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To my understanding they only mobilized women on the scale they did in the name of total war, it worked so even though they could afford to scale back Post WW2 there was really no point in removing them completely. Hell Lyudmila Pavlichenko alone makes the case that women can be highly effective in a combat environment, with 309 confirmed kills she's one of the top snipers in world history period.

I just find it funny the whole 'female marines' argument has to start up because then we have the whole 'Can eldar and humans have offspring together?' (i.e. 'love can bloom'), 'Are space marines castrated?' and 'Are there any half eldar/half human space marines?' (i heard there was at least one).

Honestly the longer a franchise goes on without any serious change the more impossible to change it becomes. At this point zelda and possibly starcraft are so impossible to change they will never develop. Sure it's a tried and tested formula but any new and innovative ideas that have come forward since then will be shot down by fans with a wave of utter hate.

You want to know how bad it's gotten for starcraft 2? People hated anything that took away micro-management in starcraft 2 and were increasingly angered by miners auto-mining in the game. Something that doesn't even really effect anything in the game at all and it bothered the p*ss out of them.

Starcraft 2 could easily use better management and less micro but apparently "pro-gamers" would have less of an edge developing their ability to click a million times per minute gained from texting people probably. Want to know one example starcraft 2 could be improved? A lot of fantasy game have a 'loose formation' that helps against 'area of effect' attacks. All you'd have to do click and drag a box around your guys and press loose formation and they'd all adopt this in starcraft 2. Instead we each need to perform 100 micro clicks per second to split these f**king massed units so that one area of effect attack doesn't kill everything. It fails from being over-complicated and by the end your hands will hate you.

Starcraft 2 is also one of the only strategy games that has workers, single model units rather than squads and similar. There is absolutely no reason starcraft 2 needed mineral and gas gathering but the fan-base and hardcore gamers were so all-encompassing that change just couldn't happen even when it would develop the game.

40k gamers are the same and fantasy even more so possibly. These games are so mired in what is by fans that nothing ever changes as shown by the year staying the same. Nothing ever will change either. There is only war and stagnation fittingly.

------------------

I suppose getting back to my main point is that the lore has been established too heavily that there are no female marines. From what i see marines are basically warrior priesthood much like sisters are nuns that fight or warrior maidens. I honestly don't see why it needs to be changed to have female marines. 4chan and perverted fanboys will make female marines happen anyway.

I don't even see why there was a 'sexism in 40k' thread or whatever. Honestly i feel 40k has had some of the most modestly proportioned women in most forms of gaming. At least most of the females are well clothed and when they're not it is more of a punishment reason than some weird fetish for fanboys. The imperial guard does it too with penal legionnaires being tattoed with numbers into their heads and having explosive collars that detonate if their leader so chooses (usually from cowardice or similar). This means it's not gender specific in punishment so much that Sisters are basically nuns and take heresy seriously much like some inquisitors, priests and chaplains would. I mean i've seen models by various companies that display women in very provocative perverted ways with almost no clothes or none at all and large boobs. Even in the fluff it's more an old knightly order type thing. Even if there were female knights the perception by people of what knights were (like with bretonnians in fantasy) is exactly what it's trying to show. Some of it has a fantasy element (it is sci-fi fantasy after all).

So i dunno it's just all so ridiculous to me. I'll probably get annihilated to oblivion with what i think though. Whatever.

Well ... I sorta can relate to both groups. It could be argued that no or too little change (useful change, as in development) makes something stale and boring, as there is nothing new to talk about. On the other hand, any sort of change also brings with it the risk of annoying somebody.who thought the old thing was better and didn't need changing. And I think, deep down we've all been on both sides of this conflict somewhere, some time.

The "sexism in 40k" thread ... well, a lot of people (wrongly, imho) assume that the IoM is sexist, which GW fluff offers ample arguments against. I also very much agree with you that GW's miniature design has been very tame - indeed, in some cases tamer than necessary (new Daemonette design).
A huge discussion point in that thread was the lack of female minis, however, where they really should be expected (Cadia's 50/50 recruitment ratio for example). That said, I believe this is more a case of ... well, neglect, I suppose, rather than being something intentional, the same as could be said about the lack of non-white ethnicities. Just like in the video gaming industry, GW seems to be stuck in the "white male" mindset, resulting in the miniatures line not quite representing the variety that the company's own fluff tells us of.

Also, +1 on the Marines = warrior priesthood thingy. Their bases are not called "Fortress-Monasteries" for nothing, I'd say.

Anyways, this topic here has nothing to do with sexism but with style. If it were not for the Adepta Sororitas, it might be different, but since 40k has the Sisters of Battle as equals to the Space Marines (actual GW wording), I really do not think any of the genders should feel disadvantaged. In my opinion, it's quite simply an artistic choice that segregates the two sexes into two distinct yet equally valued and powerful factions. Of course some might argue that it'd be cool if the Astartes' genetical enhancements would be available to females as well, or if there were a male order of warriors who would use the Sisters' Acts of Faith - but I just think the gender-exclusiveness makes the factions more unique, and the absence of this option is about as sexist as it is "racist" that the Imperial Guard isn't able to field Eldar gravtanks and Kroot mercenaries in its ranks. If you give everything to everyone, that's just boring, isn't it?

 Lynata wrote:
Well ... I sorta can relate to both groups. It could be argued that no or too little change (useful change, as in development) makes something stale and boring, as there is nothing new to talk about. On the other hand, any sort of change also brings with it the risk of annoying somebody.who thought the old thing was better and didn't need changing. And I think, deep down we've all been on both sides of this conflict somewhere, some time.

The "sexism in 40k" thread ... well, a lot of people (wrongly, imho) assume that the IoM is sexist, which GW fluff offers ample arguments against. I also very much agree with you that GW's miniature design has been very tame - indeed, in some cases tamer than necessary (new Daemonette design).

A huge discussion point in that thread was the lack of female minis, however, where they really should be expected (Cadia's 50/50 recruitment ratio for example). That said, I believe this is more a case of ... well, neglect, I suppose, rather than being something intentional, the same as could be said about the lack of non-white ethnicities. Just like in the video gaming industry, GW seems to be stuck in the "white male" mindset, resulting in the miniatures line not quite representing the variety that the company's own fluff tells us of.

Also, +1 on the Marines = warrior priesthood thingy. Their bases are not called "Fortress-Monasteries" for nothing, I'd say.

They're more xeno-phobic than anything else. It makes sense to an extent though but oddly enough humans get along with space marines so it's kind of weird.

The new daemonette design is more disturbing when you really figure out what it is. You see i never thought much of it till i remembered slaanesh doesn't have a sex or similar. The new daemonette models are transvestites except half and half down the middle. This is why one of their boobs is not covered up. It's because it's a man boob. This is even more disturbing on another level though as it should mean the have half male and female parts down the middle as well. Seeing half of both is perhaps more disturbing than seeing a daemonette with all of both. Add to that the whole chariot with whips and you get that whole "We just got BDSM tortured to death by transvestites" vibe and i don't think we ever really wanted to think about that .

flamingkillamajig wrote:They're more xeno-phobic than anything else. It makes sense to an extent though but oddly enough humans get along with space marines so it's kind of weird.

The topic doesn't seem to be talked about much in GW fluff, from what I've read - indeed, it almost sounds as if the various sources, even from the studio itself, portray different angles as to how the humans really get along with the Astartes. The SoB Codex certainly mentions a trend in the Ecclesiarchy how there are a lot of priests who really are not very able to stomach the Space Marines' various differences (shape, acid spit, resilience, etc) and regard them as little better than mutants. Either this is an intentional conflict between the sources (fitting to the statement about stuff just being half-truths), or the Imperial culture is split on the issue and doesn't really know whether it should treat the Astartes as revered saviours or dreadful abhumans.
Ironically, the Sisters of Battle are a little more accepting of them more than the preachers - some sort of mutual respect between warriors.

flamingkillamajig wrote:The new daemonette design is more disturbing when you really figure out what it is. You see i never thought much of it till i remembered slaanesh doesn't have a sex or similar. The new daemonette models are transvestites except half and half down the middle. This is why one of their boobs is not covered up. It's because it's a man boob. This is even more disturbing on another level though as it should mean the have half male and female parts down the middle as well. Seeing half of both is perhaps more disturbing than seeing a daemonette with all of both. Add to that the whole chariot with whips and you get that whole "We just got BDSM tortured to death by transvestites" vibe and i don't think we ever really wanted to think about that .

Well, it's not like I don't see what it's supposed to mean - it's just that the new Daemonettes really aren't very alluring, which kind of conflicts with how they are described. Of course it could be argued that this is their actual form, and that their descriptions are just psychic visions, but .. I dunno, that still sounds kind of lame. You have those four big Chaos factions with the Khorne ones really looking like they're all about war and fighting, and the Nurgle ones who are all about sickness and decay, and the Tzeentch ones who just look very random and magicky, and then you get to Slaanesh and ... uh, it's a bunch of weirdly looking purple things. They just do not really convey the right image, I guess. Matter of preferences, ofc.

Also, jeez, did you have to put that image in my mind?

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
To my understanding they only mobilized women on the scale they did in the name of total war, it worked so even though they could afford to scale back Post WW2 there was really no point in removing them completely. Hell Lyudmila Pavlichenko alone makes the case that women can be highly effective in a combat environment, with 309 confirmed kills she's one of the top snipers in world history period.

And there's your problem right there. The soviets main use of females was as snipers. Obviously anyone can be cannon fodder too.
Going back to marines though, they are not snipers by nature even if they do engage in this activity. They are designed to take a beating and to get in to close combat. Now if females were every bit as good as males in this regard there would be no need to separate male and female competitors in martial arts, division would be by weight alone.

We know that marines recruit the toughest kids they can find, they don't look for the smartest, they look for the most resilient, the fastest, the strongest. That is the raw material they want to work with. Though obviously there are limits or they'd recruit ogryn.

How exactly is that a problem? The Soviets used women in the infantry as well, just like they also drove tanks, were flying planes, or operated artillery. For some reason, the snipers are just more popular. Probably because it's a bit easier to measure their success there by counting confirmed kills.

And is there really a need to separate male and female competitors in some martial arts, or is this perhaps just yet another artificial and temporary social construct of our current age? Also see the gif on page 2 in this regard.
And honestly, if you really want to even out the averages, we could just as well ban Africans from running competitions. Some group of people will always have advantages somewhere - yet obviously that does not mean that the outcome is always predetermined.

All your argument does is confirm the place of females in the IG.
They have no place in the astartes, they are not as a group robust enough compared to males outside any argument over geneseed compatibility.

Males of any given human population are stronger and more robust than the females.
Sexual dimorphism.

Why would you use females from any group for an elite group of super warriors when there will always be better male candidates from the same group?

The IG is full of females, the Soritas is female only, the assassin temples are full of females.

Astartes are male and epitomize male physical prowess with an emphasis on strength and durability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In regards the gif, the two competitors there are actually doing a pre-arranged fight and the male quite obviously throws himself forwards.

cadbren wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
To my understanding they only mobilized women on the scale they did in the name of total war, it worked so even though they could afford to scale back Post WW2 there was really no point in removing them completely. Hell Lyudmila Pavlichenko alone makes the case that women can be highly effective in a combat environment, with 309 confirmed kills she's one of the top snipers in world history period.

We know that marines recruit the toughest kids they can find, they don't look for the smartest, they look for the most resilient, the fastest, the strongest. That is the raw material they want to work with. Though obviously there are limits or they'd recruit ogryn.

They probably also look for those that have a great tactical sense.

Kind of odd though that the first step of all marines is straight into the scout marine squads and they tend to be the infiltrators. Sure when they're tougher they go into the marines but if they are esp. skilled (like 'telion') they just stay as infiltrator/snipers and train everybody. In the space marines having a good supply of scouts that live is probably more important in many ways. This is esp. considering a lot of space marine chapters are dying out completely in the current lore.

I get that you're trying to say women often take a far away from direct confrontation approaches. However when you have a sword or more likely a gun or power weapon that can cut through space marine armor supposedly. I don't think your strength boost is going to matter much esp. in comparison to say an ork.

Oh boy, guess it's time for another edition of Gender Bias.

Okay, I'll bite. Your logic is flawed. The Space Marines are much further removed from the average male than the average male is removed from the average female. Taking into account the wide range of regional human adaptions, it would seem reasonable to assume that, for example, the average female Catachan is, in fact, more stronger and more robust than your average Tallarn male.

Obviously, such regional differences do not prevent the Adeptus Astartes from recruiting from a wide range of worlds - arguably because they are well aware that it does not matter much how exactly the recruit looked like before his transformation, else various Chapters could not afford selecting their Aspirants based on how good they are at some completely unrelated skill, such as the Salamanders and their fondness of able blacksmiths.

The chief limiting factor of Space Marine recruitment is geneseed compatibility, so it would make sense to include female recruits ... if it were possible, that is.

Unless you really want to tell me that for some weird reason the comparatively weaker men from planet X make stronger Space Marines than the comparatively stronger women from planet Y.

Why would you use females from any group for an elite group of super warriors when there will always be better male candidates from the same group?

Because the pool of "better males" is not limitless, as much as you may like to believe so. At some point you either have to stop recruiting, or lower the requirements - so it is just a matter of time until you'd have to start accepting women - first the exceptional, then the better, and so on.
The female Russian paratroopers that make it into active service have to conform to the very same requirements as their male counterparts, so obviously that would mean they can do the job just as much? Same thing for the South Korean special forces.

In the real world, the size of your "elite groups of super warriors" is limited by factors such as interest by the population, at least in nations that do not practice the draft and do not force individuals of potential qualification into such forces but allow them a degree of choice.
In the world of 40k, we have factors such as the Marines' geneseed compatibility.

Also, I would think you underestimate the equalising factor of technology, and neglect the fact that physical strength and robustness are not the only things that are important for a good soldier. As has been shown in human history time and time again.

I'd be interested to know if you would start advocating getting men out of the pilots' chairs, given that your sexual dimorphism concludes that women are better suited for this job.

Or perhaps we as a species should simply act like grown-ups and start judging people based on their individual qualities and not on some label.

In regards the gif, the two competitors there are actually doing a pre-arranged fight and the male quite obviously throws himself forwards.

Source?

Honestly tactics, food shortages, illness, wounds sustained, fatigue, camouflage and multiple other things effect battle more so than your gender would.

Are they usually physically weaker than males? It seems so somewhat (though some women are exceptionally strong to a degree i'd be embarassed to fight them considering our societal opinions on men weaker than women). However if soldiers all have the same requirements to get in then it should be fine.

If we're going to throw out the whole men/women thing though then we have to throw xenos, daemons and genetically modified super-men into this as well. Having a human face a nob would probably be like a man facing a large crocodile that's smarter, can fire weapons and is good at combat. It's not going to end well most of the time once close combat hits.

You know what's funny about this too? Orks only have a toughness of one higher in the tabletop although in reality they'd probably punch through walls.

Besides as shown with guardsmen or orks or nids most things are just as dead when hit with ordnance. Meh you'd think in a universe where there's power armor, aliens (like different species even on earth) and genetically modified super soldiers that a difference in sex matters little.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Besides as shown with guardsmen or orks or nids (or Space Marines) most things are just as dead when hit with ordnance.

Fixed that for you.

A direct hit from an earthshaker round would kill any Space Marine in the lore, even if it wouldn't necessarily do so in-game.

There's a very short list of what can survive a direct hit from an earthshaker shell.

cadbren wrote:
All your argument does is confirm the place of females in the IG.
They have no place in the astartes, they are not as a group robust enough compared to males outside any argument over geneseed compatibility.

Take a child of either gender at Astartes induction age and pump them full of the hormonal and surgical changes they undergo and it's likely they would be identical unless you did an internal scan.

cadbren wrote:
Males of any given human population are stronger and more robust than the females.
Sexual dimorphism.

Why would you use females from any group for an elite group of super warriors when there will always be better male candidates from the same group?

We recruit the women strong and fit enough for combat and don't recruit the men who are unfit for combat. Individual ability rather than "All women should be in the typing pool".

The IG is full of females, the Soritas is female only, the assassin temples are full of females.

Astartes are male and epitomize male physical prowess with an emphasis on strength and durability.

Durability is questionable. Many studies suggest women are as good and even better than men at surviving disease, illness and trauma. And 'Strength' is not an inherent male trait. Like any trait is is an individual one. Some women are strong while some men are not even though on average men will be stronger.

Just to clarify, I have no problem with Astartes being men only. Perhaps it's tied to the chromosomal level rather than hormones and the presence of the XX messes up the Emperors voodoo science. I am more than happy with the Sororitas being the best known example of women in the wartorn world of 40k.

Why? Just why?

 Insane Smile wrote:
Why? Just why?

The same reason that people want to make corrupted Sisters of Battle. Because people want to make something "Different".

 Lynata wrote:


Unless you really want to tell me that for some weird reason the comparatively weaker men from planet X make stronger Space Marines than the comparatively stronger women from planet Y.

I could be wrong, but a dead person is going to be weaker than a live person, and preferable in every way. So yes, the weaker men from Planet X make better/stronger Space Marines than the stronger women from planet Y.


Of course, by inference, the men from planet Y will be better/stronger than the men from planet X and thus be preferable to the men from planet X. Barring any genetic abnormality that makes them predisposed towards incompatibility for a reason other than their sex.

Never mind that a brother and sister are genetically closer than the brother and a guy from a different family, and thus the only way that it could really work the way that GW thinks it does is if there's serious amounts of inbreeding...

Or the Geneseed somehow requires the male chromosome to function properly and that's just how it works. And even then its not a sure thing, if there is any weakness or genetic flaw the initiate will likely die.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Or the Geneseed somehow requires the male chromosome to function properly and that's just how it works.

The Y chromosome doesn't really code for much other than gender and sex organs, many of which are present or have equivalents on the X chromosome as well. Indeed, the fact that XX males and XY females exist shows that there really isn't much of a genetic difference between the two genders.

Or tl;dr, Space Marines are designed someone who took biology for business majors, since they really don't make any sense. Would you say a particularly capable XY female would be able to become a Space Marine?

Yeah, the "male zygote" thing doesn't really hold up to actual science - but I don't actually see a problem with this. It's just a bit of technobabble to explain a stylistic choice. I'm fine with technobabble as long as it doesn't get too ridiculous (looking at you, Red Matter).

Grey Templar wrote:I could be wrong, but a dead person is going to be weaker than a live person, and preferable in every way.

Huh?

To be honest, I don't really care and have no desire for female space marines. I just wish people would stop acting like it's anything other than pseudoscientific hand-waving by authors that don't know anything about the topic they're hand-waving. It's a stylistic decision by the authors with a flimsy excuse to justify it, nothing more. And that's fine, really.

 Melissia wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Or the Geneseed somehow requires the male chromosome to function properly and that's just how it works.

The Y chromosome doesn't really code for much other than gender and sex organs, many of which are present or have equivalents on the X chromosome as well. Indeed, the fact that XX males and XY females exist shows that there really isn't much of a genetic difference between the two genders.

Or tl;dr, Space Marines are designed someone who took biology for business majors, since they really don't make any sense.

Yeah, there is a little handwavium there, but it is still very much possible the geneseed requires something on the Y chromosome to function.

Would you say a particularly capable XY female would be able to become a Space Marine?

Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean someone who had a chromosome abnormality then you are talking body chemistry issues which would likely result in death if the process was undertaken. The Apothecaries would see such an obvious problem almost immediately and choose not to risk valuable geneseed on such a risky individual. They lose enough geneseed on normal recruits as it is.

It'd be better if they represented the marines as genderless.
More like the perfect instrument of war (Or supposed to be when they aren't being corrupted) no gender or anything.

Well they pretty much are genderless. They are simply created from one of the two human genders.

Given that marines are a separate species from humans(Homo Astartes) they are technically an asexual being.

And yet they only allow men to join, so... they're male.

Its not that they don't allow women to join, it is physically impossible for a female to be implanted with the geneseed.

And a marine basically loses his male identity and becomes simply Astartes. it may be masculine from a human point of view, but so are Orks.

 Grey Templar wrote:
And a marine basically loses his male identity

I don't entirely disagree, but I think you'll find a lot of people do

If female space marines were possible anyway they'd probably be mega-steroid induced looking with scars all over the place from many different things. I don't really read much of the marine lore but do they still have a lot of the scars from the surgical operations? By the end of all that no matter what sex they're going to be looking mighty ugly. The women would be super hairy and probably looking over-muscled just like those super body builders you see on tv or magazines and with scars and a broad build. Chances are they'd look very ugly to us.

Honestly the whole warrior priests thing of space marines makes the "they're all castrated" idea much more realistic. Besides some gigantic marine trying to flirt with a human woman and actually "get it" would end in a crushed to death human woman without special protection and chances are some super human death machine would need more than one to satisfy him provided all the parts still fit and work properly and he doesn't have like acid shooting out his d*ck.

So yeah i agree it's more of a aesthetic thing. Nuns with guns make sense for that.

Also honestly i wouldn't mind the idea of corrupted sisters of battle. One one hand some would be sort of unhappy but it doesn't seem impossible.

Like i said though GW is established mostly these days and any sort of questions about this stuff won't be answered. I feel like i can guarantee it almost. A franchise which has seen little change in a long time and very little since the beginning tends to mean that almost no change will happen from then on. 40k is a very stagnant lore like that and is just one of the many example like zelda and starcraft. In ways popularity is one of the things getting in the way of it.

Meh i dunno i wouldn't totally want female space marines anyway once you have sisters. Sisters are infinitely more fun of an idea with faith powers than the 6th or so version of space marines. Do you really want that? I mean we have chaos marines, grey knights, black templars, space wolves, blood angels, dark angels and 'normal' marines. Honestly they could probably just limit it to one space marines codex, the grey knights codex and finally the chaos marines codex. Just add differences to different chaos marine legions and different marine chapters and you should be good. However popularity sees that many.

I dunno i am not too thrilled at the prospects of another space marine chapter except possibly the blood ravens. Space wolves never interested me even when they got re-released.

As it is the sisters of battle will need a big reboot before we even think of a female marines chapter i think. Get some nice angelic flying women with angel wings and some very ornate artificer armor. Sisters need a dark eldar style reboot with them and we can only hope with the all metal sisters that they'll get it. I just wish that all hope hasn't been lost on them. If they get a dark eldar style reboot with models and rules that are fantastic then perhaps they will be beloved by everybody. They could do it i think. There's enough gothic church stuff to make it happen.

 Henners91 wrote:


But what's to stop matured Marines from cosmetically altering themselves?

............................................

The universe is at the brink of destruction. The Empire of Men faces enemies both on the inside and on the outside. Why, for the C'Tan's sake, would Marines suddenly get the idea of suddenly getting boobs? I mean...uhm...what? ;/