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Brother Coa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
No your point was to try to show me up after I called you out on the fact that, as usual, you posted fanfic to try to support a position. It backfired on you pretty bad though, huh?

There are pictures of femalle Space marines and I don't use that for cannon stuff

It's "canon" and "female". Learn to use a spellchecker. You've been posting here long enough that you should have a rudimentary grasp of English, and it's ridiculously irksome to read through any thread where you've posted due to the fact that you butcher the English language.

I just posted that to show people that woman CAN be in the Guard ( because some of them thinks they are good just for sex and food ).

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This is why we can't have nice things. No one seriously believes that. To think that someone seriously believes that is ridiculous.

But it is ok, if you wanted me to post official stuff - you just needed to ask. No point for being so rude...

There's no reason to be constantly posting fanart or fanfic in every single thread you post in. So don't do it.

And my point still was that there ARE females in the Guard, that the Guard is not all-male army like the GW is presenting them.

GW presents them as an all-male army because just like modern day militaries females in combat roles are rare. Logistical or support roles are far more common.

The fluff states the the battle sisters are the army of the echlesiarchy. After the reign of blood a mandate was passed where the Echlesiarchy could command no men at arms. It didn't say anything about women lol

as for why they made the models i don't know.

Kanluwen wrote:
It's "canon" and "female". Learn to use a spellchecker. You've been posting here long enough that you should have a rudimentary grasp of English, and it's ridiculously irksome to read through any thread where you've posted due to the fact that you butcher the English language.

I have, I am only bad with 2 letter words. And goggle grammar is not doing it's job well in some times. Remember that not all of us have that luck to be born in English speaking countries like you guys do.

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This is why we can't have nice things. No one seriously believes that. To think that someone seriously believes that is ridiculous.

Believe me - there are MANY people who thinks like that. Just see how much there is love for Sisters of Battle ( nobody likes the idea of completely female army )

There's no reason to be constantly posting fanart or fanfic in every single thread you post in. So don't do it.

1. I don't post pictures at EVERY SINGLE THREAD, and most of them are from official codex not fan art.
2. That is not you damn business ( like me telling you don't write this or don't post that ). If you have problem with that contact mods.

GW presents them as an all-male army because just like modern day militaries females in combat roles are rare. Logistical or support roles are far more common.

Our military has 40% females. And 30% of them are front line solders. Israel army is the same.

You two bicker like an old married couple.

Back on topic, there is no need to model women, because at 28mm scale there is no difference. In real life men and women look quite similier in armor, so the only way gw would have to make it clear is to over exageratte female features, or dress them like a whore.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:
Back on topic, there is no need to model women, because at 28mm scale there is no difference. In real life men and women look quite similier in armor, so the only way gw would have to make it clear is to over exageratte female features, or dress them like a whore.

There is. There would be no difference for Armageddon or Krieg ( mask ) or even Vostroya ( only males ). But for others ( Cadians have their faces shown on majority of models and female faces are a LOT different then male ones ). And Catachans don't have armor at all...

Brother Coa wrote:

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This is why we can't have nice things. No one seriously believes that. To think that someone seriously believes that is ridiculous.

Believe me - there are MANY people who thinks like that. Just see how much there is love for Sisters of Battle ( nobody likes the idea of completely female army )

Nobody likes Sisters of Battle because they're:
A)An all metal army.
B)Old sculpts, not that great ones in some cases either.
C)Expensive and the codex(when there was one) was not that great.

GW presents them as an all-male army because just like modern day militaries females in combat roles are rare. Logistical or support roles are far more common.

Our military has 40% females. And 30% of them are front line solders. Israel army is the same.

Israel is like Cadia. They're 'an exception to the rule'.
And If you have 40% females(4 out of 10 soldiers in your nation's military are female), with 30% of them being frontline soldiers(3 out of 10 of those female soldiers)--that's not that much.

That's actually rare.

Kanluwen wrote:
And If you have 40% females(4 out of 10 soldiers in your nation's military are female), with 30% of them being frontline soldiers(3 out of 10 of those female soldiers)--that's not that much.

That's actually rare.

Not for us, our army have 30.000 solders. And more females are joining then man so the statistic should rise in their favor in some few months.

Brother Coa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
And If you have 40% females(4 out of 10 soldiers in your nation's military are female), with 30% of them being frontline soldiers(3 out of 10 of those female soldiers)--that's not that much.

That's actually rare.

Not for us, our army have 30.000 solders.

With that, here's the numbers.

30,000 * .4=12000.
That's the amount of female soldiers in your army.

12000 * .3=3600.

That's the amount serving on the frontline. It should also be noted that "frontline" doesn't necessarily imply "combat soldiers".

You misunderstand, sry my bad.

40% of our army is females. From that 40%, 10% is in logistics ( officers ) and 30% is front line solders.

So we have in fact 3000 female officers and 9000 female troopers. Almost 3'rd of our front line troops are females.

There is no necessity to have female figures at 28mm other than the SoB's (and only because of the dominatrix armor) and certain independant characters imho.

Perhaps a few heads with a pony tail or something could be made, or some other 'female' haircuts I guess, but real soldiers are virtually indistinguishable from each other especially at this scale. Armor is armor and no armor needs the addition of breast attachments or roundels for the 'comfort' of the wearer.

Unless you want to field your Dominatrix Commissar, have your female Catachan in wet t-shirts or lead your troops with Sailor Moon it's pointless.

However, due to the abstract cartoon style of the heroically scaled 40k figures, it might be hard to imagine the plastic cadians to be females... but then, I imagine anyone with this perspective hasn't served in the US military...

Muahahahahaha... sorry, that was completely uncalled for.

It's really a matter of literary and historical tropes. The Imperial Guard aren't a modern day army in space, they're Napoleonic and world war-era armies in space, and those are settings in which the protagonists are all male, and women are confined to the roles of sweethearts back home and the occasional spy.

And yes, I think I prefer the present situation to the prospect of female Catachans all of whom look like Leela. Though I do quite like that Raging Heroes commissar model...

"So why are the SoBs the only human female fighting force? "

Do you know what kitchen is? Nuff said (No offense to the ladies I just couldn't resist writing it). Anyway men cook way better. I am a male cook

That's the amount serving on the frontline. It should also be noted that "frontline" doesn't necessarily imply "combat soldiers".

Actually it does, in most uses of the phrase. Even though modern warfare does not generally involve the concepts of "battlefronts", as it's generally a large, occupying force battling insurgent elements in the host nation, the term is a reference to WWI trench soldiers, as the trenches were the "front lines" of each armies' advance.

So, yeah, a female soldier who is said to be in a "front line unit" is almost assuredly a combat-arms soldier, either by MOS or mission-oriented assignment. Her actual MOS may be "cargo truck operator", but she's more likely to be sitting behind a twin-linked Ma Deuce in the turret of a gun-truck or IFV.

Psienesis wrote:

That's the amount serving on the frontline. It should also be noted that "frontline" doesn't necessarily imply "combat soldiers".

Actually it does, in most uses of the phrase. Even though modern warfare does not generally involve the concepts of "battlefronts", as it's generally a large, occupying force battling insurgent elements in the host nation, the term is a reference to WWI trench soldiers, as the trenches were the "front lines" of each armies' advance.

So, yeah, a female soldier who is said to be in a "front line unit" is almost assuredly a combat-arms soldier, either by MOS or mission-oriented assignment. Her actual MOS may be "cargo truck operator", but she's more likely to be sitting behind a twin-linked Ma Deuce in the turret of a gun-truck or IFV.

A cargo truck driver is considered a "front line soldier" because they're operating on the front line.

That does not mean at all that she is a combat-arms soldier, which is what the Guard is.

The Guard is not entirely front-line troops. The Munitorum maintains the various supply regiments and medical corps and ground-transport units, combat engineers, and so forth and so on that any "modern" military (which the IG is most certainly based upon) requires in order to prosecute a war.

Still, it doesn't matter. A supply truck on the frontlines is going to either arm itself (the aforementioned .50cals or a pintle-mounted SAW, at the least), or operate in tandem with dedicated armored vehicles and rapid-reaction armored HMMWVs as convoy escorts.

The 555th Engineering Brigade maintains, from my direct experience, a quartet of converted deuce-and-a-half gun trucks, replacing the canvas sides of the cargo area with armor plate and mounting an over-cab .50 cal turret with angled blast-deflectors. Although part of a non-combat-arms unit, and not, by MOS, Mechanized Infantrymen, the operators of these vehicles are very highly likely to find themselves in combat, as this is their job. Are they combat-arms? No. Are they combat soldiers? Yes.

Incidentally, the gun-truck team I most often worked with (RTO), had marked their blast plates with the stencil "Get Some" to either side of the .50cal's muzzle.

Qoppa wrote:But I was curious-why are the Sisters of Battle the only human army with women fighters? I'm sure there's some business reasoning or another behind the scenes, but is there any reason from the fluff?

As was mentioned already, the SoB are actually exclusively female due to the Vandire Apostasy. After this civil war ended the Ecclesiarchy was forbidden to keep men-at-arms. The SoB armor is also likely styled extra feminine just to make sure everyone sees the Ecclesiarchy is keeping to the letter of the law...

Other forces may or may not employ women, except for the Space Marines that are exclusively male. And that's because the implants were made for use on men.

I have to disagree... Space Marines dont have females for the same reason any other faction on empire dont have it: GW is lazy...

All that implants things have a BIG biological hole in it. It dont make sense, except in "comics science".

And if you want Female IGs, take a look at chapter house, they have a nice resin kit for you

why are SOB the only female fighting force? well simply i think fluff is written predominatly by men who are better at writing from a males point of view than from a females so creating the fluff for an all female fighting force that is seperate form the guard of SOBs might not be very believable, unless they can bring in some female writers, would be good to get more of that perspective about 40k actually. Then of course theres the sculpts as well, the female sculpts that come out of GW aren't really that great, and in the wyches case some have been downright horrible.

Really there are some good conversion options open for people though, i'm sure in the vastness of the imperium there should be a few amazon style worlds where women are in charge, then you would have all femaile guard regiments

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:I have to disagree... Space Marines dont have females for the same reason any other faction on empire dont have it: GW is lazy...
All that implants things have a BIG biological hole in it. It dont make sense, except in "comics science".

Quite true, but if you look closer, I'm sure a lot of stuff in 40k doesn't make a lot of sense. It's sci-fi ... some things just have to be overlooked.

girgam wrote:well simply i think fluff is written predominatly by men who are better at writing from a males point of view than from a females

You'd be surprised. Whilst I don't really agree with her hard-on (heh) for Mandalorians, Karen Traviss' Republic Commando novels are quite cool when it comes to the soldiery stuff. The theory that gender would define someone's personality or creativity really doesn't hold up and is a leftover from the last century. What truly defines it is upbringing, culture, and the hobbies that someone happened to pick up over the course of his or her live, the experiences he or she was subjected to. And those can be pretty much the same for anyone.

Recommended reading: the blog of a female Black Library 40k author, actually talking about that kind of "prejudice" here -> http://pyroriffic.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/oh/

Also, I think the men at GW did a pretty good job with the Adepta Sororitas; why shouldn't they be able to replicate this with other organizations? It boils down to gender-independent individual preferences and ideas, nothing more, nothing less.

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:I have to disagree... Space Marines dont have females for the same reason any other faction on empire dont have it: GW is lazy...

No, space marines are male because all the primarchs were male and marines get their gene-seed ultimately from the primarchs. I'm going along with the idea that gene-seed requires the y-chromosome to work.

IG soldiers are whoever the planet they come from allows to fight. I don't see women in the Vostroyen First Born or the Tallarn regiments, but that's not to say that the Mordians, Krieg or any others don't have females in them. The Inquisition and the Clades are full of female combatants while the term 'Tech Priest' shouldn't be thought to mean that only males are inducted into the Martian Priesthood. There could be more females than males in the mechanicum for all we know, what does gender mean to them who care more for machines than flesh? Battle servitors tend to be male because males tend to be larger than females and therefore have larger frames to use for such purposes.

I don't hold with the notion of Amazon worlds, how does the population survive if the women fight and get killed while the naturally larger males sit around and do housework? Women traditionally didn't fight for two major reasons. The first is that men were larger, stronger and more robust and so made better fighters while the superior communication skills of females were more useful for organising the collection and distribution of food and raising of children. Not to mention that women have breasts for the purpose of being able to feed babies which requires them to be at home to do so.
The second reason is that if the men go off to fight and most of them die then the handful of survivors can still replace their numbers by having children with the women of the tribe. If the women also go off to fight and most of the fighters die then the handful of women that are left will not be able to replace the numbers lost in battle. Or to make it clearer, one man and ten women means ten chances of having children. Five men and five women mean five chances of having children. For primitive societies that could mean the difference between the tribe surviving and being wiped out.

cadbren wrote:Women traditionally didn't fight for two major reasons.

Actually, there were a number of tribes with female warriors in both Europe and Africa. In Europe, this practice simply ceased to exist because of the Christian Church enforcing papal edicts forbidding women to handle weapons. This still did not kept certain exceptions from popping up over the centuries (including entire female-only knightly orders), but it got us to where we are now.

And this stuff also isn't teached in school, so it's little wonder that perception is still a little bit "tainted".

Anyhow, if this happened on Earth, I don't see why it shouldn't happen in 40k, too. In fact, the Last Chancers character "Amazone" comes from a planet called Xenan which had an all-female warrior "Cult of Artemis". Go figure.

cadbren wrote:
The second reason is that if the men go off to fight and most of them die then the handful of survivors can still replace their numbers by having children with the women of the tribe. If the women also go off to fight and most of the fighters die then the handful of women that are left will not be able to replace the numbers lost in battle. Or to make it clearer, one man and ten women means ten chances of having children. Five men and five women mean five chances of having children. For primitive societies that could mean the difference between the tribe surviving and being wiped out.

Well... you're on the right path, but off slightly.

Hypothetically, based on social structures of more 'primal' Amazonian tribes, it's widely believed the whole cultural belief of women stay at home while men go to war was a bit more simple then that. Essentially, if you have 8 people who go out to hunt for food, you want a reliable team. If you don't eat, you and your tribe die. So, except in dire situations, men hunted because they don't get pregnant. We take sex for granted in our society, simply on the basis of birth control. Pregnancy is much more chaotic with it's absence, and a vital role in your people's well being. Many, many, many aspects of gender dynamics stem from the simple fact that food is a necessity and we are able to get more sustenance from an animal then gathering wild plants (although the primal male 'seeking' behavior and feminine 'attracting mate' behavior has a more significant effect on our interactions in day to day life).

You can buy conversions to make female IG

Nightwalker wrote:You can buy conversions to make female IG

But almost all of them look ugly as sin.

Kanluwen wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
No your point was to try to show me up after I called you out on the fact that, as usual, you posted fanfic to try to support a position. It backfired on you pretty bad though, huh?

There are pictures of femalle Space marines and I don't use that for cannon stuff

It's "canon" and "female". Learn to use a spellchecker. You've been posting here long enough that you should have a rudimentary grasp of English, and it's ridiculously irksome to read through any thread where you've posted due to the fact that you butcher the English language.

I just posted that to show people that woman CAN be in the Guard ( because some of them thinks they are good just for sex and food ).

...
This is why we can't have nice things. No one seriously believes that. To think that someone seriously believes that is ridiculous.

But it is ok, if you wanted me to post official stuff - you just needed to ask. No point for being so rude...

There's no reason to be constantly posting fanart or fanfic in every single thread you post in. So don't do it.

And my point still was that there ARE females in the Guard, that the Guard is not all-male army like the GW is presenting them.

GW presents them as an all-male army because just like modern day militaries females in combat roles are rare. Logistical or support roles are far more common.

Clearly you've never been in combat. While combat arms are disallowed for Women in the US Army I can tell you now I saw plenty of women in combat, but that's what happens when you send MPs to do an infantryman's job. More often than not since they are truck drivers and other support roles they end up seeing combat anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:No, I'm talking about the books period.

At least I had a source.

I think it makes perfect sence that in 40k segregated regiments are more common than mixed regiments, simply because it'd be easier on logistics (similar uniform/armor sizes and shapes, similar medical needs, etc) and morale that way (as well as discipline, I mean, babies anyone?).

How else are you going to make more white shields?

Hikaru-119 wrote:
Clearly you've never been in combat. While combat arms are disallowed for Women in the US Army I can tell you now I saw plenty of women in combat, but that's what happens when you send MPs to do an infantryman's job. More often than not since they are truck drivers and other support roles they end up seeing combat anyway.

Using the Iraq/Afghanistan wars as examples of what's normal is silly.

If this were a 'conventional' war, you'd likely see far less numbers of women who are seeing combat. Due to the nature of insurgency warfare however, the main targets are supply lines and relatively unarmed convoys--which tend to be where women in the military are situated.

Lynata wrote:Actually, there were a number of tribes with female warriors in both Europe and Africa. In Europe, this practice simply ceased to exist because of the Christian Church enforcing papal edicts forbidding women to handle weapons. This still did not kept certain exceptions from popping up over the centuries (including entire female-only knightly orders), but it got us to where we are now.

There's something profoundly wrong with that statement, since I can conclusively state that there were no women in the armies of ancient (or indeed bronze age) Greece, Persia or Rome - the only pre-Christian female fighters I can think of would be the Amazons of Greek myth, who, disregarding the theories of a few Victorian cranks, are considered by academics entirely ahistorical.

English Assassin wrote:

Lynata wrote:Actually, there were a number of tribes with female warriors in both Europe and Africa. In Europe, this practice simply ceased to exist because of the Christian Church enforcing papal edicts forbidding women to handle weapons. This still did not kept certain exceptions from popping up over the centuries (including entire female-only knightly orders), but it got us to where we are now.

There's something profoundly wrong with that statement, since I can conclusively state that there were no women in the armies of ancient (or indeed bronze age) Greece, Persia or Rome - the only pre-Christian female fighters I can think of would be the Amazons of Greek myth, who, disregarding a few Victorian cranks, are considered by academics entirely ahistorical.

Eh, there were a couple more nations around than just Greece, Persia and Rome - though even there you had the occasional woman warrior, be it entire units of female auxiliaries manning the walls when Sparta was besieged, or female gladiators fighting for the amusement of the Roman populace. But you're right, those would be exceptions, and no participants in warfare outside of the city (afaik).

But as I said, this sort of stuff really doesn't get teached, so it's no wonder that next to no-one knows. I only stumbled upon it by accident as well, although it's worth pointing out that Wikipedia now has quite extensive lists for various eras of history. Most of it concerns only females leading armies into battle, but occasionally you have reports and studies about them being part of warbands by default as well, often based upon archaeological findings. For example, in what is now southern Russia, there were huge warrior burial mounds uncovered in 1997, and about 20% of these graves contained the remains of females dressed for battle in the same manner as men. It is generally assumed that this inspired the Greek Amazon myth.

Also, there is a large number of reports from Roman soldiers and officers (up to and including Julius Caesar himself) who, during their wars of conquest into Europe, quite frequently encountered female warriors from various tribes both on the continent as well as Britannia battling their troops, and remarked upon their ferocity. The concept of "shieldmaidens" is not a contemporary invention as well.
These things simply came "out of fashion" as the various cultures (some voluntarily, others forcedly) converted to Christianity, which at that time did preach that women were not only inferior but also the source of sin, so the idea of female warriors was direct anathema to this new religion - and was subsequently suppressed by various edicts and papal bulls (whose existence alone is proof - for they would not have been issued if there was nothing to forbid).

Ah, and I just remembered that there was an entire class of female warriors in Japan, too, just to provide an example from the Far East.

At first I was gonna correct a few people or point out rudeness. Clearly there is no need. The are so many foolish statements in this thread I won't waste my time or all of yours.

For the OP... Did you mean "Only human female fighting force represented by models?"

Sisters of Silence. Guard. Death Cult. Last Chancers. Female Commisar model. Plenty of women in 40k. I just assumed that the Guard didn't like using them because after one shot above the knee cap a woman can't stand again .

I don't think there's a BL novel yet (excluding marine books) that hasn't had some sort of female character.

Off topic: If you want to site a BL publication you must include ALL BLACK LIBRARY SORCES as truth. Cain is every bit as "real" as Gaunt, space marines change height, Tau are a pet project of the Eldar ect. You can't just say that something is more true because it better supports your opinion.

Lynata wrote:Eh, there were a couple more nations around than just Greece, Persia and Rome - though even there you had the occasional woman warrior, be it entire units of female auxiliaries manning the walls when Sparta was besieged, or female gladiators fighting for the amusement of the Roman populace. But you're right, those would be exceptions, and no participants in warfare outside of the city (afaik).

But as I said, this sort of stuff really doesn't get teached, so it's no wonder that next to no-one knows. I only stumbled upon it by accident as well, although it's worth pointing out that Wikipedia now has quite extensive lists for various eras of history. Most of it concerns only females leading armies into battle, but occasionally you have reports and studies about them being part of warbands by default as well, often based upon archaeological findings. For example, in what is now southern Russia, there were huge warrior burial mounds uncovered in 1997, and about 20% of these graves contained the remains of females dressed for battle in the same manner as men. It is generally assumed that this inspired the Greek Amazon myth.

Also, there is a large number of reports from Roman soldiers and officers (up to and including Julius Caesar himself) who, during their wars of conquest into Europe, quite frequently encountered female warriors from various tribes both on the continent as well as Britannia battling their troops, and remarked upon their ferocity. The concept of "shieldmaidens" is not a contemporary invention as well.

Well, I chose Persia, Greece and Rome because they were the three principal military empires of Europe and the near east which immediately pre-dated the rise of Christianity; the same principle would extend back to Egypt and Sumer too. My point was that societies had become patriarchal and warfare the preserve of men long before Christianity, or indeed of proto-Abrahamic religion. The prominence of women in Laconia was - like much else - an exception, as Herodotus attests, while female gladiators were, per Juvenal's Satires, a Roman novelty, intended deliberately to ape the Amazon myth.

I had forgotten about the Scythian finds - I should have remembered, since they were big news back when I was an undergrad - but you overstate the case to suggest classicists commonly accept them as the origin of the mythical Amazons. If there is anything resembling an academic consensus on their historical origin it is that they may have been a mythologised remnant of bronze age Minoan culture's female deities and priesthood. Sadly, like the Scythians (whose grouping into a single culture is exceedingly nebulous and artificial), the Minoans just didn't leave a sufficient body of evidence for historians to be very sure about anything. Interestingly it is speculated that Laconian culture may have owed its uniqueness to being a survival of the (also Doric, rather than Ionian) Minoans, but this too, unless significant new evidence come to light, is destined to remain speculation.

Now I can't speak for classical-era northern Europe outside of Roman rule, it's not my area, though I can state with confidence that Julius Caesar is regarded by historians as having cheerfully embellished his account of the Gallic Wars with a good quantity of unsubstantiated hearsay. I would venture that, since Caesar was besieging their towns and conquering their territory, he might well have found women among the defenders - whether they would have been part of an aggressive Gaulish army is another matter. I am certainly not aware of any archaeological evidence to so suggest. Papal Bulls aren't my era either; when were thy written and by which pope? As for the rest of the list, certainly there are some notable (and very interesting - I've spent the evening looking them up in the OCD) exceptions there, but that's just what they are - exceptions. What there certainly are not, are any examples supported by literary or archaeological evidence of predominantly female armies in the ancient world.