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.

How can you tell they're white or is that just assumption?

On topic: I don't really care that women are underrepresented in a fictional game that is primarily about neverending war in the far future.

amudkipz wrote:
Cadia isn't just men, ALL CITEZENS are REQUIRED to serve,

The miniatures and illustrations are all white men.

MarsNZ wrote:
How can you tell they're white or is that just assumption?

On topic: I don't really care that women are underrepresented in a fictional game that is primarily about neverending war in the far future.

The miniatures and illustrations are all white men.

Manchu wrote:The existence of Guardswomen seems a lot less fantastical than the existence of SM to me ... since female combat troops actually exist IRL.

Eh. Debateable at best.

Most "examples" that people try to use (the IDF is the most common) are stretching the truth and the definition of combat troops. Female troops have served in combat, that is true. However they have not done so as part of a combat arms designation.

The problem is that real combat is about 1% pulling a trigger and the rest is all endurance. Carrying a heavy load. Continuous operations. Lack of food. Lack of sleep. Nobody will suggest that women are any better or worse at aiming and pulling a trigger (though most women will lack the mass to properly control larger weapons with the same level of ease).

But look at the order of battle when the Israelis invaded Beirut in 2006. None of the combined units were deployed. They're Army, and they are designated as infantry, but they re actually just policing units. Border patrol, etc. The combat units deployed were all male. The only female military casualty in 2006 was a helicopter crew member whose aircraft crashed. So no, there aren't really female combat troops in real life. Not in the sense that any organized military force employs them as such. If smarter and cooler heads prevail, they won't end up integrated into the US military either, except for the rarest exceptional candidates. Already they US Marine Corps has tried to open up both infantry school and combat dive school to women. None thus far have passed.


However, that's all irrelevant as to why they are/are not in 40K, I agree. Just disputing the real world analog. In fact, the real world is exactly why we don't see them in 40K. 40K is really just one big pop-culture reference. The models, and the fluff are based on normal stuff. All the characters appear to be white because all the guys who made this game are white, and they just draw/write about themselves. The armies are full of guys because the guys who make the models are almost all guys, and the people buying the models are almost all guys. If you look at the armies with significant numbers of females, they are invariably that way because they are pop culture references traditionally sexualized. Eldar/Elves. Sexy demons. It's just the way it is. I can see why it might be disappointing, but there's really very little that is truly definable as "misogynist" in 40K. The game is remarkably even-handed. But it's also aimed at selling to a demographic. There is nothing misogynist about the way department stores configure their floor plans according to the way women and men shop in order to take advantage of the fact that men and women are different. 40K is a product, and they sell it to the people that buy it, in the manner deemed best to influence them to buy it.

 Boggy Man wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Answer this question: If you're going to create a super warrior from scratch and you only need a relatively small number of them, why would you bother using an inferior platform (female physiology) to create them with?

Elite specialist roles requiring more finesse, dexterity, and reflexes than the walking refrigerators can provide. For more information, feel free to ask any "superior" German soldier whose head was turned to pudding by a female Soviet sniper. (Not that I reckon you'd get much response.)

Not really sure what correlation you're trying to make. As much as the heroics and actions of female soldiers in WW2 have been proven to have been as heavily overstated/propagandized as their male counterparts, more Germans were slain by male snipers than female ones.

And further, what about finesse, dexterity, or reflexes translates to female physiology? Even if these traits were needed by Space Marines (apparently they are not), why not just make different varieties of male ones? You could just make less bulky male Space Marines and still take advantage of the superior physical platform. /shrug

This isn't some kind of sexism. It's just biology.


In the end, I understand that some people just plain don't like the fluff. It's anachronistic to the modern era of larger than life overstated female protagonists that we currently live in. But the arguments are somewhat irrelevant and for the most part, baseless.

Biology aside, I'd think it's a lot easier to convince a 15 year old boy that he's going to become a brutally strong muscled out super soldier than it would be to convince a 15 year old girl. I'm not against female super soldiers but that's just a thought.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
So no, there aren't really female combat troops in real life.

Real life disagrees with you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

 LoneLictor wrote:
I
But I do agree with the OP that there should be more women in Black Library novels. Just because they're discriminated against doesn't mean that they don't exist.

All the good ones already have them in.............

 LoneLictor wrote:
I always thought the misogyny is intentional. The Imperium is already psychotic and xenophobic, what makes you think they would be any less sexist than the 21st century? Odds are, they'll be more sexist. And racist too.

Look at how the High Lords of Terra are all old white men. The Emperor was an old white man, and all Space Marines are men. The Ultramarines, the greatest of the Space Marines, are white men. The Cadian Guard, made up of the best Guardsmen, are white men.

The Imperium doesn't pick the best man for the job. That'd be far too sane. It picks the white man for the job.

But I do agree with the OP that there should be more women in Black Library novels. Just because they're discriminated against doesn't mean that they don't exist.

The Imperium is appropriately brutal in the destruction of existential threats. The Imperium, further, isn't comprised of any recognizable modern ethnic group; for all the dog latin in the fluff, they're actually supposed to be using some degenerate hybrid of chinese and english, and any racial groups that exist would be nothing but planetary variations based on local ecological pressures. The Imperium proper cares nothing for the details of any of its servants, provided they're the best for the job (though of course, as always, local governments can throw whatever wrench into that they feel like most of the time).

Space Marines, further, are asexual, photochromatic (when exposed to intense light, they flash to an unnatural shade of black, when in lower light environments they become an unnatural shade of white) mutants whose personal morphology is warped beyond recognition when they're mutated into freakishly large living weapons.

LoneLictor wrote:Look at how the High Lords of Terra are all old white men.

We don't actually know much about the High Lords of Terra when it comes to gender and skin colour, or even names.
What we do know is that at least two of them (given the plural in the rulebook) were Abbesses of the Adepta Sororitas, and unless they were crossdressers they should count as an example for female High Lords.

LoneLictor wrote:The Imperium doesn't pick the best man for the job. That'd be far too sane. It picks the white man for the job.

Depending on the job, it picks everyone. And we already have evidence for female IG.
Hell, there's even two named ones (with minis) if you count Schaeffer's Last Chancers.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Female troops have served in combat, that is true. However they have not done so as part of a combat arms designation.

In your country maybe.
Though that backwards stance is slowly changing, it seems. Take a page from Russia, maybe? (pictured: female VDV paratrooper)

Ultimately, gender isn't an "all or nothing" classification, as popular a view as this seems to be, but merely a tendency of physical development. You will have women who are stronger and/or possess more endurance than men, they just likely won't be so many. So it all depends on where exactly you set your minimum requirements. Gender, just like skin colour (which also was a hotly contested topic not too long ago - complete with rather controversial medical studies), shouldn't even come into the thought process ... either someone "fits the bill" or they don't.

But at least we seem to agree on the real world having little to do with the issue. The Imperial Guard recruits from all sorts of planets whose population has (due to 40k space magic) adapted so well that regiments may differ greatly in physical appearance and capabilities. Sometimes, the Munitorum will draft entire street gangs right out of the underhive. The lasgun truly is the one and only thing that can be considered a standard throughout the Imperial Guard - nothing else. Not body armour nor uniforms, nor skin colour or gender.

Manchu wrote:

 Amaya wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
You applaud not using every tool available to you in a state of war?

Yes. Chaos is also a tool available, for example.

And there are these guys called Psykers who use it.

Being a sanctioned psyker is about not using every tool available. In fact, we have finally stumbled over the real distinction between a pskyer and a witch/sorcerer.

"Try harder next time" is not an argument.

Hey, good job! You figured out how to ignore portions of people's posts and address only what you want to address. I'm impressed at these high standards you have for a debate. Why are you even bothering? If you're just going to ignore that using a double edged sword is stupid why don't you just ignore my entire post and bury your head in a sand? Using something that will blow up in your face is stupid. It's not a difficult concept to grasp in the least.

Peregrine wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
So no, there aren't really female combat troops in real life.

Real life disagrees with you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

Reality is unrealistic.

Wyches are normal women. Not from the human perspective. And the dark eldar slaves arent necessarily sex slaves, mostly torture slaves....
Lots of prominent women in dark eldar society, namely lelith hesperax.

I seem to recall reading the HH novels, and there were normal, nonsexual women in there too. Read first heretic.

Some pretty prominent nonsexual female eldar too.

Who knows what tyranids are...

Plenty of female cultists (dark apostle)

I see lots of nonsexual, nonslave, non-nun women.

Normal female characters in the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and potentially Tau forces has already been covered. The issue is lack of female characters within the Imperium of Man.

 Amaya wrote:
Normal female characters in the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and potentially Tau forces has already been covered. The issue is lack of female characters within the Imperium of Man.

Tau need at least one more woman to avoid the smurfeit effect.

well, anyways, read first heretic, and play space marine. 2 very prominent female characters in there

I've been sick as hell the last week or so. Was anyone present since the second page who is able to tell me if there was a test that existed to determine whether I was a closest misogynist who wasn't aware of it?

there must be female ogryns somewhere, i mean they've been breeding on high grav world for millenia. that'd be a strong female representation. literally.

 aapch45 wrote:

I seem to recall reading the HH novels, and there were normal, nonsexual women in there too. Read first heretic.

ROFL. As I was reading the various posts leading up to the most current I must have had a moment where my brain was picking out words before my eyes had caught up completely. When I skimmed over this section I somehow got "women were the first heretic".

I immediately thought of Eve in the garden and thought "Holy gak! women were the first heretic!"

Not a serious thought at all but it sure made me laugh for a second.

 daedalus wrote:
I've been sick as hell the last week or so. Was anyone present since the second page who is able to tell me if there was a test that existed to determine whether I was a closest misogynist who wasn't aware of it?

You are. Our culture contains a huge amount of latent sexism (and racism) and we're all steeped in it like some kind of bad-tasting tea. We all carry around sexist ideas and part of being a feminist is challenging those ideas rather than taking them at face value. That doesn't mean we're bad people. It just means we live in a sexist culture.

Similarly, it's not really helpful to ask "is this piece of culture misogynist?" because all works will have elements that may seem potentially problematic in a vacuum, or that might be okay in the individual circumstance. For an easy example, let's say stories with a token female character. There's nothing wrong with the idea of a story having only one main female character. What's problematic and may be symptomatic of a larger issue is when that's widespread. Context, both cultural and otherwise, is all-important.

My question, with respect to 40k, would be: does 40k as a "hobby" come across as a club with "NO GURLZ ALOWED" scrawled across the front? I would say yes. It certainly does to me, and my involvement in the game is in spite of that. Why is that? Well, part of it is what looks like exclusion of women from the setting at all costs. Adding a heap of non-fanservicey female soldiers and characters to the model range - soldiers and characters that are already part of the background fluff! - would improve that.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
I've been sick as hell the last week or so. Was anyone present since the second page who is able to tell me if there was a test that existed to determine whether I was a closest misogynist who wasn't aware of it?

You are. Our culture contains a huge amount of latent sexism (and racism) and we're all steeped in it like some kind of bad-tasting tea. We all carry around sexist ideas and part of being a feminist is challenging those ideas rather than taking them at face value. That doesn't mean we're bad people. It just means we live in a sexist culture.

Why don't you call yourself an equalist? Or a humanist? Why is it "feminist"?

Similarly, it's not really helpful to ask "is this piece of culture misogynist?" because all works will have elements that may seem potentially problematic in a vacuum, or that might be okay in the individual circumstance. For an easy example, let's say stories with a token female character. There's nothing wrong with the idea of a story having only one main female character. What's problematic and may be symptomatic of a larger issue is when that's widespread. Context, both cultural and otherwise, is all-important.

So then work on making larger pieces of culture less "mysogynistic" and at the same time try and make some pieces of culture less "misandristic" at the same time.

My question, with respect to 40k, would be: does 40k as a "hobby" come across as a club with "NO GURLZ ALOWED" scrawled across the front? I would say yes. It certainly does to me, and my involvement in the game is in spite of that. Why is that? Well, part of it is what looks like exclusion of women from the setting at all costs. Adding a heap of non-fanservicey female soldiers and characters to the model range - soldiers and characters that are already part of the background fluff! - would improve that.

That's funny, because in 40k there's an army-you may have heard of them-called the "Sisters of Battle". The best part is that they have "NO BOYZ ALLOWD" scrawled across the front. Of course in typical fashion I don't see you railing against that.

Also what would adding (in your words) a "heap" of female soldiers and characters do to improve the setting as a whole? It may satisfy the vocal minority (this thread's poll is biased with two positive and one negative option) but I seriously don't think it would change anything.

Finally:
Space Marines have been explicitly male for the entirety of 40k. You can wail and gnash your teeth, you can cry "BUT MUH BIOLOGEE" and "BUT MUH LOGIC", it won't change anything. The fact of the matter is that women have adverse reactions to incredibly low bodyfat and also increased amounts of testosterone. Also arguing about science in a game that notes "forget the power of science and understanding" is laughable.

Are we done talking about Space Marines yet? I was under the impression that this thread was about 40k, of which space marines are only a very tiny and (in-universe) relatively unimportant aspect.

No need to let this thread continue to devolve in to just another femmarines topic...

What topic would you like to discuss, Melissia?

I am pretty sure she would like female Cadians.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
I've been sick as hell the last week or so. Was anyone present since the second page who is able to tell me if there was a test that existed to determine whether I was a closest misogynist who wasn't aware of it?

You are. Our culture contains a huge amount of latent sexism (and racism) and we're all steeped in it like some kind of bad-tasting tea. We all carry around sexist ideas and part of being a feminist is challenging those ideas rather than taking them at face value. That doesn't mean we're bad people. It just means we live in a sexist culture.

Why don't you call yourself an equalist? Or a humanist? Why is it "feminist"?

I didn't make the name. I also don't really care enough to change the name in the interests of being politically correct. I'm okay with calling feminism feminism. There's not much point discussing it as it is both OT and, well, a pointless debate. We all know what it means (or if we don't, a dictionary will helpfully correct that).

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

Similarly, it's not really helpful to ask "is this piece of culture misogynist?" because all works will have elements that may seem potentially problematic in a vacuum, or that might be okay in the individual circumstance. For an easy example, let's say stories with a token female character. There's nothing wrong with the idea of a story having only one main female character. What's problematic and may be symptomatic of a larger issue is when that's widespread. Context, both cultural and otherwise, is all-important.

So then work on making larger pieces of culture less "mysogynistic" and at the same time try and make some pieces of culture less "misandristic" at the same time.

My entry in this discussion isn't really on account of feminism. It's because I'd like 40k to be more welcoming of female players in general, and better representing the diversity that already exists in the setting on the tabletop (and, in some cases, in the descriptions in codexes and such that are male-centric when they shouldn't be) is a super easy way to do it that everyone should be able to get behind. All of this is already part of the setting - it's just not reflected well on the tabletop.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
My question, with respect to 40k, would be: does 40k as a "hobby" come across as a club with "NO GURLZ ALOWED" scrawled across the front? I would say yes. It certainly does to me, and my involvement in the game is in spite of that. Why is that? Well, part of it is what looks like exclusion of women from the setting at all costs. Adding a heap of non-fanservicey female soldiers and characters to the model range - soldiers and characters that are already part of the background fluff! - would improve that.

That's funny, because in 40k there's an army-you may have heard of them-called the "Sisters of Battle". The best part is that they have "NO BOYZ ALLOWD" scrawled across the front. Of course in typical fashion I don't see you railing against that.

Also what would adding (in your words) a "heap" of female soldiers and characters do to improve the setting as a whole? It may satisfy the vocal minority (this thread's poll is biased with two positive and one negative option) but I seriously don't think it would change anything.

Finally:
Space Marines have been explicitly male for the entirety of 40k. You can wail and gnash your teeth, you can cry "BUT MUH BIOLOGEE" and "BUT MUH LOGIC", it won't change anything. The fact of the matter is that women have adverse reactions to incredibly low bodyfat and also increased amounts of testosterone. Also arguing about science in a game that notes "forget the power of science and understanding" is laughable.

What you quoted there wasn't about Space Marines. It's about 40k as a hobby. (P.S. have you looked at the SoB army list because there are a whole bunch of guys in it. The HQ section is especially relevant.) There are many aspects that make up that impression. One of those is that unless someone is playing Tyranids or SoB there probably won't be any female characters on the table. Tyranids, adorable as they are, aren't exactly the picture of human femininity. The thing is, most of the armies do have lots of female combatants per the fluff, but the army lists and/or the actual models often show them as male. What I, and I believe most of the thread, are suggesting is that the codex unit descriptions and the model range be brought in line with the fluff, with female characters and generic troops.

I've mentioned the case of the Eldar. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I see the GW Eldar range does not feature a single female model other than Jain Zar and the generic Howling Banshees, despite the fluff saying that both male and female Eldar fight. Many of them wear full suits and helmets, but Codex: Eldar refers to all these troops using male pronouns. It's been said that the big thing about 40k is stimulating the imagination, and I will put it to you that this fails to stimulate the imagination as it should by excluding female warriors when the fluff elsewhere says they should exist (as well as male Howling Banshees, who are similarly excluded).

This is something that can be easily improved, and I feel it would help make 40k, as a game, more welcoming to female players without making it worse for anyone else.

There are also females in guardian kits, and as result in all units based on it. But yea, it would be nice to have female Warlocks and Farseers.

just ignore BlaxicanX its another attempt to lure the lot of you into a brilliant joke

W-what?

No Pikachu! If you cure him with your tears, your owner will be a man-child bent on enslaving your race forever!


40k and GW in general offer us a universe that is a twisted reflection of our own society and history; many of the models and themes mirror vast tracts of warfare and past cultures.

Women in that context represent the greater history of human conflict as those who are spectators at best, victims at worst. For the small niche that women are fighters, the IG, Eldar, DE, Tau, and SoB represent the tiny fraction of war and society that has functionally accepted women into society and warfare when called upon. Monstrous Xeno races I highly doubt care about gender or lack of gender thereof and Space Marines model a predominately Roman
theme of militarism and history. Women in Rome did not do military service as far as I remember my history lessons and thanks to the prevalence of Space Marines, there lies your problem with women in the lore; your most popular faction of 40k excludes women by default.

 Crimson wrote:
There are also females in guardian kits, and as result in all units based on it. But yea, it would be nice to have female Warlocks and Farseers.

Oh, I hadn't seen the new* Guardians with boob plate.

...

Not sure if want... part of what's awesome about playing Tyranids is I can assume almost everyone is a sterile female (like ants/bees) and go around eating space marines and not worry about it. No boob plate, disembowelment windows, heels or stupid poses. Though I do wind up with half my units named derogatory terms for women.

They are not new - many of the older kits including the metal ones had male and female bodies - same as the Dark Eldar, without being especially prominant.

You seem to be making the error that they all have to have massive "boob plates" etc - as is so often the case in this argument - going to extremes which is very straw man.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:P.S. have you looked at the SoB army list because there are a whole bunch of guys in it. The HQ section is especially relevant.

Now that you mention it ...
... I guess it might say something when the supposedly all-female army has more male minis than the supposedly mixed-gender one has females.

WarOne wrote:Women in Rome did not do military service as far as I remember my history lessons

Do Auxiliaries count, or only the Legions?

Also, don't trust your history lessons too much. In school I was told that there were no female knights. "Popular knowledge" isn't always the right knowledge, even when it comes from a schoolbook. Ultimately, its contents merely come from one or more writers who may be misinformed merely due to having grown up being told the same.
Not saying to forget all about school knowledge, mind you. Just a small sidenote regarding the value of employing "additional resources" when researching a controversial topic. Today, this is fortunately a lot easier than it was ten years ago.

If you absolutely want a Female space marine, you can always buy THAT one...


But more seriously, I think it is okay to have male-only space marines... even though the 'scientific' reason is pretty lame. Especially the ones that says "Why choose women when Men are stronger/better?"... In Eclipse Phase, there is a "race" of engineered super-soldier and... they are all female. Why? Because, in their fluff, they combined human genes with savage animals and they noticed that even if the males one were stronger, the testosterone level made them somewhat uncontrollable and a little prone to frenzy on the battlefield. After all, in modern war, you want to use strategy and teamwork, not individual brute strength. That explanation is far from being perfect too (If you have the technology for that king of manipulation, why not make the males more resistant to testosterone?), but I just want to prove that you can use the exact same arguments in the other way too.

Sorry to have gone a little off-topic here, I just wanted to note the absurdity of some the comments that derails from the main question: "Is Warhammer40k Misogynistic?" (In the fluff or marketing choices)

Back on the main part of the topic: I have no problems with PARTS of the universe being misogynistic, Space marines being only men and SoB only females because their culture. We cannot force our cultural standards on another universe... It is not reality, it is fiction. For the rest, imperial guard and the inquisition, there is indeed a dissonance between the lore (books) and miniatures range.

Having more females miniatures (Since fluff doesn't need it IMO) would indeed be a great addition. They could base the miniatures on the "only war" roleplaying game they released not long ago. Really great artworks of Soldiers who happen to be female instead of the other way around; Females who happen to be soldier.



And I love that commissar! Even if she shows a little cleavage... I wouldn't touch her with a stick! And not because I find her ugly... but for the SAME EXACT reason I wouldn't touch a male commissar with a stick: To avoid getting shot in the head.

The problems seems to be only the lack of miniatures that can be solved by buying some female heads, and a little bit of converting (cut or sable a little bit of the torso/hips to make them a little shorter and make a very subtle change in their hips positions/proportion). Of course, buying third party material to cover that gap doesn't remove the blame from GW, but I believe that it is more a honest (and sad) mistake on their part instead of pure misogyny.

(And on a side note, "Statuesque Miniatures" have some nice female soldier heads that can fit a IG army. The helmets differ from Candians models, but hey... they at least have helmets! Lol)

Edit: Two other artwork from the "Only War" book:
Catachan
Elysian drop troop