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 jonolikespie wrote:
You know, Infinity has a pretty significant proportion of female characters to the male ones, and yet there is no difference in the amount of women playing the game compared to 40k (at least that I have ever seen).

Exactly.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Frankly there isnn't a rational economic argument here.

GW have over 1,400 SKUs in production. To build a couple of new female SKUs would add a minute fraction of costs.

Even if not a single woman bought any, there are men who would buy them.

That's a more interesting conversation. Judging from this thread as long as they're good looking female mins (not overly realistic because that's bad apparently) then there are some people that would buy the hell out of them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Frankly there isnn't a rational economic argument here.

GW have over 1,400 SKUs in production. To build a couple of new female SKUs would add a minute fraction of costs.

Even if not a single woman bought any, there are men who would buy them.

Even if tooling the moulds didn't cost thousands of dollars you still need to spend man hours making them, which could be spent making marines instead. You need warehouse space to stock them, you need shelf space. Any product you make that isn't selling is costing you money.

Yes, some men would buy them for sure. But how many? Enough to justify making the kit to begin with? GW doesn't seem to think so, and weren't you the one just a couple of posts ago saying that kind of decision is best left up to GW?

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Do you see men refusing to play SoB because it excludes them? Are video games with female leads excluding men?

Nope but that would be pretty different if male leads/male models became a rarity…


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 jonolikespie wrote:
GW doesn't seem to think so, and weren't you the one just a couple of posts ago saying that kind of decision is best left up to GW?

I think we can ALL agree that we can trust GW to always do what is best for the game and for its consumers!

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Frankly there isnn't a rational economic argument here.

GW have over 1,400 SKUs in production. To build a couple of new female SKUs would add a minute fraction of costs.

Even if not a single woman bought any, there are men who would buy them.

Even if tooling the moulds didn't cost thousands of dollars you still need to spend man hours making them, which could be spent making marines instead. You need warehouse space to stock them, you need shelf space. Any product you make that isn't selling is costing you money.

Yes, some men would buy them for sure. But how many? Enough to justify making the kit to begin with? GW doesn't seem to think so, and weren't you the one just a couple of posts ago saying that kind of decision is best left up to GW?

Who here thinks GW really know what they are doing?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

This only shows that sexism is specifically written into the game universe. The most powerful and elite troops with the best equipment, that are admired by everyone, cannot be women.

really? THAT is what you chooses to take out of this? "Oh, nope, GW is sexist 'cause they said marines can only be boys. There is no other possible explanation, only sexism."


Well feth, I want to play power armor dudes funded by the Ecclesiarchy, and I DEMAND a SoB fluff re-write to allow male SoB, otherwise GW is being sexist. See how stupid that sounds?

Honestly, this really is a non issue that's being blown up by some deep rooted want for "equality" in all things, no matter how minute (or how little "gender politics" matter in the in game universe)

You sound very stupid. I am guessing it is on purpose, that is why I am so blunt about it, but DAMN you sound stupid.

No, I think it's fine, though quite why you want that when you already have all the Space Mariens I don't know.

I assume in return for having male SoBs you will relax your opposition to female SM?S

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
You sound very stupid. I am guessing it is on purpose, that is why I am so blunt about it, but DAMN you sound stupid.

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 Kilkrazy wrote:
No, I think it's fine, though quite why you want that when you already have all the Space Mariens I don't know.

I assume in return for having male SoBs you will relax your opposition to female SM?S

Claiming that all male space marines is a result of "sexism" is a wee bit ridiculous. I get wanting to see more female models, but demanding that ~30 years of fluff we re-written to allow for it is just silly. female guard models (or just head swaps since gear is gear) is perfectly fine for what is being mentioned. Anything more, and suddenly GW is sexist for other reasons. the problem with wanting "girl guard" in a scale like this is it ends up being 1 of 2 things: 1) you hardly notice (girl head swap), or 2) female proportions are over-blown and people whine about other things (narrow waist, boobs, silly faces). Remember, this is a model line that has almost no visual difference between nearly 3 meters and the regular 2 meters.

The fluff is what GW say it is. All space marines have to be boys, because GW said so. You can't get more plainly sexist than that.

Whether it's a kind of moustache twirling sexist supervillain move, or simple 1980s sexist lack of thought, it comes to the same thing.

Girl marines can very simply be introduced as I explained by having the two lost primarchs come back from their long-distance recon mission and turn out to be women with female chapters. Job done.

 Brennonjw wrote:
Honestly, this really is a non issue that's being blown up by some deep rooted want for "equality" in all things, no matter how minute (or how little "gender politics" matter in the in game universe)

The motivations aren't really all about the game universe, though. It's about making a more welcoming environment for woman in *our* universe, including joints where you'd play 40k. So the key word there is inclusion.

If you see women who wargame as temporary trespassers within 40k, whose desire for representation on the table carries an additional tax (female heads, pewter Sisters, 3rd party models) or is simply dismissed as "economically illogical", you are sending out a bad message, You can still play non-human factions like Tyranids or Daemons, but that message is still going to be absorbed by both men and women.

You don't need to push mixed gender space marines in the existing chapters, or ruin the in-game background through PC whitewashing, but you do need to have some kind of representation. I don't see how it could possibly be a bad thing.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fluff is what GW say it is. All space marines have to be boys, because GW said so. You can't get more plainly sexist than that.

Whether it's a kind of moustache twirling sexist supervillain move, or simple 1980s sexist lack of thought, it comes to the same thing.

Girl marines can very simply be introduced as I explained by having the two lost primarchs come back from their long-distance recon mission and turn out to be women with female chapters. Job done.

The missing Primarchs are dead from what the HH books said. Sanguinius said he feared the God-Emperor because he destroyed Primarchs before and at Prospero, it was stated that Leman Russ and the Wolves were used to destroy a legion.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fluff is what GW say it is. All space marines have to be boys, because GW said so. You can't get more plainly sexist than that.

Whether it's a kind of moustache twirling sexist supervillain move, or simple 1980s sexist lack of thought, it comes to the same thing.

Girl marines can very simply be introduced as I explained by having the two lost primarchs come back from their long-distance recon mission and turn out to be women with female chapters. Job done.

problems:
1) both of the "lost" primarchs are accounted for, as are their legions (purged, and "lost" *cougheuthanizedcough*)
2) I don't see how that's sexist. It doesn't state that "because they are men, they are better" it just states that "they are men, and here is the faux-science why" and that by itself does not make something sexist. Beyond that, Lets say they did do this: Ignoring that you wouldn't be able to tell, all it would accomplish is making SoB further Ignored, and giving people a "good feeling" because now the tiny plastic game has more girls.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
Honestly, this really is a non issue that's being blown up by some deep rooted want for "equality" in all things, no matter how minute (or how little "gender politics" matter in the in game universe)

The motivations aren't really all about the game universe, though. It's about making a more welcoming environment for woman in *our* universe, including joints where you'd play 40k. So the key word there is inclusion.

If you see women who wargame as temporary trespassers within 40k, whose desire for representation on the table carries an additional tax (female heads, pewter Sisters, 3rd party models) or is simply dismissed as "economically illogical", you are sending out a bad message, You can still play non-human factions like Tyranids or Daemons, but that message is still going to be absorbed by both men and women.

You don't need to push mixed gender space marines in the existing chapters, or ruin the in-game background through PC whitewashing, but you do need to have some kind of representation. I don't see how it could possibly be a bad thing.

Agree with everything here. I wouldn't mind more female models in the game. If it's anything like video games, the female models will probably look better than the male ones....for reasons .
Or if SoB were less expensive to collect. I've always wanted an army of them but can never justify such a high barrier of entry.

 stormotron wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW gradually are redoing entire lines. Besides, they don't need to redo a whole line to add one kit to it.

theyd still need to rebox them, which isn't exactly easy nor cost effective. considering people pay for shoulder pads for specific chapters, I really don't understand the problem in charging something like $10 for like 20 female heads. this is a kit they could roll out much more feasibly

having said that if they did choose to update for example the cadian kit, then sure go ahead and add them then during the redesign. That would make more economic and logistical sense

 n0t_u wrote:


A really minor demographic; people actually insulted by such things.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with this comment, but all im suggesting is a cost effective way for GW to actualize this in a timely fashion.

Basically the people who want female space marines for the sake of having female pretty much everything. I agree other factions don't really have an excuse, but adding female space marines would just cheapen the sisters further and push them even further into obscurity.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
Honestly, this really is a non issue that's being blown up by some deep rooted want for "equality" in all things, no matter how minute (or how little "gender politics" matter in the in game universe)

The motivations aren't really all about the game universe, though. It's about making a more welcoming environment for woman in *our* universe, including joints where you'd play 40k. So the key word there is inclusion.

If you see women who wargame as temporary trespassers within 40k, whose desire for representation on the table carries an additional tax (female heads, pewter Sisters, 3rd party models) or is simply dismissed as "economically illogical", you are sending out a bad message, You can still play non-human factions like Tyranids or Daemons, but that message is still going to be absorbed by both men and women.

You don't need to push mixed gender space marines in the existing chapters, or ruin the in-game background through PC whitewashing, but you do need to have some kind of representation. I don't see how it could possibly be a bad thing.

but the base problem is 1) the community: it's probably gonna be cited as "deep rooted sexism", but generally the "nerd" community are a bit.... clingy when it comes to girls. 2) For anyone to join in the game, it has less to do with "I see no girl models" and more to do with "do I like the story/look of X army" 3) look at the local M:tG scene, plenty of female cards, but still a small population. Larger then 40ks female population, but the M:tG scene as a whole is larger.

I'm not sure if you're saying it's the community, GW, or me who see woman as "temporary trespassers", but honestly: adding female guard heads would resolve the issue, and no one would complain. IF you made different bodies, then you get whined at for "sexualizing" your models (and again, this is a scale where 5-6' guardsmen are the same size as 8-9' marines, it would either be overblown, or the EXACT same body) Locally, we have quite a few women who play, and I've never heard one of them whine about the lack of "girl space marines"

I don't know of its just me, I've heard it from a few people, but most girls seem to play Nids, which is asexual to female (lots of queens and mothers it seems).

I agree with you about the nerd community (in regards to how they treat women) although if my campus is anything to go by, female nerds are becoming more and more of a thing. The female population in the science department is starting to swell, and not just in biology like it's always been.

If more games get more inclusive, you'll likely see how people treat women change. Not a lot, but a little bit with each movement. I'm not saying all female and gender equality all the time, but it does seem that including more females can't hurt.

Wmh, for example, has a ton of female warnouns.

Akiasura wrote:
I don't know of its just me, I've heard it from a few people, but most girls seem to play Nids, which is asexual to female (lots of queens and mothers it seems).

I agree with you about the nerd community (in regards to how they treat women) although if my campus is anything to go by, female nerds are becoming more and more of a thing. The female population in the science department is starting to swell, and not just in biology like it's always been.

If more games get more inclusive, you'll likely see how people treat women change. Not a lot, but a little bit with each movement. I'm not saying all female and gender equality all the time, but it does seem that including more females can't hurt.

Wmh, for example, has a ton of female warnouns.

I do agree. basically every army is non-gendered, mixed (in favor of men, but in truth (this will get me yelled at) men are technically better for war (genetically) and are more common in actual militaries, so GW decided to match their in-game armies with real-world armies), or Orks (who are technically genderless, but when you remember that they are joke takes on the "typical 80's Rugby/Football brick-heads" shoe-horning women into orks (however you would do that) just seems like petty pandering). But apparently having a single army (in fluff) that's all male is 'exclusive' because they happen to be the most popular. It's almost like space marines are GW's flagship army for 40k or something
Should there be female guard models? Yes, though it's a slippery slope that will get you whined at for being either over sexualized, or not "girl' enough.
Should SoB get an update? Yes, they are neat, and have fun fluff (though when they do, I expect a post complaining about repentia models).
Should there be girl space marines? No, it's set in the story, and changing it would be the same as making Batman black SOLELY so you can claim to have a new black super hero.

I don't have a problem with them being sexualized personally. Women want to play sexy females like men want to play sexy males. Have you seen He-Man? Talk about unrealistic body images. A lot of the male models are heavily muscled in this game too.

I agree that, in real life, men perform the vast majority if combat roles for a variety of reasons. But this is fantasy, so I don't have a problem with it if someone wants to break from tradition and indulge. Why not?
I really think the exclusivity results from the game being created a long time ago and Gw being notoriously behind the times in nearly every way. I doubt it's an agenda so much as laziness and stupidity.
But I attribute a lot of things to laziness, greed, and stupidity.


Edit, is Batman black now? I wasn't aware, how did Bruce Wayne suddenly become black?

Oof. That was the longest "Why doesn't GW update sisters" post I've ever seen.

But in modern times, I've read stories about combat effectiveness of squads being reduced by the introduction of women. This probably has to do with the fact that women, on the whole, are weaker than men, but are required to preform the same tasks with the same equipment.

I mean, an 180 lb man carrying 50 lbs of equipment is probably going to have an easier time of things than a 120 lb woman carrying the same equipment.

But in the grimdarkfarfuture......

I suppose the same implants that turn men into SPESS MERRENZ could be use on women, but it's a matter of getting the most out of the very limited gene-seeds available. And they're going to get a stronger superhuman from a base male rather than a base female, more often than not.

Still, it seems not impossible for a woman to make it through the space marines recruiting drives, which basically consist of locking a bunch of ferals in an arena until only one has killed everyone else. I'm sure stranger things have happened in the 41st millennium.

Women seem like a potential fit for IG, I'll admit. They always need more bodies for the grinder, and the strength difference between a man and a woman probably isn't substantial when faced with charging meganobz or carnifexes.

 Brennonjw wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fluff is what GW say it is. All space marines have to be boys, because GW said so. You can't get more plainly sexist than that.

Whether it's a kind of moustache twirling sexist supervillain move, or simple 1980s sexist lack of thought, it comes to the same thing.

Girl marines can very simply be introduced as I explained by having the two lost primarchs come back from their long-distance recon mission and turn out to be women with female chapters. Job done.

problems:
1) both of the "lost" primarchs are accounted for, as are their legions (purged, and "lost" *cougheuthanizedcough*)
2) I don't see how that's sexist. It doesn't state that "because they are men, they are better" it just states that "they are men, and here is the faux-science why" and that by itself does not make something sexist. Beyond that, Lets say they did do this: Ignoring that you wouldn't be able to tell, all it would accomplish is making SoB further Ignored, and giving people a "good feeling" because now the tiny plastic game has more girls.

1. That is easily explained as a cover story put about by the Emporer to enable the female primarchs to complete their mission in secrecy from the forces of Chaos and of reaction. Now they are back, and ready to kick arse. (This supports my concept of the female SMs as stealth marines who specialise in long distance recon and other covert ops.)

2. Space Marines are better, though, it's in the fluff. SMs are better than all other troops and women can't be SMs. Women therefore are worse than men. Surely it is obvious how this is sexist.

Akiasura wrote:
I don't have a problem with them being sexualized personally. Women want to play sexy females like men want to play sexy males. Have you seen He-Man? Talk about unrealistic body images. A lot of the male models are heavily muscled in this game too.

I agree that, in real life, men perform the vast majority if combat roles for a variety of reasons. But this is fantasy, so I don't have a problem with it if someone wants to break from tradition and indulge. Why not?
I really think the exclusivity results from the game being created a long time ago and Gw being notoriously behind the times in nearly every way. I doubt it's an agenda so much as laziness and stupidity.
But I attribute a lot of things to laziness, greed, and stupidity.


Edit, is Batman black now? I wasn't aware, how did Bruce Wayne suddenly become black?

No, the batman thing was an example. an IRL example would be like making Thor a woman for the sake of having a new female hero (probably a better example then the one I used)

I'd like to agree with your first statement, but looking at the state of modern gaming (and society as a whole when it comes to entertainment), but the vocal groups of people don't want that as it's "promoting harmful body images."
I doubt it's even laziness or stupidity, GW has been adding more girl heads (tau fire warriors) as they update lines when it makes sense to do so, but my root problem comes down to situations like the space marines: Why shoe-horn it in under the guise of "making it accessible" when really, it's just a lazy pandering.

Tbf, and this is purely anecdotal and most of the women I interact with are scientists and engineers so take this with a grain of salt, they think a lot of what you're hearing is absurd. Sure, they want more female characters they and their daughters can identify with, but they don't want to see current characters female washed (especially Thor, a male Norse god...even iron man would make more sense).

Like most things, a vocal minority is ruining what could have been a very positive thing by being hateful.

What if chaos had female marines since they found that, for example, women are more likely to develop pas psyker said when exposed to gene seed for reasons? It's different, cool, and makes sense why the emperor didn't want female marines.

I really just want an army of that first female marine model shown.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fluff is what GW say it is. All space marines have to be boys, because GW said so. You can't get more plainly sexist than that.

Whether it's a kind of moustache twirling sexist supervillain move, or simple 1980s sexist lack of thought, it comes to the same thing.

Girl marines can very simply be introduced as I explained by having the two lost primarchs come back from their long-distance recon mission and turn out to be women with female chapters. Job done.

problems:
1) both of the "lost" primarchs are accounted for, as are their legions (purged, and "lost" *cougheuthanizedcough*)
2) I don't see how that's sexist. It doesn't state that "because they are men, they are better" it just states that "they are men, and here is the faux-science why" and that by itself does not make something sexist. Beyond that, Lets say they did do this: Ignoring that you wouldn't be able to tell, all it would accomplish is making SoB further Ignored, and giving people a "good feeling" because now the tiny plastic game has more girls.

1. That is easily explained as a cover story put about by the Emporer to enable the female primarchs to complete their mission in secrecy from the forces of Chaos and of reaction. Now they are back, and ready to kick arse. (This supports my concept of the female SMs as stealth marines who specialise in long distance recon and other covert ops.)

2. Space Marines are better, though, it's in the fluff. SMs are better than all other troops and women can't be SMs. Women therefore are worse than men. Surely it is obvious how this is sexist.

1. so you want girl raven guard marines? this has problems in the fluff because 1) Russ was involved with killing off one of these legions, and 2) most of the primarchs KNOW what happened to them, but were sworn to not talk about it, in fact, sanguinius FEAR these things happening to his legion

2. No, you are just reaching if that's how you want to define them as sexist. Space Marines are better then HUMANS, both male and female. Beyond that, in fluff, they are also described as both "the pinnacle of humanity" AND "basically non-human mutants." That's like me saying Gorillas are sexist 'cause they are stronger then human women.


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Akiasura wrote:

What if chaos had female marines since they found that, for example, women are more likely to develop pas psyker said when exposed to gene seed for reasons? It's different, cool, and makes sense why the emperor didn't want female marines.

I really just want an army of that first female marine model shown.

It would be a neat concept, but by that point, why wouldn't chaos just use warp magic to empower them isntead of using the increasingly rare useable "Chaos" gene-seed? Also: that model would make a decent stand in for some SoB group sitting a little to close to the Ultramarines

But there are female gorillas so that falls over as an example

Akiasura wrote:
But there are female gorillas so that falls over as an example

poor example, but it's still comparing something essentially "non-human" (space marines) to humans (humans ), and then calling it sexist.

But marines are humans, they are just humans+1 in many ways. They start out as humans and are just engineered to be better. It's not like gorillas start out human and are mutated.
Unless my girlfriend hasn't been telling me something...

It's similar to superman in a way. Technically, he isn't human. But for most people, he is portrayed as the best humanity has to offer despite this (unless you are reading injustice in which case screw that guy).

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The fluff is what GW say it is. All space marines have to be boys, because GW said so. You can't get more plainly sexist than that.

Whether it's a kind of moustache twirling sexist supervillain move, or simple 1980s sexist lack of thought, it comes to the same thing.

Girl marines can very simply be introduced as I explained by having the two lost primarchs come back from their long-distance recon mission and turn out to be women with female chapters. Job done.

No there not easy to introduce with out making massive retcons. Your asking to up heave thirty years of solid background, make changes to the recent heresy novels that make it pretty clear the other two primarchs are dead. I'm for more female models but not at the cost of changing what a Space Marine is.

Akiasura wrote:
But marines are humans, they are just humans+1 in many ways. They start out as humans and are just engineered to be better. It's not like gorillas start out human and are mutated.
Unless my girlfriend hasn't been telling me something...

It's similar to superman in a way. Technically, he isn't human. But for most people, he is portrayed as the best humanity has to offer despite this (unless you are reading injustice in which case screw that guy).

yeah, they start as humans, and end up as "beyond humans", but my issue (and point, that I seemingly cannot explain ) is Kilkrazy's point about marines being sexist 'cause they are all dudes who are better then girls is misleading because they are better then the human race as a whole (and technically orks, tau, and most nids )

You shut your mouth.
No one is better than Nids.
No one.

I understand your point, but I can see why someone would disagree with it.

The idea of female space marines is only a neat thought experiment, really. If I'm the only one who doesn't mind buff roided out women any more than the buff roided out men all the more for me, I guess...

Ironically the most characteristically GW-lazy method to introduce then to the setting would also be the most controversially progressive: say they recruit men and women (boys and girls, really) and the resultant physical changes make the resultant post-human astartes look a certain way regardless of the aspirant's gender. Take it a step further and argue the use of male pronouns in the fluff is in the gender-neutral sense and a product of their psychological deconstruction during the process. "You are not male, you are not female, these are the labels nature gave to you because it could not see your potential. You are Death!"

But that's ultimately a fun diversion. The real issue to me is that there are factions that are specifically described in the fluff fielding women that don't have models representing that. The Imperium takes a tithe of soldiers from its worlds, some of those worlds mix the gender ratio, some send all men, some send all women, some do it because they regard women as the only logical fighting class, others because they're considered an undesirable underclass it any number of other reasons. In turn the Imperium has all-male, all-female, and mixed-gender regiments, this is described in the fluff, it's part of the setting as it exists today.

How can that be represented in the model range we have today? What are the missed opportunities? What are the upcoming opportunities? What are the triumphs?

The guardsmen sprue is aging, and due for an update for the same reasons as the old fire warrior kit. A slight adjustment of their existing proportions could make them more believable as unisex, with the added benefit of differentiating them from space marines and unifying their proportions with tank commanders- and as with the new fire warrior kit GW proved they are willing and able to fit way more than ten extra heads on one sprue. And weapons, and shields, and...

The Tempestus Scions is a missed opportunity, but one that can be rectified by female heads from another kit. I actually don't know how to quantify the extent of it though, in the Cain books I liked how the battle sisters in training who were insufficiently combat effective were moved to non-combat orders while the insufficiently faithful got rolled into the storm troopers.

The new Tau is kind of cheating because the only quantifiable difference between males and females we know about is the head-slit. Even that is a recent thing that was originally a fan theory based on the inconsistency of Shadowsun's sculpt compared to other Tau heads. That said, all the new kits have at least one female head (I'm at work, can't go count right now) and the new male head sculpt is extremely easy to convert from an I to a Y.

The real problem in my opinion (and I don't think I've seen it mentioned here yet) is GW doesn't seem to want to be seen promoting violence against women in the eyes of the public. And so is increasingly disinclined to depict visibly female models in a violent setting. It feels like a more recent thing, after the dark elder releases, after they got the ball rolling to actively discourage sisters of battle players, but certainly before and responsible for the discontinuation of all female inquisitor models (awful as they were) or the ultra-manness of every new Age of Sugar model. To what end, I don't know, but it reminds me of an anecdote I heard about GW corporate not letting store employees paint models as black people in order to avoid offending black people.