Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Well you're already arguing for one ideal (female Space Marines), why can't we examine the possibility of a different one (more representation of other factions)? Imo the second is the better choice for the game itself in particular. It seems like the pro-representation side is a little too quick to throw it out.
Yeah, certainly nobody here very nearly ascended to fifth dimensional living meme status during the year of basically nothing but space marines happening in 40k complaining about how they were essentially the only thing that mattered in the game universe, narratively set up to always win, singlehandedly dragging the grimdarkness of the 41st millennium to the happy brightness of the saturday morning he-man cartoon, and drowning out every much more original idea and concept in every other faction in the game.
Maybe that's not coming up quite as much because it's not the...subject of the thread? it's not the variable being examined here? Also, there is always going to be the phenomenon of 'the default human power fantasy is always going to be the most popular pick in a given setting" and while you can make the argument that GW is setting up marines and sisters as the blue and pink versions of that concept, there is kind of the uncomfortable fact that you've got a fairly hilarious Pink Tax going on there.
"oh, you want the generic human power fantasy, good choice, good choice, this is an expansive, large universe and it's good to stick with what you know. Right over here is where you'll find the....
....oh you wanted the generic human power fantasy FOR HER, my mistake, you'll be looking in this section over here, incidentally you'll need to buy twice as many models because your basic trooper is 11ppm instead of 20ppm and also they dont come in the heavily discounted starter box"
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/02 18:30:28
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think it's fair to say also, there are far more instances of non-white-cis people being negatively interacted with in society than instances of white cis men being oppressed.
Why is it always the white cis male that is the first to cry "help, I'm being oppressed" whenever someone says, lets be more inclusive to different types of cultures/ideas/people?
I find that pretty ironic since that's a pretty big assumption on your part, I'm an Asian guy and I don't think most people who are against female space marines in the lore are arguing anything regarding us being oppressed as the reason behind our resistance behind the change. I think the change feels hamfisted and forced for an overall goal that can be accomplished by other means and I feel like the people who feel that strongly of needing representation can do so with their own armies and blogs and doing their own part in the community, rather than imposing it in a top-down way where SM MUST have female models simply because they're popular.
It'd be like if I went over to the Steven Universe fandom and started whining about the Crystal Gems/Gems being clearly designed as only female even though they're asexual in a sense as they're living rocks, saying that there's not enough representation for males since there are no overtly male designed Gems that don't include hybrids like Steven, and all the other men represented in the show are human and not Gems (Just like how you guys say SoB and other factions with female members don't count because they're not popular enough or you won't settle for anything less than a SM with two X chromosomes). I'm pretty sure that's something that wouldn't be supported in that fandom (nor should it be), so I'm not sure why people here think it's the natural inclination for fans of 40k to want to shoehorn diversity in an established faction whose identity includes not having that kind of diversity to begin with.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/02 19:32:20
Well you're already arguing for one ideal (female Space Marines), why can't we examine the possibility of a different one (more representation of other factions)? Imo the second is the better choice for the game itself in particular. It seems like the pro-representation side is a little too quick to throw it out.
Yeah, certainly nobody here very nearly ascended to fifth dimensional living meme status during the year of basically nothing but space marines happening in 40k complaining about how they were essentially the only thing that mattered in the game universe, narratively set up to always win, singlehandedly dragging the grimdarkness of the 41st millennium to the happy brightness of the saturday morning he-man cartoon, and drowning out every much more original idea and concept in every other faction in the game.
Maybe that's not coming up quite as much because it's not the...subject of the thread? it's not the variable being examined here? Also, there is always going to be the phenomenon of 'the default human power fantasy is always going to be the most popular pick in a given setting" and while you can make the argument that GW is setting up marines and sisters as the blue and pink versions of that concept, there is kind of the uncomfortable fact that you've got a fairly hilarious Pink Tax going on there.
"oh, you want the generic human power fantasy, good choice, good choice, this is an expansive, large universe and it's good to stick with what you know. Right over here is where you'll find the....
....oh you wanted the generic human power fantasy FOR HER, my mistake, you'll be looking in this section over here, incidentally you'll need to buy twice as many models because your basic trooper is 11ppm instead of 20ppm and also they dont come in the heavily discounted starter box"
Scotsman, I'm having a harder and harder time parsing your posts, but I think I get it. Especially the "Pink Tax" part of that, too (and another reason to dislike that Marines got bumped to two wounds). This is one of the reasons why I think GW missed the boat by making Custodes all-male.
Which was even more awkward when at the same time (as the SoBs were decades behind in terms of releases) they suddenly released Sisters of Silence, making one of the few representations of women in the model range . . . literally silent.
. . .
But the subject of the thread is fundamentally about representation. Exploring various ways to do that seems perfectly on topic.
RegularGuy wrote:So as I've mentioned before, a woman going through the same processes to becone a space marine will have the same things happen to them that happen to a man.
Agreed. But the men still look noticeably, well, "human". Either men need to look inhuman too, or women can still look somewhat like women. But yes, I totally agree that they would look very different to an unaugmented woman, in the same way that a current Space Marine looks like an unaugmented man.
Now if your goal is inclusion of more women in 40k (a laudible goal) what evidence has been collected that a female line of marines that are faithful to what the concept of a marine would cause the appeal to women you are seeking?
The existence of women Space Marine projects created by the community (clear evidence of a desire for such content), and the more diverse Stormcast range having a possible correlation with the more diverse AoS fanbase.
So I don't question the goal of female inclusion (and 40k allows that already in many factions), I question the effectiveness of the suggested program of female space marines as a vector to encouraging female players without GW making female marines something feminine like sisters and inconsistent with what a space marine is, or GW making them masculine as they should be, and potentially finding out after the fact that it wasn't adopted because of aesthetic reasons.
Having a female headswap doesn't make Space Marines "feminine". There's no boobplate, no leg or arm change. It's literally just a headswap. Is that all it takes to look "feminine" to you?
Also, again, is the masculinity of a Space Marine really *that* critical to their lore? When you describe what a Space Marine is, when GW describes them, how often is the exclusivity of their gender brought up? Or are they most often just referred to as "genetically engineered super-soldiers"? Because I'm fairly sure it's the latter. You bring up "how masculine a Space Marine should be" - is there a quota on how masculine they should be? Since when was that an integral part of their identity that removing it would drastically change them?
Mind you, some repentia head swaps on current marine models should acheive the effect pretty well ready, so maybe all GW would have to do is issue a similar head sprue.
Not even just Repentia, Sisters heads that avoid the more iconic haircuts, or even Stormcast heads, fit the bill excellently. Literally, this is what I mean by simplicity - a changed paragraph and a new head sprue, and you've largely fixed the core issue of actually equivalent women's representation.
And it cost you a hell of a lot less than remodelling every other faction and releasing a whole new range of books and subfaction books to match what Space Marines have (and that's still not including the massive cultural inertia Astartes have).
RegularGuy wrote:The goal is making hobby and community more accessible to women. Of the diverse programs that could be followed, the program explored in this thread is for GW to modify the lore and model line to add women to the space marine line. A reasonable question is, would this program if adopted by GW actually materially advance the goal commensurate with the investment (modifying lore and model lines), or given the level of female representation already available in 40k, are there alternative programs with a better cost benefit (e.g. making it so marines aren't so dominant a model line that female players who must identify with female models to play feel they can't be real players or competitors without representation in marines faction)
A reasonable question, which answers point to as all saying "yes".
Yes, there is clearly a market for women Space Marines. Yes, this could be achieved with comparative cheapness (an online article updating the lore, possibly even printed in future Space Marine books, and a new sprue). Yes, it is a lot cheaper than the alternative, which is to have to elevate nearly all factions to the same attention as Space Marines (extending to both models, codexes, rules, but also merch, video games, and marketing resources).
Are these disputable?
To make the judgement I suggest that GW should move beyond speculation that lack of female marines is a driving problem and that affirming female marines is the best corrective program, and collect real data ( and oerhaps they already are given the attention the sisters line is getting)
We *have* real data that women want women Space Marines. The Angels of Purification project is proof of that.
I suspect that female marines that accurately represent the hypermasculinized physiology that marines would have would not have a very large response in market advancement for the female demographic beyond the current baseline.
Then would you care to explain the droves of women Astartes content I see, and why it's nearly always men, not women, driving for women's representation by doing anything other than touching their Astartes?
I said before, I'm not persuaded that the program of GW affirming female marines is necessary
Why isn't representation necessary?
Insectum7 wrote:I never asserted that lore can't change. I only assert that lore still requires handling with care, generally speaking.
And what part of adding women Space Marines would threaten that care? Why do women Space Marines in particular have such a pushback?
When people invest a bunch of money into something, and a company changes that thing out from under them, people get upset. Right? That should be obvious.
But of all the things to be upset by, women Space Marines?
Why?
I'm more of the opinion that increased gender representation can be achieved without lore changes, since female warriors of various types already exist in the lore, they just aren't as loftily promoted or even represented with the models.
Is it possible? Yes.
Is it practical? No. Not even close. Why are people so avoidant to add women Space Marines that they're advocating for operations that would cost extravagant amounts and take years to even start being realised, and would still come nowhere near to tackling the massive cultural background Space Marines have accumulated? All to avoid a single word of lore changed, and a new headswap sprue?
Ehhh. . . sorta? I'd think the ideal is for fantasy settings to be of all types/ranges/and colors. Some will be egalitatian, some more geared towards niche audiences. Just as some products are more geared towards women, some can be more geared towards men or even aimed at teenage boys.
Why? Why is that? (And for what it's worth, I don't support any product being "geared towards" a group by directly excluding others - which is exactly what Space Marines do).
And why would adding women Space Marines take it away from being geared towards boys?
There are many factions in 40K that are not Space Marines. Why is it so absolutely necessary that Space Marines in particular be changed?
Because Space Marines are Space Marines, you know, the most iconic GW property by this point.
And if the answer is "Because Space Marines are on all the posters." then why not feature other factions on posters?
Have you considered the massive cultural weight behind what Space Marines are? Even *if*, after thousands upon thousands of pounds, GW were able to, on paper, make every faction equal, with massive swathes of Black Library books to rival the Horus Heresy (a Space Marine dominated fiction), models and rules and marketing that was all perfectly balanced - you'd still have to deal with the fact that Space Marines will still be the most iconic 40k property for years to come. Rebranding so completely, so utterly to remove that posterboy smell, would take *years*, if not decades, to remove that "40k = Space Marines" mentality.
As opposed to "hey, you can put women's heads on your plastic dollies now"? One is so laughably easier, faster, and cost-effective that I wonder why it would even be a problem in the first place.
@Jack Flask
Spoiler:
Jack Flask wrote:Nor did he imply that fantasy super soldiers being women was a problem. In fact to my memory the vast majority of defendant opinions in this thread haven't had any objections to female super soldiers, just female space marines. And only because it goes against a central aspect of what many people consider the space marines' identity as it has been understood for almost 30 years.
But that's not what *everyone* sees, do they?
And that brings me to my point about representation versus the lore - you're implying here that your enjoyment of the lore comes before someone else's representation. Am I wrong in that?
If so, *why* is your enjoyment of fiction more important than a real person's representation?
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And again, would having women Space Marines drive people away from 40k?
Simply put, no one does or can know, but that's never been the actual issue as people have told you over and over yet you continue to either ignore them or mentally cannot process it.
No, I'm pretty sure people *do* know, because they've been so keen to point out how 40k would be ruined for them if women Space Marines were added. I know they've said that it's because "the lore must be respected", but the lore has always been changed. Why is women Space Marines the straw that may break so many camels' backs?
It's not a question of lore. The lore has already changed. The question is solely on women Space Marines, and I'm asking why.
It is a matter of respecting the fiction as has existed for nigh on 30 years now.
And what about respecting human beings who feel like they're being excluded?
Space Marines being all male is one of the primary elements of their identity. That's not debatable.
Actually, it really is. When I open a Space Marine codex, or read through their lore, their "male-ness" is never emphasised. Hell, I don't think it even mentions in the current Codex that "only male recruits work". It's entirely implicit, a relic hanging in the air, paling in comparison to their actual primary identity elements (namely, their indoctrination, their strength, their durability, their super-soldieryness, their status as champions of mankind, their heroism, etc etc). Them being male *is not recognised as critical by GW themselves* in the same way it is for Sisters.
Either you believe sex doesn't matter, in which case there's no more reason to change the lore than to leave it the same. Or if you do believe that sex is significant then them being all male is in fact a notable part of their identity.
Uh, no? The sex of a Space Marine doesn't matter, so there's no reason that it shouldn't be more representative. The key here is that I am asking *why* Space Marines aren't representative. Representation *should* be the norm, especially for the flagship faction - and if it's not, I need to ask why not. And considering that a Space Marine's gender plays no role in what their primary attributes are, or in their aesthetic design, or in their core identity, there's no reason for exclusion.
But the specific objection is that I can vouch for myself and people I personally know, that the lore of 40k matters to us because we grew up with it.
Why does that give you a right to deny someone else's representation?
It became a shared culture and language, something that you engrossed yourself in and became a tool that helped you facilitate conversation and build bonds.
And I want to facilitate women in sharing that culture and language. But here's the thing - cultures and language change, and always have. Maybe it's time this one did.
And part of actually appreciating a fictional setting is accepting the idea that it is an utterly arbitrary playground with it's own conventions and boundaries.
No, it really isn't. I appreciate 40k. That's why I'm here. But it doesn't stop me from criticising it and wondering if all those utterly arbitrary rules, as you put them, are actually necessary when they're causing people to feel excluded.
I have to ask myself "is my enjoyment of utterly arbitrary rules more important than someone else feeling like I'm excluding them" - and I came to my conclusion. Have you?
Certainly you can criticize a work if it is promoting or glorifying ideologies that are driving harmful behaviors in the real world, but it'd be pretty hard to argue that 40k is actually positively advocating for any of the negative ideologies woven throughout it (with the many characters being depicted as trying to be decent despite the terribleness around them).
It literally *is* though. See above - the Angels of Purification project, literally created because women felt threatened and harmed by the all-boys mentality.
Nothing about Space Marines being all male has anything to do with misogyny. You've even inadvertently supported that by bringing up Alan Merrett's explanation of the transition from the C range of figures to RTB01 and how it was a result of at the time, low demand by consumers for female models. So they made RTB01 all male and then later explained that noticeable element while building the 2/3 edition groundwork for what we recognize as modern 40k (not Rogue Trader)
Yes - a consumer response from several decades ago. Space Marines *continuing* to be male, after those several decades, on the other hand, definitely could be misogynistic, and the attitudes towards women made by people citing that lore definitely are.
But even that in setting lore is layered into the themes of limited societal decay with Space Marines only being male because the technology is tied to the male genetic structure and that was where the Emperor stopped.
As you said, an utterly arbitrary reason.
And in that same virtue, why was it women who were unable? Like, *why* was that the case that women specifically were deemed unable by the writers of that lore? They had total control over the whole utterly arbitrary rules they wrote - so why was women the line they drew?
No one in setting is telling girls they can't become Space Marines because "ew, you're icky", it's just a convention of the setting.
And conventions of the setting change. Primaris. Cawl. Necrons. Primarchs.
Conventions of the setting aren't laid in stone.
And the funniest part is, that hasn't even stopped women from playing significant nuanced roles within the sphere of Space Marines in recent expansions of the lore. Lotara Serrin who was respected by the World Eaters and was basically the only sane person keeping their flagship from falling to pieces. Amar Astarte who is just as, if not more, instrumental in the original creation of space marines as the Emperor was. Calliphone, Perturabo's sister and the only one of his siblings he actually respects, who's death serves as the moment where Perturabo realizes that he's gone to far to redeemed in the eyes of the Emperor. There's the Blood Angels ship captain shown for the Angels of Death series who will hopefully be a well written character that features prominently within the plot.
None of them are Space Marines, but they are absolutely strong characters and are central to Space Marine stories without being "just a hanger-on" from some other faction.
Oh cool! I can't be a badass Space Marine who I see plastered everywhere, all over the marketing and iconography of my hobby, but I can be... a high ranking human. Do I get a model? Oh. Do I get any kind of representation outside of these books? Oh.
No-one said that women don't get to be badass in 40k. But they're not Space Marines, are they? The point is that Space Marines are the flagship faction, the thing plastered everywhere where GW can be found. Not Lotara Sarrin. Not Primarch's adopted sister or mother or spouse. Not some scientist, not some fleet captain who you don't even have a name for. Do you understand that? That Space Marines are what people want, because Space Marines are cool, because Space Marines are so iconic, because Space Marines are the face of 40k? Do you understand that the face of 40k being all-male might just send a message that 40k isn't a place for women?
And yet the idea that with 12 major tabletop factions (not including smaller factions like SoS or Inquisition) containing both gendered representation; excluding Space Marines (all flavors + Custodes), Orks (who are asexual), and Tyranids (who are so alien as to not represent anyone directly); the idea that a woman couldn't find a faction she identified with because of her real world gender not being reflected in one (very over represented) faction doesn't tread with me.
But that's the thing - those other factions *aren't representative*, because that's almost entirely down to the Space Marines. If Space Marines *weren't* "very over represented", maybe this wouldn't be a problem.
But they are, and it is.
And as I've gone over several times, adding a new sprue is a damn sight cheaper than remaking and adding to every other model range, don't you think?
I can one-hundred percent get behind the idea of more female representation through increased focus on non-Space Marine factions or even significant female characters in Space Marine stories, but I absolutely oppose altering the identity of a faction just because you don't care about Space Marines as they are now.
Why? Why is that the hill you're dying on?
Also let's drop the pretenses and be honest about what your stance is (which I am piecing together from your posts).
I mean, sounds like you're outright admitting to either telepathy (great! would you like to share that gift with the class?) or that you're erecting a strawman.
I think one is more likely than the other.
Just like RTB01 ended up being all male because of low interest in metal female Space Marines, you don't have faith that naturally boosting female characters through increased depiction will lead to more interest from women.
"Naturally" boosting? What on earth does that mean? Adding women Space Marines is naturally boosting representation. As you said, the lore is completely artificial, so if anything, keeping Space Marines male only would be the antithesis of this "natural boosting".
And no, I don't believe that at all. But nice strawman.
And despite all evidence to the contrary you don't think that GW will actually commit to increased depiction of other factions because Space Marines are so popular and account for a massive amount of GW's sales.
All evidence? I don't doubt that GW are committing to increased representation of other factions. What I doubt is that that will even leave a dent in where the real representation needs to happen - in Space Marines. And yes, all evidence points to further Astartes marketing dominance.
So instead you'd rather just forcefully ram female Space Marines into the lore because that's "easier" to achieve your goals
What I have to ask is why that's a bad thing? You talk about "forcefully ramming" them in, but you ignore that women were "forcefully rammed" out by that same lore.
and you also hope it has a secondary effect of "smoking out the rats" so to speak, by riling up fethwits in the community so they get mad and leave.
The only people who should feel threatened by this are people who don't want women feeling equally represented in their games. I would like to believe that's no-one here in this thread. Am I mistaken?
Is that accurate?
Not really. But nice strawman.
The reason it has that reputation is because a lot of the people who are part of this community were/are boys who felt disaffected from society. Boys with social anxiety, with various mental health factors, boys who were picked on bullied and ostracized. They never learned how to socialize or couldn't/wouldn't socialize in the same way as other people so they turned towards something like 40k to find a place where they could interact with other people and feel a sense of community without the fear of denigrated or judged.
Cool motive, still not an excuse to exclude others. In fact, that experience should have made you *more* willing to accept others and recognise their sense of disaffectation and removal from a community.
Instead, you're behaving just like the people who drove you out.
Because you think that you and your chosen people are more deserving of this space?
Actually, shouldn't *you* be answering that? Why is the lore more important than being welcoming to outcast, disaffected people who want to feel like they belong?
It's this gak that drives people into joining actual hate groups, becoming shut-ins, or committing suicide.
Because women are asking to be let in to the same space you've been dominating?
And it only has gotten worse nowadays where boys/men can be bullied and humiliated in school/on the street/at conventions only to be told that because of their sex (and if you are white, also your race) that they are oh so privileged and are somehow oppressing everyone around them.
I bet that must be hard. If only there were other people in the world who had been historically outcast, bullied, and prejudiced against who could have empathy with you.
Oh.
I believe that no matter what someone's own hardships are it doesn't excuse you from harming others, but I'm also very sympathetic to those who struggle to operate in society like other people can.
Exactly - so why are you so keen on using your own experiences to justify this attitude of "my lore is more important to me than your struggle to find representation and the historic sexism posed against women"?
Everything you're saying is just perpetuating the injustices done to you - you're just the one perpetuating it on others instead.
Which is why it's equal parts depressing and upsetting to see people say "don't you care about _____'s feelings" while at the same time implying that it's okay to denigrate and try to oust any existing people in that community who don't conform someone else's ideals.
When your ideals are "these utterly arbitrary rules are more important to me than your representation as another human being", why are those ideals what you're supporting?
No-one's trying to get rid of *you*, but your opinions are quite literally based on valuing fiction over real people. Can you not see that?
Insectum7 wrote:Well you're already arguing for one ideal (female Space Marines), why can't we examine the possibility of a different one (more representation of other factions)? Imo the second is the better choice for the game itself in particular. It seems like the pro-representation side is a little too quick to throw it out.
I think I've gone into very good detail, repeatedly, about how adding a new sprue and changing a single line of lore is vastly VASTLY cheaper, quicker, and easier than redesigning nearly every other faction. You say it's better for the game - in what way?
And regarding stuff being thrown out too quickly, I could say the same about the pro-representation's side - how simply changing one line of lore is treated so awfully.
Grimskul wrote:I think the change feels hamfisted and forced for an overall goal that can be accomplished by other means
Can, yes. Practically, no. I've outlined why several times, I really don't want to repeat that.
and I feel like the people who feel that strongly of needing representation can do so with their own armies and blogs and doing their own part in the community,
Have you seen what happens when people do make their own women Astartes armies and blog and art? Because it's not exactly well accepted.
It'd be like if I went over to the Steven Universe fandom and started whining about the Crystal Gems/Gems being clearly designed as only female even though they're asexual in a sense as they're living rocks, saying that there's not enough representation for males since there are no overtly male designed Gems that don't include hybrids like Steven, and all the other men represented in the show are human and not Gems (Just like how you guys say SoB and other factions with female members don't count because they're not popular enough or you won't settle for anything less than a SM with two X chromosomes).
As someone unfamiliar with Steven Universe, is there a market of people calling for male representation in the Gems? If the Gems represent such a major part of the show (and considering Steven seems to be protagonist, I think that Gems don't occupy the same dominance that Space Marines do), then yes, they could do with representation.
No objection there.
I'm pretty sure that's something that wouldn't be supported in that fandom (nor should it be), so I'm not sure why people here think it's the natural inclination for fans of 40k to want to shoehorn diversity in an established faction whose identity includes not having that kind of diversity to begin with.
But their identity isn't based on their lack of diversity. It's based on being super strong, super durable, super heroic supersoldiers. Them being men isn't something GW focus on in their fluff about them.
Insectum7 wrote:But the subject of the thread is fundamentally about representation. Exploring various ways to do that seems perfectly on topic.
Agreed. And I think I've explained why doing so via having to make thousands and thousands of pounds worth of factions, models, fiction and marketing is a tad harder than "anyone can become a Space Marine" and a headswap.
Is the lore so important that it's worth those thousands and thousands of pounds to redesign everything else? Is the lore so important that it trumps a woman wanting representation in the faction she likes?
Why is the lore more important than real human beings?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/02 23:08:34
JNAProductions wrote:What's this Angels of Purification you mention?
I've not heard of it.
It's a community built Chapter of all-women Astartes, created exactly for the reasons illustrated above, because many women felt they wanted representation, and created their own Chapter to do it. Gert linked it here:
Gert wrote:There are already hobbyists, not just women, who have made female SM using the SoB and Stormcast heads. The Angels of Purification project is a great example:
https://www.nomoredamselsrpg.org/angels-of-purification
The issue is that it's all well and good to do this, I have to ask why it can't be official?
Jack Flask wrote: Also what is your specific offense at someone using the word "girl"? I hear grown men and women use both "boy" and "girl" in conversation very regularly regardless of the age of who they are referring to.
Go out and try calling some black men "boys" and let us know how that goes for you. There is a wider context you seem unaware of, as a *generous* reading.
Jack Flask wrote: But the specific objection is that I can vouch for myself and people I personally know, that the lore of 40k matters to us because we grew up with it. It became a shared culture and language
I went to school with people that grew up in apartheid South Africa. Growing up with a shared culture does not make that culture worth sustaining.
ETA: At that time (because I was young and stupid) I was against the sports embargo on the SA regime because "sport should be aploitical" and similar placations. I got over that by immersing myself in the wider context and functionally addressing my totally unthreatened position of privilege on the matter.
Meanwhile, my (school) Housemate, Kobi was developing a reputation as violent and troublemaking because he responded with force to being called a [see forum posting rules]. Because it worked, and because that's what the culture demanded of him, again, out of whack to what it asked of any of us white boys. Cultural inertia? Bollocks.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2021/06/02 22:24:44
The issue is that it's all well and good to do this, I have to ask why it can't be official?
The amount of bile and vitriol that got hurled at the people involved in the project was insane. The pathetic arguments that opponents brought up were just depressing to read, someone even said the project was pro-white supremacy/Nazi because "Purification" was in the name and the colour scheme was red and black when the project was created by a group of LGBT+ folks, y'know people who are famously not Nazis.
It's also a charity project with the mini's made for it getting auctioned off with the proceeds getting donated. It only did good things and people still came after it because it had wiminz Space Marines.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/02 22:38:27
I am a cis White straight male, so none of those factors really led to any bullying or exclusion during school and therefore I would not be able to relate in that fashion.But I was quite socially awkward and very much a nerd which left me on pretty much the bottom rung of school society. I feel like that experience has giving me the compassion to want to include people as much into this Hobby. We should be gathering all that want to join, not be vendictive gatekeepers. We can have both the boy and girl clubs with grey knights (since they don't do primarius) and sisters of battle.
I also see arguments saying that it is wrong to change someone else's creative work. That's not what's happening in this case. No one's looking at Gaunt's Ghosts series and saying well we're going to force Dan to change Gaunt into a female. They are looking to add on to the lore by having a character known for changing the status Quo do just that.
Edit1 grammer
Edit2: I also tend to agree that space Marines are the most versatile faction for customization. There's no other faction that allows you such a blank canvas to create on easily. Yes the guard probably have more flavor to them but the models as supported by Games workshop are just not there. And when it comes to sisters they suffer the same thing as custodians they have too much baked in iconography and flare that it's hard to give your faction a different look other than paint. Conversely Marines have giant smooth broad shapes and therefore it's very easy to add on small iconography and customize the characters. Their joints and connection points are also pretty decent for moving and reshaping the models.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/06/03 01:03:27
When Gaunt has nearly 50% of the focus of the entire game/lore, then he might be an apt example. As it is, Gaunt has 11-12 books, and 1 model release. His entire unit is of mixed gender, so again, moot point. The Space marines in 9th alone are over 50% of the model releases, and the majority of the fluff.
Insectum7 wrote: Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.
Coincidentally, this is exactly why it is so important for women to be adequately represented in fantasy settings
I'm sure the number of females playing this game would absolutely surge to unseen numbers after the first revealed girl Space Marine, after all AoS has unprecedented number of woman playing it what with all them female Stormcast running around.
I mean, AoS genuinely *is* less of a male-dominated community. Is it because of all the Stormcast? Maybe, maybe not - but having their "flagship" faction (which is nowhere near as prominent as Space Marines are) be openly inclusive is definitely more likely to appeal to a wider audience. So, while I see that your comment is likely deliberately hyperbolic and sarcastic, it's not even wrong. Adding women Astartes would appeal to many women, who happen to be a pretty good consumer market.
And again, would having women Space Marines drive people away from 40k?
I made that comment thinking that AoS and 40k probably had similar demographics playing them, in other words SM don't need to change because a similar game with arguably better representation does not attract more females. Now if it is indeed true that AoS somehow has more female players then by all means change the way 40k is represented. But by that I mean/prefer feature SoB or DE more in promotional materials don't just change the lore for it. Would having female SM drive me away? Unlikely since Primaris didn't do that and I detest them too, but then again I neither play SM nor plan on doing so. If they start messing with my DG lore that's another story.
There wouldn’t have to be a surge, just a few not being put off, here and there and in time the numbers would increase. In time, people like you would stop saying things like “girl spacemarine” and “girls” as you call them would start to feel more welcome and less insulted and patronised by “boys” like you. Over all the hobby would be a nicer place to be. And hopefully you would see that “girls” aren’t that scary and that the setting and lore survived another minor change and it’s all ok, but if you didn’t see that and you still thought that girls playing war games was a problem, or fantasy super soldiers being girls still appalled you then you would leave the community. Either way the community gets better and 40K carries on.
I call it that because changing established lore for silly reasons is something I despise. If it only increases engagement from outsiders by a small amount why bother changing what you have. I also prefer you not put words/ideas in my mouth. I have nothing against woman/girls neither as persons nor as gamers. Every opponent is the same as far as I'm concerned, an opportunity for a fun game and a challenge to overcome. Not too mention the game and community will carry on without needless changes so why bother doing them.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/03 01:28:41
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: When Gaunt has nearly 50% of the focus of the entire game/lore, then he might be an apt example. As it is, Gaunt has 11-12 books, and 1 model release. His entire unit is of mixed gender, so again, moot point. The Space marines in 9th alone are over 50% of the model releases, and the majority of the fluff.
My whole point wasn't about how popular it was I am generally on the side that space Marines are popular enough that they should be mixed gender. My reaction was to the people saying "that it's forcing an artist to change their creative work to fit a narrative". And my counterpoint to that was the fact that that's not what they're doing. We're asking for an update on the setting that is well within the realm of what games workshop has already done to the setting by including women as Marines.
There is no one artist and storyline that takes up 50% of the lore. So any example of a person or storyline I brought up won't fit that criteria. And because of that there is no one creative mind that owns the intellectual property of Warhammer as a whole. Therefore it has the room to change and grow as we've seen with the introduction of thunder wolf Calvary and primaris Marines and the new sister bot things I can't remember the name of them.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/06/03 01:38:41
Insectum7 wrote: There are many factions in 40K that are not Space Marines. Why is it so absolutely necessary that Space Marines in particular be changed?
Make no mistake: It should apply to Marines because it should apply to everyone. Marines are the topic of the conversation since they're the most prominent example, most prominent problem, and are a case of women not existing in the lore (as opposed to the sadly numerous cases of women existing within the lore of the faction but not having models, which is a problem that also needs solving); that said, I feel gender representation should be in every faction.*
I've made female and feminine Marines, but this goes both ways: I've made male Daemonettes and mixed them in with female/intersex ones. While Guilliman is going around being sensible at things, I'd be cool with him going "Okay, the Decree Passive is a bit dated" and allow Orders to opt into male Sororitas if they're willing to wear the silly haircuts.
Again, the cost is making the Imperium seem slightly less awful, but I think that cost is worth it; 'misogyny' - to my admittedly incomplete knowledge, someone can feel free to correct me on this point - isn't usually played up as one of the Imperium's biggest faults.
*At the very least all human Imperium/Chaos factions. Nids are pretty straight-up exempt, Orks have "Ork" for a sex even if they have masculine for a gender and I could be talked 'round either way on that one, and while I know Necrons have women, I honestly have no idea what a female Necron looks like or if that distinction was made when they were being Biotransferred; you could tell me half of them were and I'd really have no basis to dispute that.**
**Which kind of is why the lack of female Marines in the lore is so galling - It's so easy to fix. Their armor is so thick you could tell me half of them were women and I'd have only so much basis to dispute that, so why can't GW just write up a handful of women special characters and say 'okay, they exist now because Cawl/Primaris/Etc?'
"All you 40k people out there have managed to more or less do something that I did some time ago, and some of my friends did before me, and some of their friends did before them: When you saw the water getting gakky, you decided to, well, get out of the pool, rather than say 'I guess this is water now.'"
I agree they definitely have to work on the representation in factions that are already supposed to have female characters. Not that I particularly want to see more special characters but they could at least be a couple sprinkled in. At least within the case of Admech you do have to name them otherwise you can possibly tell if they're male or female. And the rest of the lines could just get proper model updates like what we're seeing with the guard heads. Even if they are a bit lazy.
And all that could be released alongside a sprue with female heads for marines.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/03 01:53:21
CEO Kasen wrote: I've made female and feminine Marines, but this goes both ways: I've made male Daemonettes and mixed them in with female/intersex ones. While Guilliman is going around being sensible at things, I'd be cool with him going "Okay, the Decree Passive is a bit dated" and allow Orders to opt into male Sororitas if they're willing to wear the silly haircuts.
Funnily enough, I've been thinking about the Decree Passive a bit over the course of this discussion, and it struck me that not only is it more than a little dated, it doesn't actually make any sense.
From a real world point of view, the Decree Passive was directly born from the inherent sexism of the 80's and '90s. It's a 'joke' that works because we're all supposed to assume that soldiers are men by default, which is the only thing that allows the theoretically more or less egalitarian Imperium having a rule stating that the church can't have 'men at arms' to be logical. And in the early '90's, when soldiers were still by and large men by default, that sort of worked. But by today's standards, it's a 'joke' that doesn't date well, and by the standards of the 41st millennium it's an outright anachronism.
The other part is that in an Imperium where the Inquisition is quick to jump on even their own kind for so much as considering dipping a toe outside the rules (as any given Inquisitor chooses to interpret them), the fact that some member of the church would have got away with raising an army on such a flimsy justification seems more than a little unlikely, and it certainly wouldn't have lasted long enough to build any sizeable force out of it, before some Inquisitor or higher-up with the Ecclesiarchy wandered in and said 'Yes, ok, very funny. Now tell them to put the guns away and go home, or I will stab you.'
Which isn't to say that I have a problem with Sisters of Battle being a thing (while also not being opposed to them being opened out into a general 'Soldiers of the Ecclesiarchy' that allows men as well) .... just that a sexist joke from the '90s that was never intended to really hold up under scrutiny (because nobody back then took the background of the game that seriously) has more than exceeded its use by date, and Sisters need a better reason for existing than 'Hah hah, they're not men, see!'
I feel like, overall, it would be better to change Marines to being either gender, and rework Sisters into a Grey Knight-style Marine Chapter that works directly for the church, with direct supervision by the Inquisition to make sure that no uppity church official chooses to use them for their own ends. As they're a special case, they can still have their unique styling in the same way that Grey Knights do, but they make much more sense than the current set-up.
Des702 wrote: I am a cis White straight male, so none of those factors really led to any bullying or exclusion during school and therefore I would not be able to relate in that fashion.But I was quite socially awkward and very much a nerd which left me on pretty much the bottom rung of school society.
No, it did not. The fact that you don't recognise that is in and of itself damning. Was it worse to be in the same place but also a girl, to be queer, to be black... you don't care. You are the bottom rung. No way anybody could have it worse than you.
You're either wrong or lying, because there's ALWAYS a worse place to go, if only you could muster the empathy.
I'd rather you were wrong and willing to talk about it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/03 02:23:59
Des702 wrote: I am a cis White straight male, so none of those factors really led to any bullying or exclusion during school and therefore I would not be able to relate in that fashion.But I was quite socially awkward and very much a nerd which left me on pretty much the bottom rung of school society.
No, it did not. The fact that you don't recognise that is in and of itself damning. Was it worse to be in the same place but also a girl, to be queer, to be black... you don't care. You are the bottom rung. No way anybody could have it worse than you.
You're either wrong or lying, because there's ALWAYS a worse place to go, if only you could muster the empathy.
I'm sorry I'm a bit confused first of all I didn't say I was the bottom rung but I felt like I was on pretty much on the bottom rung within the school hierarchy. Are we here to quantify and compare different people's experiences? And save someone is more worthy of exclusion or less worthy of exclusion feelings?
And I'm not sure what you mean by I don't care I'm on the side of adding women to space Marines for the sheer fact it would make people feel more included.
I literally talked about how as nerds we all have a shared collected feeling of being excluded whether how high or small it is and why can't we funnel that into bringing us together regardless of which group and making sure everyone feels included. And how gatekeeping is a bad thing and then your gatekeeping my misery. I didn't say I had it the worst out of everybody. And I very much explicitly said that I didn't experience the point of views of the of what I'm not but that I empathize with the struggles.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/03 02:28:54
Des702 wrote: I am a cis White straight male, so none of those factors really led to any bullying or exclusion during school and therefore I would not be able to relate in that fashion.But I was quite socially awkward and very much a nerd which left me on pretty much the bottom rung of school society.
No, it did not. The fact that you don't recognise that is in and of itself damning. Was it worse to be in the same place but also a girl, to be queer, to be black... you don't care. You are the bottom rung. No way anybody could have it worse than you.
You're either wrong or lying, because there's ALWAYS a worse place to go, if only you could muster the empathy.
I'm sorry I'm a bit confused first of all I didn't say I was the bottom rung but I felt like I was on pretty much on the bottom rung within the school hierarchy. Are we here to quantify and compare different people's experiences?
Okay, fine you don't give a damn. So boring, so very average. "Pretty much the bottom rung" (if you exclude race, sex, sexuality and gender identity) GOOD GOD YOU WERE SO BRAVE. Jesus, I could be "pretty much" the cleverest boy in the United Kingdom by those standards. Do please feth right off. Or come up with something either original, relevant or... preferably, both.
Des702 wrote: I am a cis White straight male, so none of those factors really led to any bullying or exclusion during school and therefore I would not be able to relate in that fashion.But I was quite socially awkward and very much a nerd which left me on pretty much the bottom rung of school society.
No, it did not. The fact that you don't recognise that is in and of itself damning. Was it worse to be in the same place but also a girl, to be queer, to be black... you don't care. You are the bottom rung. No way anybody could have it worse than you.
You're either wrong or lying, because there's ALWAYS a worse place to go, if only you could muster the empathy.
I'd rather you were wrong and willing to talk about it.
Ngl, this is part of the reason why I don't like the oppression olympics that is often brought up as a result of pushes for inclusivity and diversity. I didn't see Des702's statement in any way that implied he suffered more than any other marginalized group, and frankly just being human can mean you being ostracized regardless of what ethnicity, orientation or whatever you have. Him being white/cis doesn't invalidate any marginalization he may have felt in school. I don't see why you have to attack him given that he's even stated he's on your side for fem-marines, but whatevs I guess, I guess they aren't wrong when they say they eat their own.
In any case, it's weird that in this case of hypotheticals that somehow GW giving more attention to other factions rather than SM to address the lack of gender diversity is always handwaved away as unrealistic when it's arguably more unrealistic for GW to add female marines out of the blue for SM since they're a proven cash cow which means they would be more risk averse with them with any significant aesthetic changes. Primaris is pretty much building on an existing concept, I personally don't like it, but at least there's some continuity with regards to the armour design, etc. And so if we're aiming for the most ideal situation, which IMO, means less SM as the one in the spotlight (look at the poor Eldar range for God's sake) I don't see why female SM should be the top priority compared to having all the other factions be fleshed out with more modelling options for females where they should be.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/03 02:42:56
Geez I think you need to calm down a bit there. We were all having a pretty respectful conversation but you seem to be really attacking one of the people that's on your side because they are not oppressed enough to be on your side? You don't know my situation you don't know how I grew up you don't know what struggles I had to go through just as I don't know yours. The whole point of me bringing that up was that I don't understand the struggle of people with those identities but we can work together to make everyone feel included.
I am definitely willing to accept that by this point I'm looking for enemies where there are none, but refer you to the above re my experiences of my nearest and dearest doing fem-marines. ApoIogies to those I've tarred with my broad brush in the meantime, I'm going to give myself 24h to chill.
No worries these conversations can definitely bring out a lot of stressful emotions. I wasn't trying to Marty myself or anything, and I'm sorry if it came across that way it was not my intent. I know that I had a lot of privileges when it came to being white male cis and straight. And a lot of it's been a large learning curve. Hell I used to be on the side of no female Marines but then I realized my reasons which are actually quite mirrored above when it comes to the lore and tradition, we're not that important in the grand scheme of the hobby in the end, but it actually meant a lot to others so why not support them and help them feel included.
So I was wrong with that opinion and I'm not afraid to admit it. I do believe that more representation normalizes more people being in the Hobby and therefore will lead to less discrimination and gatekeeping.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/03 02:56:44
Yeah, we gotta be a little careful about jumping on people for this sort of thing, or needing things explained. One of the [EDIT: more avoidable] reasons we have people in the world at large arguing very stringently for some really backwards viewpoints (Not in this thread specifically) is because what seemed obvious to some of us wasn't obvious to everyone, but because it seemed obvious, no patience was shown in explaining - and now there's a fair number of otherwise by and large sensible people who hold terrible views on, let's say, feminism and transgenderism because someone demanding egalitarianism treated them as The Enemy for asking a question or coming from the wrong angle.
Spoiler:
Grimskul wrote: In any case, it's weird that in this case of hypotheticals that somehow GW giving more attention to other factions rather than SM to address the lack of gender diversity is always handwaved away as unrealistic when it's arguably more unrealistic for GW to add female marines out of the blue for SM since they're a proven cash cow which means they would be more risk averse with them with any significant aesthetic changes. Primaris is pretty much building on an existing concept, I personally don't like it, but at least there's some continuity with regards to the armour design, etc. And so if we're aiming for the most ideal situation, which IMO, means less SM as the one in the spotlight (look at the poor Eldar range for God's sake) I don't see why female SM should be the top priority compared to having all the other factions be fleshed out with more modelling options for females where they should be.
I kinda posted the answer to this above you, but the short form is that the most ideal situation from the standpoint of this thread is that all factions that reasonably have a concept of gender have some reasonable gender representation. There is no particularly good reason for there not to be female space marines, because honestly, you wouldn't even have to redesign the armor; you could just throw in a few heads and a few named characters and say "They exist now because Cawl/Etc!"
CEO Kasen wrote: I've made female and feminine Marines, but this goes both ways: I've made male Daemonettes and mixed them in with female/intersex ones. While Guilliman is going around being sensible at things, I'd be cool with him going "Okay, the Decree Passive is a bit dated" and allow Orders to opt into male Sororitas if they're willing to wear the silly haircuts.
Funnily enough, I've been thinking about the Decree Passive a bit over the course of this discussion, and it struck me that not only is it more than a little dated, it doesn't actually make any sense.
From a real world point of view, the Decree Passive was directly born from the inherent sexism of the 80's and '90s. It's a 'joke' that works because we're all supposed to assume that soldiers are men by default, which is the only thing that allows the theoretically more or less egalitarian Imperium having a rule stating that the church can't have 'men at arms' to be logical. And in the early '90's, when soldiers were still by and large men by default, that sort of worked. But by today's standards, it's a 'joke' that doesn't date well, and by the standards of the 41st millennium it's an outright anachronism.
The other part is that in an Imperium where the Inquisition is quick to jump on even their own kind for so much as considering dipping a toe outside the rules (as any given Inquisitor chooses to interpret them), the fact that some member of the church would have got away with raising an army on such a flimsy justification seems more than a little unlikely, and it certainly wouldn't have lasted long enough to build any sizeable force out of it, before some Inquisitor or higher-up with the Ecclesiarchy wandered in and said 'Yes, ok, very funny. Now tell them to put the guns away and go home, or I will stab you.'
Which isn't to say that I have a problem with Sisters of Battle being a thing (while also not being opposed to them being opened out into a general 'Soldiers of the Ecclesiarchy' that allows men as well) .... just that a sexist joke from the '90s that was never intended to really hold up under scrutiny (because nobody back then took the background of the game that seriously) has more than exceeded its use by date, and Sisters need a better reason for existing than 'Hah hah, they're not men, see!'
This is a fair point, and the only way I can reconcile it at all without simply retconning out the Decree Passive is if the Imperium was born in a more misogynistic mindset - the Emperor himself, after all, pretty clearly had a preference for males for some reason - and somehow... well... progressed in its own attitudes towards women(esp. in combat) in the period between and including M36 and M41, and I accept that progressing is not something the Imperium is known for.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/06/03 03:21:30
"All you 40k people out there have managed to more or less do something that I did some time ago, and some of my friends did before me, and some of their friends did before them: When you saw the water getting gakky, you decided to, well, get out of the pool, rather than say 'I guess this is water now.'"
Castozor wrote: I'm sure the number of females playing this game would absolutely surge to unseen numbers after the first revealed girl Space Marine, after all AoS has unprecedented number of woman playing it what with all them female Stormcast running around.
There wouldn’t have to be a surge, just a few not being put off, here and there and in time the numbers would increase. In time, people like you would stop saying things like “girl spacemarine” and “girls” as you call them would start to feel more welcome and less insulted and patronised by “boys” like you. Over all the hobby would be a nicer place to be. And hopefully you would see that “girls” aren’t that scary and that the setting and lore survived another minor change and it’s all ok, but if you didn’t see that and you still thought that girls playing war games was a problem, or fantasy super soldiers being girls still appalled you then you would leave the community. Either way the community gets better and 40K carries on.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anywhere where he implied that "girls are scary" or that women playing wargames was a problem. You brought that all on your own.
Nor did he imply that fantasy super soldiers being women was a problem. In fact to my memory the vast majority of defendant opinions in this thread haven't had any objections to female super soldiers, just female space marines. And only because it goes against a central aspect of what many people consider the space marines' identity as it has been understood for almost 30 years.
In fact the commanders for my Bloodbound and Stormcast are both female beyond just having female members in both of my armies...
Also what is your specific offense at someone using the word "girl"? I hear grown men and women use both "boy" and "girl" in conversation very regularly regardless of the age of who they are referring to.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And again, would having women Space Marines drive people away from 40k?
Simply put, no one does or can know, but that's never been the actual issue as people have told you over and over yet you continue to either ignore them or mentally cannot process it.
It is a matter of respecting the fiction as has existed for nigh on 30 years now. Space Marines being all male is one of the primary elements of their identity. That's not debatable. Either you believe sex doesn't matter, in which case there's no more reason to change the lore than to leave it the same. Or if you do believe that sex is significant then them being all male is in fact a notable part of their identity.
But the specific objection is that I can vouch for myself and people I personally know, that the lore of 40k matters to us because we grew up with it. It became a shared culture and language, something that you engrossed yourself in and became a tool that helped you facilitate conversation and build bonds. If you broke the IP into isolated components of it's visuals, lore, and game then I know a lot of people who care way more about the setting/lore of 40k than the game or the miniatures. And part of actually appreciating a fictional setting is accepting the idea that it is an utterly arbitrary playground with it's own conventions and boundaries. Certainly you can criticize a work if it is promoting or glorifying ideologies that are driving harmful behaviors in the real world, but it'd be pretty hard to argue that 40k is actually positively advocating for any of the negative ideologies woven throughout it (with the many characters being depicted as trying to be decent despite the terribleness around them). This is especially true of Space Marines in the context you are trying to argue.
Nothing about Space Marines being all male has anything to do with misogyny. You've even inadvertently supported that by bringing up Alan Merrett's explanation of the transition from the C range of figures to RTB01 and how it was a result of at the time, low demand by consumers for female models. So they made RTB01 all male and then later explained that noticeable element while building the 2/3 edition groundwork for what we recognize as modern 40k (not Rogue Trader) But even that in setting lore is layered into the themes of limited societal decay with Space Marines only being male because the technology is tied to the male genetic structure and that was where the Emperor stopped. No one in setting is telling girls they can't become Space Marines because "ew, you're icky", it's just a convention of the setting.
And the funniest part is, that hasn't even stopped women from playing significant nuanced roles within the sphere of Space Marines in recent expansions of the lore.
Lotara Serrin who was respected by the World Eaters and was basically the only sane person keeping their flagship from falling to pieces.
Amar Astarte who is just as, if not more, instrumental in the original creation of space marines as the Emperor was.
Calliphone, Perturabo's sister and the only one of his siblings he actually respects, who's death serves as the moment where Perturabo realizes that he's gone to far to redeemed in the eyes of the Emperor.
There's the Blood Angels ship captain shown for the Angels of Death series who will hopefully be a well written character that features prominently within the plot.
None of them are Space Marines, but they are absolutely strong characters and are central to Space Marine stories without being "just a hanger-on" from some other faction.
And yet the idea that with 12 major tabletop factions (not including smaller factions like SoS or Inquisition) containing both gendered representation; excluding Space Marines (all flavors + Custodes), Orks (who are asexual), and Tyranids (who are so alien as to not represent anyone directly); the idea that a woman couldn't find a faction she identified with because of her real world gender not being reflected in one (very over represented) faction doesn't tread with me.
I can one-hundred percent get behind the idea of more female representation through increased focus on non-Space Marine factions or even significant female characters in Space Marine stories, but I absolutely oppose altering the identity of a faction just because you don't care about Space Marines as they are now.
Also let's drop the pretenses and be honest about what your stance is (which I am piecing together from your posts). Just like RTB01 ended up being all male because of low interest in metal female Space Marines, you don't have faith that naturally boosting female characters through increased depiction will lead to more interest from women. And despite all evidence to the contrary you don't think that GW will actually commit to increased depiction of other factions because Space Marines are so popular and account for a massive amount of GW's sales. So instead you'd rather just forcefully ram female Space Marines into the lore because that's "easier" to achieve your goals, and you also hope it has a secondary effect of "smoking out the rats" so to speak, by riling up fethwits in the community so they get mad and leave. Is that accurate?
Gert wrote: Are you asking people to set up a survey to see if more women would do 40k if they had an option of female SM?
There are already hobbyists, not just women, who have made female SM using the SoB and Stormcast heads. The Angels of Purification project is a great example:
https://www.nomoredamselsrpg.org/angels-of-purification Nobody is saying that adding female SM is going to magically change the hobbyist base overnight to be 50/50 guys and gals. It's about making a change now for the long-term betterment of the hobby. We can't know if it'll affect a huge change but it would sure go a long way in reforming the general view of 40k as a boys club filled with creepy weirdos who don't know how to interact with the opposite sex while potentially bringing more people into the hobby with their own stories/ideas.
See it's gak like this that really lights a fire in my gut. The reason it has that reputation is because a lot of the people who are part of this community were/are boys who felt disaffected from society. Boys with social anxiety, with various mental health factors, boys who were picked on bullied and ostracized. They never learned how to socialize or couldn't/wouldn't socialize in the same way as other people so they turned towards something like 40k to find a place where they could interact with other people and feel a sense of community without the fear of denigrated or judged.
People like you saying that we should cast them out for being "creepy weirdos who don't know how to interact with the opposite sex" is the exact same cycle of bullying and hate that drove them to find hobbies like this to begin with. Why? Because you think that you and your chosen people are more deserving of this space?
It's this gak that drives people into joining actual hate groups, becoming shut-ins, or committing suicide. And it only has gotten worse nowadays where boys/men can be bullied and humiliated in school/on the street/at conventions only to be told that because of their sex (and if you are white, also your race) that they are oh so privileged and are somehow oppressing everyone around them.
I used to be super socially awkward and anti-social when I was younger. That changed because I wanted to be more social and I was lucky enough to meet people who believed in me, encouraged me to be more confident, and slowly helped push me out of my comfort zone. I strive to treat everyone I meet regardless of race or gender with courteous respect until I can learn who they are as an individual. I believe that no matter what someone's own hardships are it doesn't excuse you from harming others, but I'm also very sympathetic to those who struggle to operate in society like other people can.
Which is why it's equal parts depressing and upsetting to see people say "don't you care about _____'s feelings" while at the same time implying that it's okay to denigrate and try to oust any existing people in that community who don't conform someone else's ideals.
If you don’t get why using the term “girl spacemarines” is patronising and a problem then you don’t understand the problem. I hear grown men using all kinds of terms to describe people, but that doesn’t make them all acceptable. Of course gender matters but does not naturally mean that it matters therefore that marines are all male. That argument is a nonsense. It’s been shown many many times that the lore is not a reason for maintaining the status quo, the lore changes constantly. Marines have changed massively over 30 years, changing them to be male or female is not as big a change as many of the others but you seem to apply so much importance to it for some reason I cannot fathom. When describing marines to someone it would occur to me to mention that they are all male. That doesn’t define them.
You say people join a community like the 40K so that they could feel safe and not judged is a very odd thing to do when you are getting so angry at people wanting to make that community more welcoming and less judgemental. That’s all we want, is to make this a community where women feel included and respected. If that upsets some people who would go and join hate groups then good. We want less hatred and a bit more respect, this doesn’t impress men or in fact do anything to men at all. It just adds to the hobby.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/03 06:37:45
Des702 wrote:I also tend to agree that space Marines are the most versatile faction for customization. There's no other faction that allows you such a blank canvas to create on easily. Yes the guard probably have more flavor to them but the models as supported by Games workshop are just not there. And when it comes to sisters they suffer the same thing as custodians they have too much baked in iconography and flare that it's hard to give your faction a different look other than paint. Conversely Marines have giant smooth broad shapes and therefore it's very easy to add on small iconography and customize the characters. Their joints and connection points are also pretty decent for moving and reshaping the models.
Yeah, I've made this argument before, but didn't repeat it in my last points - Space Marines really are unique in this regard in a way that most factions aren't close to. Space Marines are incredibly customisable, and have a lot of tools to make them so - ranging from armour that is very flat and takes well to both adding and removing details, a wide range of units and lore-supported combat styles, and explicitly diverse and independent cultures that set them apart from other Imperial forces.
In lore, the main thing that comes close to this is the Imperial Guard, but they're almost too diverse - they don't exactly have a common core design other than "light armoured human". Space Marines, no matter what stripe, at least all share the core template of power armour. Therefore, guardsmen, while in theory can be more customisable, in practice, tsuch a task would be near impossible, short of GW entirely scrapping Guardsmen infantry sculpts and taking on the more modular styles I've seen some third party companies do. Which undoubtedly would cost a lot more than a new head sprue.
Castozor wrote:I made that comment thinking that AoS and 40k probably had similar demographics playing them, in other words SM don't need to change because a similar game with arguably better representation does not attract more females. Now if it is indeed true that AoS somehow has more female players then by all means change the way 40k is represented. But by that I mean/prefer feature SoB or DE more in promotional materials don't just change the lore for it.
Alright, but that comes back to my point on why the lore is this thing that can't be changed? Again, I also agree that other factions need to take the limelight from the Astartes, but that's much much easier said than done.
I call it that because changing established lore for silly reasons is something I despise.
Why is representation a silly reason though?
If it only increases engagement from outsiders by a small amount why bother changing what you have.
Why bother keeping something that seems only to cause more problems than it fixes?
Not too mention the game and community will carry on without needless changes so why bother doing them.
The game would carry on *for you*. Not for people who increasingly feel excluded and in want of representation.
You say needless, because it's not you who needs it - do you not see that other people do, though?
insaniak wrote:Funnily enough, I've been thinking about the Decree Passive a bit over the course of this discussion, and it struck me that not only is it more than a little dated, it doesn't actually make any sense.
Spoiler:
From a real world point of view, the Decree Passive was directly born from the inherent sexism of the 80's and '90s. It's a 'joke' that works because we're all supposed to assume that soldiers are men by default, which is the only thing that allows the theoretically more or less egalitarian Imperium having a rule stating that the church can't have 'men at arms' to be logical. And in the early '90's, when soldiers were still by and large men by default, that sort of worked. But by today's standards, it's a 'joke' that doesn't date well, and by the standards of the 41st millennium it's an outright anachronism.
The other part is that in an Imperium where the Inquisition is quick to jump on even their own kind for so much as considering dipping a toe outside the rules (as any given Inquisitor chooses to interpret them), the fact that some member of the church would have got away with raising an army on such a flimsy justification seems more than a little unlikely, and it certainly wouldn't have lasted long enough to build any sizeable force out of it, before some Inquisitor or higher-up with the Ecclesiarchy wandered in and said 'Yes, ok, very funny. Now tell them to put the guns away and go home, or I will stab you.'
Which isn't to say that I have a problem with Sisters of Battle being a thing (while also not being opposed to them being opened out into a general 'Soldiers of the Ecclesiarchy' that allows men as well) .... just that a sexist joke from the '90s that was never intended to really hold up under scrutiny (because nobody back then took the background of the game that seriously) has more than exceeded its use by date, and Sisters need a better reason for existing than 'Hah hah, they're not men, see!'
I feel like, overall, it would be better to change Marines to being either gender, and rework Sisters into a Grey Knight-style Marine Chapter that works directly for the church, with direct supervision by the Inquisition to make sure that no uppity church official chooses to use them for their own ends. As they're a special case, they can still have their unique styling in the same way that Grey Knights do, but they make much more sense than the current set-up.
That's interesting, in all honesty. I hadn't quite considered that.
I'm not sure I'm opposed to the idea, but I could swing either way.
Grimskul wrote:In any case, it's weird that in this case of hypotheticals that somehow GW giving more attention to other factions rather than SM to address the lack of gender diversity is always handwaved away as unrealistic when it's arguably more unrealistic for GW to add female marines out of the blue for SM since they're a proven cash cow which means they would be more risk averse with them with any significant aesthetic changes.
But what's the risk here? You mention this sort of "risk" posed by adding women Space Marines - what sort of risk? What are the problems with such a move? Why does adding women Space Marines jeopardise Space Marines as GW's cash cow?
Also, should we also consider that revamping every other faction, injecting thousands upon thousands of pounds into factions that don't have anywhere near the popularity of Space Marines (by their own doing, I'm aware), is a far FAR worse financial risk, and would also jeopardise Space Marines as GW's cash cow?
Primaris is pretty much building on an existing concept
Women existing is a pretty normal concept, I'd say. Adding women Space Marines is also a helluva lot easier than releasing the entire Primaris range, and also has no impact on the gameplay itself.
I personally don't like it, but at least there's some continuity with regards to the armour design, etc.
And women are human beings. I think that's pretty fair continuity?
And so if we're aiming for the most ideal situation, which IMO, means less SM as the one in the spotlight (look at the poor Eldar range for God's sake) I don't see why female SM should be the top priority compared to having all the other factions be fleshed out with more modelling options for females where they should be.
But why *shouldn't* women be Space Marines?
The lore isn't an argument, the lore's all made up, and Space Marines being male isn't emphasised by GW's fluff pieces on Space Marines, lending me to question how integral it is to their core identity.
I'll keep coming back to this - why shouldn't women be Space Marines in the first place?
Castozor wrote:The sole reason no one takes people like you seriously is exactly because of behavior like this. Don't even dare use the Lord's name since you are clearly not one of His people.
That is a joke, right?
Andykp wrote:You say people join a community like the 40K so that they could feel safe and not judged is a very odd thing to do when you are getting so angry at people wanting to make that community more welcoming and less judgemental. That’s all we want, is to make this a community where women feel included and respected. If that upsets some people who would go and join hate groups then good. We want less hatred and a bit more respect, this doesn’t impress men or in fact do anything to men at all. It just adds to the hobby.
Exactly my thoughts. Sorry, but you can't play the "we're just trying to build a nice community that's inclusive" card when you're arguing in support of using made up fiction to exclude people.
As a point bouncing from that talk of inclusivity and exclusivity, would adding women Space Marines exclude anyone?
Funnily enough, I've been thinking about the Decree Passive a bit over the course of this discussion, and it struck me that not only is it more than a little dated, it doesn't actually make any sense.
From a real world point of view, the Decree Passive was directly born from the inherent sexism of the 80's and '90s. It's a 'joke' that works because we're all supposed to assume that soldiers are men by default, which is the only thing that allows the theoretically more or less egalitarian Imperium having a rule stating that the church can't have 'men at arms' to be logical. And in the early '90's, when soldiers were still by and large men by default, that sort of worked. But by today's standards, it's a 'joke' that doesn't date well, and by the standards of the 41st millennium it's an outright anachronism.
The other part is that in an Imperium where the Inquisition is quick to jump on even their own kind for so much as considering dipping a toe outside the rules (as any given Inquisitor chooses to interpret them), the fact that some member of the church would have got away with raising an army on such a flimsy justification seems more than a little unlikely, and it certainly wouldn't have lasted long enough to build any sizeable force out of it, before some Inquisitor or higher-up with the Ecclesiarchy wandered in and said 'Yes, ok, very funny. Now tell them to put the guns away and go home, or I will stab you.'
Which isn't to say that I have a problem with Sisters of Battle being a thing (while also not being opposed to them being opened out into a general 'Soldiers of the Ecclesiarchy' that allows men as well) .... just that a sexist joke from the '90s that was never intended to really hold up under scrutiny (because nobody back then took the background of the game that seriously) has more than exceeded its use by date, and Sisters need a better reason for existing than 'Hah hah, they're not men, see!'
I feel like, overall, it would be better to change Marines to being either gender, and rework Sisters into a Grey Knight-style Marine Chapter that works directly for the church, with direct supervision by the Inquisition to make sure that no uppity church official chooses to use them for their own ends. As they're a special case, they can still have their unique styling in the same way that Grey Knights do, but they make much more sense than the current set-up.
It was noted in one of the older Witch Hunters codex that, yes, the Lords of Terra are aware that the whole 'men under arms' thing is a violation of the spirit of the treaty and would have nipped it in the bud except that they could co-opt the Adepta Sororitas as the Militant arm of Ordo Hereticus.
So it's less of a wink wink nudge nudge, we go away with it, sort of thing and more like the Sisters of Battle are exceedingly useful in their role in the Inquisition. Which makes sense if you think about it--the Sisters are a semi-independent organization that are trained, housed, and armed for the most part by the Ecclesiarchy, whose goals align fairly well with Ordo Hereticus, and the Lords of Terra don't even have to fund them like they would with, say, Death Watch or the Grey Knights. This is on top of the Sisters' unusual resistance to the ruinous powers.
The in universe excuse for the Decree to remain in place is probably a combination of not rocking the boat, not messing with a good thing, and having it as a potential back-up in the event that they do have to eliminate the Ecclesiarchy's private army.
Given the above, it would be simple for the Imperium to set up a process to legally recognize men in the Adepta Sororitas as 'women' so that everything stays in alignment. Or GW could reintroduce more Inquisition elements back into the book--inquisitorial stormtroopers (which would be all men because the IG are allergic to women models too), Arbites, gangs, etc.
On the other hand, SoB already can include more men in their line-up than the rest of the Imperial forces include women put together, so if we're worried about representation, I wouldn't think this would be a high priority, especially since there are additional all-male armies outside of the astartes already, like orks and necrons. Apart from Dark Eldar, the other non-astartes armies are pretty bad too.
Funnily enough, I've been thinking about the Decree Passive a bit over the course of this discussion, and it struck me that not only is it more than a little dated, it doesn't actually make any sense.
From a real world point of view, the Decree Passive was directly born from the inherent sexism of the 80's and '90s. It's a 'joke' that works because we're all supposed to assume that soldiers are men by default, which is the only thing that allows the theoretically more or less egalitarian Imperium having a rule stating that the church can't have 'men at arms' to be logical. And in the early '90's, when soldiers were still by and large men by default, that sort of worked. But by today's standards, it's a 'joke' that doesn't date well, and by the standards of the 41st millennium it's an outright anachronism.
The other part is that in an Imperium where the Inquisition is quick to jump on even their own kind for so much as considering dipping a toe outside the rules (as any given Inquisitor chooses to interpret them), the fact that some member of the church would have got away with raising an army on such a flimsy justification seems more than a little unlikely, and it certainly wouldn't have lasted long enough to build any sizeable force out of it, before some Inquisitor or higher-up with the Ecclesiarchy wandered in and said 'Yes, ok, very funny. Now tell them to put the guns away and go home, or I will stab you.'
Which isn't to say that I have a problem with Sisters of Battle being a thing (while also not being opposed to them being opened out into a general 'Soldiers of the Ecclesiarchy' that allows men as well) .... just that a sexist joke from the '90s that was never intended to really hold up under scrutiny (because nobody back then took the background of the game that seriously) has more than exceeded its use by date, and Sisters need a better reason for existing than 'Hah hah, they're not men, see!'
I feel like, overall, it would be better to change Marines to being either gender, and rework Sisters into a Grey Knight-style Marine Chapter that works directly for the church, with direct supervision by the Inquisition to make sure that no uppity church official chooses to use them for their own ends. As they're a special case, they can still have their unique styling in the same way that Grey Knights do, but they make much more sense than the current set-up.
It was noted in one of the older Witch Hunters codex that, yes, the Lords of Terra are aware that the whole 'men under arms' thing is a violation of the spirit of the treaty and would have nipped it in the bud except that they could co-opt the Adepta Sororitas as the Militant arm of Ordo Hereticus.
So it's less of a wink wink nudge nudge, we go away with it, sort of thing and more like the Sisters of Battle are exceedingly useful in their role in the Inquisition. Which makes sense if you think about it--the Sisters are a semi-independent organization that are trained, housed, and armed for the most part by the Ecclesiarchy, whose goals align fairly well with Ordo Hereticus, and the Lords of Terra don't even have to fund them like they would with, say, Death Watch or the Grey Knights. This is on top of the Sisters' unusual resistance to the ruinous powers.
The in universe excuse for the Decree to remain in place is probably a combination of not rocking the boat, not messing with a good thing, and having it as a potential back-up in the event that they do have to eliminate the Ecclesiarchy's private army.
Given the above, it would be simple for the Imperium to set up a process to legally recognize men in the Adepta Sororitas as 'women' so that everything stays in alignment. Or GW could reintroduce more Inquisition elements back into the book--inquisitorial stormtroopers (which would be all men because the IG are allergic to women models too), Arbites, gangs, etc.
On the other hand, SoB already can include more men in their line-up than the rest of the Imperial forces include women put together, so if we're worried about representation, I wouldn't think this would be a high priority, especially since there are additional all-male armies outside of the astartes already, like orks and necrons. Apart from Dark Eldar, the other non-astartes armies are pretty bad too.
^this. There are male models in all the SoB kits that currently exist that include men, and literally any plastic human kit in existence outside of the sisters of battle range gives you male heads that you can use all day long to make male sisters.
If I bought a box of sisters of battle, with my bits box I could EFFORTLESSLY make an all-male squad.
If I want to make female marines, I must buy sisters of battle boxes to do so, if I want to keep within GW. They (and now, I suppose, the new Guardsmen kit box) are the only source of heads for normal human female heads in the 40k range.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
It’s also worth noting wrt the SoB that Sebastian Thor who led the resistance against Vandire was both a major driver behind the Decree Passive and the one that ordered the reorganisation of the Brides of the Emperor into the Adepta Sororitas.
The 3rd Ed era lore also explicitly stated that he was concerned that leaving the Ecclesiarch completely disarmed would leave it at risk of coercion.
The implication being that the Decree Passive was carefully worded by Thor so as not to exclude the Sisters, with the get out clause being a feature not a bug.
and also they dont come in the heavily discounted starter box"
