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The 'role of women' is, like any other social structure, completely dependent upon the planet in question. There are probably lots of planets where women and men have a middle-ages equality system, and there are probably plenty where it's closer to the 21st century.

We know that, higher up on the interplanetary scale, there are plenty of women govenors, arbites, assassins, mechanicus and inquisitors. We know that there are women in the guard regiments, though not as many as men. TBH, this isn't particularly suprising in any military force.

The only other stipulation is that Space Marines are always men. Other than that....

MAKING SAMMICHES

The referred to female space marines would be the Fighting Tigers of Veda.

http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/

For this particular guy's argument on why there should be female space marines, click on this:
http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/roarsgirls.html

to put it simply, they are in the kitchen making more cupcakes for the guardsmen

They get to produce babies,just like spartan women for reference

does that mean that the men also do as the Spartans? :O

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:does that mean that the men also do as the Spartans? :O

TONIGHT, WE DINE- IN CHAOS.

read lexicanum about the Geno regiments- crazy sci fi stuff that hardly seems 40kish at all, in a way.

As per space marines, I think half the point of them was to create an army that viewed the Emperor in a 'father-son' context. And while a 'father-daughter' context can be just as powerful, the 'Invincible Sons of the Immortal God Emperor of Mankind' just has a certain ring to it, and is combined with the Monk like qualities that alot of chapters adopt.

WarOne wrote:40k is discriminating women (or horny men who like robust women models).

Look at the majority of armies in 40k.

SM and their other specific chapter based armies-No female SM.
IG- very few, but they are there.
Eldar-Some, but very elite.
Chaos- see SM
Orks- they're spore dudes. No "sex," but they have masculine bodies.
Necrons- all male so far. I guess the C'tan didn't have to sex appeal to the necrotyr, since all their bodies are pretty much male looking. Maybe all the men were taken and shoved in necron bodies, leaving the females behind. Or maybe the C'tan took only those men of a particular sexual orientation. Dunno. This explanation has gone on far too long and is tredding into dangerous waters.

Really, Sisters of Battle are the predominate female only force Games Workshop has produced for 40k to my knowledge. Maybe that was a concession to people pointing out the lack of females in terms of armies. Who knows.

Well lets be honest look at the statistics and history, men are just more suted to sign on to the military and tend to be the more violent of the two sexs and as for the idea of making a new guard codex just for women all you owuld do is throw in some fluff and make a few female special charitors, there would be very little to change, as far as forces go.

Imperial Women are for Imperial Kitchens and Imperial Babies.

Same as men afaik, though not as militant.

Shaman wrote:@ insainiak I stand corrected.

Angels of death's imagination and memory are mixed up I reckon.

Actually, AngelofDeath is right. It happens in Storm of Iron. One of the CSMs is replaced by a woman. And almost no one noticed, though one character observes that 'he' seems even deadlier then usual.

if there were more female 40k players then maybe

A great number of people have never seen women in armor. Do you know what they look like? Guys. Even a woman with a huge chest doesn't look like much if she puts on a ballistic vest, even one designed for women. Armor isn't supposed to accentuate curves, it's supposed to protect them; if it accentuates then it's ornamental, and thus probably next to useless for actual fighting. For the Imperial Guard, just replacing the all-male heads with a couple female ones would be just fine.

Yeah, I used to wear a ballistic vest. I occasionally still DO wear platemail. Neither makes me look particularly feminine, just bulky. (In before someone makes an 'OMG IT MAKES ME LOOK FAT WAAAAH' joke.)

pops101 wrote:if there were more female 40k players then maybe

You've actually hit the nail on the head there. And this is going to be a problem for Deathwatch, to judge from the shitstorm going on on FFG's boards since while not a lot of woman play 40k, a LOT of women roleplay.

An easy way to make female Guard would be a simple head option.

when someone is in full body armor(like the guard flak jackets) any defining female charactoristics will be nearly undetectable.

so a head is really the only way to tell the difference.

There are female t'au warriors. The reason many can't really tell is that IMO there is not much of a visual difference between the sexs. It is suggested that T'au might lay eggs so that would mean no knockers for them.

The Imperium would not decriminate on sex grounds. The Imperium is purely interested in its own goals and objectives - Power, Tithe and Purity. If a female was the most efficient collector of Tithe then she would go far.

A true meritocrascy you might say, of course that would depend on whether you could get to get up to the "Imperial" strata of society and that would depend on the politics of each individual world or system would dictate the social norms and customs.

I think that someone rightly identified the Administrator in DoW 2 [can't remember he name at the moment] who then became Imperial Govenor at the end of DoW 2/start of Chaos Rising. There are numerous female characters in important places in in much of the Black Library literature.

Finally as to why there are so few female miniatures? I don't think that it is a case of GW can't make them, just look at the Esher gangers from Necro; if they were so poor then they wouldn't exchange hands for such a premium price.

This is a hobby where the majority of participants are male [with notable exceptions] and the target market is under 16s. GW have probably identified that youngsters won't want to buy female grunts, at the opposite end of the scale you have the male super human marine which sells by the bucket load.

Who wants female miniatures any way? I'll wager it is mostly adult males who would expect to see buxom Guardswomen with thier "dog-tags" on shown. Candroth identified this is not a realistic or pacticle approach nor it is on that family orientated GW is likely to follow. I can't see a Lara Croft-eque Guardswoman pulling a lasgun to her shoulder, there would be no room!

GW could [and indeed do] produce some very good female miniatures if they wanted to but they have chosen not to. Its a shame because there seem to be few others who can produce females that dont look like trannies but there we go.

Who wants female miniatures any way? I'll wager it is mostly adult males who would expect to see buxom Guardswomen with thier "dog-tags" on shown. Candroth identified this is not a realistic or pacticle approach nor it is on that family orientated GW is likely to follow. I can't see a Lara Croft-eque Guardswoman pulling a lasgun to her shoulder, there would be no room!

This arguement keeps cropping up. Usually in a pergorative way meant to infer some pervy tendency. Am not suggesting that that is the intent in this instance btw

The opposite is actually the case for those that want female miniatures. We wish to see good sculpts of female protagonistists and not what is deemed as desirable to teenage boys/older pervs' fetishes. It is too cliched an image, and only possible in cartoons or Victorian corsetry. Personally I wouldn't buy that sort of figure. I would buy female figures that were more reasonably proportioned and not pandering to male erotic fantasies.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding that because the figures are set in a Fantasy World they have to look like what is expected of male fantasies.

As there being no room for Lara to pull a lasgun because of her anatomy, not sure that standard power armour is particularly ergonomic to tell the truth.

notprop wrote:
Who wants female miniatures any way? I'll wager it is mostly adult males who would expect to see buxom Guardswomen with thier "dog-tags" on shown. Candroth identified this is not a realistic or pacticle approach nor it is on that family orientated GW is likely to follow. I can't see a Lara Croft-eque Guardswoman pulling a lasgun to her shoulder, there would be no room!

Only with the catachans... ...which I've been told are really built like that in fluff... ...so clearly, no one will be mistaking Vasquez for a man!

I will say that, looking at my female cadians I got from Doc Thunder's crew, that while the armor is shaped slightly different, it's clearly the same pattern as the male armor, and the only obvious guns is one traditional imperial flashlight errr lasgun. Which is I think the best way to go about it. Present but understated.

I wouldn't be looking for an army of D-cups, just some different heads and slightly different bodies to put a bit of variation through the ranks.

Snikkyd wrote:

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:
This arguement keeps cropping up. Usually in a pergorative way meant to infer some pervy tendency. Am not suggesting that that is the intent in this instance btw

The opposite is actually the case for those that want female miniatures. We wish to see good sculpts of female protagonistists and not what is deemed as desirable to teenage boys/older pervs' fetishes. It is too cliched an image, and only possible in cartoons or Victorian corsetry. Personally I wouldn't buy that sort of figure. I would buy female figures that were more reasonably proportioned and not pandering to male erotic fantasies.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding that because the figures are set in a Fantasy World they have to look like what is expected of male fantasies.

I agree totally. I would really like to mix some female sculpts in with my guard, just to break up the same-ness of it all, but with allot of the female ranges out there [Shadowforge] its not going to happen. I mean for a start there is no option for twin-linked bangers in the codex!

And on the subject of purile behavour

EagleArk wrote:......metal booby image.........

I think that this sort of thing is so common in Fantasy because it is now so ingrained in the imagery on generic fantasy that it is just accepted as the norm.

Personally I like my 40k to be a bit more realistic than is often portrayed [I appreciate the irony of that statement] so this sort of thing doesn't float my boat.

I have heard of independently produced female IG Heads/accessories but have never seen them for sale. I am beginning to think that it may be easier to just produce my own using heresy miniatures heads.

Talk to DarkSoul over on barter town. He did Doc's female guard castings, if I remember right.

In the 40k universe, some want to be a SM. Some will even sell their souls to chaos. Me? I'll be one of the male breeders. How else are we going to re-fill all those IG armies?

OoieGooie, doing his part for the ladies of the 40k universe.

their job is to fix the commissars sammiches (yes, sammiches)

Hey, there are female Inquisitors. (Did someone mention this?)

They use women how they use men (except for SM). For example, as parents, medics, guardswomen, inquisitors, cannon fodder...

Candroth wrote:A great number of people have never seen women in armor. Do you know what they look like? Guys. Even a woman with a huge chest doesn't look like much if she puts on a ballistic vest, even one designed for women. Armor isn't supposed to accentuate curves, it's supposed to protect them; if it accentuates then it's ornamental, and thus probably next to useless for actual fighting. For the Imperial Guard, just replacing the all-male heads with a couple female ones would be just fine.

That would be fine... if the current Imperial Guard models were actually proportioned like human beings.

Females in armour may or may nor look particularly feminine (depending on the actual armour, and the shape of the woman underneath it) but they are still generally shorter and slightly lighter in build than a male in the same armour. They also stand and move differently.

I've seen a couple of people try the 'female head on cadian body' option for female guardsmen. They don't look like females in armour... they just look like a female head on an exaggerated male body.

Yeah, you have to do the torso and legs too. Arms you can use, since GW's arms are almost all the same length. (and cadians have sleeves, so it's harder to tell.)