And yet, women play "masculine" factions. Almost like them being "masculine" doesn't mean they shouldn't include women, or that women can't enjoy "masculine" hobbies. It's almost like women just don't want to feel excluded, and saying "well, we don't want to showcase women in this faction because it's a masculine faction for a masculine hobby and women just Don't Like That Sort Of Stuff" is exactly the kind of exclusionary stuff I'm talking about.
And making female marines that act the same way as regular marines won't make them more appealing to women.
Did you miss out all the testimonies where women, linked in this thread, have said "yeah, having women Marines would really appeal to me"?
Because it honestly sounds like you're sweeping those testimonies under the rug.
And regardless if it's one woman or one hundred saying it - why shouldn't you do it in the first place?
I'm rather surprised seeing you defend the idea of female Space Marine (not unpleasantly surprised btw). Back in 2017, you and I had an argument on the subject of female Space Marines and you were rather opposed to the idea. And then they say people never change :p.
First point: you keep bringing up stormcast, but the models for them are clearly more than just a headswap for female models.
Anyone who is already interested in the hobby but also wants to change it to feel more included is putting up their own walls. What is to stop women from walking into GW and buying some space marines if they like them that much?
What about if someone with a phobia of insects starts saying "I like tyranids, but can they make them less bug like for me?"? The armies are what the armies are. People shouldn't expect them to be changed to pander to their preferences.
and once again I reiterate that I am for making female marines, but doing so because it would be a cool thing to do. I would prefer to see more than just a headswap.
And you saying "It's just an extra sprue", I wonder if you've any experience in mass manufacture. The production lines of GW will be set up to maximize the amount of sprues they can produce with each injection. The dies for such a machine will cost in the order of hundreds of thousands, and there will be no position to "just add" your extra head sprue. They would need to have an entire new die made, specifically to include it, which would push another sprue off the edge, reducing productivity from each injection.
Or they could just start including armies with females in their marketing drives, and in 6 months the word will be out that GW does more than just space marines, and their models aren't all male. The marketing drives would have happened anyway, so no extra costs involved. Just a different way of thinking.
I'm rather surprised seeing you defend the idea of female Space Marine (not unpleasantly surprised btw). Back in 2017, you and I had an argument on the subject of female Space Marines and you were rather opposed to the idea. And then they say people never change :p.
You're absolutely right! I like to think that my sense of priorities has changed, and there's a lot of perspectives I used to hold that I've reflected on, and saw the deeply problematic elements in them.
I only hope I can do more to help more people do what I did, than what younger me did against that.
some bloke wrote:First point: you keep bringing up stormcast, but the models for them are clearly more than just a headswap for female models.
Yet they're still very much fitting all the same "masculine" hallmarks that you define as essential for Space Marines to remain all male. And again, Stormcast and Space Marines occupy very similar roles as factions - why is it okay for one to be all male, and the other not? We can clearly see that Stormcast are pretty well accepted, and, as an entirely new faction, have made quite the market impact.
Anyone who is already interested in the hobby but also wants to change it to feel more included is putting up their own walls.
On the other hand, someone who is more determined to preserve arbitrary outdated exclusionary lore than to accommodate new people in who might feel put off is someone who is putting up walls to keep others out.
What is to stop women from walking into GW and buying some space marines if they like them that much?
The underlying feeling of female exclusion and lack of representation, which I've mentioned repeatedly.
Things can look cool from a shop window, but without making steps to actually changing the reputation and representation inside the shop, can you blame people for feeling put off?
What about if someone with a phobia of insects starts saying "I like tyranids, but can they make them less bug like for me?"? The armies are what the armies are. People shouldn't expect them to be changed to pander to their preferences.
Tyranids having insect-like designs is a key element of their faction identity.
Space Marines not including women is not key to the Space Marine identity, and is an entirely hamfisted restriction, justified by arbitrary lore and nothing much else.
and once again I reiterate that I am for making female marines, but doing so because it would be a cool thing to do. I would prefer to see more than just a headswap.
What would you like to see?
And you saying "It's just an extra sprue", I wonder if you've any experience in mass manufacture. The production lines of GW will be set up to maximize the amount of sprues they can produce with each injection. The dies for such a machine will cost in the order of hundreds of thousands, and there will be no position to "just add" your extra head sprue. They would need to have an entire new die made, specifically to include it, which would push another sprue off the edge, reducing productivity from each injection.
Yes, this is true.
But if just an extra sprue doing this would cause all these problems, imagine trying to re-design every other faction instead, and the astronomical issues that would bring.
And there's clearly precedent for single sprues not causing massive issues with the production lines - just look at the Space Marine Chapter upgrade sprues.
Or they could just start including armies with females in their marketing drives, and in 6 months the word will be out that GW does more than just space marines, and their models aren't all male.
But those armies don't have women in them. In the lore, yes, but on the tabletop? Not even close.
As I said - no representation without visibility.
And, I hate to keep coming back to this, but why aren't Space Marines an army with women in from the start?
The marketing drives would have happened anyway, so no extra costs involved. Just a different way of thinking.
Except all the extra costs of needing to sculpt all the new models (because as I said, there's not even near enough women models to be slightly representative), the costs of writing new fiction, more third party media, and the sunken cost of your Space Marines who are now either still dominant, making this whole endeavour fruitless, or you've now killed your most iconic model line.
The costs involved in "dethroning Space Marines" are unfathomably more than "let's change 13 words of lore and add a new sprue".
If there is a fundamental issue, it is that sports don't need to be single gender, or that the male sports are so much more heavily advertised and funded than the women-led ones. There definitely *should* be games of American football with women in, just like how here in the UK, we have football played by both men and women, in separate teams, but the sport itself is still mixed gender.
Your analogy, if I'm not mistaking, implies that the sports themselves are the factions, and that American football, as the whole sport itself, represents Space Marines and is only for men. I have to question why that is the case, when the broadcaster could simply also air matches done by women's American football teams - like the UK do with our football - making the sport/faction of football/Space Marines into something more representative.
Again, you act like "arbitrary decisions" can't be changed. Why not?
Pretty sure you’re mischaracterizing his argument for a cheap shot Smudge. Come on, you’re better than this.
Sports don't need to be a single gender? Really? Mate, I'm all for female sports and support strongly out of principle, but put the ladies six nations team against the mens. No contest.
Should the channel show the women’s game? If there’s demand, absolutely. Should the game be changed to allow mixed teams? Probably not the cleverest idea – I’ve not seen mixed sports work outside of a small number of games like touch rugby, which is heavily enforced to be female friendly, and horse riding competitions, and in fairness, it’s the horse that competes here. Unfortunately though, you’ve kind of blown your own argument a bit - In terms of the 40k comparison you try to make, there is already a women’s ‘team’ that is ‘shown’.
And before anyone chimes in, I support the womens’ games. My wife used to play and we have a lot of female friends who have represented their country on a national level in various sports. They're actually pretty awesome.
The problem with the idea of "add female marines to attract females" is that people want to represent themselves with kickass versions of not just what they are, but what they want to be.
And many women want to see themselves in badass power armour, with an easily customised design, with a big ass bolter that lets them do cool stuff.
Do they?
Citation. With respect, you’re big on assertions and very light on data supporting this. Im not necessarily disputing what you’re saying, and I’m certainly not disputing the good intention behind your intentions here. But a dozen people (if that) posting here in this thread is not ‘many women’. By that metric, I should have close combat, katana wielding fire warriors too.
A kick ass version of yourself isn't necessarily the same thing as a space marine. Personally I always saw the notion of 'I need to visualise myself as the model i plop down' as a bit conceited anyway, and before you counter punch,this stems mainly from me disagreeing with people wanting to recreate themselves as their own warcaster in wmh.
If you look back in this thread, you'll see plenty of women's testimonies saying they want just that - but with women.
If you look at the Stormcast, you'll see square-jawed superheroes with big armour and big swords and big hammers, who do """""""manly""""""" things like crushing their enemies in their giant fists. And yet, they include women, and many women really like them.
So, perhaps the whole "marketed for men" is a bit of a silly argument when you consider that women still like that stuff.
Again, a dozen people, (if that). Being critical, That’s not ‘plenty testimony’. As to stormcast, do ‘many women really like them’? Where’s your data? Stormcast, despite being pushed as the poster boys are nowhere near as popular to AOS as SMs are to 40k. I think GW are still trying to figure out what ‘sticks’ in that game and how to push it. Theyre also arguably more of a blank slate than marines. Personally, i just dont like them. until I saw the rather excellent reveals for Thunder Armour, I thought they were just poor, unappealing, misshapen and ugly lumps for the most part.
Im not against the idea that ‘marketed for men’ is a silly idea but also, there is some truth to it. Guys are more drawn to some things than women, and vice versa. Its not necessarily a ‘bad thing’ either, in principle. Claire’s Accessories, in reality, is mainly marketed at women. I think there is some merit to what Some Bloke says here. Slapping a girls head on a marines doesn’t necessarily say ‘girl power’ but I say that with a few caveats - take a redesign to the shape and look of the marines like that not-reiver that was posted earlier. But then you are going down the road of ‘sexualizing the minis’ too much. And im pretty sure the same people complaining about GW doing nothing will just start complaining about GW doing something. And you’re talking about more than a ‘new sprue’ at that point.
The reason marines don't appeal to women as much as men is nothing to do with their heads, it's to do with the heads of the customers.
So what about the heads of the women who want women Space Marines? Are they simply not acting appropriately for their gender, so shouldn't be catered to?
Oh come on Smudge. You’re better than this. You’re mischaracterising the guys arguments again for a cheap shot. Nowhere did he say, imply by inference or omission that there are girls ‘not acting appropriately for their gender’. That’s a poor, cheap shot and you do yourself a disservice my mischaracterising other peoples arguments and other peoples motives by inference like this. And with respect, its not your first time doing this – you’re too quick to see something, dismiss it out of hand because you disagree with it, and assume the person then needs to be counter punched.
There is some merit to what somebloke has to say.
We’re not talking about a small minority of folks who are already interested. We’re talking about fundamentally attracting a new audience. Like my gym friends (girls) who asked me if I could run a DND game and have never looked at 40k before. You’re targeting a new audience and honestly, I agree with him in that I don’t think a face swap is gonna do it. You need to change the community dynamics on the whole. As to catering to those already here who want it – ok, but what’s the cut off point? Should we change everything for one person? Two? Ten? A hundred? Can I have power-katana wielding fire warriors too please?
Actually, that's exactly what a lot of women have advocated for. I'd say, based on that, they'd be more popular, because it reflects a move away from male default dominance.
Have they? Data please? Being critical, A couple of blogs, half a dozen posters and one intenet project isn’t ‘a lot of women’. Though lets be clear, before you counter punch a new 'enemy', I am not dismissing or devaluing their contribution to the hobby, or their desires. Truth is in twenty years, I’ve seen some women advocate for it, but the numbers were small. I’ve seen a lot more men advocate it on behalf of women.
I’m not necessarily against the move (as I said, I loved that not-reiver) but I don’t disagree with somebloke. Slap their helmets on, call each other Comrade and I think Marines would still be vastly more attractive to men than women. Hell, if GW released a box set of ‘valkyries’ like that not-reiver, I’d buy and build a whole not-phobos company out of them for both my Raptors and my Minotaurs in a heartbeat. With respect, even the nerdiest of my girl friends won't be joining me in that endeavour.
The issue is that what marines are is stereotypically masculine
And Stormcast aren't?
and this is more of an issue with the stereotype than the models & lore. Just changing their heads won't change that. What marines do is all from their heads and not their hearts - stereotypically masculine - and they are soldiers who follow orders - stereotypically masculine - who's main traits are strength - stereotypically masculine - who use big guns as a solution for everything - stereotypically masculine - etc.
I am absolutely not saying the stereotype is right or justified, but it is there.
And I'm saying that the stereotype also exists for Stormcast, and for Guardsmen, and for nearly all 40k factions, because war, by your own definitions of masculinity, is masculine.
I disagree with you Smudge. I think Space Marines are a very one-dimensional turned up to 11 and somewhat juvenile ‘power fantasy’ view of masculinity. I don’t think its necessarily the same for Stormcast (still very much a blank slate in terms of ‘who’ they are and ‘how’ they masculate) and Guardsmen – well, we can have female friends who have signed up. That’s pretty normal these days. Personally, I think you need something else besides to achieve the objective you’re after. That objective, by the way – broader base, more diverse players etc is laudable and I support.
And yet, women play "masculine" factions. Almost like them being "masculine" doesn't mean they shouldn't include women, or that women can't enjoy "masculine" hobbies. It's almost like women just don't want to feel excluded, and saying "well, we don't want to showcase women in this faction because it's a masculine faction for a masculine hobby and women just Don't Like That Sort Of Stuff" is exactly the kind of exclusionary stuff I'm talking about.
Youre doing that cheap shot by inference here again Smudge.
I’m happy for more women in the hobby. Absolutely. But saying ‘I don’t think this is the best way to achieve what you want’ isn’t the same thing as being exclusionary. Saying at the end of the day that ‘I don’t think this will appeal to your target audience’ isn’t being exclusionary. There are some absolutely ham-fisted and self-destructive ways of doing it badly that wouldn’t do anyone any favours.
Because it honestly sounds like you're sweeping those testimonies under the rug.
I don’t think he is sweeping anything under the rug, and With respect, you do the same - you are far too quick to dismiss other people’s points out of hand, demonise them by inference and make some cheap shots on the way. Somebloke had some decent points and they should be considered and factored into the big picture. And I’ll say that as someone who would quite happily get on board the femarine train.
And regardless if it's one woman or one hundred saying it - why shouldn't you do it in the first place?
Thats a bit of an emotionally charged hyperbole, isn't it?
Ultimately, it depends on what they’re asking for, and what the costs are in achieving it, doesn’t it? I mean, Troy burned, ultimately because of one person.
How far do you go for one person? How far should a business go chasing one person? In reality there is a limit.
I’m all for principles, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day, I’m also a realist.
Yet they're still very much fitting all the same "masculine" hallmarks that you define as essential for Space Marines to remain all male.
The stormcast models, even with helmets on, would be readily identified as female by their body shape. They aren't overly sexualised like the battle-nuns, but are clearly female proportioned. This represents women far more than adding female heads to otherwise male bodies.
But those armies don't have women in them. In the lore, yes, but on the tabletop? Not even close.
As I said - no representation without visibility.
And, I hate to keep coming back to this, but why aren't Space Marines an army with women in from the start?
Like it or not, what marines are is what marines are. Adding female models for guard would be far better received within the community than retconning the space marines lore, however few words it is, just so you can have female marines.
Why guard and not marines? Because the guard represent a normal, breeding population of natural humans, who have enlisted into the army (willingly or otherwise). It makes sense, with no changes, to add female models to their range. Marines are biologically engineered super soldiers. They aren't meant to represent a natural spread of humans.
I would ask: why is it necessary to change a faction just to include females, when there are other factions which need them adding already and don't need changes to make them fit? Surely then you're risking it seeming like "only marines and sisters are representative of women!". This isn't a slippery slope argument - it's an expected result of making a change just to pander to an outspoken audience. If you add female marines because they are cool, then it's fine. If you add them just to appease the outspoken few, then the outspoken few will find something else to speak out about.
The underlying feeling of female exclusion and lack of representation, which I've mentioned repeatedly.
Things can look cool from a shop window, but without making steps to actually changing the reputation and representation inside the shop, can you blame people for feeling put off?
So now we have established that the issue isn't that women don't want to join in, it's the attitude inside the shop that puts them off. I agree. Games Workshops are renowned as being nerd-holes for men, and walking into one is a daunting prospect for a woman who doesn't know anything about the game, however cool it seems to them. Adding female heads to marines won't fix that.
What would you like to see?
I would like to first see female models represented in the armies which current lore allows for them to be a part of first. I would like to see the "Space marines, as shown by more space marines!" advertising style change to "other faction, shown here fighting space marines!". Use the marines to catch the eye, keep the images familiar, but also show off the other factions. I dislike seeing adverts for a tabletop war game showing armies just stood on their own. You need an opponent to play, so there should be both armies in the adverts.
And ultimately, once 40k includes females where it already makes sense to, I would like to see space marines expand to include female marines. I would like to see these as a combination of an upgrade kit with new bodies & heads, which will be slightly more feminine, but still in keeping with the image of space marines, similar to Stormcast. I would like to see separate kits for male and female marines, just so people don't have to spend extra for plastic they won't use.
An alternative would be to produce all of this in a single, large product wave of female parts for kits which it makes sense, and also female marines, all at once. If they could afford to do that, then all power to them!
And thanks @deathnight for backing me up a bit. I was starting to get frustrated at the same things.
If there is a fundamental issue, it is that sports don't need to be single gender, or that the male sports are so much more heavily advertised and funded than the women-led ones. There definitely *should* be games of American football with women in, just like how here in the UK, we have football played by both men and women, in separate teams, but the sport itself is still mixed gender.
Your analogy, if I'm not mistaking, implies that the sports themselves are the factions, and that American football, as the whole sport itself, represents Space Marines and is only for men. I have to question why that is the case, when the broadcaster could simply also air matches done by women's American football teams - like the UK do with our football - making the sport/faction of football/Space Marines into something more representative.
Again, you act like "arbitrary decisions" can't be changed. Why not?
Pretty sure you’re mischaracterizing his argument for a cheap shot Smudge. Come on, you’re better than this.
Sports don't need to be a single gender? Really? Mate, I'm all for female sports and support strongly out of principle, but put the ladies six nations team against the mens. No contest.
Now who's the one mischaracterising?
I said that football can be played by both men and women. I never said on the same teams.
But this only goes to serve that perhaps comparing sports and a toy soldier wargame isn't exactly a fair analogy to make in the first place.
Unfortunately though, you’ve kind of blown your own argument a bit - In terms of the 40k comparison you try to make, there is already a women’s ‘team’ that is ‘shown’.
Well, not quite. In the way that the analogy was worded and phrased, it felt rather clear that the sports themselves were supposed to reflect the factions, not the teams themselves.
The impression I was getting was that American football was only supposed to be played by men, but that other sports could have women in too. My response was that American football totally can be played by women (although in a purely practical sense, perhaps on separate teams).
And before anyone chimes in, I support the womens’ games. My wife used to play and we have a lot of female friends who have represented their country on a national level in various sports. They're actually pretty awesome.
Agreed! Women's games are every bit as exciting and intense as men's ones.
The problem with the idea of "add female marines to attract females" is that people want to represent themselves with kickass versions of not just what they are, but what they want to be.
And many women want to see themselves in badass power armour, with an easily customised design, with a big ass bolter that lets them do cool stuff.
Do they?
Yes. There's been many examples and references to women as part of the wider online 40k community, especially on Twitter, and the Angels of Purification project who cite those exact reasons.
A kick ass version of yourself isn't necessarily the same thing as a space marine. Personally I always saw the notion of 'I need to visualise myself as the model i plop down' as a bit conceited anyway, and before you counter punch,this stems mainly from me disagreeing with people wanting to recreate themselves as their own warcaster in wmh.
I'm not familiar with WMH, so I can't speak on that, but all I really have to say is "what's the issue with people wanting to make their character more resonant to them"?
Sgt_Smudge wrote: If you look back in this thread, you'll see plenty of women's testimonies saying they want just that - but with women.
If you look at the Stormcast, you'll see square-jawed superheroes with big armour and big swords and big hammers, who do """""""manly""""""" things like crushing their enemies in their giant fists. And yet, they include women, and many women really like them.
So, perhaps the whole "marketed for men" is a bit of a silly argument when you consider that women still like that stuff.
Again, a dozen people, (if that). Being critical, That’s not ‘plenty testimony’.
It's the most commonly held comment coming from the women in the hobby. Even if it's only the dozen you say, if that's the majority women's opinion on the matter, is that not enough?
As to stormcast, do ‘many women really like them’? Where’s your data?
I know many women who do, but yes, I don't have empirical data. Regardless, Stormcast don't have people calling for them to be made inclusive, because they already are.
Stormcast, despite being pushed as the poster boys are nowhere near as popular to AOS as SMs are to 40k. I think GW are still trying to figure out what ‘sticks’ in that game and how to push it. Theyre also arguably more of a blank slate than marines. Personally, i just dont like them. until I saw the rather excellent reveals for Thunder Armour, I thought they were just poor, unappealing, misshapen and ugly lumps for the most part.
That's fair enough, if you don't like them, that's your preference! And yes, they're not as popular to AoS as Space Marines are, but they definitely are the closest comparison.
Im not against the idea that ‘marketed for men’ is a silly idea but also, there is some truth to it. Guys are more drawn to some things than women, and vice versa. Its not necessarily a ‘bad thing’ either, in principle. Claire’s Accessories, in reality, is mainly marketed at women. I think there is some merit to what Some Bloke says here. Slapping a girls head on a marines doesn’t necessarily say ‘girl power’ but I say that with a few caveats - take a redesign to the shape and look of the marines like that not-reiver that was posted earlier. But then you are going down the road of ‘sexualizing the minis’ too much. And im pretty sure the same people complaining about GW doing nothing will just start complaining about GW doing something. And you’re talking about more than a ‘new sprue’ at that point.
Eh, I'm personally not in love with the Reiver posted earlier - I would genuinely have just preferred the same armour as every other Space Marine. The model felt too feminine, whereas the head alone would have done what it needed.
Again, I point at the Angels of Purification project, and how they're literally just headswaps, yet noticeably not men.
I also say again that guys being more predominantly drawn to it is no excuse to outright exclusion.
The reason marines don't appeal to women as much as men is nothing to do with their heads, it's to do with the heads of the customers.
So what about the heads of the women who want women Space Marines? Are they simply not acting appropriately for their gender, so shouldn't be catered to?
Oh come on Smudge. You’re better than this. You’re mischaracterising the guys arguments again for a cheap shot. Nowhere did he say, imply by inference or omission that there are girls ‘not acting appropriately for their gender’.
All respect, but no, they very much did.
We literally have examples linked in this thread of women who don't fit by the same "heads of the customers" logic that some bloke alludes to. So what do we do with those women? Do we ignore them?
There is some merit to what somebloke has to say.
There is some, but it misses the larger picture and still acts as if the lore has a reason to be exclusionary. I've repeatedly commented over and over "why does the lore have to be the way it is", and that is nearly always glossed over.
We’re not talking about a small minority of folks who are already interested. We’re talking about fundamentally attracting a new audience. Like my gym friends (girls) who asked me if I could run a DND game and have never looked at 40k before. You’re targeting a new audience and honestly, I agree with him in that I don’t think a face swap is gonna do it. You need to change the community dynamics on the whole. As to catering to those already here who want it – ok, but what’s the cut off point? Should we change everything for one person? Two? Ten? A hundred? Can I have power-katana wielding fire warriors too please?
Agreed, you do need to change the community - and starting by making clear by changing the most prolific all-male faction to not be so all-male would go a hell of a long way in at least making clear "hey, we're reaching out here, and breaking the all-boys club mentality by getting rid of something that had no right to be as exclusive as it was".
And I've said it before for a similar argument, power-katanas aren't the same as people.
Actually, that's exactly what a lot of women have advocated for. I'd say, based on that, they'd be more popular, because it reflects a move away from male default dominance.
Have they? Data please?
The many examples given in this thread??
Being critical, A couple of blogs, half a dozen posters and one intenet project isn’t ‘a lot of women’.
I mean, it kinda is, in terms of women's influence on the hobby as a whole, and not to mention is pretty widely held amongst women in the hobby. It's definitely the prevailing option.
Though lets be clear, before you counter punch a new 'enemy', I am not dismissing or devaluing their contribution to the hobby, or their desires. Truth is in twenty years, I’ve seen some women advocate for it, but the numbers were small. I’ve seen a lot more men advocate it on behalf of women.
True, but of the women in the hobby, it's a very very small minority who don't want women Astartes.
The issue is that what marines are is stereotypically masculine
And Stormcast aren't?
and this is more of an issue with the stereotype than the models & lore. Just changing their heads won't change that. What marines do is all from their heads and not their hearts - stereotypically masculine - and they are soldiers who follow orders - stereotypically masculine - who's main traits are strength - stereotypically masculine - who use big guns as a solution for everything - stereotypically masculine - etc.
I am absolutely not saying the stereotype is right or justified, but it is there.
And I'm saying that the stereotype also exists for Stormcast, and for Guardsmen, and for nearly all 40k factions, because war, by your own definitions of masculinity, is masculine.
I disagree with you Smudge. I think Space Marines are a very one-dimensional turned up to 11 and somewhat juvenile ‘power fantasy’ view of masculinity.
I have to disagree there, because Space Marines, while being emblematic of the whole "power fantasy" aspect, aren't that attached to the "masculinity" aspect. Their armour, as evidenced by the Angels of Purification project, can just as easily be worn by women presenting models without a weird whiplash effect of an evidently male body. Their core identity is much more tied up in their individual Chapter cultures, not as the "masculine" part.
I don’t think its necessarily the same for Stormcast (still very much a blank slate in terms of ‘who’ they are and ‘how’ they masculate) and Guardsmen – well, we can have female friends who have signed up. That’s pretty normal these days.
Yes, women absolutely can and do sign up for military service. I'm not denying that. But I am saying that, from the whole "it's a masculine thing, so we shouldn't have women in it" logic presented, no faction in 40k should have women, because by some bloke linking war to masculinity, every faction should be masculine coded.
And I think I disagree on the Stormcast - both Space Marines and Stormcast are incredibly blank slate-y factions, with a whole range of options that they've been encouraged to explore - yet, Space Marines still have one avenue they can't go down.
And yet, women play "masculine" factions. Almost like them being "masculine" doesn't mean they shouldn't include women, or that women can't enjoy "masculine" hobbies. It's almost like women just don't want to feel excluded, and saying "well, we don't want to showcase women in this faction because it's a masculine faction for a masculine hobby and women just Don't Like That Sort Of Stuff" is exactly the kind of exclusionary stuff I'm talking about.
Youre doing that cheap shot by inference here again Smudge.
I’m happy for more women in the hobby. Absolutely. But saying ‘I don’t think this is the best way to achieve what you want’ isn’t the same thing as being exclusionary. Saying at the end of the day that ‘I don’t think this will appeal to your target audience’ isn’t being exclusionary. There are some absolutely ham-fisted and self-destructive ways of doing it badly that wouldn’t do anyone any favours.
At the same time, I still have to ask "what's so bad about getting rid of lore that has absolutely no right to be there"? Because honestly, a lot of this feels like that - that the lore is to be protected at all costs, and that people would go to any lengths to see anything else done other than to change that.
Even with alternatives perhaps to achieving my goals, why again do Space Marines need to be male in the first place?
I don’t think he is sweeping anything under the rug, and With respect, you do the same - you are far too quick to dismiss other people’s points out of hand and make cheap shots on the way.
I'm not sure about that - many people have linked in testimonies from women hobbyists, and I very rarely, if ever, see those testimonies brought up or even considered by the people arguing against them. We get a lot of "but do women actually want this", and the answer is invariably "yes, women want this". And no, obviously that's not *all* women, but enough that it's not a fluke.
And regardless if it's one woman or one hundred saying it - why shouldn't you do it in the first place?
Depends on what they’re asking for, and what the costs are in achieving it, doesn’t it? I mean, Troy burned, ultimately because of one person.
In which case, in this situation: Asking for women Space Marines, something that had no real reason not to exist in the first place, and overturning a long held point of exclusion. Costs? For GW, minimal - a new head sprue, and a web document/piece of lore. In future inevitable publications, featuring women Space Marines.
It's not that much to ask, yes?
I’m all for principles, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day, I’m also a realist.
Agreed, I'm a realist too - and I think the realist option here for increasing women's representation is to represent them in the faction that's already highly visible, and wouldn't take much to make representative.
some bloke wrote:
Yet they're still very much fitting all the same "masculine" hallmarks that you define as essential for Space Marines to remain all male.
The stormcast models, even with helmets on, would be readily identified as female by their body shape. They aren't overly sexualised like the battle-nuns, but are clearly female proportioned. This represents women far more than adding female heads to otherwise male bodies.
And I point to the Angels of Purification project, where perfectly "normal" Space Marines become identifiably women by a headswap. Again, I'm not sure I quite agree with "female proportioned" when we're talking about Space Marines who aren't exactly human proportioned in the first place.
But those armies don't have women in them. In the lore, yes, but on the tabletop? Not even close.
As I said - no representation without visibility.
And, I hate to keep coming back to this, but why aren't Space Marines an army with women in from the start?
Like it or not, what marines are is what marines are.
And what Marines are right now is a faction defined by their customisation and player freedoms - not because they're all men.
And no, sorry, but I don't agree with the whole "it is what it is" principle, because that shuts down anything. That argument can very well be turned around onto "why can't other factions be the flagship", or "hey, can we have more non-caucasian Marines".
Adding female models for guard would be far better received within the community than retconning the space marines lore, however few words it is, just so you can have female marines.
Evidence? Again, I'd look at that, and see that GW were still clinging to something that really has no reason to exist, and would rather do anything else other than hit the whole representation issue where it matters - visibly.
Why guard and not marines? Because the guard represent a normal, breeding population of natural humans, who have enlisted into the army (willingly or otherwise). It makes sense, with no changes, to add female models to their range. Marines are biologically engineered super soldiers. They aren't meant to represent a natural spread of humans.
I have no idea why that means they should exclude women though. If you don't want Space Marines to represent a natural spread of humans, let's have them only include blondes. Or people with one eye. Or people without facial hair. Or maybe all with really long hair. Or any other arbitrary division you can create.
Why was "no women" the breaking point?
I would ask: why is it necessary to change a faction just to include females, when there are other factions which need them adding already and don't need changes to make them fit?
Because those other factions aren't the flagship faction, and Space Marines being all male isn't integral to their identity in the first place. It's an arbitrary limitation which only stifles player creativity, which is the main attraction of Space Marines to many people.
Surely then you're risking it seeming like "only marines and sisters are representative of women!".
No, it's "Space Marines are the flagship faction, and if GW/fans are breaking their banks to avoid changing a piece of completely arbitrary lore, what does that say about their thoughts on representation."
Look at it this way - the lengths that people have gone to in this thread to do anything other than change 13 words, instead of just saying "hey, yeah, you know what, maybe you do feel excluded and this might help" tells me that perhaps people don't really care so much about representation as they might purport to.
If you add them just to appease the outspoken few, then the outspoken few will find something else to speak out about.
Will they? Why?
The underlying feeling of female exclusion and lack of representation, which I've mentioned repeatedly.
Things can look cool from a shop window, but without making steps to actually changing the reputation and representation inside the shop, can you blame people for feeling put off?
So now we have established that the issue isn't that women don't want to join in, it's the attitude inside the shop that puts them off. I agree. Games Workshops are renowned as being nerd-holes for men, and walking into one is a daunting prospect for a woman who doesn't know anything about the game, however cool it seems to them. Adding female heads to marines won't fix that.
Alone? No, it won't. I've made no pretence that it would fix it all the way. No single change would, except the community itself being more proactive in getting rid of problematic people and attitudes. But making women more visible, in the most visible faction, and actively making a step forward against their own lore that had no reason to be exclusive - that's gonna make an impression.
I would like to first see female models represented in the armies which current lore allows for them to be a part of first.
Why is the lore the guiding factor in this?
And ultimately, once 40k includes females where it already makes sense to, I would like to see space marines expand to include female marines.
It already makes sense to include women now. The only reason they can't is because of 13 words of lore that are completely arbitrary in their restriction.
I would like to see separate kits for male and female marines, just so people don't have to spend extra for plastic they won't use.
In my example of the upgrade sprue heads, if you didn't want women Space Marines, you wouldn't *need* to pay for bits you didn't use.
Female Space Marines will break the LORE > The Lore is only 13 words from over 20 years ago and GW has said they don't acknowledge it > We shouldn't cater to minority opinions in a hobby game > Fine, then leave > I will, but GW will never make any money off of this > Female integration has led to AoS doing amazingly well > Where are the Female orks or the Male SoB > There is no gender in Orks, and there are several male models already in the SoB > But why are we changing the lore of space marines only > Because they are the flagship faction with the most representation > But if we change their lore then I will not play them > Do you currently play them > No I play Drukari > Then what is your problem > If we change the lore it will ruin the game.......
Because the lore makes the factions what they are. They are nothing but cool looking models without the rich stories in the background. This is the legacy that GW has built up over so many years. There are other companies making cool models, which are far better quality than GW and more affordable, but they don't get a fraction of the traffic as GW products do because the lore behind 40k is as important, if not moreso, than the models and the rules themselves.
If you have two options of armies to change to make more inclusive, one of which has a lore reason for being all male and the other is just because those are the models they made, then the logical one to change first is the one which already should have female models.
We all agree that guard should have female models - they should. We also agree on whether space marines, without changing the lore, can have female models - they can't. those 13 words that you're so keen on bringing up prevent it.
So why should Space Marines come first? If I saw marines having female models and the other factions who should have them not having them, I would consider it a bad form of representation. Akin to the sports analogy, if the sports channel had all male sports exclusively, then added women's american football just because american football is popular, even if there are other sports which women are actually more interested in.
Your entire argument hinges on the idea that space marines are the flagship, and should make it seem like an inclusive hobby. If GW added female models to the armies which already need them (we have established that 13 words of space marine lore, until they are changed, means marines don't need them), and then advertising these armies, will be a better way to make the hobby more representative without making it seem like a token gesture.
Because the lore makes the factions what they are.
All of it? To the point where none of it can ever be changed?
Space Marines are not defined by being all men right now, their factional design has moved past it, and not even just that, but why is "because it's lore" an excuse for blatantly exclusionary material?
If the lore said "only pure Aryan stock"* can be Space Marines, is that acceptable?
*and I'm only using this as an example of blatantly exclusionary material.
They are nothing but cool looking models without the rich stories in the background. This is the legacy that GW has built up over so many years. There are other companies making cool models, which are far better quality than GW and more affordable, but they don't get a fraction of the traffic as GW products do because the lore behind 40k is as important, if not moreso, than the models and the rules themselves.
Is "woman can't be Space Marines" such an integral part of the design of Warhammer 40k as a whole?
I'm not saying lore's not important. I'm saying that it's completely arbitrary, and more specifically, I'm referring to tthis piece in particular.
If you have two options of armies to change to make more inclusive, one of which has a lore reason for being all male and the other is just because those are the models they made, then the logical one to change first is the one which already should have female models.
No, the logical thing to do is to consider why the lore is exclusive in the first place, considering that it's all made up in the first place.
We all agree that guard should have female models - they should. We also agree on whether space marines, without changing the lore, can have female models - they can't. those 13 words that you're so keen on bringing up prevent it.
No, we don't agree on it, because those 13 words are completely arbitrary.
It's like saying "we can all agree that the Ultramarines have a half-Eldar chief Astropath" because there's lore that says so - except there's additional context around that which makes it less clear. In the case of the astropath, it's that GW quietly abandoned it. In the case of the lack of women Astartes, it's that it makes no sense to exist in the first place.
So why should Space Marines come first? If I saw marines having female models and the other factions who should have them not having them, I would consider it a bad form of representation. Akin to the sports analogy, if the sports channel had all male sports exclusively, then added women's american football just because american football is popular, even if there are other sports which women are actually more interested in.
And that's exactly my point: why can't women play American football in the first place? That's the question I'm asking.
Your entire argument hinges on the idea that space marines are the flagship, and should make it seem like an inclusive hobby.
And that Space Marines have no reason to be all male in the first place, but yes.
If GW added female models to the armies which already need them (we have established that 13 words of space marine lore, until they are changed, means marines don't need them)
And I would say that Space Marines need them too - because there's no reason they shouldn't be allowed them in the first place.
and then advertising these armies, will be a better way to make the hobby more representative without making it seem like a token gesture.
I'd say that adding women everywhere without actually addressing the most pervasive element of the "all boys" culture would be more tokenistic.
"Hey look, we've added those women you wanted! Well, not *everywhere*, we're not that concerned about representation! But look, you've got women, where we've said you can have them! Isn't that what you wanted?"
The sheer number of times inviolate lore has been broken in 40k, but this is the one thing you cling to as if it's the Shroud of Turin. I don't recall a 40 page thread about how GMan and his Xenotech revival are ruining 40k. Or Custodes Marching to War, or the face that FEMALE SPACE MARINES ACTUALLY EXIST.
some bloke wrote: First point: you keep bringing up stormcast, but the models for them are clearly more than just a headswap for female models.
Yeah, because fluff matters here. If they made female custodes, each one is singularly designed - the female ones would probably have 'specially crafted armor' that looked different from the male custodes.
Theyre not going to design a power armor mark for female astartes, particularly when the power armor worn by astartes is clearly way, way bigger than their body.
A whole new sisters line, female tau, female gsc, new banshees, a female inquisitor like in that one video game everyone liked, female guard... they all came first.
If the lore said "only pure Aryan stock"* can be Space Marines, is that acceptable?
Well, if it had decent reasons for it. If the lore said "Space marines are all clones of one specific dude who was found to be the only person who the process worked for, so they all look the same", then this is a valid reason for them to look like that.
No, we don't agree on it, because those 13 words are completely arbitrary.
Regardless of whether or not there are reasons or justifications behind the choice, you have repeatedly called for these 13 words to be changed to allow female space marines. As such, until those words are changed, the lore prevents them from having them.
And that's exactly my point: why can't women play American football in the first place? That's the question I'm asking.
But in this analogy, your approach, you are redirecting any funds/effort to introduce female models to lines which already should have them, just so that one specific faction can be changed so that they should have their female models first.
Sisters of battle are an existing representation of women in 40k. The lore describes women in the imperial guard. Both of these should be a higher priority to push and build on than putting them on a sideline so space marines can come first.
Furthermore, just doing a headswap doesn't change enough to be of any impact on your desired cause.
Let's take an entirely masculine movie - Predator - and apply the same logic.
You say you want to make the movie appeal to women more by increasing their representation. To do this, instead of writing in female characters, with their own feminine aspects, you just cut arnies head off and replace it with a woman's head. The movie plays exactly the same, but with a woman's head on Arnie. Does Arnie, bare chestedly blasting his way through the rainforest, represent women now?
We have already discussed that the entire appearance of space marines - wearing helmets so their heads are irrelevant - is very masculine. Tacking a womans head onto a masculine army and saying "now it will appeal wo women" is exactly like superimposing a womans head onto Arnie in Predator to try and achieve the same thing. It lands somewhere between "Confusing" and "Insulting".
You say you want to make the movie appeal to women more by increasing their representation. To do this, instead of writing in female characters, with their own feminine aspects, you just cut arnies head off and replace it with a woman's head. The movie plays exactly the same, but with a woman's head on Arnie. Does Arnie, bare chestedly blasting his way through the rainforest, represent women now?
We have already discussed that the entire appearance of space marines - wearing helmets so their heads are irrelevant - is very masculine. Tacking a womans head onto a masculine army and saying "now it will appeal wo women" is exactly like superimposing a womans head onto Arnie in Predator to try and achieve the same thing. It lands somewhere between "Confusing" and "Insulting".
Certainly, there was never a pair of extremely famous 80s action-horror films involving aliens hunting humans that got extremely famous for first writing the role of their protagonist gender neutral and casting a woman in the role, and then for including a butch implied-lesbian in the second film who was described as manly by other characters.
You're totally right though, Vasquez would have been vastly better representation if that damn sexist director hadn't refused to have her wear a flak jacket with sculpted tiddies and make her heavy machine gun pink!
You say you want to make the movie appeal to women more by increasing their representation. To do this, instead of writing in female characters, with their own feminine aspects, you just cut arnies head off and replace it with a woman's head. The movie plays exactly the same, but with a woman's head on Arnie. Does Arnie, bare chestedly blasting his way through the rainforest, represent women now?
We have already discussed that the entire appearance of space marines - wearing helmets so their heads are irrelevant - is very masculine. Tacking a womans head onto a masculine army and saying "now it will appeal wo women" is exactly like superimposing a womans head onto Arnie in Predator to try and achieve the same thing. It lands somewhere between "Confusing" and "Insulting".
Certainly, there was never a pair of extremely famous 80s action-horror films involving aliens hunting humans that got extremely famous for first writing the role of their protagonist gender neutral and casting a woman in the role, and then for including a butch implied-lesbian in the second film who was described as manly by other characters.
You're totally right though, Vasquez would have been vastly better representation if that damn sexist director hadn't refused to have her wear a flak jacket with sculpted tiddies and make her heavy machine gun pink!
Quite right. There are other films available, with female characters, in exactly the same way as there are other factions available, which have lore-based groundings for female characters and could have female models added without any rewriting.
But we're talking about Predator, because Predator is the film with all men in it. We should change the fact that they are all men, because they are only all men because someone decided that once in an arbitrary decision. But to change it, we won't add a female character, we'll just edit Arnie to look like a woman.
Same deal with just head swapping marines.
What if Ripley was played by a man edited with a woman's head? Because that's the equivalent of just putting a womans head on a space marine. Would that still be representing women? Or is the fact that Ripley is a woman the reason she represented women?
You say you want to make the movie appeal to women more by increasing their representation. To do this, instead of writing in female characters, with their own feminine aspects, you just cut arnies head off and replace it with a woman's head. The movie plays exactly the same, but with a woman's head on Arnie. Does Arnie, bare chestedly blasting his way through the rainforest, represent women now?
We have already discussed that the entire appearance of space marines - wearing helmets so their heads are irrelevant - is very masculine. Tacking a womans head onto a masculine army and saying "now it will appeal wo women" is exactly like superimposing a womans head onto Arnie in Predator to try and achieve the same thing. It lands somewhere between "Confusing" and "Insulting".
Certainly, there was never a pair of extremely famous 80s action-horror films involving aliens hunting humans that got extremely famous for first writing the role of their protagonist gender neutral and casting a woman in the role, and then for including a butch implied-lesbian in the second film who was described as manly by other characters.
You're totally right though, Vasquez would have been vastly better representation if that damn sexist director hadn't refused to have her wear a flak jacket with sculpted tiddies and make her heavy machine gun pink!
Quite right. There are other films available, with female characters, in exactly the same way as there are other factions available, which have lore-based groundings for female characters and could have female models added without any rewriting.
But we're talking about Predator, because Predator is the film with all men in it. We should change the fact that they are all men, because they are only all men because someone decided that once in an arbitrary decision. But to change it, we won't add a female character, we'll just edit Arnie to look like a woman.
Same deal with just head swapping marines.
What if Ripley was played by a man edited with a woman's head? Because that's the equivalent of just putting a womans head on a space marine. Would that still be representing women? Or is the fact that Ripley is a woman the reason she represented women?
Predator was not a movie with all men in it, but, regardless.
Did ya catch that Game of Thrones show? Do you consider Brienne of Tarth to be "a woman's head on a man's body" because she wore a big ol' suit of armor?
Because space marines wear big ol' suits of armor. I'm not sure if you've noticed here. Lots of spare room in power armor, big space.
Sorry, I'd much rather have female marines that look like Kyria Draxus than Saint Celestine.
Can we please stop with all the "Whataboutism" it's vacuous and completely pedantic. Yes, we can sit here and shout examples at each other for the next ten pages, or we can discuss honestly, without putting words in each other's mouths.
"So are you saying..." is a bad argument and needs to be stopped. Ask your question, don't frame it in a negative tone, just ask your question/make your point. It's called poisoning the well, and it's a fallacy.
To bring us back full circle:
Why do women being space marines, which is already a canonical thing, suddenly hurt your personal experience of the hobby, if it hasn't in the past?
If the lore said "only pure Aryan stock"* can be Space Marines, is that acceptable?
Well, if it had decent reasons for it. If the lore said "Space marines are all clones of one specific dude who was found to be the only person who the process worked for, so they all look the same", then this is a valid reason for them to look like that.
Nah, let's go with "they can only be Aryan stock because the Magic Space Juice only works on people with blue eyes and blond hair".
That's "decent", right?
Or, like my creation of that stupid bit of lore, it's entirely arbitrary, entirely unnecessary, and frankly just creates more problems for players than it fixes any.
No, we don't agree on it, because those 13 words are completely arbitrary.
Regardless of whether or not there are reasons or justifications behind the choice, you have repeatedly called for these 13 words to be changed to allow female space marines. As such, until those words are changed, the lore prevents them from having them.
And the lore is all made up, and had no actual power.
The lore doesn't prevent it. People unwilling to critically reflect on the lore prevents it.
And that's exactly my point: why can't women play American football in the first place? That's the question I'm asking.
But in this analogy, your approach, you are redirecting any funds/effort to introduce female models to lines which already should have them, just so that one specific faction can be changed so that they should have their female models first.
You keep saying about these lines that "should" have them - why "shouldn't" Space Marines? Because of the arbitrary lore that can be changed whenever GW want, like they did with Necrons, and Primaris, and Guilliman, and - oh, getting rid of women Space Marines!
Sisters of battle are an existing representation of women in 40k.
But a representation that paints women into a single box - nuns with guns. Sisters are cool, but they only come in one flavour. Space Marines come in multiple.
The lore describes women in the imperial guard.
It does. It also describes the Imperial Guard as incredibly varied in design and culture (which the Guards models ain't, but which Space Marines are), and are probably one of the weakest factions in setting.
How does it reflect on GW that the faction they seek to promote women's representation is are the disposable cannon fodder faction, instead of the cool flagship Space Marines?
Both of these should be a higher priority to push and build on than putting them on a sideline so space marines can come first.
It's not about putting Space Marines first. It's about understanding that Space Marines *are* first, in the real world, not because of an arbitrary lore reason, and that if you're going to make noticeable change in representation, it needs to start with the most visible parts first.
Furthermore, just doing a headswap doesn't change enough to be of any impact on your desired cause.
Why not? And lest I remind you, it's not just a headswap - it's tacit endorsement that women can be Space Marines. That alone, paired with representative material, makes a hell of a larger step than "we've added on the bare minimum of what we've arbitrarily let you have".
Let's take an entirely masculine movie - Predator - and apply the same logic.
You say you want to make the movie appeal to women more by increasing their representation. To do this, instead of writing in female characters, with their own feminine aspects, you just cut arnies head off and replace it with a woman's head. The movie plays exactly the same, but with a woman's head on Arnie. Does Arnie, bare chestedly blasting his way through the rainforest, represent women now?
Strange. I don't recall Space Marine armour being so tight fitting or naked that you can see their bare chests.
Arnie is very much masculine, because they play up his masculinity. That's why the Predator is so much more terrifying - because they build up Arnie as this big masculine tough guy, and then strip that all away in the face of the Predator. There's an actual reason in the film why he should be male.
What reason exists for Space Marines not to be women? A made up lore reason? Aesthetically, their armour is so thick it's essentially genderless - a helmeted Space Marine could easily be a woman, if women were allowed in the made-up lore. And from a faction design perspective, any kind of allegory for monks or knights falls apart when you consider how broad the cultural diversity between Chapters is.
Perhaps look at it like Brienne of Tarth - can you tell she's a woman under all that armour? Catelyn Stark couldn't.
We have already discussed that the entire appearance of space marines - wearing helmets so their heads are irrelevant - is very masculine.
But they're not, not really. Their armour is so thick and bulky, it's barely human. We don't see rippling biceps, abs, or freakishly oversized codpieces. We see thick armour plating, one that would easily hold both male and female bodies in it.
Tacking a womans head onto a masculine army and saying "now it will appeal wo women" is exactly like superimposing a womans head onto Arnie in Predator to try and achieve the same thing.
Except Arnie is very clearly a man, no armour to hide behind, and him being a man serves a purpose within the narrative of the film.
Ain't the same for Space Marines.
It lands somewhere between "Confusing" and "Insulting".
I would say the same about the adherence to lore in the face of real people having issues with the exclusion it causes.
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the_scotsman wrote: Did ya catch that Game of Thrones show? Do you consider Brienne of Tarth to be "a woman's head on a man's body" because she wore a big ol' suit of armor?
Because space marines wear big ol' suits of armor. I'm not sure if you've noticed here. Lots of spare room in power armor, big space.
Sorry, I'd much rather have female marines that look like Kyria Draxus than Saint Celestine.
Very much agreed. Space Marine armour doesn't need changing to have women in it, it's big and bulky enough as it is.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do women being space marines, which is already a canonical thing, suddenly hurt your personal experience of the hobby, if it hasn't in the past?
Lets not mix up what is what here, woman being space marines, is not already a canonical thing.
Did ya catch that Game of Thrones show? Do you consider Brienne of Tarth to be "a woman's head on a man's body" because she wore a big ol' suit of armor?
Because space marines wear big ol' suits of armor. I'm not sure if you've noticed here. Lots of spare room in power armor, big space.
Sorry, I'd much rather have female marines that look like Kyria Draxus than Saint Celestine.
Firstly, no, I've not seen the series but I have read the books. Brienne is pretty much described as a woman's head on a mans body. She's not just a woman in big armour. She's a very masculine woman who fills her armour, and she pushes the stereotypes that only men can be knights. One of the main aspects of her is that if she wore her helmet, you couldn't tell she was a woman by looking.
Kyria Draxus is definitely a better representation than St Celestine, but I would still say that Kyria's sculpt is such that if she wore a helmet, you would feel that she is a woman. She's not a male model with a woman's head.
Again, I'm 100% behind changing the lore and introducing female space marines. I think it would be cool to see. But if it's done by just adding a head sprue, that's like saying "We made a kit for an Ork thunderfire cannon!" and then it being a thunderfire cannon kit with an ork head for the techmarine.
Yes, introduce female marines, but no, don't do it half-arsedly.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we please stop with all the "Whataboutism" it's vacuous and completely pedantic. Yes, we can sit here and shout examples at each other for the next ten pages, or we can discuss honestly, without putting words in each other's mouths.
"So are you saying..." is a bad argument and needs to be stopped. Ask your question, don't frame it in a negative tone, just ask your question/make your point. It's called poisoning the well, and it's a fallacy.
To bring us back full circle:
Why do women being space marines, which is already a canonical thing, suddenly hurt your personal experience of the hobby, if it hasn't in the past?
I didnt say "so you are saying" in an attempt to poison the well. I brought up multiple examples of women in popular media who do not wear "special woman armor for their woman parts" and tried to get the example being discussed to something a tad more....understandable and realistic, than photoshopping a woman's head on someone else's body.
The reason I'd prefer they represent female space marines with headswaps is it would mean it wouldn't be necessary to, for example, release YET ANOTHER new space marine troop box if you wanted to have female space marine models. You wouldnt necessarily even need to release new space marine kits you werent already going to - just put some female heads into the new boxes that were already going to come out in the next wave of the eternal primaris marine rollout.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do women being space marines, which is already a canonical thing, suddenly hurt your personal experience of the hobby, if it hasn't in the past?
Lets not mix up what is what here, woman being space marines, is not already a canonical thing.
Female Space Marines are already an existing model. Which means they were part of the canon. You cannot say squats are no longer part of the canon simply because you can't buy them anymore. They existed, but were never written out of the lore.
some bloke wrote:Firstly, no, I've not seen the series but I have read the books. Brienne is pretty much described as a woman's head on a mans body. She's not just a woman in big armour. She's a very masculine woman who fills her armour, and she pushes the stereotypes that only men can be knights. One of the main aspects of her is that if she wore her helmet, you couldn't tell she was a woman by looking.
But she is still a woman. Women don't need to be feminine. I don't think the women asking for women Space Marines are after feminine armour either, because you don't need feminine armour to be a woman.
Kyria Draxus is definitely a better representation than St Celestine, but I would still say that Kyria's sculpt is such that if she wore a helmet, you would feel that she is a woman. She's not a male model with a woman's head.
And yet, I can look at the Angels of Purification models, and I can see that they aren't men, even though all it is is a headswap, because Space Marine power armour isn't that emblematically male, it's just really goddamn thick.
Again, I'm 100% behind changing the lore and introducing female space marines. I think it would be cool to see. But if it's done by just adding a head sprue, that's like saying "We made a kit for an Ork thunderfire cannon!" and then it being a thunderfire cannon kit with an ork head for the techmarine.
Big difference there, most notably being that an Ork's body (and whole armour design) is much different from a Space Marine's. But a woman's body isn't all that different, especially when you consider the whole "superhuman" and "massive power armour" elements.
That's a pretty poor comparison.
Yes, introduce female marinesmodels, but no, don't do it half-arsedly.
Fixed that to models, and then you see why I want women Space Marines.
the_scotsman wrote:The reason I'd prefer they represent female space marines with headswaps is it would mean it wouldn't be necessary to, for example, release YET ANOTHER new space marine troop box if you wanted to have female space marine models. You wouldnt necessarily even need to release new space marine kits you werent already going to - just put some female heads into the new boxes that were already going to come out in the next wave of the eternal primaris marine rollout.
Exactly the same here.
I don't want new Space Marine kits. I do, funny as it sounds, want to get other factions to get updated kits. But there exists no reason to leave Space Marines languishing and continuing to poison the efforts of representation elsewhere.
Giving Guard some (much-needed) representation won't change that it's fundamentally broken that Space Marines don't have any either.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Female Space Marines are already an existing model. Which means they were part of the canon. You cannot say squats are no longer part of the canon simply because you can't buy them anymore. They existed, but were never written out of the lore.
Giving Guard some (much-needed) representation won't change that it's fundamentally broken that Space Marines don't have any either.
I don't think that it's fundamentally broken that a faction who (regardless of how many words and how arbitrary the decision was) has a story reason for being all male contains models which are all male.
As it is, we have several factions which have females in the lore - Tau, Guard, etc. - who don't have female models. We also have several armies which have their reasons (however arbitrary and brief) for being all masculine - Orks, Marines - and then the monsters. It's not like the game has female representation everywhere and now we need to expand that into the factions which can be changed to make it work.
Fixed that to models, and then you see why I want women Space Marines.
Oh don't get me wrong - I see why you want women space marines. And I think that it is the wrong reason for wanting it. I think that if anything is done to a creative medium (and 40k is very much a creative medium) then it should be done to improve things, not to appease people. Adding women space marines would be cool. That's reason enough to do it. But doing it because women might be upset at the lack of female space marines is the wrong reason to do it.
I acknowledge that sometimes you have to say "no" to doing things just to please other people. If someone suggested rewriting the ork lore to fit female orks into the game, I would be opposed entirely - Orks are just muscle-bound monsters in 40k, they don't have genders and their identity is somewhat tied to their appearance. It wouldn't add anything to add female orks. Adding female marines would add to the game, I think. But again, not for the reasons that you're suggesting, and not in such a half-arsed manner as you're suggesting.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Female Space Marines are already an existing model. Which means they were part of the canon. You cannot say squats are no longer part of the canon simply because you can't buy them anymore. They existed, but were never written out of the lore.
Thats news to me. Since when?
Spoiler:
They're pretty awful sculpts, but they existed (much to the pain of my eyes).
some bloke wrote:
Giving Guard some (much-needed) representation won't change that it's fundamentally broken that Space Marines don't have any either.
I don't think that it's fundamentally broken that a faction who (regardless of how many words and how arbitrary the decision was) has a story reason for being all male contains models which are all male.
Sorry, but that's not a very critically reflective response.
You're well aware how flimsy the justification for them being all women is - so why do you stand by it? Why is that so important?
It's barely a story reason, any more so than my "it doesn't work on anyone who isn't Aryan" excuse was - entirely hamfisted, pointless, and needlessly exclusive.
As it is, we have several factions which have females in the lore - Tau, Guard, etc. - who don't have female models. We also have several armies which have their reasons (however arbitrary and brief) for being all masculine - Orks, Marines - and then the monsters. It's not like the game has female representation everywhere and now we need to expand that into the factions which can be changed to make it work.
I know the game doesn't have women's representation everywhere - which leads to the logical response of "well why isn't it in certain places"?
Orks? Inhuman, so male probably isn't even correct. But masculine? Yes, from a place of criticising and satirising that "lads lads lads" culture.
Custodes? Arbitrary, but they actually use the all-male concept, so from a design perspective, it can pass.
Space Marines? Arbitrary, opposes their concept of being a blank slate, and needlessly exclusive.
Ergo, Space Marines don't need to be one of those "all male" factions in the first place.
I see why you want women space marines. And I think that it is the wrong reason for wanting it. I think that if anything is done to a creative medium (and 40k is very much a creative medium) then it should be done to improve things, not to appease people.
You act like having better representation isn't an improvement. Am I reading incorrectly into that?
If someone suggested rewriting the ork lore to fit female orks into the game, I would be opposed entirely - Orks are just muscle-bound monsters in 40k, they don't have genders and their identity is somewhat tied to their appearance.
And I would agree - because Orks don't have genders, and their existence as masculine-presenting is an actual satire/commentary of "lads lads lads" culture, and it's very hard to argue that it's not. There's not really any ambiguity there, nor is there really a largely notable demand for Ork women.
The thing in, the same can't be said of Space Marines, which is why I don't see why women can't be Space Marines.
Adding female marines would add to the game, I think. But again, not for the reasons that you're suggesting, and not in such a half-arsed manner as you're suggesting.
On the counterpoint, I think that adding women everywhere except the Space Marines, without tackling one of the most lasting and prolific examples of needless "boys only" mentality (as you suggest, for an entirely arbitrary reason), is a half-assed measure, because you're not actually dealing with the most problematic element, you're just sidestepping it.
But, at the very least, I am glad that you'd support their inclusion.
Ergo, Space Marines don't need to be one of those "all male" factions in the first place.
I agree. But I also think that having factions which have no reason whatsoever, however arbitrary, to not have female models represented with entirely male models is a bigger issue.
The issues are, regardless of how arbitrary and brief the justifications are:
Imperial Guard don't have female models, and they currently have no reason not to. This is an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be mixed.
T'au have no female models, and they currently have no reason not to. This is an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be mixed.
Space marines have no female models, but they have story reasoning why. This is not an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be all male models.
You might not like the reasoning why. You might think it is too small a thing to matter about changing. But frankly, there are other races which already need female models, who should be dealt with first.
I put to you that Warhammer 40k needs more female models. And that Space Marines are not the best place to start with that, as they have an (albeit flimsy) piece of lore which makes them all male.
Imperial Guard don't have female models, and they currently have no reason not to. This is an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be mixed.
T'au have no female models, and they currently have no reason not to. This is an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be mixed.
Space marines have no female models, but they have story reasoning why. This is not an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be all male models.
You might not like the reasoning why. You might think it is too small a thing to matter about changing. But frankly, there are other races which already need female models, who should be dealt with first.
Neither of those other two things are true, though. They just added a sprue to the IG box that includes several female heads, and the tau infantry kits have had female heads since...whatever, 2017 or something when they got new kits? They do only have the like...three units where you'd ever be able to tell if there are female models.
I dunno how many times I have to point this out. Weve got female models in the chaos cults, female models in all the necromunda gangs that didnt originally have them, female models in the guard, female models in tau, female models in GSC...people just haven't been paying attention I guess?
Hell, even Skitarii models have two different types of radiation shielding on their New Skitarii Manufacturing Plant Areas.
Female guard absolutely exist, check the new spru news.
Ta'u also have females. Shadow sun?
Space marines, again, LITERALLY have females in the fluff. What you are thinking of is a total lore ret-con in the late 80s/90s to appeal more to the male demographic.
You are advocating inclusivity which is good, but you a gatekeeping parts of the game until ALL inclusiveness is achieved, which is a silly goal post to keep shifting.
When every single race/faction combined gets even CLOSE to the level of representation that the Astartes get, we'll worry about them. But right now the 99% White male faction is in dire need of a shot in the inclusivities.
Female guard absolutely exist, check the new spru news.
I can't find any images of this on GW's site at all. I found a few special characters, but no generic female models for either tau or guard...
I mean, if indeed there are already models representing women in the factions that it makes sense for then yeah, let's do it with marines. But perhaps GW needs to be a bit better with putting pictures up of these changes!
Dude they literally previewed the new Cadian upgrades a couple weeks ago, I'm pretty sure they're on pre-order.
Yeah I just checked the Cadian box has been updated and is on the pre-order page.
Gert wrote: Dude they literally previewed the new Cadian upgrades a couple weeks ago, I'm pretty sure they're on pre-order.
Yeah I just checked the Cadian box has been updated and is on the pre-order page.
Gert, don't try to use logic with someone clearly arguing in bad faith.
Ergo, Space Marines don't need to be one of those "all male" factions in the first place.
I agree. But I also think that having factions which have no reason whatsoever, however arbitrary, to not have female models represented with entirely male models is a bigger issue.
Uh, they *do* have representation. It's not enough, nowhere near enough, but the factions that """according to lore""" should have women *do* have them mostly represented.
Imperial Guard don't have female models, and they currently have no reason not to. This is an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be mixed.
New Cadian upgrade sprue has women's heads. Multiple unique women sculpts also exist, from the Catachan sergeant, to Severina Raine, and have historically had a scant handful of metal sculpts. As I said, it's nowhere near enough, but they *do* have women. Additionally, there's representation in marketing, literature and artwork depicting women guardsmen.
The models need work, but the rest isn't awful.
T'au have no female models, and they currently have no reason not to. This is an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be mixed.
Uh, Shadowsun? At least one member of Farsight's Eight, Torchstar, is a woman, and many unhelmeted Tau are designed as "female". So, no, actually, Tau are pretty solid. Maybe could have more, but they're pretty fair. The issue is more that Tau don't get stories in general.
Space marines have no female models, but they have story reasoning why.
Actually, they kinda don't. When it was brought up *in setting* by a Fenrisian, the Space Wolf in question turned around and admitted that they had no idea why they didn't recruit women.
And, as I've said, if the story reason is complete garbage, does it not belong in the garbage? Why hold on to something that has no reason to exist?
This is not an issue with representation, as we have all male models representing an army which should be all male models.
Except it is an issue of representation, because there is no good reason for them not to exist there, and that this particular faction represents the lion's share of GW models.
But frankly, there are other races which already need female models, who should be dealt with first.
You're right - there are factions that have long needed female models. Space Marines are one of them, and the only thing preventing that is an adherence to lore which you outright state is entirely flimsy.
I put to you that Warhammer 40k needs more female models. And that Space Marines are not the best place to start with that, as they have an (albeit flimsy) piece of lore which makes them all male.
Why should we be paying attention to that flimsy bit of lore? Why is that so important?
Gert wrote: Dude they literally previewed the new Cadian upgrades a couple weeks ago, I'm pretty sure they're on pre-order.
Yeah I just checked the Cadian box has been updated and is on the pre-order page.
Gert, don't try to use logic with someone clearly arguing in bad faith.
Less of this snideness please. Not everyone follows the previews guys. Not everyone is aware of every new release. Christ, we've all missed stuff. That's not arguing in bad faith.
All this does is undermine your position for no reason.
Gert wrote: Dude they literally previewed the new Cadian upgrades a couple weeks ago, I'm pretty sure they're on pre-order.
Yeah I just checked the Cadian box has been updated and is on the pre-order page.
Gert, don't try to use logic with someone clearly arguing in bad faith.
Less of this snideness please. Not everyone follows the previews guys. Not everyone is aware of every new release. Christ, we've all missed stuff. That's not arguing in bad faith.
All this does is undermine your position for no reason.
Read back over the last 7 or so pages, their side's entire argument has been (Fingers in ears) "WE DON'T SEE/HEAR ANYTHING! NA NA NA NA NA NA NA!"
How many times in 40 pages do we need to cite examples of things before we have to stop knocking down improperly setup straw man arguments? Smudge, Gert, and Scotsman, have all said multiple times that we don't need inclusivity in the Guard, we need it in the games FOREFRONT faction.
The attempt to say We can't let females into the Astartes unless or until ALL factions are 100% equal, it what we call the BS of infinite Regress. They will continue to put up completely vacuous straw men until we either quit trying or we win. It's like Gay rights in the US. We can't allow Trans bathrooms until we eliminate the potential of Child molestation. As if the two are related. It's an impossible hill to climb just to put female pronouns in the fluff of a table top game's preeminent faction.
TBF I didn't say no to representation in AM and other factions, I just said it was meaningless unless the flagship product of 40k was a male-only faction with the excuse of 13 words written almost two decades ago to back it up.
That being said I 100% get Fezz's position. This thread started well over a month ago and people have had to repeat the same things over and over again because people new to the thread don't read it before posting in it.
I get reading 37 pages is a lot to ask but at the same time, each new person makes the exact same argument that has already been addressed five or six times already and it's pretty tiring. some_guy could have easily found the new Cadian upgrades through Google or searching the New Releases tab on GW's website.
It's not that we don't need inclusivity in the Guard - there's still a way to go with that, in all fairness. It's just that why can't we have inclusivity in the Guard and in the Space Marines too?
The issue here is that the Guard seem to be being used as a deflection away from the larger issue at hand, that being that Space Marines are one of the biggest offenders in the whole "making people feel excluded" issue, and not tackling that by perhaps turning the whole "Space Marines have a massive market presence" to our advantage and using that to spread female inclusivity feels a little like people are trying to avoid women Space Marines for some reason.
I know that some bloke has voiced their support for women Space Marines, which I do appreciate, but I will still be addressing the larger issue stemming from this idea that women Space Marines don't need to be done because the lore says so.
I just realized something about the promo materials for Primaris. Aside from book covers about specific characters, has anyone seen any artwork about Primaris with their helmets off? I haven't bought the books, so I dunno if there is any in there, but point being: they don't even have to change the art. A female primaris would look the exact same as a male primaris with the helmet on, unless they added some poney tail or something, which literally speaking would be terrible. But they could just put out their 6-8 foot primaris cardboard cut outs and say yeah, this is Tina, the new Female primaris.
My question would be what counts as "The Lore"? We know who decides what is and isn't canon, GWbtw, and they have already said the specific passage used to justify male-only SM is outdated.
Now you could take that as outdated compared to modern morale concerns OR as in the book is outdated and should no longer be used as a source of reference.
If we look at the 9th edition SM codex, in the Creation of a SM section there is one explicitly male reference and it is in the term Gene-Sons. This does not preclude non-male aspirants just that the end result is male. Pretty cursed IMO but peeps seem to love that whole "Grimdark" aesthetic.
Read back over the last 7 or so pages, their side's entire argument has been (Fingers in ears) "WE DON'T SEE/HEAR ANYTHING! NA NA NA NA NA NA NA!"
How many times in 40 pages do we need to cite examples of things before we have to stop knocking down improperly setup straw man arguments? Smudge, Gert, and Scotsman, have all said multiple times that we don't need inclusivity in the Guard, we need it in the games FOREFRONT faction.
The attempt to say We can't let females into the Astartes unless or until ALL factions are 100% equal, it what we call the BS of infinite Regress. They will continue to put up completely vacuous straw men until we either quit trying or we win. It's like Gay rights in the US. We can't allow Trans bathrooms until we eliminate the potential of Child molestation. As if the two are related. It's an impossible hill to climb just to put female pronouns in the fluff of a table top game's preeminent faction.
You do realise the guy in question is for femarines, and for better female representation, right? Pretty sure I can point to plenty of his posts too.
and it's not the first time in this thread that someone who was in agreement, or partial agreement or not entirely against what youre saying was savaged by one of ye either or had their argument misconstrued for a cheap shot. Its like unless theyre 110% on board with ye and utterly undeviated from the dogma they're the enemy.
Come on, stop eating your own. Equating people like some bloke or myself with the actions of transphobes and homophobes is disgusting and completely unwarranted. You don't know me. You don't know how savagely I detest those bigots.
Read back over the last 7 or so pages, their side's entire argument has been (Fingers in ears) "WE DON'T SEE/HEAR ANYTHING! NA NA NA NA NA NA NA!"
How many times in 40 pages do we need to cite examples of things before we have to stop knocking down improperly setup straw man arguments? Smudge, Gert, and Scotsman, have all said multiple times that we don't need inclusivity in the Guard, we need it in the games FOREFRONT faction.
The attempt to say We can't let females into the Astartes unless or until ALL factions are 100% equal, it what we call the BS of infinite Regress. They will continue to put up completely vacuous straw men until we either quit trying or we win. It's like Gay rights in the US. We can't allow Trans bathrooms until we eliminate the potential of Child molestation. As if the two are related. It's an impossible hill to climb just to put female pronouns in the fluff of a table top game's preeminent faction.
You do realise the guy in question is for femarines, and for better female representation, right? Pretty sure I can point to plenty of his posts too.
and it's not the first time in this thread that someone who was in agreement, or partial agreement or not entirely against what youre saying was savaged by one of ye either or had their argument misconstrued for a cheap shot. Its like unless theyre 110% on board with ye and utterly undeviated from the dogma they're the enemy.
Come on, stop eating your own. Equating people like some bloke or myself with the actions of transphobes and homophobes is disgusting and completely unwarranted.
Simple question then, what is the difference between someone who thinks women are inferior to someone who thinks a trans person is inferior? Both are discrimination by gender.
LumenPraebeo wrote:I'm not convinced those are female heads...
Human women heads? Certainly not, but according to Tau biology/physiology, the first Tau pictured linked is for a female, yes.
Deadnight wrote:and it's not the first time in this thread that someone who was in agreement, or partial agreement or not entirely against what youre saying was savaged by one of ye either or had their argument misconstrued for a cheap shot. Its like unless theyre 110% on board with ye and utterly undeviated from the dogma they're the enemy.
Eh, I'm not denying that we're in agreement that women Astartes should be a thing. The issue is that by defending the lore excuse, they're providing that same ammunition and defence to people who might not share the same sentiments that women Astartes should be a thing.
I'm having to debunk the whole "the lore is sacred" issue because if I don't here, then it emboldens others to use that reason why they don't want women Astartes. I'm not saying that some bloke needs to be entirely in lockstep, but I am saying that I'm not going to *not* call out what I see as a fundamentally flawed logic, because I don't want other people to start using it who might not be as understanding on the issue as some bloke is.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Simple question then, what is the difference between someone who thinks women are inferior to someone who thinks a trans person is inferior? Both are discrimination by gender.
I agree. I'm a feminist. I'm also strongly pro-lgbtq.
That has nothing to do with anything either some bloke or myself have said.
And if that's what you're implying of me, I'll hit the report button and have you for breaking rule 1.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Eh, I'm not denying that we're in agreement that women Astartes should be a thing. The issue is that by defending the lore excuse, they're providing that same ammunition and defence to people who might not share the same sentiments that women Astartes should be a thing.
I'm having to debunk the whole "the lore is sacred" issue because if I don't here, then it emboldens others to use that reason why they don't want women Astartes. I'm not saying that some bloke needs to be entirely in lockstep, but I am saying that I'm not going to *not* call out what I see as a fundamentally flawed logic, because I don't want other people to start using it who might not be as understanding on the issue as some bloke is.
No. Youre tarring them with the same brush Smudge. You're so focused on this one thing you're lashing out at a lot of people that ate not your enemies. You're so focused on 'debunking, your just taking cheap shots.
Some arguments have greater merit than others. Just because they share a space, have concerns about what you want or think there are better approaches to the same goddamn goal doesn't mean they need to be dismissed out of hand because worse people are there and could use it to do bad things. If that was really the case, nothing should ever be written because some tool will always find a way to weaponise it and hurt people....
I'm of the opinion that writers should be allowed to write whatever they want regardless of peoples feelings. **** your feelings. **** my feelings. **** theirs. I'm not against the notion of this space based version of an all-boys school that is the astartes. If that's what the writers want to write, I'll respect it. If they want to change it, I'll respect it also. Their words. Their world.
If someone writes a story about Will and Ned, two straight white guys which absolutely rocks and gets super popular that's OK. Will and Ned don't nrvessarily need to have a black friend, a gay friend or a female friend in their story to legitimise them. If the characters are good, the writings sharp, it should be appreciated for what it is. It's not a worse story or a bad thing to not include a rainbow coalition of genders, colours and sexualities. And before you say anything, or deliberately misconstrue what I'm saying, or claim stating this makes me some kind of racist/mysogynist/homophobe or somehow our of touch, let me be clear about this: my favourite story (game) isn't will and need, or a clone of it; its actually a game that's based on 2 extremely strong female characters and has extremely strong lgbtw resonance. Changed my life too. 10 Internets if you guess right.
Lore is important even if it's silly. 40ks is weird in that it's wonderfully silly and over the top and in some ways it's a big joke and not meant to be taken all that seriously. Except when it is. Regardless, its just promotional material. And yes, lore can change. In some cases it should be changed. And in some cases it should never have been touched. Regardless, I'm wary of 'just change it' despite your goal being admiral. I think its a legitimate stance to be wary. They changed the tau lore when they brought in the super robot friends, I walked. They did newcrons. I was actually bitterly disappointed when what I got were quirky academics collecting battles. Never bought in. Primaris? Plenty people despise them. Femarines? Depending on how, it could be great, or tragic. A box set of those not-reivers posted earlier? I'll buy them all. headswaps like that angels of purification project? Meh. I checked it out, and fair play to them but it didn't work for me at all. Shrug.
I think more female sculpts for guard, expansion of sisters (would love to see a feral pelt-wearing squad/range, hive world scum looks and 'light' armour) beyond 'traditional nun' (plenty other ways to showcase 'real faith') that I think could be really interesting, and better promotion for not-space marine factions is an easy win and a nice change from marine saturation whilst not taking from what you want. And uncontroversial to boot. Its easier to push through to positivity easier to get everyone on board and doesn't threaten the bottom line.
After that, let's talk about femarines.
Meet me half way Smudge. Don't tar me with that brush. I'm.not your enemy.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:Eh, I'm not denying that we're in agreement that women Astartes should be a thing. The issue is that by defending the lore excuse, they're providing that same ammunition and defence to people who might not share the same sentiments that women Astartes should be a thing. I'm having to debunk the whole "the lore is sacred" issue because if I don't here, then it emboldens others to use that reason why they don't want women Astartes. I'm not saying that some bloke needs to be entirely in lockstep, but I am saying that I'm not going to *not* call out what I see as a fundamentally flawed logic, because I don't want other people to start using it who might not be as understanding on the issue as some bloke is.
No. Youre tarring them with the same brush Smudge. You're so focused on this one thing you're lashing out at a lot of people that ate not your enemies. You're so focused on 'debunking, your just taking cheap shots.
Alright, I'll bite - why is some bloke continuing the same thing then?
If we're "not enemies", then why continue to defend the lore?
And no, I'm not taking cheap shots, I'm pointing out rather valid faults in the arguments being made.
Some arguments have greater merit than others. Just because they share a space, have concerns about what you want or think there are better approaches to the same goddamn goal doesn't mean they need to be dismissed out of hand because worse people are there and could use it to do bad things. If that was really the case, nothing should ever be written because some tool will always find a way to weaponise it and hurt people....
Sorry, but no. I've got to disagree with that.
Regardless of if some bloke was pro- or anti-women Space Marines, the arguments that they make regarding the lore being this inviolate "it is, so it is" entity are inherently damaging to the issue at hand. If we accept that the lore ever comes before real world problems, then the whole concept of women Astartes is doomed to die in it's crib.
I would know, because I used to have that opinion, and the only thing that made that opinion change was the understanding the lore does not excuse real world issues that affect real people.
I'm of the opinion that writers should be allowed to write whatever they want regardless of peoples feelings. **** your feelings. **** my feelings. **** theirs. I'm not against the notion of this space based version of an all-boys school that is the astartes. If that's what the writers want to write, I'll respect it. If they want to change it, I'll respect it also. Their words. Their world.
And I'll criticise that world if and when real people use it as an excuse to exclude others.
If "their words" and "their world" start being used to harm people, then something's gotta give.
If someone writes a story about Will and Ned, two straight white guys which absolutely rocks and gets super popular that's OK.
You're right, that is okay. But there isn't a hobby based getting to collect your own Will and Ned, marketed as a way for you to flex your creativity, and then being told that you can't be too creative, and that you should feel bad from breaking the lore of Will and Ned.
If the characters are good, the writings sharp, it should be appreciated for what it is.
You know, I actually agree with that. If not having women Space Marines added something to the Space Marine identity, I'd support it, like I do with Custodes.
But the problem is that it doesn't add anything. And if it doesn't add anything, what would be lost by removing it?
And no, I'm not claiming you're bigoted or LGBTQ+phobic. All I am saying is that when something's causing harm, and very little good, should that not be addressed?
Lore is important even if it's silly.
Silly, yes. Utterly pointless and needlessly exclusive, to the point where it can be weaponised to exclude people? Not so important.
40ks is weird in that it's wonderfully silly and over the top and in some ways it's a big joke and not meant to be taken all that seriously. Except when it is.
Yeah, isn't that kinda the issue? That maybe it *was* just a joke - but not all jokes age well? And now people are taking that "joke" and people are getting excluded because of it?
Regardless, I'm wary of 'just change it' despite your goal being admiral. I think its a legitimate stance to be wary.
Legitimate to be wary, yes, but wariness still being means being able to look at the lore as more than "it is what it is" and say "oh, hang on, this is really a bit unnecessary, and is actually quite damaging - maybe we should change that".
Wariness applies to looking inward as well as outward.
I don't mind people like the lore. It's nice lore. There's a reason we like it. But is that reason "because women can't be Space Marines"? Really, how important *is* it?
I think more female sculpts for guard, expansion of sisters (would love to see a feral pelt-wearing squad/range, hive world scum looks and 'light' armour) beyond 'traditional nun' (plenty other ways to showcase 'real faith') that I think could be really interesting, and better promotion for not-space marine factions is an easy win and a nice change from marine saturation whilst not taking from what you want. And uncontroversial to boot. Its easier to push through to positivity easier to get everyone on board and doesn't threaten the bottom line.
After that, let's talk about femarines.
Again, such a thing is *good*, I'm not arguing with that, but it's not *enough*, and doesn't address the fundamental issue of what Space Marines are - a faction that has no real right to be exclusive, and would be the easiest one to fix. A solution that doesn't address that issue with Space Marines isn't a solution, not in my book. Either Space Marines as a whole need reworking to *warrant* the all-male treatment (and then risk stepping on the toes of Custodes), need moving away from the whole "customisable at all costs" image GW gives them, and taking down from the spotlight (a risky financial decision), or... we add women Space Marines with a change to 13 outdated words, and a new sprue.
You mention controversy. This brings to my issue on that - why is adding women Space Marines controversial?
Meet me half way Smudge. Don't tar me with that brush. I'm.not your enemy.
I know you're not. But I'm not going to let arguments that can be used to defend what I see as indefensible go unquestioned, no matter what "side" people stand on. It's not personal.
Games Workshop have never marketed or sold female space marines. In 1988, there was an advert for "Adventurers" which features two miniatures called Female Warrior Jayne and Female Warrior Gabs. These miniatures were sold as part of the RT601 "Adventurers" blister pack. It is pure speculation that these two miniatures were actually something other than what they were advertised and sold as but, if they were supposed to be something else, that is almost certainly Sisters of Battle. On the miniatures themselves, the base tag says "sister" and there are a few other design elements that point towards this liklihood, as shown in the image below, which is a comparison between one of the miniatures and the Stephen Tappin artwork of Sister Sin, as seen in the back of the Rogue Trader rulebook near a background section talking about the Sisters of Battle.
As you can see, the miniature has the same style of powered armour, the same rebreather apparatus and the same horned skull device on the left shoulder pad.
EDIT: I suppose they both also have bare hands too, although Gabs is painted to have gloves on the official model so, eh *shrug*
The very first thing you see is a HUGE MOVIG IMAGE MOVIE of a SOB walking towards the screen. and then the whole trailer thing happens where its all KABOOM!!!! PEW PEW PEW!! all about SOB and Marines kicking some evil Necron ass. Its only possible to tell one of the fighters character is female because she starts her pistol without helmet.
As a bystander who knows nothing about 40k, you can obviously tell that in the setting there are women. Who kick ass and wear power armour. Its very apparent these blue guys are obviously part of the same "team" - The human team.
So how does this conversation go when you walk into a GW store?
Random customer(female) - Hey I saw trailer for 40k and I'm really interested in. I was walking by and thought Id check out your shop. What can you tell me about the guys in the trailer?
GW employee: *gives run down of 40k in the fututre humanity beset from all sides blah blah . So in the trailer you saw IOM forces of Sisters of battle and Space Marines fighting of the Evil ancient necrons.
Customer A: Ohh thats cool. And they fight together?
GW Staff: yes they can do. They their own factions factions and models which you you can use to play the game but you dotn have to etc. and there are rules etc. etc. Books. etc. etc. Then goes through to briefly explain each faction.
Customer: *has a walk around the shop* Okay I will buy into faction *tyranids*(or SOB if the gender bias is as important as its made out to be I guess?) what do you recommend I start with?/ No sorry this really doesn't seem like my thing maybe some other time.
Apart from the GW predatory "you need to buy ALL THIS STUFF" targeting newbies and parents... and just a glance at the prices which would scare away most sane people.. At which point would a woman feel not represented in 40k because of marines as a new comer to 40k today? It certainly isn't the marketing. And unless they know the whole history of 40k, all the lore and all the legacy stuff. They would have no idea to the contrary.
I think a lot of you are coming at this from a very jaded veteran position and are creating problems out of something that is being addressed... Its just not addressed in the way you want it to and that's the part you don't like.
On a different tangent:
How would people react if The emperor was a woman.
Argive wrote: I mean this whole argument is all sort of out of touch I think.
Heh, y'think?
How would people react if The emperor was a woman.
Given the Emperor's multi-mind He's lived as pretty much every conceivable type of human being going right back to the early hominids and I am sure the Emperor will have appeared as whatever kind of human you can think of when it suited His purposes. It would certainly be an interesting concept to explore; with Queen Elizabeth have become a bit of a meme about living so long, I'm surprised you don't see more jokes and fan pictures
Female Space Marines eh? i'm not gonna read 37 pages but that aint gonna stop me wading in with a half-thought out opinion!
Well putting aside the overwhelmingly convincing and water-tight argument that girls are smelly, it seems to me that GW are damned if they do and damned if they don't - and that people would make up their own reasons and motivations for any such move. If it happens it will be be more about how they do it that I would be interested in.
In the meantime those that don't rely on being spoon-fed fluff and models will do some conversions and head-cannoneering and more power to them. I would love to fight against a half-female SM army and i'm sure if you look at the gallery on this site there is one there.
Personally, being a good catholic boy, i'm happy with the space nuns and space monks situation we have now, especially since they can fight together.
The very first thing you see is a HUGE MOVIG IMAGE MOVIE of a SOB walking towards the screen. and then the whole trailer thing happens where its all KABOOM!!!! PEW PEW PEW!! all about SOB and Marines kicking some evil Necron ass. Its only possible to tell one of the fighters character is female because she starts her pistol without helmet.
As a bystander who knows nothing about 40k, you can obviously tell that in the setting there are women. Who kick ass and wear power armour. Its very apparent these blue guys are obviously part of the same "team" - The human team.
So how does this conversation go when you walk into a GW store?
Random customer(female) - Hey I saw trailer for 40k and I'm really interested in. I was walking by and thought Id check out your shop. What can you tell me about the guys in the trailer?
GW employee: *gives run down of 40k in the fututre humanity beset from all sides blah blah . So in the trailer you saw IOM forces of Sisters of battle and Space Marines fighting of the Evil ancient necrons.
Customer A: Ohh thats cool. And they fight together?
GW Staff: yes they can do. They their own factions factions and models which you you can use to play the game but you dotn have to etc. and there are rules etc. etc. Books. etc. etc. Then goes through to briefly explain each faction.
Customer: *has a walk around the shop* Okay I will buy into faction *tyranids*(or SOB if the gender bias is as important as its made out to be I guess?) what do you recommend I start with?/ No sorry this really doesn't seem like my thing maybe some other time.
Apart from the GW predatory "you need to buy ALL THIS STUFF" targeting newbies and parents... and just a glance at the prices which would scare away most sane people.. At which point would a woman feel not represented in 40k because of marines as a new comer to 40k today? It certainly isn't the marketing. And unless they know the whole history of 40k, all the lore and all the legacy stuff. They would have no idea to the contrary.
I think a lot of you are coming at this from a very jaded veteran position and are creating problems out of something that is being addressed... Its just not addressed in the way you want it to and that's the part you don't like.
On a different tangent:
How would people react if The emperor was a woman.
Through your male lens you see no issue with that. But that’s just your experience. Imagine the same women sees the same video, she isn’t into fetish nuns and boob armour, she still goes to a go store, male staff and male customers only. Already uncomfortable she asks about the marines when in the shop, as they take up half the shelf space and there’s a giant cardboard cut out one by the till and half the people in there are painting them, there are cool a marine armies in display and there’s a big diorama in the shop window full of marines.
The shop assistant tells her about the cool supersoldiers and all the awesome models and stories available to them. The whole spin off game set 10000 years earlier that’s pretty much marine vs marine. It all sounds great, she’s interested and excited to play, the shop assistant sets up a demo game, she looks at the models and asks, are there female marines though?….
No, men only! the guys in the shop look suspiciously on.
Why? Because it said so 30 years ago. It would ruin the lore and break the game if we had women marines!
Why? Because the lore can’t even be changed.
Really? Well no, but this bit can’t! Women can’t be marines because they aren’t tough enough, or strong enough and because men are better at Sports and war. (All reasons given in this thread).
Bye.
And if the emperor was a woman? Fine. No issue at all. I’d be perfectly happy if when reborn as the star child she was a little baby girl. ( or if they said she was a woman all a long)
I think it's much more likely that a woman walking into a gw store would be more interested in the setting that shows women and men fighting alongside eachother as equals than the setting where the trailer shows a woman fighting evil aliens, until there's an alien that's just too big and strong for her, so she goes and prays for a much bigger stronger man to show up and heroically stab the alien.
And in the game the women are in their own all-women faction, where you have to be catholic nuns while the boys can be romans, commandos, angels, vikings, monks, crusaders, mongols, dragon warriors, knights, spiky bad guys, egyptians, bezerkers, or diseased plague zombie mutants, all with their own unique dedicated model ranges and codexes.
And the women and the men don't have the same stats, actually the women are just about half as effective as the men - while in the other setting, they're the same faction and they fight in the same units.
I dunno. I dont actually have GW's numbers. I just know that locally, the 40k scene is 100% completely all dudes, and the AOS scene is basically 50-50.
As to more female models and presentation in 40k, fine, as long as they are sold in their own box sets or sprues and only people wanting them have to pay for them. That's fine with me, if the people who want to use them pay 100% for them, fine.
Unfortunately we all know that the bloosuckers running GW will put them in with all box sets them, of course, raise prices on the sets to cover the cost of the design, the sculpting, the molds, the CEOS new porsche, etc.
maybe some people will refuse to pay the 'inclusion tax" for things they don't want and won't use.
Sure, GW can cop an attitude if you don;t like it you will not be missed. Want to see what happened the last some a company decided to ram inclusion down their customers throats and told them 'Don't like it? Don't play the game!"
Well I just happen to have a little example of that right here.
Now GW players do have more than an either/or solution to the problem of being hit with an inclusion tax which will be part of price hikes of new female guard parts are added. Recasts and 3d printers. Yes, we do have other options and gw knows it.
I say no female space marines, Sobs are close enough and the lore says the marines have to be male. I am tired of small but very vocal groups bullying everyone into bowing to their views and i think that 40k should refuse to let a tiny group bully us all into changing the game to include female marines. Just. Say. No.
Female guard, sure. WW2 proved women can fight and make great snipers, just ask the people at stalingrad.
To be honest most combat pilots in the imperium should be female, women are better able to resist g stress and GLOC than men, that's a proven fact.
But female marines, no. Just for once someone needs to stand up to these bullies and refuses to back down. Don't let them bully us into submission.
So i'm fine with female guard, female elite forces, etc, as long as the majority of us aren't hit with an inclusion tax to pay for them. Female marines? No. Period. End of discussion.
So how much do you think an upgrade sprue of female heads and changing half the unhelmeted heads in future Marine releases to female would cost? Ballpark it for me.
Also, "I'm fine with representation as long as it doesn't cost ME anything!" is not a good attitude to have.
the_scotsman wrote: I think it's much more likely that a woman walking into a gw store would be more interested in the setting that shows women and men fighting alongside eachother as equals than the setting where the trailer shows a woman fighting evil aliens, until there's an alien that's just too big and strong for her, so she goes and prays for a much bigger stronger man to show up and heroically stab the alien.
And in the game the women are in their own all-women faction, where you have to be catholic nuns while the boys can be romans, commandos, angels, vikings, monks, crusaders, mongols, dragon warriors, knights, spiky bad guys, egyptians, bezerkers, or diseased plague zombie mutants, all with their own unique dedicated model ranges and codexes.
And the women and the men don't have the same stats, actually the women are just about half as effective as the men - while in the other setting, they're the same faction and they fight in the same units.
I dunno. I dont actually have GW's numbers. I just know that locally, the 40k scene is 100% completely all dudes, and the AOS scene is basically 50-50.
I wanted to add something to the discussion, but this pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter.
Space Marines are inherently asexual in nature. They've been so extremely modified as to make their gender irrelevant. There's no real reason they shouldn't be coming from any worthy candidate, regardless of gender.
JNAProductions wrote: So how much do you think an upgrade sprue of female heads and changing half the unhelmeted heads in future Marine releases to female would cost? Ballpark it for me.
Also, "I'm fine with representation as long as it doesn't cost ME anything!" is not a good attitude to have.
SIGH, How much it costs in actuality is irrelevant. GW will use it as an excuse to raise prices. Experts on plastic model making have pointed out that GWs prices are vastly inflated beyond a reasonable profit margin. The amount it would cost vs what gw would charge for doing it would be excessive.
As to your other point, where i live i'm taxed to pay for a local airport i'm not allowed to use, only businesses get to use it. They wanted it, i pay for it. Yeah, I'm not interested in paying for something else i don't want or use.
Buy hey, maybe the 3d printer crowd will model female guard and such, and make the files available. GW wouldn't dare ban those from games for feat of triggering the mandatory inclusion crowd. And that would be perfect.
GW claims making new female models would mean a price hike, and that most players refuse to pay it. The mandatory inclusion crowd calls us nasty names, we laugh at them, the third party makes the inclusive bits and only people who want them pay for them. Perfect solution AFAIC.
JNAProductions wrote: So how much do you think an upgrade sprue of female heads and changing half the unhelmeted heads in future Marine releases to female would cost? Ballpark it for me.
Also, "I'm fine with representation as long as it doesn't cost ME anything!" is not a good attitude to have.
SIGH, How much it costs in actuality is irrelevant. GW will use it as an excuse to raise prices. Experts on plastic model making have pointed out that GWs prices are vastly inflated beyond a reasonable profit margin. The amount it would cost vs what gw would charge for doing it would be excessive.
As to your other point, where i live i'm taxed to pay for a local airport i'm not allowed to use, only businesses get to use it. They wanted it, i pay for it. Yeah, I'm not interested in paying for something else i don't want or use.
Buy hey, maybe the 3d printer crowd will model female guard and such, and make the files available. GW wouldn't dare ban those from games for feat of triggering the mandatory inclusion crowd. And that would be perfect.
GW claims making new female models would mean a price hike, and that most players refuse to pay it. The mandatory inclusion crowd calls us nasty names, we laugh at them, the third party makes the inclusive bits and only people who want them pay for them. Perfect solution AFAIC.
Except for, you know, the death threats and other abuse anyone who dares make women Marines get.
But female marines, no. Just for once someone needs to stand up to these bullies and refuses to back down. Don't let them bully us into submission.
Why do you feel like including female marines would be bullying you, and why do you feel so combative about the idea? Why are you making this some kind of culture war, when it isn't?
Because people are scared that if the dreaded wiminz come into their hobby space they won't be allowed to make rude/inappropriate comments. That or something about fragile egos.
I've had Matt ignored for some time and looking at their posts reminded me that they have no idea what they're talking about and why I ignored them in the first place.
Matt Swain wrote: As to more female models and presentation in 40k, fine, as long as they are sold in their own box sets or sprues and only people wanting them have to pay for them. That's fine with me, if the people who want to use them pay 100% for them, fine.
I'll be honest, I'm kind of confused as to how you think this is something that would play out.
Because in my head, it'd go a little something like this:
GW does some kind of small story event thing where a great crisis happens, yadda yadda, some world or chapter is threatened with extinction. Guilliman is like 'we need moar spess mehrines!' and his brand new high lord of terra buddy Vahl says 'well its weird then that you only recruit from half the population, have we tried Belligerent Carl's new primaris space marine process with female candidates yet?' then they try it, it works, and whatever the next wave of primaris models comes out comes out with a mix of male and female heads. Whatever older marine designs they haven't soft-replaced yet, say a unit of primaris with missile launchers, a unit of jump pack assault primaris, and a unit of gravis with Lightning Claws and Thunder Hammers. Maybe at the same time, GW puts out a separate sprue with just a bunch of heads and such you can buy for their standard upgrade kit 15$ price point.
It seems like in your head there'd be like, a pink box of "for her" space marines that is the same as Intercessors but manditorily all women and 10$ more expensive. Why would that be your default assumption? The new sisters of battle kits aren't more expensive than the immediately preceding primaris space marine kits they came out with. And they didn't do this when they put female models into the Stormcast Eternals - they just included female models in the new wave of Stormcast stuff they were already coming out with.
Eschers cost the same amount as every other Necromunda gang. The secondary gang boxes they put out for each one costs the same. The new Necron Warriors kit, the new Tau fire warriors kit, and the new Ork Boyz kit are all presumably going to be more expensive than their predecessors, despite only one of them adding in female heads. It's almost like...new kits cost more, 100% of the time. The newest, all-male space marine kits, cost more than the all-female Daughters of Khaine kits.
the_scotsman wrote: I think it's much more likely that a woman walking into a gw store would be more interested in the setting that shows women and men fighting alongside eachother as equals than the setting where the trailer shows a woman fighting evil aliens, until there's an alien that's just too big and strong for her, so she goes and prays for a much bigger stronger man to show up and heroically stab the alien.
And in the game the women are in their own all-women faction, where you have to be catholic nuns while the boys can be romans, commandos, angels, vikings, monks, crusaders, mongols, dragon warriors, knights, spiky bad guys, egyptians, bezerkers, or diseased plague zombie mutants, all with their own unique dedicated model ranges and codexes.
And the women and the men don't have the same stats, actually the women are just about half as effective as the men - while in the other setting, they're the same faction and they fight in the same units.
I dunno. I dont actually have GW's numbers. I just know that locally, the 40k scene is 100% completely all dudes, and the AOS scene is basically 50-50.
Exactly you dont have any statistics or data to support any assertation of any issues apart from some anecdotal things people say on the internet. And we know how people on the internet are always honest and not biased...
The very assertion that a shop full of men is "odd" is a weird sexist take.. The same-store sells AOS... By your reasoning that would discourage women from AOS just as much as 40k... Yet you claim 50/50 split in AOS. Do you see a problem with this argument?
What a weird take... The very first scene is all about SOB narrating and SOB dramatically rocking up and saving a female guard soldier? So female saving females in the first 30 seconds... So is that an issue ? It seems liek you are looking for an issue... Having a super-power to literally pray a new arm is not somehow OP/Cool? You are so jaded you cannot see the fact SOB are badass and cannot see past the aesthetics of "boob plate" Do you think a woman would more find representation with a female form or a male form? If most marines are wearing helmets (as they should) how do you distinguish fem marines from male marines if not by female form?
You are asserting that SM are somehow better than sisters because of In-game stats.. They are just DIFFERENT in what they do and how they act. Different factions are well... different. Just because they have different stats in-game does not make SOB a worse army...
Also, you are confusing being male with SM... SM can be all of those things because they are SM... If you want to argue that SM are waaaay to prevalent in 40k where they basically overshadow any and all factions then I totaly agree. And making more SM but with vaginas but also looking more or less the same, and cranking out new SM marketing and a flood of fem marine kits is the last thing this setting / game needs.
If I didint know any better I would think you guys really despise men in general and depsie anything at all that might be construed as "male".
No, the_scotsman is right. The sister is cool against chaff robot monsters but as soon as a strong one shows up she has to pray for a man to save her.
Praying an arm back (oh look, that trope of women being good healers!) is cool, but not as cool as destroying a huge alien robot, something only manly soldiers can do.
He also never said it was "odd" that it is 100% men playing 40k.
You are asserting that SM are somehow better than sisters because of In-game stats
I mean, S3 T3 1W vs S4 T4 2W is like, very clearly worse. A Sister would get creamed by a Space Marine almost effortlessly.
If I didint know any better I would think you guys really despise men in general and depsie anything at all that might be construed as "male".
yea, glad you know better. Although it's really strange that you would even say this? This is like, really insane to write.
So honest question: when was the literal last time anyone saw a female player (Not mom purchasing something, but a female playing the game of 40k or AOS) in a GW store? I have seen exactly one, and it turned out they preferred a He/Him pronoun base. I have never once in 4 years seen a woman in a GW store that wasn't a guardian or purchasing a present for a person.
The very first thing you see is a HUGE MOVIG IMAGE MOVIE of a SOB walking towards the screen. and then the whole trailer thing happens where its all KABOOM!!!! PEW PEW PEW!! all about SOB and Marines kicking some evil Necron ass. Its only possible to tell one of the fighters character is female because she starts her pistol without helmet.
As a bystander who knows nothing about 40k, you can obviously tell that in the setting there are women. Who kick ass and wear power armour. Its very apparent these blue guys are obviously part of the same "team" - The human team.
So how does this conversation go when you walk into a GW store?
Random customer(female) - Hey I saw trailer for 40k and I'm really interested in. I was walking by and thought Id check out your shop. What can you tell me about the guys in the trailer?
GW employee: *gives run down of 40k in the fututre humanity beset from all sides blah blah . So in the trailer you saw IOM forces of Sisters of battle and Space Marines fighting of the Evil ancient necrons.
Customer A: Ohh thats cool. And they fight together?
GW Staff: yes they can do. They their own factions factions and models which you you can use to play the game but you dotn have to etc. and there are rules etc. etc. Books. etc. etc. Then goes through to briefly explain each faction.
Customer: *has a walk around the shop* Okay I will buy into faction *tyranids*(or SOB if the gender bias is as important as its made out to be I guess?) what do you recommend I start with?/ No sorry this really doesn't seem like my thing maybe some other time.
Apart from the GW predatory "you need to buy ALL THIS STUFF" targeting newbies and parents... and just a glance at the prices which would scare away most sane people.. At which point would a woman feel not represented in 40k because of marines as a new comer to 40k today? It certainly isn't the marketing. And unless they know the whole history of 40k, all the lore and all the legacy stuff. They would have no idea to the contrary.
I think a lot of you are coming at this from a very jaded veteran position and are creating problems out of something that is being addressed... Its just not addressed in the way you want it to and that's the part you don't like.
On a different tangent:
How would people react if The emperor was a woman.
Through your male lens you see no issue with that. But that’s just your experience. Imagine the same women sees the same video, she isn’t into fetish nuns and boob armour, she still goes to a go store, male staff and male customers only. Already uncomfortable she asks about the marines when in the shop, as they take up half the shelf space and there’s a giant cardboard cut out one by the till and half the people in there are painting them, there are cool a marine armies in display and there’s a big diorama in the shop window full of marines.
The shop assistant tells her about the cool supersoldiers and all the awesome models and stories available to them. The whole spin off game set 10000 years earlier that’s pretty much marine vs marine. It all sounds great, she’s interested and excited to play, the shop assistant sets up a demo game, she looks at the models and asks, are there female marines though?….
No, men only! the guys in the shop look suspiciously on.
Why? Because it said so 30 years ago. It would ruin the lore and break the game if we had women marines!
Why? Because the lore can’t even be changed.
Really? Well no, but this bit can’t! Women can’t be marines because they aren’t tough enough, or strong enough and because men are better at Sports and war. (All reasons given in this thread).
Bye.
And if the emperor was a woman? Fine. No issue at all. I’d be perfectly happy if when reborn as the star child she was a little baby girl. ( or if they said she was a woman all a long)
Through my male lense..?? Give me a fugin break. You have no idea what I identify as or what I have between my legs so stop asserting I have a "lense". You are the one that seems to be looking through <insert sex/gender> lense and cant see past what dangles between peoples legs.
GW Sales person:
"these marines are all about helping the weak and protecting people" (salamnders) "these guys are all about Cold logic and efficiency and power of machine and tech) (iron hands) "these guys just liek to go really really fast"(White scars) "these guys are all about building empires and governance" (UM)
GW Sales person: Which ones of these do you think you like the most?
Customer "Do any of them have vaginas and/or identify as women?"
GW sales person: Errrm... not acording to the descriptions I don't think. Im only a GW minimum wage part time staffer... Not sure im qualified to have a discussion about gender.
Customer:" I want the ones with vaginas, that look like me please.(nothing in the sore looks like this woman) If they don't have vaginas and dont look like me I'm not interested. Goodbye."
Thats how dumb this is.. saying that people will only resonate with things that share their gender/genitals with or look like them is absolutely abhorrent..
Why would the woman be uncomfortable in a store just because the people there have penises? Isn't that sexist? A normal human being in a civilized society wouldn't and shouldn't give a crap... Stop with your divisive nonsense rhetoric that women need any kind of special treatment.
Why would the same woman in the same store have no problem with AOS? Aos seems to be the pinnicle of inclussivity and is being sold at the same store.
Rihgu wrote: No, the_scotsman is right. The sister is cool against chaff robot monsters but as soon as a strong one shows up she has to pray for a man to save her.
Praying an arm back (oh look, that trope of women being good healers!) is cool, but not as cool as destroying a huge alien robot, something only manly soldiers can do.
He also never said it was "odd" that it is 100% men playing 40k.
You are asserting that SM are somehow better than sisters because of In-game stats
I mean, S3 T3 1W vs S4 T4 2W is like, very clearly worse. A Sister would get creamed by a Space Marine almost effortlessly.
If I didint know any better I would think you guys really despise men in general and depsie anything at all that might be construed as "male".
yea, glad you know better. Although it's really strange that you would even say this? This is like, really insane to write.
No, the sisters were holding the line against the necrons til help arrived, which many male forces do in the imperium.
Healing her arm was an act of faith in her god, not in a man. Also we saw some marines killed by a shot the sister's faith saved her from.
In the chapel she held her own against the skorp face to face, blade to blade. The marine attacked it from behind while she engaged it face to face.
We saw marines curt down by skorps in the battle who didn't hold their own as long as the sister did.
The sister returned with reinforcement, the intelligent thing to do, and aided the marines.
Neither a stock marine of a sister could really engage a skorp lord in melee by themselves, so they attacked it head on side by side as equals in the fight against humanities enemies.
The sisters are not as strong, large, tough or durable as a marine. They are as brave, professional, competent, dedicated and determined as marines are. Their faith gives them effective abilities marines do not have. They are equal to marines as defenders of humanity in ways besides simple brute strength and toughness. A sister will die as well as a marine to serve the emperor and protect humanity, and having less toughness, wounds and armor doesn't make them less willing to face death than a marine.
The video in no way denigrated women, nor did it make them "mary sues". it was once of gw's best videos.
Rihgu wrote: No, the_scotsman is right. The sister is cool against chaff robot monsters but as soon as a strong one shows up she has to pray for a man to save her.
Praying an arm back (oh look, that trope of women being good healers!) is cool, but not as cool as destroying a huge alien robot, something only manly soldiers can do.
He also never said it was "odd" that it is 100% men playing 40k.
You are asserting that SM are somehow better than sisters because of In-game stats
I mean, S3 T3 1W vs S4 T4 2W is like, very clearly worse. A Sister would get creamed by a Space Marine almost effortlessly.
If I didint know any better I would think you guys really despise men in general and depsie anything at all that might be construed as "male".
yea, glad you know better. Although it's really strange that you would even say this? This is like, really insane to write.
In the same way an IG woman cant takes on a Warrior and needs to be saved.. What is the difference?
You only seem to see one thing from one angle. Why is woman saving other woman ok but man saving woman not ok?
Tell me how that's not somehow a wierd sex/gender obsessed take?
Im responding to the overall sentiment of the thread.
Any notion/mention with SOB being badass awesome is met with "eeewww boob plate is sexist Ewwww"
This whole conversation is so stupid I feel like my brain cells are dying.
I admit I dont have all that many left through years of abuse but comon people..
the_scotsman wrote: I think it's much more likely that a woman walking into a gw store would be more interested in the setting that shows women and men fighting alongside eachother as equals than the setting where the trailer shows a woman fighting evil aliens, until there's an alien that's just too big and strong for her, so she goes and prays for a much bigger stronger man to show up and heroically stab the alien.
And in the game the women are in their own all-women faction, where you have to be catholic nuns while the boys can be romans, commandos, angels, vikings, monks, crusaders, mongols, dragon warriors, knights, spiky bad guys, egyptians, bezerkers, or diseased plague zombie mutants, all with their own unique dedicated model ranges and codexes.
And the women and the men don't have the same stats, actually the women are just about half as effective as the men - while in the other setting, they're the same faction and they fight in the same units.
I dunno. I dont actually have GW's numbers. I just know that locally, the 40k scene is 100% completely all dudes, and the AOS scene is basically 50-50.
Exactly you dont have any statistics or data to support any assertation of any issues apart from some anecdotal things people say on the internet. And we know how people on the internet are always honest and not biased...
The very assertion that a shop full of men is "odd" is a weird sexist take.. The same-store sells AOS... By your reasoning that would discourage women from AOS just as much as 40k... Yet you claim 50/50 split in AOS. Do you see a problem with this argument?
What a weird take... The very first scene is all about SOB narrating and SOB dramatically rocking up and saving a female guard soldier? So female saving females in the first 30 seconds... So is that an issue ? It seems liek you are looking for an issue...
Having a super-power to literally pray a new arm is not somehow OP/Cool? You are so jaded you cannot see the fact SOB are badass and cannot see past the aesthetics of "boob plate"
Do you think a woman would more find representation with a female form or a male form? If most marines are wearing helmets (as they should) how do you distinguish fem marines from male marines if not by female form?
You are asserting that SM are somehow better than sisters because of In-game stats.. They are just DIFFERENT in what they do and how they act. Different factions are well... different. Just because they have different stats in-game does not make SOB a worse army...
Also, you are confusing being male with SM... SM can be all of those things because they are SM...
If you want to argue that SM are waaaay to prevalent in 40k where they basically overshadow any and all factions then I totaly agree. And making more SM but with vaginas but also looking more or less the same, and cranking out new SM marketing and a flood of fem marine kits is the last thing this setting / game needs.
If I didint know any better I would think you guys really despise men in general and depsie anything at all that might be construed as "male".
Yep, 100%. That's why my favorite army is Orks and I have several times more Orks than any other army - I just hate men so much.
If you're talking about the perspective of a new person, unfamiliar with the hobby, they're not going to understand the lore complexities of why Astartes are bigger and stronger and more powerful because they have nineteen hearts and spit acid and shoot laser beams when they orgasm. They're going to see that the 'girl army' is wearing similar armor, but when they play their introductory game of kill team, they're probably going to notice that the 'boy army' has twice as many attacks, +1 strength, +1 to hit in melee, +1 toughness, twice as many wounds, and a better gun. A sister of battle, in game terms is worth just a hair over 1/2 of a space marine.
And theyre going to contrast that to the other game system, designed by the exact same company, and probably notice that their faction of super powerful soldiers just...gets to have women in it.
If we're talking about first impressions, walk into the shop and look around and play a small demo game, this is going to be an IMMEDIATELY OBVIOUS comparison between the two systems of AOS and 40k, even if we take for granted (which I do, before you go making assumptions) that this is a person who sees badass lady in power armor and thinks: "awesome."
I really do not think that the image of the current SOB model range is anywhere close to being something that would repel a nerdy woman on the grounds of 'ew, sexist'. God knows if they enjoy anything at all related to comic books, or anime, or video games, they've seen and probably like far more male-fanservice heavy depictions of female characters. Commander Shepherd's armor from Mass Effect is more sexualised than a sister of battle model.
The only thing I find odd about the particular ratio between the game systems is: Age of Sigmar and 40k are sold in the exact same store at the exact same price points to the exact same group of people who walk in randomly off the street, and as groups go I understand my pool of opponents is MASSIVE. There's probably sixty 40k players and 40 AOS players in the groups I use to set games up, but some core distinction between the two systems is better at attracting more new players to AOS who have never played wargames before (new 40k players almost always have played in older editions, or move from other areas and are existing players) and is also better at attracting women to the game in a general hobby space that's very heavily male of wargaming.
Both games are "head to head competitions" both are dark violent settings, both are extremely expensive, both require you to build and paint your own stuff. Obviously some part of it is purely inertia-based - nobody wants to be "the first woman" just like if you were a dude joining a group that's 100% women you'd feel awkward about it, and the AOS scene basically grew out of nothing while the 40k scene has been continuous, but I do think AOS does a better job in general attracting women because most factions in AOS that look like people are gender integrated, while a solid 80-90% of 40k's marketing material is marines, who are only men.
The very first thing you see is a HUGE MOVIG IMAGE MOVIE of a SOB walking towards the screen. and then the whole trailer thing happens where its all KABOOM!!!! PEW PEW PEW!! all about SOB and Marines kicking some evil Necron ass. Its only possible to tell one of the fighters character is female because she starts her pistol without helmet.
As a bystander who knows nothing about 40k, you can obviously tell that in the setting there are women. Who kick ass and wear power armour. Its very apparent these blue guys are obviously part of the same "team" - The human team.
So how does this conversation go when you walk into a GW store?
Random customer(female) - Hey I saw trailer for 40k and I'm really interested in. I was walking by and thought Id check out your shop. What can you tell me about the guys in the trailer?
GW employee: *gives run down of 40k in the fututre humanity beset from all sides blah blah . So in the trailer you saw IOM forces of Sisters of battle and Space Marines fighting of the Evil ancient necrons.
Customer A: Ohh thats cool. And they fight together?
GW Staff: yes they can do. They their own factions factions and models which you you can use to play the game but you dotn have to etc. and there are rules etc. etc. Books. etc. etc. Then goes through to briefly explain each faction.
Customer: *has a walk around the shop* Okay I will buy into faction *tyranids*(or SOB if the gender bias is as important as its made out to be I guess?) what do you recommend I start with?/ No sorry this really doesn't seem like my thing maybe some other time.
Apart from the GW predatory "you need to buy ALL THIS STUFF" targeting newbies and parents... and just a glance at the prices which would scare away most sane people.. At which point would a woman feel not represented in 40k because of marines as a new comer to 40k today? It certainly isn't the marketing. And unless they know the whole history of 40k, all the lore and all the legacy stuff. They would have no idea to the contrary.
I think a lot of you are coming at this from a very jaded veteran position and are creating problems out of something that is being addressed... Its just not addressed in the way you want it to and that's the part you don't like.
On a different tangent:
How would people react if The emperor was a woman.
Through your male lens you see no issue with that. But that’s just your experience. Imagine the same women sees the same video, she isn’t into fetish nuns and boob armour, she still goes to a go store, male staff and male customers only. Already uncomfortable she asks about the marines when in the shop, as they take up half the shelf space and there’s a giant cardboard cut out one by the till and half the people in there are painting them, there are cool a marine armies in display and there’s a big diorama in the shop window full of marines.
The shop assistant tells her about the cool supersoldiers and all the awesome models and stories available to them. The whole spin off game set 10000 years earlier that’s pretty much marine vs marine. It all sounds great, she’s interested and excited to play, the shop assistant sets up a demo game, she looks at the models and asks, are there female marines though?….
No, men only! the guys in the shop look suspiciously on.
Why? Because it said so 30 years ago. It would ruin the lore and break the game if we had women marines!
Why? Because the lore can’t even be changed.
Really? Well no, but this bit can’t! Women can’t be marines because they aren’t tough enough, or strong enough and because men are better at Sports and war. (All reasons given in this thread).
Bye.
And if the emperor was a woman? Fine. No issue at all. I’d be perfectly happy if when reborn as the star child she was a little baby girl. ( or if they said she was a woman all a long)
Through my male lense..?? Give me a fugin break. You have no idea what I identify as or what I have between my legs so stop asserting I have a "lense". You are the one that seems to be looking through <insert sex/gender> lense and cant see past what dangles between peoples legs.
GW Sales person:
"these marines are all about helping the weak and protecting people" (salamnders)
"these guys are all about Cold logic and efficiency and power of machine and tech) (iron hands)
"these guys just liek to go really really fast"(White scars)
"these guys are all about building empires and governance" (UM)
GW Sales person: Which ones of these do you think you like the most?
Customer "Do any of them have vaginas and/or identify as women?"
GW sales person: Errrm... not acording to the descriptions I don't think. I don't have a gender studies degree to adequately answer what is a woman im only a GW minimum wage part time staffer..
Customer:" I want the ones with vaginas, that look like me please.(nothing in the sore looks like this woman)
If they don't have vaginas and dont look like me I'm not interested. Goodbye."
Thats how dumb this is..
saying that people will only resonate with things that share their gender/genitals with or look like them is absolutely abhorrent..
Why would the woman be uncomfortable in a store just because the people there have penises? Isn't that sexist? A normal human being in a civilized society wouldn't and shouldn't give a crap... Stop with your divisive nonsense rhetoric that women need any kind of special treatment.
Why would the same woman in the same store have no problem with AOS? Aos seems to be the pinnicle of inclussivity and is being sold at the same store.
You don't get to use exclusionary rhetoric, and then cry victim when someone assumes your gender.
Rihgu wrote: No, the_scotsman is right. The sister is cool against chaff robot monsters but as soon as a strong one shows up she has to pray for a man to save her.
Praying an arm back (oh look, that trope of women being good healers!) is cool, but not as cool as destroying a huge alien robot, something only manly soldiers can do.
He also never said it was "odd" that it is 100% men playing 40k.
You are asserting that SM are somehow better than sisters because of In-game stats
I mean, S3 T3 1W vs S4 T4 2W is like, very clearly worse. A Sister would get creamed by a Space Marine almost effortlessly.
If I didint know any better I would think you guys really despise men in general and depsie anything at all that might be construed as "male".
yea, glad you know better. Although it's really strange that you would even say this? This is like, really insane to write.
In the same way an IG woman cant takes on a Warrior and needs to be saved.. What is the difference?
Well, nobody is suggesting that IG are the "Space Marine alternative, For Women!", or the face of 40k, or anything relevant. If a Sister of Battle is the proposed alternative for people seeking female Space Marines, they should not need to be saved by Actual Male Space Marines.
You only seem to see one thing from one angle. Why is woman saving other woman ok but man saving woman not ok?
Because one is a historically misogynistic trope and the other isn't?
Tell me how that's not somehow a wierd sex/gender obsessed take?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So honest question: when was the literal last time anyone saw a female player (Not mom purchasing something, but a female playing the game of 40k or AOS) in a GW store? I have seen exactly one, and it turned out they preferred a He/Him pronoun base. I have never once in 4 years seen a woman in a GW store that wasn't a guardian or purchasing a present for a person.
I haven't been in a GW store in a couple of years, but I played Age of Sigmar last weekend, so, last weekend. There were five games going on and more women than men playing.
Yeah the only two women I've ever seen play Warhammer 40 k we're playing drukari and nids. And most women that even show a passing interest out of my friends that don't currently play but are looking at the hobby from outside are drawn towards age of Sigmar. And typically the ones that have female armies like the daughters of Kaine.
"these marines are all about helping the weak and protecting people" (salamnders)
"these guys are all about Cold logic and efficiency and power of machine and tech) (iron hands)
"these guys just liek to go really really fast"(White scars)
"these guys are all about building empires and governance" (UM)
GW Sales person: Which ones of these do you think you like the most?
Customer "Do any of them have vaginas and/or identify as women?"
GW sales person: Errrm... not acording to the descriptions I don't think. Im only a GW minimum wage part time staffer... Not sure im qualified to have a discussion about gender.
Customer:" I want the ones with vaginas, that look like me please.(nothing in the sore looks like this woman)
If they don't have vaginas and dont look like me I'm not interested. Goodbye."
Thats how dumb this is..
saying that people will only resonate with things that share their gender/genitals with or look like them is absolutely abhorrent..
Why would the woman be uncomfortable in a store just because the people there have penises? Isn't that sexist? A normal human being in a civilized society wouldn't and shouldn't give a crap... Stop with your divisive nonsense rhetoric that women need any kind of special treatment.
Why would the same woman in the same store have no problem with AOS? Aos seems to be the pinnicle of inclussivity and is being sold at the same store.
This post nearly brought tears of joy to my eyes.
This is exactly the issue here. Women hate Being judged by their gender, and i think it's wrong to do so as well, if you've seen my protests against the IJ movies for the terrible treatment of women in this you'd know that.
But the people demanding female marines are saying they can't identify with marines based on their gender.
Implying someone's gender is the most important characteristic of their personhood is the mentality used by Aholes who discriminate against women!
I like the sallies because of their mentality and commitment to protect people, not because they have one set of genitals or another.
I despise the iron hands and it has nothing to do with gender.
Honestly, if you want to identify with an army it should be because of their attitudes or what you think is cool, not "What do they have in their pants?"
The very first thing you see is a HUGE MOVIG IMAGE MOVIE of a SOB walking towards the screen. and then the whole trailer thing happens where its all KABOOM!!!! PEW PEW PEW!! all about SOB and Marines kicking some evil Necron ass. Its only possible to tell one of the fighters character is female because she starts her pistol without helmet.
As a bystander who knows nothing about 40k, you can obviously tell that in the setting there are women. Who kick ass and wear power armour. Its very apparent these blue guys are obviously part of the same "team" - The human team.
So how does this conversation go when you walk into a GW store?
Random customer(female) - Hey I saw trailer for 40k and I'm really interested in. I was walking by and thought Id check out your shop. What can you tell me about the guys in the trailer?
GW employee: *gives run down of 40k in the fututre humanity beset from all sides blah blah . So in the trailer you saw IOM forces of Sisters of battle and Space Marines fighting of the Evil ancient necrons.
Customer A: Ohh thats cool. And they fight together?
GW Staff: yes they can do. They their own factions factions and models which you you can use to play the game but you dotn have to etc. and there are rules etc. etc. Books. etc. etc. Then goes through to briefly explain each faction.
Customer: *has a walk around the shop* Okay I will buy into faction *tyranids*(or SOB if the gender bias is as important as its made out to be I guess?) what do you recommend I start with?/ No sorry this really doesn't seem like my thing maybe some other time.
Apart from the GW predatory "you need to buy ALL THIS STUFF" targeting newbies and parents... and just a glance at the prices which would scare away most sane people.. At which point would a woman feel not represented in 40k because of marines as a new comer to 40k today? It certainly isn't the marketing. And unless they know the whole history of 40k, all the lore and all the legacy stuff. They would have no idea to the contrary.
I think a lot of you are coming at this from a very jaded veteran position and are creating problems out of something that is being addressed... Its just not addressed in the way you want it to and that's the part you don't like.
On a different tangent:
How would people react if The emperor was a woman.
Through your male lens you see no issue with that. But that’s just your experience. Imagine the same women sees the same video, she isn’t into fetish nuns and boob armour, she still goes to a go store, male staff and male customers only. Already uncomfortable she asks about the marines when in the shop, as they take up half the shelf space and there’s a giant cardboard cut out one by the till and half the people in there are painting them, there are cool a marine armies in display and there’s a big diorama in the shop window full of marines.
The shop assistant tells her about the cool supersoldiers and all the awesome models and stories available to them. The whole spin off game set 10000 years earlier that’s pretty much marine vs marine. It all sounds great, she’s interested and excited to play, the shop assistant sets up a demo game, she looks at the models and asks, are there female marines though?….
No, men only! the guys in the shop look suspiciously on.
Why? Because it said so 30 years ago. It would ruin the lore and break the game if we had women marines!
Why? Because the lore can’t even be changed.
Really? Well no, but this bit can’t! Women can’t be marines because they aren’t tough enough, or strong enough and because men are better at Sports and war. (All reasons given in this thread).
Bye.
And if the emperor was a woman? Fine. No issue at all. I’d be perfectly happy if when reborn as the star child she was a little baby girl. ( or if they said she was a woman all a long)
Through my male lense..?? Give me a fugin break. You have no idea what I identify as or what I have between my legs so stop asserting I have a "lense". You are the one that seems to be looking through <insert sex/gender> lense and cant see past what dangles between peoples legs.
GW Sales person:
"these marines are all about helping the weak and protecting people" (salamnders)
"these guys are all about Cold logic and efficiency and power of machine and tech) (iron hands)
"these guys just liek to go really really fast"(White scars)
"these guys are all about building empires and governance" (UM)
GW Sales person: Which ones of these do you think you like the most?
Customer "Do any of them have vaginas and/or identify as women?"
GW sales person: Errrm... not acording to the descriptions I don't think. I don't have a gender studies degree to adequately answer what is a woman im only a GW minimum wage part time staffer..
Customer:" I want the ones with vaginas, that look like me please.(nothing in the sore looks like this woman)
If they don't have vaginas and dont look like me I'm not interested. Goodbye."
Thats how dumb this is..
saying that people will only resonate with things that share their gender/genitals with or look like them is absolutely abhorrent..
Why would the woman be uncomfortable in a store just because the people there have penises? Isn't that sexist? A normal human being in a civilized society wouldn't and shouldn't give a crap... Stop with your divisive nonsense rhetoric that women need any kind of special treatment.
Why would the same woman in the same store have no problem with AOS? Aos seems to be the pinnicle of inclussivity and is being sold at the same store.
You don't get to use exclusionary rhetoric, and then cry victim when someone assumes your gender.
Also Lens doesn't have an "e" at the end.
Thank you. Well said.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also if your only comeback against an argument is repeating it in a funny voice you have already lost mate.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also if your only comeback against an argument is repeating it in a funny voice you have already lost mate.
Matt Swain makes huge leaps in logic, and is seeing threats where there are none. What I see is a guy who's ego is tied to his hobby.
As for including female marines into lore and products. I think it needs to understood that it is most possible; that if such a move is done, that the end result may very well be that nothing happens.
We can't expect that simply being inclusive in lore and products or marketing will manage to bring in fans of the opposite sex. Again, there is a reason why toy companies in the past have had girl toy lines, and boy toy lines.
This endeavor must also not be done for the sake of simply being inclusive. We've seen the end results of things done for the simple sake of being inclusive. Finished products that are shallow, ugly and cringe inducing, and simply horrible compared to a finished product with real care, effort, and genuine passion put into the project.
LumenPraebeo wrote: Matt Swain makes huge leaps in logic, and is seeing threats where there are none. What I see is a guy who's ego is tied to his hobby.
As for including female marines into lore and products. I think it needs to understood that it is most possible; that if such a move is done, that the end result may very well be that nothing happens.
We can't expect that simply being inclusive in lore and products or marketing will manage to bring in fans of the opposite sex. Again, there is a reason why toy companies in the past have had girl toy lines, and boy toy lines.
This endeavor must also not be done for the sake of simply being inclusive. We've seen the end results of things done for the simple sake of being inclusive. Finished products that are shallow, ugly and cringe inducing, and simply horrible compared to a finished product with real care, effort, and genuine passion put into the project.
Is being inclusive not something to work towards?
I agree that products that have inclusiveness can be shallow, ugly, cringe, and just plain bad. So can exclusive products. So can products that have a decent attempt at being inclusive but fall short.
But the argument of "Maybe it won't work" is not a good reason to avoid so much as TRYING.
Being inclusive should never be something we work towards without good reason. What's the point of building toward a project that will eventually culminate into something that is worse than it is in the past just to hand the inferior result over to your daughter?
Great thought and care needs to be put into such marketing exercises, just like it needed to be done with previous successes in the past. Ultimately, GW has much better resources to study such things. But if fans are to push GW for inclusivity, it should be done with intelligence and respect, not hair trigger politically correct reactions.
LumenPraebeo wrote: Being inclusive should never be something we work towards without good reason. What's the point of building toward a project that will eventually culminate into something that is worse than it is in the past just to hand the inferior result over to your daughter?
Great thought and care needs to be put into such marketing exercises, just like it needed to be done with previous successes in the past. Ultimately, GW has much better resources to study such things. But if fans are to push GW for inclusivity, it should be done with intelligence and respect, not hair trigger politically correct reactions.
GW have shown how well they can do it with the stormcast range. No fuss, no ham fisted cringe lore. Just cool models that are bad ass and happen to be women. The cover art of the new core book is a female leader of flagship faction, and it doesn’t matter that she’s female. It matters that she’s bad ass and an awesome model.
I checked again today and there is no point in the latest codex that says that marines have to be men, I wonder when that was last actually published?? Heard plenty of arguments where only the most up to date lore is canon, (don’t agree my self) but if that is the case then no need to worry about breaking the game with a lore change.
LumenPraebeo wrote: Being inclusive should never be something we work towards without good reason. What's the point of building toward a project that will eventually culminate into something that is worse than it is in the past just to hand the inferior result over to your daughter?
Great thought and care needs to be put into such marketing exercises, just like it needed to be done with previous successes in the past. Ultimately, GW has much better resources to study such things. But if fans are to push GW for inclusivity, it should be done with intelligence and respect, not hair trigger politically correct reactions.
GW have shown how well they can do it with the stormcast range. No fuss, no ham fisted cringe lore. Just cool models that are bad ass and happen to be women. The cover art of the new core book is a female leader of flagship faction, and it doesn’t matter that she’s female. It matters that she’s bad ass and an awesome model.
I checked again today and there is no point in the latest codex that says that marines have to be men, I wonder when that was last actually published?? Heard plenty of arguments where only the most up to date lore is canon, (don’t agree my self) but if that is the case then no need to worry about breaking the game with a lore change.
Ohh yeah the genesis of AOS and the killing of WHFB was "not ham-fisted"
I wouldn't say Storm cast are the AOS flagship faction. AOS doesn't seem to have one. People have drawn parallel of 'sigmarines' in the beginning because it was the faction that was hoggin all the stuff. It seemed like an attempt at introducing that SM factor to a fantasy setting. Nowa days? I dont think so.. At least from a non AOS players perspective. The marketing and releases appears to be pretty even across all factions and new factions getting introduced.
I think perhaps that is something 40k is trying to emulate now as well.
But maybe its also the reason why AOS is not as popular as 40k on the grand scheme of things but also why 40k is less popular with women.
But female marines, no. Just for once someone needs to stand up to these bullies and refuses to back down. Don't let them bully us into submission.
Why do you feel like including female marines would be bullying you, and why do you feel so combative about the idea? Why are you making this some kind of culture war, when it isn't?
I think the part where people say it is problematic for GW to have a flagship faction being a fraternal order, and going on to insist anyone who doesn't see anything wrong with having a fraternal order being a flag ship faction is some sort of heretic is where people assume a culture war has come into it.
I also forgot to mention in my previous posts that, any single move or event should not be expected to draw in a larger fan base. Whatever reasons people get into any hobby, any tabletop wargaming, its rarely for one reason alone.
So yes, adding female Astartes into 40K is a step, a pretty good step IMO. But one step on a flight of stairs. Maybe we will also need marketing, maybe we need new characters. Maybe we need new stories.
Maybe we need to change how GW floor representatives see you for the first time, run up to you and shout in your face when all you wanted to do was buy a box of toys quietly, and head home.
And maybe all it will take is time. Regardless, any type of work worth doing, theres going to be the real possibility that it will take a long time, and a lot of little things will need to be tinkered with and thought about, if we want to see tabletop wargaming become as attractive as something like DnD.
LumenPraebeo wrote: Being inclusive should never be something we work towards without good reason. What's the point of building toward a project that will eventually culminate into something that is worse than it is in the past just to hand the inferior result over to your daughter?
Great thought and care needs to be put into such marketing exercises, just like it needed to be done with previous successes in the past. Ultimately, GW has much better resources to study such things. But if fans are to push GW for inclusivity, it should be done with intelligence and respect, not hair trigger politically correct reactions.
GW have shown how well they can do it with the stormcast range. No fuss, no ham fisted cringe lore. Just cool models that are bad ass and happen to be women. The cover art of the new core book is a female leader of flagship faction, and it doesn’t matter that she’s female. It matters that she’s bad ass and an awesome model.
I checked again today and there is no point in the latest codex that says that marines have to be men, I wonder when that was last actually published?? Heard plenty of arguments where only the most up to date lore is canon, (don’t agree my self) but if that is the case then no need to worry about breaking the game with a lore change.
Ohh yeah the genesis of AOS and the killing of WHFB was "not ham-fisted"
I wouldn't say Storm cast are the AOS flagship faction. AOS doesn't seem to have one. People have drawn parallel of 'sigmarines' in the beginning because it was the faction that was hoggin all the stuff. It seemed like an attempt at introducing that SM factor to a fantasy setting.
Nowa days? I dont think so.. At least from a non AOS players perspective. The marketing and releases appears to be pretty even across all factions and new factions getting introduced.
I think perhaps that is something 40k is trying to emulate now as well.
But maybe its also the reason why AOS is not as popular as 40k on the grand scheme of things but also why 40k is less popular with women.
The dealing with the old world and new AoS is a different issue of the introduction of female stormcast, they did the later very well, first wave was all male, since then lots a of fantastic female models and characters and stories. Nothing to do with the old world. (I actually liked how they killed off the old world).
You might not think that stormcast are the flagship faction and in anyway comparable to marines but all the evidence and GW themselves disagree. There are lots of non stormcast releases but all the artwork, most the stories, and the fact that they are the protagonists in every game box of each edition with a raft of new releases, on the cover of the core book, like marines always are. You might like the comparison but sorry, it stands and is sound.
But female marines, no. Just for once someone needs to stand up to these bullies and refuses to back down. Don't let them bully us into submission.
Why do you feel like including female marines would be bullying you, and why do you feel so combative about the idea? Why are you making this some kind of culture war, when it isn't?
I think the part where people say it is problematic for GW to have a flagship faction being a fraternal order, and going on to insist anyone who doesn't see anything wrong with having a fraternal order being a flag ship faction is some sort of heretic is where people assume a culture war has come into it.
That’s not a culture war, that’s your slanted view of good intentioned people pointing out an obvious issue in the community and you refusing to see it or hiding behind terms like fraternity. By the way fraternity isn’t a term in the spacemarine codex either. They drop a lot of male pronouns but that’s as far as it goes.
No culture war, just stating the facts, the fraternity you like so much makes people feel excluded and when it’s challenged people are attacked and threatened. Even when an attempt to discuss it in an adult fashion is bogged down circular arguments about points long since dismissed.
Call it a fraternity, a boys club or an aging sexist trope, it makes people feel excluded and creates toxicity in the community. And so far there has not been a reason not to change it with any validity.
Only one side of this argument believes in culture wars and its not the least bit surprising that its the one that uses the most religious metaphors and right wing buzzwords/phrases.
They're also more likely to view a disagreement on their opinion as a personal attack rather than the actual personal attacks they've been doing.
I'd like to point out that everything even vaguely lore-related that implies that Space Marine are male-only has already been discussed and clarified pages and pages ago.
Cawl process to produce Primaris can easily be extended to female candidate without any impact or retcon of the "lore" (instead, it can produce quite a lot of good feedback effect on the background... Pointing out how much obtuse the infallible Emperor was/is, better detailing the Renaissance represented by Primaris, within reworking neither the lore or any older marketing material.
If you really care about the lore, Female Space Marine are a huge opportunity.
Otherwise, you've other reason, and the lore is just a smokescreen.
LumenPraebeo wrote: Being inclusive should never be something we work towards without good reason. What's the point of building toward a project that will eventually culminate into something that is worse than it is in the past just to hand the inferior result over to your daughter?
Great thought and care needs to be put into such marketing exercises, just like it needed to be done with previous successes in the past. Ultimately, GW has much better resources to study such things. But if fans are to push GW for inclusivity, it should be done with intelligence and respect, not hair trigger politically correct reactions.
GW have shown how well they can do it with the stormcast range. No fuss, no ham fisted cringe lore. Just cool models that are bad ass and happen to be women. The cover art of the new core book is a female leader of flagship faction, and it doesn’t matter that she’s female. It matters that she’s bad ass and an awesome model.
I checked again today and there is no point in the latest codex that says that marines have to be men, I wonder when that was last actually published?? Heard plenty of arguments where only the most up to date lore is canon, (don’t agree my self) but if that is the case then no need to worry about breaking the game with a lore change.
Ohh yeah the genesis of AOS and the killing of WHFB was "not ham-fisted"
I wouldn't say Storm cast are the AOS flagship faction. AOS doesn't seem to have one. People have drawn parallel of 'sigmarines' in the beginning because it was the faction that was hoggin all the stuff. It seemed like an attempt at introducing that SM factor to a fantasy setting.
Nowa days? I dont think so.. At least from a non AOS players perspective. The marketing and releases appears to be pretty even across all factions and new factions getting introduced.
I think perhaps that is something 40k is trying to emulate now as well.
But maybe its also the reason why AOS is not as popular as 40k on the grand scheme of things but also why 40k is less popular with women.
Can you clarify whether you're implying here that AOS is not as popular as 40k because there is not one single faction taking up 90% of the lore limelight and 50% of the model releases, or that AOS is less popular than 40k because roughly half its factions are not 'no girls allowed' treehouses?
Id honestly be curious to see where the numbers were at at this point. Locally 40k has been continuous - fairly big renaissance in the index era of 8th, but primarily people coming back who had quit in 6th or 7th, still 40k players re-joining. AOS has started from nothing, with mostly new gamers. Practically no old-school fantasy folks, and the group is now fully 2/3 of the size of the 40k group, skewing quite a bit younger and less focused on tournament competitive play.
Personally I've chalked a majority of it up to the massive resurgence in interest in Dungeons and Dragons with the immensely popular 5th edition. GW minis blow the DnD minis out of the water, so people who get into the miniature aspect encounter them and are interested. Several of the people who play AOS on AOS night are also in DnD groups, and a pattern I've seen a couple times is 'one person gets into aos, gets their DnD group interested including a couple of people who were not really at all into 'nerd stuff' prior to playing DnD get into AOS.'
No, you think the lore has been clarified. Doesn't make it so.
Mk, not sure what that's supposed to mean.
Nothing in the lore precludes an Astartes Aspirant from being female before the gene-seed implantation. It would be horrifically cursed if the process forced a female child into a male SM but that could be a potential scenario.
The only instance of male-coded language used by GW in the Creation of a Space Marine section in the 9th edition Codex is the term "Gene-sons".
Thats it. That is the whole sum of the lore that dictates who does and doesn't get to be a SM Aspirant.
Summary,
1.There is no bit if the lore that hasn’t been subject to change at some point.
2.The current lore doesn’t not state that marine must be male.
3. So far no one has come up with a reference to make only marines since 1989. Happy to see any later ones, be interesting to see when they last said it.
4. GW writers have said that that bit of lore is silly and outdated.
Seems pretty settled unless you know something I don’t. Why is this but any different than the rest of the lore? Please explain that to me if you can?
It was on WarCom when Marines got their 9th Ed release. They took the quote of how a Marine was made from like 3rd Ed but put a disclaimer saying it was an outdated piece of background.
To quote myself:
My question would be what counts as "The Lore"? We know who decides what is and isn't canon, GWbtw, and they have already said the specific passage used to justify male-only SM is outdated.
Now you could take that as outdated compared to modern morale concerns OR as in the book is outdated and should no longer be used as a source of reference.
If we look at the 9th edition SM codex, in the Creation of a SM section there is one explicitly male reference and it is in the term Gene-Sons. This does not preclude non-male aspirants just that the end result is male. Pretty cursed IMO but peeps seem to love that whole "Grimdark" aesthetic.
The bit about "what does outdated mean" is what I'm aiming for now.
From the moral standpoint, I would say yes it is outdated. Way back when the game was intended for "boys only" but society has changed in the past 20ish years and hobbies aren't defined by sex or gender.
From the reference standpoint, also yes. You wouldn't reference a science book written in the 1930s for a paper written in 2021, why do the same with 40k lore?
4. GW writers have said that that bit of lore is silly and outdated.
Have you got a source for this? I've not seen that said before.
So here's a BL quote (Ashes of Prospero)
‘Just give us strong, smart and brave lads and the Sons of Russ will endure.’
‘Just sons?’ said Tyra, her humour edged with a hard look. ‘Perhaps there is more water that must learn to flow.’
Arjac looked at this fierce woman, the sharp spear held easily in her hand, and recalled that she had overcome her fear not with psychodoctrination but raw courage. She had been the first to run to aid him against the wyrm, whether he needed her or not. The spirit of Fenris was in all of its people, elder and child, man and woman. He had seen first-hand that Roboute Guilliman had brought back miracle warriors from the time of the Allfather Abroad. Space Marines moulded from even sharper steel. If that was possible, anything was. He laughed at the thought.
Tyra frowned at him, thinking he mocked her. He calmed his humour and bowed his head in apology, eyes never leaving hers.
Gert wrote: It was on WarCom when Marines got their 9th Ed release. They took the quote of how a Marine was made from like 3rd Ed but put a disclaimer saying it was an outdated piece of background.
To quote myself:
My question would be what counts as "The Lore"? We know who decides what is and isn't canon, GWbtw, and they have already said the specific passage used to justify male-only SM is outdated.
Now you could take that as outdated compared to modern morale concerns OR as in the book is outdated and should no longer be used as a source of reference.
If we look at the 9th edition SM codex, in the Creation of a SM section there is one explicitly male reference and it is in the term Gene-Sons. This does not preclude non-male aspirants just that the end result is male. Pretty cursed IMO but peeps seem to love that whole "Grimdark" aesthetic.
While I haven't read what was specifically said, If they were talking about lore from 3rd edition then of course they're going to say it's outdated lore in the sense of it's current relevance - there's been an extra 20 years of stuff since then. Making the assumption that they might have instead been talking about what or how it was written in comparison to modern sensibilities just seems odd.
How is it odd? In the context of the discussion in this thread, I think it was a good question to ask.
The specific paragraph held up as the holy grail of justification for male SM has been called outdated by GW.
I simply asked was this in a literal sense, where the book is OOP and shouldn't be referenced, or was it meant along the lines of "really there isn't justification for male-only SM we just don't want to say it outright".
Just to reiterate: we've discussed at length about how masculine and feminine trait aren't necessarily connected to genetic, how a possible female Space Marine would be essentially the same superhuman monster, and how the definition of "male" and "female" (in our own world, not 40k) aren't clear cut: so it is even more aggravating when you consider that a candidate is selected before puberty and bombarded with hormones and synthetic organs
I can explain it to you.
I can't understand it for you.
The fact you don't get it, doesn't mean it isn't clear.
Post-scriptum: just for bibliographical curiosity, I'll check my Capitolum Adprobavit (I think it's 2002 or something like that) when all the processes to create a Marine are detailed. It's not the original version but a translated one, but maybe there's something interesting there.
Gert wrote: How is it odd? In the context of the discussion in this thread, I think it was a good question to ask.
The specific paragraph held up as the holy grail of justification for male SM has been called outdated by GW.
I simply asked was this in a literal sense, where the book is OOP and shouldn't be referenced, or was it meant along the lines of "really there isn't justification for male-only SM we just don't want to say it outright".
If the material being referenced was over 20 years old, published many editions ago and since then lore has overall been added to drastically, where there may or may not have been relevant stuff published after, and if there was no actual indication they were commenting on it from the diversity side of things, than the most apparent interpretation is that saying it was outdated meant just that. It's not as if they could try and claim that it wasn't outdated in terms of its age.
I guess most people didn't look at the link I sent about the major video game that decided to force women characters on the community and told players "if you don't like it don't play it"
Guard are now 29 pounds with the new sprue, people who don't want the new heads and just want to make a horde of conscripts now have to pay an extra 6.50 for heads they won't use (32 heads for 10 guys)
They then also removed the EtB guardsmen.
I would be for female space marines if they were an extra sprue not an excuse to raise the cost of the set by 10 pounds
Matt Swain wrote: I guess most people didn't look at the link I sent about the major video game that decided to force women characters on the community and told players "if you don't like it don't play it"
Spoiler: They didn't buy it and the game tanked.
That's fine and from my perspective, actually Good.
Matt Swain wrote: I guess most people didn't look at the link I sent about the major video game that decided to force women characters on the community and told players "if you don't like it don't play it"
Spoiler: They didn't buy it and the game tanked.
Ill be honest I thought youd accidentally sent the wrong link....Because You appear to be referring to a game that has not as yet been released?
Nah, the first 5 minutes of the video is the creator whining about how Battlefield V wasn't realistic because it had a woman in it, and then the rest of the video is about how good the next Battlefield game is going to be because it doesn't have women in it.
First, AoS (which I can't care less about, because I consider the lore important, and AoS lore in my opinion is... simply bad) nonetheless is the same demographics, company and price. So: you can prove that it's failing due to the Female Stormcast... champ.
Second, OF COURSE the addition of female marine will give GW an excuse to raise the price. Exactly like how they raise the price whatever change happens (sometimes because they simply change the box, sometimes because they give you LESS miniature)... So it's a non-sequitur.
But, hey, at least we reach that part of the discussion when everyone is watching the finger rather than the moon. It's a step forward from people not wanting to even look.
Interesting. So the claim now is that AOS is failing, and failing because female stormcast exist?
Weird, I didn't know we had sales figures from games workshop split between their games, it seems like they've continued to release AOS models, at a much higher pace than they did with fantasy models just before that got squatted, and their sales have gone up in general.
All I know from my area is: There didn't used to be any fantasy presence at all, now there is a large AOS scene. There did used to be a WMH and Xwing scene rivaling the 40k scene, those are both now dead as a doornail.
The active games in my area are by player group size 40k - AOS - Song of Ice and Fire.
Matt Swain wrote: I guess most people didn't look at the link I sent about the major video game that decided to force women characters on the community and told players "if you don't like it don't play it"
Spoiler: They didn't buy it and the game tanked.
Presumably you're talking about BFV, which didn't fail because it added women you muppet.
It failed because when the game was shown to be more like Fortnite than BF1 in terms of character customisation the devs didn't do what CoD did and outline that the MP is designed to be Self Insert into the historical setting, while the campaign was the actual history stuff. Instead the BFdevs stomped their feet and threw and tantrum. That's when they said "If you don't like it don't buy it".
Then the Beta was terrible and when the game finally released it was also terrible.
If you're belief that adding women to history games causes them to tank then I counter with both BF1 and CoD WW2, which as far as I'm aware sold pretty well.
4. GW writers have said that that bit of lore is silly and outdated.
Have you got a source for this? I've not seen that said before.
So here's a BL quote (Ashes of Prospero)
‘Just give us strong, smart and brave lads and the Sons of Russ will endure.’
‘Just sons?’ said Tyra, her humour edged with a hard look. ‘Perhaps there is more water that must learn to flow.’
Arjac looked at this fierce woman, the sharp spear held easily in her hand, and recalled that she had overcome her fear not with psychodoctrination but raw courage. She had been the first to run to aid him against the wyrm, whether he needed her or not. The spirit of Fenris was in all of its people, elder and child, man and woman. He had seen first-hand that Roboute Guilliman had brought back miracle warriors from the time of the Allfather Abroad. Space Marines moulded from even sharper steel. If that was possible, anything was. He laughed at the thought.
Tyra frowned at him, thinking he mocked her. He calmed his humour and bowed his head in apology, eyes never leaving hers.
‘Perhaps,’ he said.
With respect....that's not quite a quote of gw stating 'the bit of lore about SM being male only is outdated', which is what was asked for. Thr closest it really comes is teasing you with a 'well, maaaayyyyyybeeeeeeee'.
Gw are the ultimate authority. You provide them stating this verbally or preferably written down in a statement - that's the end of it, frankly regardless of opinion. The matter is then closed.
This piece doesn't quite do that. That said, I do like the symbolism and and attitude behind the piece. Trust the Space Wolves to blaze a new trail. Thanks for sharing.
Andykp wrote: Lore wise according to the latest codex we are good to go for female marines. Nothing but the occasional pronoun to stop them.
Are we?
This is interesting. Have they actually updated the text of the 'thirteen words'? What kind of language do they actually employ?
They just use Aspirant, Neophyte, Space Marine, that sort of stuff. Completely gender neutral with the only male coded part being "Gene-Sons" to describe the final result.
My favorite thing about videos like this and the people who enjoy them is that you know that they're people who follow (or are) social media influencers who earn their livings and get their clicks by encouraging their followings to withhold their support or give their support to entertainment properties over perceived political statements they either disagree or agree with...but they've got an internal definition of "Cancel Culture" in their heads that somehow does not include them.
Gert wrote: They just use Aspirant, Neophyte, Space Marine, that sort of stuff. Completely gender neutral with the only male coded part being "Gene-Sons" to describe the final result.
That doesn't seem like some drastic change from previous descrptions. The 8th edition codex was fairly neutral too, and even back in 5th edition there was only 1 use of "Battle-Brothers" and a single use of "his" on the page describing their creation.
That doesn't seem like some drastic change from previous descrptions. The 8th edition codex was fairly neutral too, and even back in 5th edition there was only 1 use of "Battle-Brothers" and a single use of "his" on the page describing their creation.
I mean I've only owned the 9th ed codex so thanks I guess for proving the point even more?
The very first thing you see is a HUGE MOVIG IMAGE MOVIE of a SOB walking towards the screen. and then the whole trailer thing happens where its all KABOOM!!!! PEW PEW PEW!! all about SOB and Marines kicking some evil Necron ass. Its only possible to tell one of the fighters character is female because she starts her pistol without helmet.
As a bystander who knows nothing about 40k, you can obviously tell that in the setting there are women. Who kick ass and wear power armour. Its very apparent these blue guys are obviously part of the same "team" - The human team.
I can then quite clearly see that the Sister of Battle isn't able to defeat the big evil skeleton - but the Space Marine can.
So how does this conversation go when you walk into a GW store?
Random customer(female) - Hey I saw trailer for 40k and I'm really interested in. I was walking by and thought Id check out your shop. What can you tell me about the guys in the trailer?
GW employee: *gives run down of 40k in the fututre humanity beset from all sides blah blah . So in the trailer you saw IOM forces of Sisters of battle and Space Marines fighting of the Evil ancient necrons.
Customer A: Ohh thats cool. And they fight together?
GW Staff: yes they can do. They their own factions factions and models which you you can use to play the game but you dotn have to etc. and there are rules etc. etc. Books. etc. etc. Then goes through to briefly explain each faction.
Customer: *has a walk around the shop* Okay I will buy into faction *tyranids*(or SOB if the gender bias is as important as its made out to be I guess?) what do you recommend I start with?/ No sorry this really doesn't seem like my thing maybe some other time.
So far so good.
And what happens when this plays out?
Spoiler:
"Customer: oh, I really like the armour design of these viking looking ones!
GW Staff: The Space Wolves? Yeah, they're kind of a cross between Norse culture and werewolf stuff!
Customer: Norse aesthetics really speak to me, I love the whole design. What kind of units can they take?
GW Staff: Well, because they're a type of Space Marine, they can pretty much have anything from this whole shelf - and they kits are really customisable, if you want to really personalise them!
Customer: Oh, that sounds great! I can't wait to make some badass shieldmaidens from these Bladeguard Veterans!
GW Staff: Ahaha, that sounds cool, but it's not canon
Customer: Not canon? Why not?
GW Staff: Oh, you see, it's just that women can't be Space Marines.
Customer: Why not?
GW Staff: Ah, well, you see, it says in the lore that...
Customer: But why? Seems like a pretty arbitrary restriction?"
You fancy explaining how that plays out?
At which point would a woman feel not represented in 40k because of marines as a new comer to 40k today?
If/when they express an interest in the cool looking Space Marines, only to be told that you can do whatever you like with them, as long as they're not women?
It certainly isn't the marketing.
Kinda is. When the most badass-ly presented faction has a conspicuous lack of women, that's definitely red flags.
I think a lot of you are coming at this from a very jaded veteran position and are creating problems out of something that is being addressed... Its just not addressed in the way you want it to and that's the part you don't like.
Where is the fundamentally arbitrary exclusion of women from being Space Marines addressed again?
How would people react if The emperor was a woman.
Pretty indifferent, I'll be honest. It's just a corpse on a throne. I don't think male-ness comes into the equation at that point.
Matt Swain wrote:As to more female models and presentation in 40k, fine, as long as they are sold in their own box sets or sprues and only people wanting them have to pay for them. That's fine with me, if the people who want to use them pay 100% for them, fine.
Unfortunately we all know that the bloosuckers running GW will put them in with all box sets them, of course, raise prices on the sets to cover the cost of the design, the sculpting, the molds, the CEOS new porsche, etc.
I'm confused. I don't remember being forced to buy Space Wolves upgrade packs when I picked up Intercessor Squads. I don't remember the Deathwatch sprue being forced on me when I buy Vanguard Veterans. Hell, I don't even remember the Genestealer Cults sprue being forced on me when I want to buy a squad of Cadians.
Having an upgrade sprue doesn't mean that it'll be repackaged with everything. That's just plain scaremongering.
maybe some people will refuse to pay the 'inclusion tax" for things they don't want and won't use.
Oh cool, can I complain about being charged for weapons and bitz that I never use? Can I complain about all the bare male heads which I need to pay the "inclusion tax" for in my Space Marines, because I don't use them?
Now GW players do have more than an either/or solution to the problem of being hit with an inclusion tax which will be part of price hikes of new female guard parts are added. Recasts and 3d printers. Yes, we do have other options and gw knows it.
So why did they release Chapter upgrade sprues if the same could happen with them?
I say no female space marines, Sobs are close enough
They really ain't, in the same way that Custodes are "close enough" to Space Marines.
and the lore says the marines have to be male.
The... made up fiction, right?
I am tired of small but very vocal groups bullying everyone into bowing to their views and i think that 40k should refuse to let a tiny group bully us all into changing the game to include female marines. Just. Say. No.
Asking for women toy soldiers is bullying now? Why does that threaten you?
Female guard, sure. WW2 proved women can fight and make great snipers, just ask the people at stalingrad.
You're right, women are great fighters. So why can't they be Space Marines?
But female marines, no. Just for once someone needs to stand up to these bullies and refuses to back down. Don't let them bully us into submission.
Why is people asking for women Space Marines "bullying"? Why does that threaten you?
So i'm fine with female guard, female elite forces, etc, as long as the majority of us aren't hit with an inclusion tax to pay for them.
Considering you weren't hit with an inclusion tax for Ultramarines or Space Wolves or Blood Angels or Dark Angels, I think an upgrade sprue could be sold separately. Don't worry, your wallet can sleep soundly at night.
Female marines? No. Period. End of discussion.
Why?
Matt Swain wrote:Women hate Being judged by their gender, and i think it's wrong to do so as well
Oh, excellent! We agree! So why can't women be Space Marines? After all, if gender shouldn't matter, why does it for if they can be Space Marines or not?
But the people demanding female marines are saying they can't identify with marines based on their gender.
I never said they couldn't identify. Only that when there is so clearly an active restriction against women, it de-incentivises identification.
Again, it really just sounds like you don't really understand what people are talking about by "identification", and the value people derive from it.
I like the sallies because of their mentality and commitment to protect people, not because they have one set of genitals or another.
I like the Salamanders too. But why on earth must they be all men? Why is that part of their design? Why does it have to be?
If I look at a Salamanders Astartes and think, wow, they're really cool and admirable, I wish I could see myself in their shoes - only then to be told that "nope, no women allowed, you can't be a Salamanders Astartes - that's going to crush any sense of identification or representation I might feel with them.
Honestly, if you want to identify with an army it should be because of their attitudes or what you think is cool, not "What do they have in their pants?"
Agreed. So why do those armies have arbitrary rules saying that you can't be one of them because of what you have in your pants?
Either genitalia is important*, or it's not. Which one is it?
*also, just wanna say that gender isn't genitalia, and you might want to reconsider how you're phrasing your designations accordingly.
This is exactly the issue here. Women hate Being judged by their gender
Correct. They hate being told "you can't be this because you're a girl".
Excellently put.
LumenPraebeo wrote:Being inclusive should never be something we work towards without good reason.
Eh, I think being inclusive is a good reason in it's own right.
LumenPraebeo wrote:I also forgot to mention in my previous posts that, any single move or event should not be expected to draw in a larger fan base. Whatever reasons people get into any hobby, any tabletop wargaming, its rarely for one reason alone.
So yes, adding female Astartes into 40K is a step, a pretty good step IMO. But one step on a flight of stairs. Maybe we will also need marketing, maybe we need new characters. Maybe we need new stories.
Maybe we need to change how GW floor representatives see you for the first time, run up to you and shout in your face when all you wanted to do was buy a box of toys quietly, and head home.
And maybe all it will take is time. Regardless, any type of work worth doing, theres going to be the real possibility that it will take a long time, and a lot of little things will need to be tinkered with and thought about, if we want to see tabletop wargaming become as attractive as something like DnD.
Very much agreed. No single change, short of just snapping my fingers and everyone's all cool now, would fix the issue - but that doesn't mean we can't take steps now.
queen_annes_revenge wrote:No, you think the lore has been clarified. Doesn't make it so.
Eh, not quite.
The whole "only works with male tissue" excuse from the very original "Creation of a Space Marine" document hasn't been repeated in modern iterations, and when GW reposted it on their WarCom site, they explicitly mention that some aspects are products of their time, and are no longer considered canon.
Now, they were quite coy with that, but with all the distancing they're making away from the whole "only men can be Space Marines" thing, paired with the excerpt from the Space Wolves book up earlier, perhaps the lore isn't done settling yet.
That doesn't seem like some drastic change from previous descrptions. The 8th edition codex was fairly neutral too, and even back in 5th edition there was only 1 use of "Battle-Brothers" and a single use of "his" on the page describing their creation.
I mean I've only owned the 9th ed codex so thanks I guess for proving the point even more?
What point? It hasn't changed in order to make it more gender-neutral as the wording has been similar to that for years already.
queen_annes_revenge wrote:No, you think the lore has been clarified. Doesn't make it so.
Eh, not quite.
The whole "only works with male tissue" excuse from the very original "Creation of a Space Marine" document hasn't been repeated in modern iterations, and when GW reposted it on their WarCom site, they explicitly mention that some aspects are products of their time, and are no longer considered canon.
Got a quote for this? Second time I've seen it mentioned yet no posting of what they actually said.
Found what the "They said it was outdated/non-canon on the community site" that was mentioned without any actual quote.
Editor’s Note: This article comes from one of yesteryear’s publications called Index Astartes I, originally printed in 2002, and the information contained within has been revisited and updated in many a Codex: Space Marines since. For posterity’s sake, we wanted to present the original article in full, despite changes that have been rendered to the detail (some subtle; others less so) in the intervening years.
It's simply them stating the fact that later lore has reworded and updated things many many times over the years, with each subsequent codex things get re-written, modified or condensed slightly. There's nothing there that indicates there's more to that.
Saying "current codex leaves it out so they got rid of it" doesn't quite hold up when (that i can see) neither the 3rd or 4th edition codex, those closest to the publishing of Index Asartes 1, included it either despite it being recent material at the time. Index Asartes was a much more descriptive background book that was able to detail much more than what was included in Codex's. It not being included in the Codex doesn't suggest anything either way.
Gert wrote: And yet it can still be discussed that the changes made could be viewed as intent to move away from the all-male SM concept.
Considering the information doesn't seem to have been detailed to that extent since index Astartes was released (as in there hasn't been a book with a similar amount of information on the topic that I know of, albeit I don't know what the 2013 Index Astartes includes) and the wording of the creation pages in the codex is something that varies often with it being fairly neutral since at least 2008, what changes are you referring to specifically?
Before we go on, can you tell me what side of the discussion you are on here, pro-female SM or anti-female SM?
You kind of seem to just be focussing on the one article and how people interpreted it.
What I'm saying is GW is using gender-neutral terms to describe the creation of a SM, which according to you they have been doing since 2008. The one piece of lore that gets trotted out every single time to oppose female SM is declared outdated and is no longer in use.
So where is the lore reason for no female SM?
That doesn't seem like some drastic change from previous descrptions. The 8th edition codex was fairly neutral too, and even back in 5th edition there was only 1 use of "Battle-Brothers" and a single use of "his" on the page describing their creation.
I mean I've only owned the 9th ed codex so thanks I guess for proving the point even more?
What point? It hasn't changed in order to make it more gender-neutral as the wording has been similar to that for years already.
The point being that Space Marines *needing* to be men, and them being male was integral to their core identity.
If GW haven't been reinforcing that Space Marines need to be men, then do they need to be men?
queen_annes_revenge wrote:No, you think the lore has been clarified. Doesn't make it so.
Eh, not quite.
The whole "only works with male tissue" excuse from the very original "Creation of a Space Marine" document hasn't been repeated in modern iterations, and when GW reposted it on their WarCom site, they explicitly mention that some aspects are products of their time, and are no longer considered canon.
Got a quote for this? Second time I've seen it mentioned yet no posting of what they actually said.
Warhammer Community wrote:Editor’s Note: This article comes from one of yesteryear’s publications called Index Astartes I, originally printed in 2002, and the information contained within has been revisited and updated in many a Codex: Space Marines since. For posterity’s sake, we wanted to present the original article in full, despite changes that have been rendered to the detail (some subtle; others less so) in the intervening years.
Gert wrote: And yet it can still be discussed that the changes made could be viewed as intent to move away from the all-male SM concept.
Considering the information doesn't seem to have been detailed to that extent since index Astartes was released (as in there hasn't been a book with a similar amount of information on the topic that I know of, albeit I don't know what the 2013 Index Astartes includes) and the wording of the creation pages in the codex is something that varies often with it being fairly neutral since at least 2008, what changes are you referring to specifically?
The 'Creation of a Space Marine' was re-published with an added paragraph about Primaris in White Dwarf a couple of years ago; and since nobody has ever claimed differently, I'm willing to assume that it made no implication of female marines being any more possible than in the previous two decades.
Mentlegen324 wrote:It's simply them stating the fact that later lore has reworded and updated things many many times over the years, with each subsequent codex things get re-written, modified or condensed slightly. There's nothing there that indicates there's more to that.
The way I see the editor's note, it's a polite way of saying "not everything in this is accurate any more, or what we consider to be relevant to modern canon, we're just reposting some of our older stuff for clicks", most especially the "despite changes that have been rendered to the detail (some subtle; others less so) in the intervening years" section.
Considering that one of the most glaring omissions from that text which hasn't really been seen in more modern printings is the whole "male hormones and tissues" section, I think it's a reference to that.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote:
Sgt_Smudge wrote: The point being that Space Marines *needing* to be men, and them being male was integral to their core identity.
If GW haven't been reinforcing that Space Marines need to be men, then do they need to be men?
To reiterate: The issue isn't one of sales or anything else. It is only and exclusively a wise worldbuilding choice.
Exclusive warrior nun and monk orders respectively plays upon archaic strings. That is why there are no male Sisters of Silence or female Space Marines. Women elite warriors have their wonderful concepts in Sororitas and Sisters of Silence, and males in Astartes and Custodes. And the twain shall never mix.
Games Workshop did the right call. They understand how their setting ticks.
Karak Norn Clansman wrote: To reiterate: The issue isn't one of sales or anything else. It is only and exclusively a wise worldbuilding choice.
Exclusive warrior nun and monk orders respectively plays upon archaic strings. That is why there are no male Sisters of Silence or female Space Marines. Women elite warriors have their wonderful concepts in Sororitas and Sisters of Silence, and males in Astartes and Custodes. And the twain shall never mix.
Games Workshop did the right call. They understand how their setting ticks.
It is an archaic pulse.
You still haven't answered the question I posed to you the last time you posted this:
The Primaris line of space marines did not alter the fact that Astartes are all male.
The new Necromunda model range did alter all the necromunda gangs to include members of both sexes.
Is the Primaris line of space marines therefore true to the spirit of the setting of the 41st millennium, and the new Necromunda model range a departure and betrayal?
Gert wrote: Before we go on, can you tell me what side of the discussion you are on here, pro-female SM or anti-female SM?
You kind of seem to just be focussing on the one article and how people interpreted it.
What I'm saying is GW is using gender-neutral terms to describe the creation of a SM, which according to you they have been doing since 2008. The one piece of lore that gets trotted out every single time to oppose female SM is declared outdated and is no longer in use.
So where is the lore reason for no female SM?
I can totally understand why people might want it - representation and diversity are both something that would be good to have more of - but i don't agree with the notion that there needs to be "justification" for Space Marines to be how they are. Their original theming amounts to them being a combination of a monastic order and a warrior brotherhood, and while that isn't the case for every chapter, it's still a large part of their overall idea. I don't think that lessening parts of their identity to take away part of that theming would be a good thing - several of the the arguments for this idea seem to be able to be applied to GW suddenly making male Adepta Sororitas too, yet if that was the topic being discussed I doubt many would be in favour.
Mentlegen324 wrote:It's simply them stating the fact that later lore has reworded and updated things many many times over the years, with each subsequent codex things get re-written, modified or condensed slightly. There's nothing there that indicates there's more to that.
The way I see the editor's note, it's a polite way of saying "not everything in this is accurate any more, or what we consider to be relevant to modern canon, we're just reposting some of our older stuff for clicks", most especially the "despite changes that have been rendered to the detail (some subtle; others less so) in the intervening years" section.
Considering that one of the most glaring omissions from that text which hasn't really been seen in more modern printings is the whole "male hormones and tissues" section, I think it's a reference to that.
The point I was trying to make is that, at least from what I can find, no Space Marine codex has included that information in the first place. 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th all don't have that information included that i can see. It's something that was featured in White Dwarf articles and Index Astartes, it's not fair to compare that full background book to the condensed much more limited information included in the codex. It wasn't in the codex at the time of the publishing of that material either, they're not the right place to expect it given in that level of detail.
Saying "they omit it so it's no longer in use" seems a little strange to claim if it wasn't a case of it being part of the lore that showed up often at one point and then was suddenly gone, it was detailed in a specific background book that hasn't really been republished or over-written since, and from what I can see as mentioned by Lord Damocles, White Dwarf August 2017 included the "creation of a Space Marine" article and updated it with Primaris Marines. I can't find my issue to see if it's any different other than the original though.
Karak Norn Clansman wrote:To reiterate: The issue isn't one of sales or anything else. It is only and exclusively a wise worldbuilding choice.
Doesn't that clash with what Alan Merritt said about the situation, in that the not!women Space Marines they made simply didn't sell, and they just quietly pretended they never existed?
Exclusive warrior nun and monk orders respectively plays upon archaic strings.
But not all Space Marine Chapters fit the "archaic warrior monk" trope - maybe they used to, decades ago, but that design trope has left a lot of their design.
Does it remain in some Chapters, such as the Black Templars, Dark Angels, and suchlike? Absolutely. But in other Chapters, like the Space Wolves, or Carcharadons, or Raptors, or Emperor's Spears? They don't have the same trappings, the same design and focus on that. Considering the Space Marines are now more strongly defined by their customisation and player freedoms than by their "warrior monk" design, I think the "worldbuilding" should better reflect that.
Games Workshop did the right call. They understand how their setting ticks. It is an archaic pulse.
Is that why the Primaris Marines exist? Is that why GW have moved further and further away from the "warrior monk" aesthetic in favour of a more varied design, open to player freedoms and customisation, running the whole range from "warrior monk" to "techno-barbarian" to "elite spec-ops" to "historical culture IN SPAAAAACE" and everything in between?
Sorry, but I really don't buy the whole "Space Marines are supposed to represent ancient warrior monks", because that design cue just ain't around any more in the macro scale. Custodes could be argued to have that still, because the "companions" imagery and their faction design is much narrower - you don't have Viking Custodes running alongside Mongolian Custodes and Spec-Ops Custodes and Roman Custodes. You just have "Custodes".
Space Marines have diversified too much to still be considered any one thing beyond "elite super soldiers" - and I think that's a good thing, which GW are very understanding of in how their market ticks: people like customisation, and they like easily representable merch.
Karak Norn Clansman wrote: To reiterate: The issue isn't one of sales or anything else. It is only and exclusively a wise worldbuilding choice.
Exclusive warrior nun and monk orders respectively plays upon archaic strings. That is why there are no male Sisters of Silence or female Space Marines. Women elite warriors have their wonderful concepts in Sororitas and Sisters of Silence, and males in Astartes and Custodes. And the twain shall never mix.
Games Workshop did the right call. They understand how their setting ticks.
It is an archaic pulse.
Firstly, SM aren't monks. Stop calling them monks.
Further, the Imperium's "archaic" nature is based on the fact that it places the doctrines and dogma of its religion above the needs of the state and people. Religion controls exactly one of the segregated factions and even then in that very army, there are instances of mixing.
The Imperium doesn't regard sex/gender/skin colour/sexuality in its people, which is more than we can say today, so they can't be archaic that way. The vast majority of Imperial tech far outstrips our own so again, not archaic there.
As for "it's not a sales thing", yeah it is chief. The only reason SM are male-only in the first place is that female models didn't sell well back in the '80s
Mentlegen324 wrote:It's simply them stating the fact that later lore has reworded and updated things many many times over the years, with each subsequent codex things get re-written, modified or condensed slightly. There's nothing there that indicates there's more to that.
The way I see the editor's note, it's a polite way of saying "not everything in this is accurate any more, or what we consider to be relevant to modern canon, we're just reposting some of our older stuff for clicks", most especially the "despite changes that have been rendered to the detail (some subtle; others less so) in the intervening years" section.
Considering that one of the most glaring omissions from that text which hasn't really been seen in more modern printings is the whole "male hormones and tissues" section, I think it's a reference to that.
I can understand that, but the point I was trying to make is that, at least from what I can find, no Space Marine codex has included that information in the first place. 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th all don't have that information included that i can see. It's something that was featured in White Dwarf articles and Index Astartes, it's not fair to compare that full background book to the condensed much more limited information included in the codex. It wasn't in the codex at the time of the publishing of that material either, they're not the right place to expect it given in that level of detail.
And so, if it's not included in the Codexes, why is it so important? If it were so critical to their factional identity, I'd have expected it to be laid out front and centre. The Sisters of Battle have their mono-gendered reasoning laid out in nearly every work they have, if I'm not mistaken. Their history is massively intertwined with the Decree Passive. Space Marines... evidently not.
Again, it's just this matter of "how important really is this lore"? If it's not being repeated in Codexes, or if GW themselves aren't emphasising Space Marines' all-maleness in the same way they highlight the Sororitas' womanliness, is it really that integral that they *are* men?
Look... Its painfully obvious people have so much bias and investment into the idea that Male Sm or male popularity of wargaming is a problem they cant even watch the 9th edition trailer without going:
"see!! woman saved by man! man bad! man mysogynist!"
This case study can be an example where the argument for representation is trying to drive narrative and storytelling... Why?
Because people are unhappy that a space marine/man saved a SOB/woman because that's somehow misogynist and at the same time completely disregard the rest of the narrative where the SOB is kicking ass and the only reason SM can kill big bad robot is because of her help. ITs' clear teamwork is the main component of the victory... But people cannot see past their own narrative. asnd hyperffocus on "mysgnist SM" narartive.. That's how stupid this conversation is.
By this metric, the writers would have to consciously make stories where no SOB or a woman can ever be saved by a male because its misogynist? If not every story, how many times do they need to avoid this "mysoginist trope" ?? How many other tropes would people consider not inclusive or misogynist.? Who gets to decide? Do we police writers now? Its stupid. And illustrates how this is a can of worms and clearly, the agenda is to control narrative and control creativity.
To be honest, I dont think you guys really think that. I think you are doubling down on your concept because admiting that SOB are badass and are being pushed to the forefront in terms of marketing and being given the space that features women in 40k undermines your whole narrative where SM must be bad and always will be bad because there are no women.
Why is the fact 40k seems to be more popular with men than women an issue ?
AOS is being touted as starting from nothing. This is utter bullcrap. AOS is built on the corpse of WHFB and the peripheral popularity of 40k.
My point was, if we run Scotsman numbers where 60 players play 40k and all male and 40 players play AOS and are 50/50 female. It seems like 40k is doing pretty darn good in terms of engagement.. I don't think Scotsman the type of person that would allow any players to conduct themselves in bad way towards women when organising the club games. Are you going to tell me all 60 players are drawn to 40k because of misogynist SM and dislike girls? Absurd..
Maybe the 40ks appeal to men is because it's a different style of game to AOS than the content of the gendered models?
I don't subscribe to the narrative that 40k is somehow irredeemable and evil because SM has no women or that they need to be changed just because you don't like SOB or SOS for whatever reason... Im sorry you dont like the dichotomy of the setting. But I don't see how that's anyone's problem least of all creators.. Their product seems plenty popular.
Take your blinkers off and you might enjoy the world a bit more. Not everything n is some sort of an manifsestation of sexism just because men enjoy it.
Argive wrote: Look... Its painfully obvious people have so much bias and investment into the idea that Male Sm or male popularity of wargaming is a problem they cant even watch the 9th edition trailer without going:
"see!! woman saved by man! man bad! man mysogynist!"
No-one said that.
It's just that you claimed that "see, there's a woman in it, everyone's equal!!", and yet the video you touted as proof did not show them as equal. Don't bring up bad evidence.
This case study can be an example where the argument for representation is trying to drive narrative and storytelling...
Why?
Because people are unhappy that a space marine/man saved a SOB/woman because that's somehow misogynist and at the same time completely disregard the rest of the narrative where the SOB is kicking ass and the only reason SM can kill big bad robot is because of her help. ITs' clear teamwork is the main component of the victory... But people cannot see past their own narrative. asnd hyperffocus on "mysgnist SM" narartive..
Again, no-one said it was misogynist. Seriously, the whole misrepresenting people's arguments got old several pages ago.
We're just pointing out the obvious - the Sister did not kill the big bad skeleton. The Space Marine did.
By this metric, the writers would have to conciously make stories where no SOB or a woman can ever be saved by a male because its misogynist?
If not every story, how many times do they need to avoid this "mysoginist trope" ?? How many other tropes would people consider "not inclusive"..? WHo gets to decide? Do we police writers now? ts stupid. And illustrates how this is a can of worms and clealry the agenda is to control narrative and control creativity.
At the risk of repeating myself, no-one said that either.
We're just pointing out how, in the work you claimed showed how women were empowered and equal, we watched our focal Sister of Battle need to get saved from certain death. And that's honestly fine, in the same way we see the Guardsmen needed saving from the Necrons by the Sisters. But it makes it very clear that the Space Marines are the top of the food chain presented. And if women can't be at the top of that food chain, but the men can? Well, why not?
I think you are doubling down on your concept because admiting that SOB are badass and are being pushed to the forefront in terms of marketing and being given the space that features women in 40k undermines your whole narrative where SM must be bad and always will be bad because there are no women.
Sisters of Battle *are* badass. But they're not Space Marines. And if you're after Space Marines, Sisters won't scratch that.
Why is the fact 40k seems to be more popular with men than women an issue ?
Well, it depends *why* it's more popular. If it's more popular purely because women feel like 40k is less accepting of women, then that *is* a problem.
So, yeah - while I'm not pointing fingers, perhaps we really should be wondering why AoS has a high proportion of women players than 40k does.
AOS is being touted as starting from nothing. This is utter bullcrap. AOS is built on the corpse of WHFB and the peripheral popularity of 40k.
And yet, is more popular with women. Why is that?
Are you going to tell me all 60 players are drawn to 40k because of misogynist SM and dislike girls? Absurd..
Maybe the 40ks appeal to men is because it's a different style of game to AOS than the content of the gendered models?
In what way is 40k a "different style of game"? Perhaps it's more than just "gendered models" - but that would require making a detailed and cross-cultural analysis asking those questions. And I genuinely would be interested in the answer.
What I'd have to ask you is "if" it turned out that women said they were put off by 40k because of the feeling of masculine-dominance and exclusionary behaviour towards women, and cited the vociferous defence of keeping Space Marines all male as emblematic of it, what would you propose to do about it?
I don't subscribe to the narrative that 40k is somehow irredeemable and evil because SM has no women or that they need to be changed just because you don't like SOB or SOS for whatever reason... Im sorry you dont like the dichotomy of the setting. But I don't see how that's anyone's problem least of all creators.. Their product seems plenty popular.
If I'm reading that right...
"Space Marines need to be men, and if you don't like that, get lost"?
Folks, I think we might have our answer for why women might feel that 40k isn't for them.
Take your blinkers off and you might enjoy the world a bit more. Not everything n is some sort of an manifsestation of Msexism just because men enjoy it.
The issue isn't that men enjoy it. The issue is why doesn't everyone else enjoy it? Is it because they simply don't enjoy it in the first place, or is it because those men enjoy the exclusionary parts?
Men are allowed to enjoy things. No-one said otherwise. But why is male enjoyment tied to "women can't be Space Marines"?
I've never thought for once that Space Marines are misogynistic. I just want female space marines. And anyone with the notion that current space marine lore is misogynistic, are doing so with preconceived notions.
But adding females to the ranks of the Astartes can only be good for 40K. At the worst, nothing happens. Unless you're a misogynist; then adding females to the ranks of the Astartes makes 40K worse for you.
Are female marines possible? Sure. The science to make space marines is practically magic. Should there female marines? No. It’s the fluff that bothers me not the capabilities of women. I think we have to consider who made the marines in the first place. Do you really think the Big E would consider something like gender inclusivity in his grand plan? Doubtful. The Emperor protects. He doesn’t empathize. The same goes for Cawl. I’m not sure we can even call Cawl a man with as many pieces as he’s had lopped off. Fleshy concerns such as Gender do not seem like concerns of the devotees of the machine god. The Imperium are a group of xenophobic, genocidal, bigoted, paranoid zealots. Why would we expect them to share decent 21st century values? They’re not the good guys. We shouldn’t expect them to act like it. As far as female representation in 40k surely someone has mentioned the Eldar, DE and Tau in addition to the Guard SoS and SoB.
"see!! woman saved by man! man bad! man mysogynist!"
Why is the fact 40k seems to be more popular with men than women an issue ?
AOS is being touted as starting from nothing. This is utter bullcrap. AOS is built on the corpse of WHFB and the peripheral popularity of 40k.
My point was, if we run Scotsman numbers where 60 players play 40k and all male and 40 players play AOS and are 50/50 female. It seems like 40k is doing pretty darn good in terms of engagement.. I don't think Scotsman the type of person that would allow any players to conduct themselves in bad way towards women when organising the club games. Are you going to tell me all 60 players are drawn to 40k because of misogynist SM and dislike girls? Absurd..
Maybe the 40ks appeal to men is because it's a different style of game to AOS than the content of the gendered models?
I don't subscribe to the narrative that 40k is somehow irredeemable and evil because SM has no women or that they need to be changed just because you don't like SOB or SOS for whatever reason...
Maybe you're having trouble with all this stuff because you're out here on the internet, arguing with an imaginary secret version of a person who doesn't exist who's saying things like.....aaaaaaaany of this really.
AOS came from nothing in the area I've been playing games the last 10 years. There was functionally zero WHFB scene, now there is a large AOS scene nearly as large as the 40k scene.
40k only appealing to men is only a problem to me because of the fact that it seems like only AOS gets any kind of new players. The pool of people who quit 40k in 6th and 7th edition and are coming back because the rules are less miserable to play now can't be infinite, and AOS has some kinda magic juju that's getting the newbies who weren't into wargaming at all before into it. It's the same store, and the same club group, but after a decade you can see trends in who is playing a game, and while the 40k scene has grown pretty steadily since the launch of 8th from our absolute trough of only having like 15 active members at the end of 7th, 40k players have gotten much older on average since I started out at the beginning of college.
40k and AOS are fundamentally different games. If you actually read my post, like, even the TINIEST bit honestly, you'll note that I actually discussed what I thought was one of the primary appeals to newer players that had NOTHING AT ALL TO DO with what gender the models were - the fact that DnD is having a massive renaissance, which is getting people into AOS through the fact that it's a high fantasy setting.
So let's go over claims that I didn't, and I haven't seen anybody, actually making:
-a thing that men enjoy is inherently bad
-40k is irredeemable and evil
-all players are drawn to 40k because they are misogynists and hate girls
-40k is failing because SMs are only men
Kurotenshi wrote: Are female marines possible? Sure. The science to make space marines is practically magic. Should there female marines? No. It’s the fluff that bothers me not the capabilities of women. I think we have to consider who made the marines in the first place. Do you really think the Big E would consider something like gender inclusivity in his grand plan? Doubtful. The Emperor protects. He doesn’t empathize. The same goes for Cawl. I’m not sure we can even call Cawl a man with as many pieces as he’s had lopped off. Fleshy concerns such as Gender do not seem like concerns of the devotees of the machine god. The Imperium are a group of xenophobic, genocidal, bigoted, paranoid zealots. Why would we expect them to share decent 21st century values. They’re not the good guys. We shouldn’t expect them to act like it. As far as female representation in 40k surely someone has mentioned the Eldar, DE and Tau in additional the Guard SoS and SoB.
The Imperium needs more soldiers, why is it actively cutting it's recruiting options in half for its best soldiers?
The female rep for other factions is:
A - Non-human (sexual deviants, models made before iPhones were a thing, and T'au).
B - Religious zealots, that still have male models in their range making them better for representation than most other factions.
C - An army of one kit (SoS)
D - Guard who have a grand total of 1 character, some heads for 1 kit and an MTO mini.
Kurotenshi wrote: Do you really think the Big E would consider something like gender inclusivity in his grand plan? Fleshy concerns such as Gender do not seem like concerns of the devotees of the machine god. The Imperium are a group of xenophobic, genocidal, bigoted, paranoid zealots. Why would we expect them to share decent 21st century values. They’re not the good guys.
Yeah, here's the thing though: people like to claim nowadays that making some setting gender-inclusive makes the setting MORE political, but actually it tends to make it less.
Portraying misogyny and sexism and traditional, skin-color-based 21st century racism within your science fiction setting is making that setting more political given the current norms of society. That's exactly why you've got so many incredibly unambiguously gleefully irredeemably evil baddie bad bad bad guys in 40k and why a lot of the time the oppression shown within the imperium is just...regular labor servitude/random killing and violence for no reason type stuff.
Star Trek was political for portraying a future society that didnt give a crap about gender and 21st century conceptions of race....in the fething 1960s...
"this is my super space soldier future sci fi setting, the super space soldiers only take male recruits and women arent allowed because sexism" would be inserting the modern day political discussions surrounding women in the military into 40k.
Kurotenshi wrote:Are female marines possible? Sure. The science to make space marines is practically magic. Should there female marines? No. It’s the fluff that bothers me not the capabilities of women. I think we have to consider who made the marines in the first place. Do you really think the Big E would consider something like gender inclusivity in his grand plan? Doubtful. The Emperor protects. He doesn’t empathize. The same goes for Cawl. I’m not sure we can even call Cawl a man with as many pieces as he’s had lopped off. Fleshy concerns such as Gender do not seem like concerns of the devotees of the machine god. The Imperium are a group of xenophobic, genocidal, bigoted, paranoid zealots. Why would we expect them to share decent 21st century values. They’re not the good guys. We shouldn’t expect them to act like it. As far as female representation in 40k surely someone has mentioned the Eldar, DE and Tau in additional the Guard SoS and SoB.
See, the problem with that though is that I totally agree the Imperium wouldn't go out of their way for gender equality.
The issue is that the lore goes out of it's way to be exclusive. There's no reason that the Magic Space Super Soldier Serum Juice should have excluded women in the first place, and no reason that the Emperor (or rather, Amar Astarte, a woman) would go out of their way to design a serum that actively halved the amount of recruits the Imperium could get.
The whole "the Imperium doesn't care about gender equality" argument falls flat when we look at the Guardsmen, who are mixed gender. We look at the High Lords - or rather, High Lords and Ladies. You're right - the Imperium doesn't care about gender, which is why it's a largely gender-neutral society, except, weirdly, for Space Marines, Sisters of Silence, Sisters of Battle and Custodes. So, the point you made about "they're not the good guys, so they shouldn't have any women Space Marines" doesn't hold up when we see women soldiers elsewhere in the Imperium. Are they sexist, or are they not?
Of those four factions, I'm not well aware enough on why Sisters of Silence are all women, but I can definitely say that the only reason Space Marines aren't is because of biology mumbo-jumbo - and for that, I then need to ask "but why can't the Magic Space Super Soldier Serum Juice work on women"?
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the_scotsman wrote: Yeah, here's the thing though: people like to claim nowadays that making some setting gender-inclusive makes the setting MORE political, but actually it tends to make it less.
Exactly. Not to mention how we clearly see the Imperium is (on paper), incredibly lax when it comes to gender and race. They don't, and shouldn't, care what you are, as long as you're human (and even then, they'll happily use abhumans when they need to).
Why on earth would they want to cut their potential recruiting pool in half?
(This is, of course, still omitting that the only real reason women can't be Space Marines is because there was a made up biological reason in the first place, which literally does not need to exist.)
The Imperium needs more soldiers, why is it actively cutting it's recruiting options in half for its best soldiers?
That’s logical, but Since when has the Imperium ever let logic get in the way of tradition?
The female rep for other factions is:
A - Non-human (sexual deviants, models made before iPhones were a thing, and T'au).
B - Religious zealots, that still have male models in their range making them better for representation than most other factions.
C - An army of one kit (SoS)
D - Guard who have a grand total of 1 character, some heads for 1 kit and an MTO mini.
If you think Space marines aren’t religious zealots, then don’t go telling the black templars or any of the chaplins that are on like every army.
I would definitely like to see more diverse model ranges in the non marine armies you mentioned. Hell, my main army is Eldar.
I do have to wonder would you be willing to support male Sisters of Battle? That’s not vary inclusionary either. Or what about the fact that space marines chapters discriminate by only allowing applicants from certain planets. Once you start going down this road it changes the nature of the setting. Which is supposed to be ugly.
Andykp wrote: If a new player was to come in to the game now, is there anything in print that states that marines have to be men?
In print? Not that I'm sure, aside from gendered pronouns?
In practice, all the Marines we see are male, all the options for bare heads are masculine-presenting, and there's a decent chance that if you put a female-presenting head on your model, someone will shoot it down for being "non-canon" or "trying to make 40k political".
If you think Space marines aren’t religious zealots, then don’t go telling the black templars or any of the chaplins that are on like every army.
So the vast minority of SM are religious zealots. Cool. What was the point there?
I would definitely like to see more diverse model ranges in the non marine armies you mentioned. Hell, my main army is Eldar.
I do have to wonder would you be willing to support male Sisters of Battle? That’s not vary inclusionary either. Or what about the fact that space marines chapters discriminate by only allowing applicants from certain planets. Once you start going down this road it changes the nature of the setting. Which is supposed to be ugly.
Multiple times has it been stated in this thread you clearly haven't read that the same people advocating for female SM also want those armies that have mixed ranges to be updated to actually represent it.
Oh good the male SoB is getting trotted out again, yay. The difference between SoB and SM is that SoBHAVE male models in their range making the army mixed. SM only have dudes.
As for SM only taking from specific planets being exclusionary, just shut up. You know that's not a proper argument.
Any other slippery slopes you want to go down while we're here?
The Imperium needs more soldiers, why is it actively cutting it's recruiting options in half for its best soldiers?
That’s logical, but Since when has the Imperium ever let logic get in the way of tradition?
So why does the Imperium have women serving in the Imperial Guard?
If you think Space marines aren’t religious zealots, then don’t go telling the black templars or any of the chaplins that are on like every army.
But not all Chapters are the Black Templars. I don't think that the Space Wolves are religious zealots in quite the same way, and when you've got Chapters like the Raptors or Minotaurs who are less on the religious side, and more on the "let's just kill them" spectrum, you can see why people question the necessity of Space Marines needing the "monk" imagery they largely seem to have shed.
I do have to wonder would you be willing to support male Sisters of Battle? That’s not vary inclusionary either.
Funny you say that, as you can actually take men in a Sisters of Battle army - Priests, arco-flagellants, and Crusaders. But, for actual men wearing the Sororitas armour? I mean, clearly, the identity of the Sisters of Battle is much more tied to their gender presentation than what it is for the Space Marines (as I mentioned earlier, the reason that Sisters are all women is mentioned at least in nearly all of their media, whereas the whole "male tissue types" is barely repeated), but hey, I don't hate it. Church-bound humans in power armour is a very different niche to independent elite super soldier warrior cultures, even if gender was removed from the equations of both.
Or what about the fact that space marines chapters discriminate by only allowing applicants from certain planets.
That's mostly out of geographic reasons, not cultural though, if I'm not mistaken. Space Marines recruit from the worlds in their domain, but their domains can often be limited by their relationship with the rest of the Imperium.
Evidently, the Ultramarines don't discriminate on race, if that's what you're referring to, judging from one of their latest book covers.
Once you start going down this road it changes the nature of the setting. Which is supposed to be ugly.
So why do Guardswomen exist then? Why is it *Space Marines* who don't get women because the setting is "ugly", but everyone else apparently does?
Is the Imperium a sexist hellhole, or is it so uncaring of sex that it throws everyone into the meatgrinder?
"this is my super space soldier future sci fi setting, the super space soldiers only take male recruits and women arent allowed because sexism" would be inserting the modern day political discussions surrounding women in the military into 40k.
I agree. How would you even introduce female marines into the fluff at this point? Could you imagine Rowboat having a conversation about the sexist policies of the Imperium? He almost got overthrown due to the indomitus crusade and that didn’t even involve meaningful change of the generally crappy society that is the imperium.
Andykp wrote: If a new player was to come in to the game now, is there anything in print that states that marines have to be men?
In print? Not that I'm sure, aside from gendered pronouns?
In practice, all the Marines we see are male, all the options for bare heads are masculine-presenting, and there's a decent chance that if you put a female-presenting head on your model, someone will shoot it down for being "non-canon" or "trying to make 40k political".
That is all true. But it kind of ends the debate that the lore must be adhered too, the last mention of this was 19 years ago, before that maybe 32 years ago. Couldn’t possibly change that.
issue that shouldn't have to be explained every 3 days because someone didn't actually read the thread.
Unless they want what they've already got, in which case there's only one group trying to end it. I can play this game too.
