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ironic that you are argueing for equality,

when all I am saying is that women should have to pass the same tests as men do if they want to be in combat roles.

if men have to do 100 push ups and carry 300ilbs to be front line infantry, then so should women, that is all, no more no less,

You did a gakky job expressing that argument, and that is entirely NOT what you came across as arguing.

 Melissia wrote:
You did a gakky job expressing that argument, and that is entirely NOT what you came across as arguing.

no you are just doing a gakky job of reading, but thats ok, gak happens

the important thing is that we agree it should just be the same test for everyone, no special treatment for anyone,

Crimson wrote:...

I read that article.

WTF!? How the hell can gak like that be allowed to happen? I am ashamed being part of human race.

And then the court ruled that rape is an occupational hazard ...

Really, it sounds like a much bigger issue and as if the US military needs to be shaken up from the top to the bottom.
And not just in regards to the treatment of female (or in some cases male) troops, but also issues of systematic torture, civilian killings, etc. Of course, it is a large military, and troops in combat deployment are under a tremendous psychological stress, but when even the chain of command is engaged in cover ups, that is simply not something that should be condoned. The higher ups who thus give the wrong signal are perhaps even more responsible than the actual perpretrators as they encourage a tendency within the service, rather than "only" being involved individual incidents, and they should suffer appropriate consequences.

I suppose it is a negative aspect of this "culture of brotherhood", the esprit du corps, which compels superior officers high in the hierarchy to protect their people from prosecution, and to minimise negative perception from the public by not admitting that there's something wrong, and hoping that the problem simply disappears if they ignore it. A bit like with the church and its child molesters, perhaps.

At least for the women it can be assumed that even if this shake-up should never occur, the atmosphere will improve based solely out of an increased cultural acceptance and female US troops in combat becoming recognised for what they are, just like it worked out for black people.

easysauce wrote:
no you are just doing a gakky job of reading, but thats ok, gak happens

You didn't make that argument in the post that I was responding to. Your post can be interpreted to mean numerous things.

 Lynata wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Putting men and women in the same combat unit in all real-life experiments has led to a breakdown in discipline due to the inability of a few years of training to overcome millions of years of evolution.

You do realise that there's a bunch of armies that disagree with your assessmen, right?
Also, you might be surprised to hear that the hunter-gatherer separation apparently isn't quite as old as you think it is.

AnomanderRake wrote:Background-wise, the Imperium has got plenty of all-female regiments (I recall one in ten as the number, but I can't recall the source), but the number of mixed-gender regiments can be counted on one hand due to the discipline arguments.

I've never heard of such arguments in any GW source. What sort of background are you referring to? Besides, I have a hard time believing that a mixed-gender regiment is more difficult to control than one made up of convicts.

AnomanderRake wrote:So it actually looks like the original poster is complaining about a symptom of a larger problem, that of an excessive focus on the Space Marines in background material and novels. Drop that and put out more Eldar-, Imperial Guard-, and Inquisition-focused novels and the 'misogyny' will solve itself.

Undoubtedly, this plays a huge role. Yet even looking just at the Imperial Guard, GW has dropped the ball on a lot of opportunities there.

1: I admit I'm not operating under detailed and up-to-date demographics of the armies of the world, but to my knowledge mixed-gender units in the modern day tend to be the sort that aren't trapped far from home and with little personal space in the manner many Guard regiments are subjected to; mixed-gender Navy ships and air wings are much more likely.

2: Poor wording on my part, better phrasing: the Imperium of Man is a dystopian setting and contains many, many planets that are 'socially backwards' by the standards of the modern United States, due to a lack of specific focus in the background it seems rational to me to extrapolate cultural attitudes from Earth's history onto said planets. They avoid mixed-gender regiments because they think it'll cause a breakdown in discipline, assuming they are sufficiently progressive to have female regiments at all.

3: In full agreement on this one. Also, a brief and slightly humorous note: The Guard are actually the only tabletop army that don't have female miniatures where you'd expect them to be; the Dark Eldar are almost completely integrated, Eldar fluff implies that (at least on the Aspect Warriors) boob armor or lack thereof doesn't actually indicate the gender of the Eldar inside, we don't know enough about Tau biology to speculate on sexual dimorphism so they could well be completely integrated, and everyone else is stuck with one-gender armies or no genders.

1: I admit I'm not operating under detailed and up-to-date demographics of the armies of the world, but to my knowledge mixed-gender units in the modern day tend to be the sort that aren't trapped far from home and with little personal space in the manner many Guard regiments are subjected to

By that definition, there's no comparison that one can draw to the real world.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


2: Poor wording on my part, better phrasing: the Imperium of Man is a dystopian setting and contains many, many planets that are 'socially backwards' by the standards of the modern United States, due to a lack of specific focus in the background it seems rational to me to extrapolate cultural attitudes from Earth's history onto said planets. They avoid mixed-gender regiments because they think it'll cause a breakdown in discipline, assuming they are sufficiently progressive to have female regiments at all.

Given that most of the fluff indicates that the Guard is, depending on planetary culture and such, drawn in incredible numbers, it seems likely that mixed gender-regiments are not so much dictated by viability as by the prejudices of the planets they come from. In that sense, you'd have the full range of both outdated and modern organisational doctrines, along with more than a few "futuristic" ones too, a la the Cadians.
Heck, given that the Cadians are stated to train every child born on the planet in military stuff from about ten or something, it seems likely that Cadia is one of the fully-integrated planets.

I think it's interesting that a single thread can have the exact same arguments presented within it repeatedly.

edit-

Cadia's # of female soldiers is probably far less than the number of male soldiers, simply by virtue of the fact that in order to sustain such a massive population, you'd need to be pumping out babies like mad. A guy can donate his sperm with one 10 minute donation, but a woman needs to hold that thing inside her oven for 9 months. If you have a population of a hundred billion, and that population loses about 10% of its total size per day by virtue of fighting and dying across the galaxy (as an example), you'll need to, literally, be pumping out like billions of kids at once. Women probably have to fight to make it into the 2090th Cadian rifleman regiment, as opposed to the 2090th Baby-Making regiment.

BlaxicanX wrote:
I think it's interesting that a single thread can have the exact same arguments presented within it repeatedly.

edit-

Cadia's # of female soldiers is probably far less than the number of male soldiers, simply by virtue of the fact that in order to sustain such a massive population, you'd need to be pumping out babies like mad. A guy can donate his sperm with one 10 minute donation, but a woman needs to hold that thing inside her oven for 9 months. If you have a population of a hundred billion, and that population loses about 10% of its total size per day by virtue of fighting and dying across the galaxy (as an example), you'll need to, literally, be pumping out like billions of kids at once. Women probably have to fight to make it into the 2090th Cadian rifleman regiment, as opposed to the 2090th Baby-Making regiment.

Even then, Cadia is given as being a pretty advanced world, and given that this has probably made childbirth safer and easier, it might be that these nine-month periods of inactivity can be offset. For all we know, there's an STC that safely takes the child from the mother and does the work for her, while she gets on with learning drill and getting some target practice done.
I admit that last machine is pure speculation, and not fluff-supported at all, but it shows how the Cadian recruitment figures can match the birth rate (which is a canon thing, and thus by definition proves that the female population is also militarised) and yet offset the problems associated with childbearing and childbirth.
Besides, this is a universe that contains Vikings In Space and a world in which literally everything is predatory in some manner. The STC birthing pod is hardly the most unrealistic speculatory thing out there.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

2: Poor wording on my part, better phrasing: the Imperium of Man is a dystopian setting and contains many, many planets that are 'socially backwards' by the standards of the modern United States, due to a lack of specific focus in the background it seems rational to me to extrapolate cultural attitudes from Earth's history onto said planets. They avoid mixed-gender regiments because they think it'll cause a breakdown in discipline, assuming they are sufficiently progressive to have female regiments at all.

Well, if you read those two articles Lynata linked, US army seems pretty 'socially backwards' and dystopian too...

How does the birthrate being 50% male and 50% female support the notion that Cadian regiments have an equal gender representation?

BlaxicanX wrote:

Cadia's # of female soldiers is probably far less than the number of male soldiers, simply by virtue of the fact that in order to sustain such a massive population, you'd need to be pumping out babies like mad. A guy can donate his sperm with one 10 minute donation, but a woman needs to hold that thing inside her oven for 9 months. If you have a population of a hundred billion, and that population loses about 10% of its total size per day by virtue of fighting and dying across the galaxy (as an example), you'll need to, literally, be pumping out like billions of kids at once. Women probably have to fight to make it into the 2090th Cadian rifleman regiment, as opposed to the 2090th Baby-Making regiment.

Not necessarily. The fluff for the Krieg Death Korps states that due to the high tithe requirement of the planet, the "Vitae Womb" is allowed to be used on this planet, along with a few other planets with high IG tithe requirements. The Vitae Womb is essentially a mechanical surrogate womb, much like what a cloning vat would look like. Presumably, an egg is placed in the chamber, fertilized, and the person is then raised inside until it's ready to be "born", leaving all the men and women of that planet to be available for conscription.

BlaxicanX wrote:How does the birthrate being 50% male and 50% female support the notion that Cadian regiments have an equal gender representation?

Well, together with the Codex-statement that Cadia's recruitment ratio and birth rates are synonymous ...

AnomanderRake wrote:I admit I'm not operating under detailed and up-to-date demographics of the armies of the world, but to my knowledge mixed-gender units in the modern day tend to be the sort that aren't trapped far from home and with little personal space in the manner many Guard regiments are subjected to; mixed-gender Navy ships and air wings are much more likely.

Tend, yes, but this has to do with religiously-influenced tradition/gender roles and conservatism, and the exact result differs notably between the individual countries. In Russia, for example, women served in frontline combat troops ever since WW1 (although mixed-gender units did not appear until WW2, and in the post-soviet era there has been a resurgence in patriarchal attitudes). The main hindrance is cultural - the really big problems exist because some people are incapable of treating fellow human beings the same way. If you just change the way people perceive others, you eliminate the cause of problems. Easier said than done, I know, but I have a feeling a few decades of women in combat will do much for how the entire gender is treated in society and media.

AnomanderRake wrote:the Imperium of Man is a dystopian setting and contains many, many planets that are 'socially backwards' by the standards of the modern United States, due to a lack of specific focus in the background it seems rational to me to extrapolate cultural attitudes from Earth's history onto said planets. They avoid mixed-gender regiments because they think it'll cause a breakdown in discipline, assuming they are sufficiently progressive to have female regiments at all.

Here we need to look at which specific eras and nations of Earth's history you are looking at. The Valhallans for example are obviously inspired by the WW2 Red Army, so this alone should be sufficient to point out the problem with the current miniatures line if we go by your argument.

We should also consider that these cultural attitudes I think you are referring to have "only" existed for a couple hundred years. Before the Church issued that edict banning women to bear arms and forcefully spread the influence of its teachings, it was not uncommon to see females in the various European tribes or mercenary groups - it's the very origin of the whole "shield maiden" theme I am sure you're at least briefly familiar with. Similarly, such cultural attitudes also did not just spring into existence everywhere, but were only introduced through military conquest such as by Alexander's wars or those of the Roman Empire. For a more recent example, the all-female Mino regiment was only dissolved after the African Dahomey empire was invaded by French colonial troops.

Ultimately, we need to keep in mind that, whilst there is an obvious stylistic link as far as appearances are concerned, the Ecclesiarchy is not = the Christian Church. Unlike in various real life religious texts still influencing teachings and policies, there is nothing in the Imperial Creed that says that women are inferior or bear some sort of "ancestral guilt" (Eve). Wherever such cultural attitudes exists, they'd be a matter of the various planets' indidivual identity, and as such they would differ notably from one world to the next ... explaining why the planet Xenan VII, for example, has "warrior women", whereas another world may be as patriarchal as 18th century western civilisation.
To such cultures, the Imperium would actually serve as a reforming power in that it passively promotes a degree of equality between the genders. What long-term influence do you think would the existence and public respect of the Sisters of Battle have upon a decidedly patriarchal society, for example? Sure, there will be some planets who are so insignificant that they won't have much contact with the greater Imperium and its agencies - especially with an organisation as small (in comparison) as the Sisterhood - but .. industrialised worlds, for example? And over the course of thousand of years?

 IcarusDA wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:

Cadia's # of female soldiers is probably far less than the number of male soldiers, simply by virtue of the fact that in order to sustain such a massive population, you'd need to be pumping out babies like mad. A guy can donate his sperm with one 10 minute donation, but a woman needs to hold that thing inside her oven for 9 months. If you have a population of a hundred billion, and that population loses about 10% of its total size per day by virtue of fighting and dying across the galaxy (as an example), you'll need to, literally, be pumping out like billions of kids at once. Women probably have to fight to make it into the 2090th Cadian rifleman regiment, as opposed to the 2090th Baby-Making regiment.

Not necessarily. The fluff for the Krieg Death Korps states that due to the high tithe requirement of the planet, the "Vitae Womb" is allowed to be used on this planet, along with a few other planets with high IG tithe requirements. The Vitae Womb is essentially a mechanical surrogate womb, much like what a cloning vat would look like. Presumably, an egg is placed in the chamber, fertilized, and the person is then raised inside until it's ready to be "born", leaving all the men and women of that planet to be available for conscription.

To my knowledge, there's never been an official ruling on what a vitae-womb actually is. For all we know, it's cloning tech.

BlaxicanX wrote:
How does the birthrate being 50% male and 50% female support the notion that Cadian regiments have an equal gender representation?

I literally said in the post. I pointed out that, on Cadia, the birth rate and recruitment rate for the Cadian IG are synonymous.

 Coolyo294 wrote:

 IcarusDA wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:

Cadia's # of female soldiers is probably far less than the number of male soldiers, simply by virtue of the fact that in order to sustain such a massive population, you'd need to be pumping out babies like mad. A guy can donate his sperm with one 10 minute donation, but a woman needs to hold that thing inside her oven for 9 months. If you have a population of a hundred billion, and that population loses about 10% of its total size per day by virtue of fighting and dying across the galaxy (as an example), you'll need to, literally, be pumping out like billions of kids at once. Women probably have to fight to make it into the 2090th Cadian rifleman regiment, as opposed to the 2090th Baby-Making regiment.

Not necessarily. The fluff for the Krieg Death Korps states that due to the high tithe requirement of the planet, the "Vitae Womb" is allowed to be used on this planet, along with a few other planets with high IG tithe requirements. The Vitae Womb is essentially a mechanical surrogate womb, much like what a cloning vat would look like. Presumably, an egg is placed in the chamber, fertilized, and the person is then raised inside until it's ready to be "born", leaving all the men and women of that planet to be available for conscription.

To my knowledge, there's never been an official ruling on what a vitae-womb actually is. For all we know, it's cloning tech.

If that's the case, then it still comes to the same conclusion:

Women are not needed to be kept at home to birth and raise children, and are conscripted in the same amounts as men.

 IcarusDA wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:

Cadia's # of female soldiers is probably far less than the number of male soldiers, simply by virtue of the fact that in order to sustain such a massive population, you'd need to be pumping out babies like mad. A guy can donate his sperm with one 10 minute donation, but a woman needs to hold that thing inside her oven for 9 months. If you have a population of a hundred billion, and that population loses about 10% of its total size per day by virtue of fighting and dying across the galaxy (as an example), you'll need to, literally, be pumping out like billions of kids at once. Women probably have to fight to make it into the 2090th Cadian rifleman regiment, as opposed to the 2090th Baby-Making regiment.

Not necessarily. The fluff for the Krieg Death Korps states that due to the high tithe requirement of the planet, the "Vitae Womb" is allowed to be used on this planet, along with a few other planets with high IG tithe requirements. The Vitae Womb is essentially a mechanical surrogate womb, much like what a cloning vat would look like. Presumably, an egg is placed in the chamber, fertilized, and the person is then raised inside until it's ready to be "born", leaving all the men and women of that planet to be available for conscription.

Wait, that actually exists in fluff? I thought I was making it up!

I also did not see a detailed description so far. What's that from, a GW source or some novel?

 Lynata wrote:
[And then the court ruled that rape is an occupational hazard ...

LOLOLOLOLOL Dude quoted Al Jazeera as a legit news source... excuse me while I go wipe the tears from my eyes.

 Lynata wrote:
I also did not see a detailed description so far. What's that from, a GW source or some novel?

GW Source. The 3rd edition codex for the IG.

It also might be mentioned in the 5th edition rulebook fluff, I can't remember exactly.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Krieg

The full description is under "Engine of War", third paragraph.

The extent of concrete knowledge is that it is a replacement for natural pregnancy. Whether that be cloning, orwomb surrogacy (The name makes this the most likely of the two).

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:

LOLOLOLOLOL Dude quoted Al Jazeera as a legit news source... excuse me while I go wipe the tears from my eyes.

Erm... It is perfectly legit news source... I mean it might not be BBC, but I'd trust it over Fox any day.

Furthermore, the main source is an American documentary on rape in the US army. You don't trust the people making the documentary either?

Al Jazeera is a better news source than Fox or CNN these days.

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
[And then the court ruled that rape is an occupational hazard ...

LOLOLOLOLOL Dude quoted Al Jazeera as a legit news source... excuse me while I go wipe the tears from my eyes.

AlJazeera's English news is one of the most respected in the world, close behind the BBC, while your own country's various news outlets are a running joke around the world. Glass houses and all that.44

Al Jazeera not a credible news source? Since when? People have brought up the BBC and I have heard the BBC play Al Jazeera reports before. I guess it's credible enough for them.

Anyway, the whole "but pregnancy!" is nonsense. For all we know, Cadian women might take a few months off their major duties for pregnancy (maybe they go through training programs in the meantime) and then the father has to take a decade off to raise the kid while the mother goes back to combat duties.

Or maybe it's like Dwarf Fortress and the mother charges into battle with a baby in one arm and a lasgun in the other. We don't know, other than the birth and recruitment rates being synonymous.

Also, I'm fairly certain that after thirteen black crusades there are no non-combatants on Cadia.

 Melissia wrote:
Also, I'm fairly certain that after thirteen black crusades there are no non-combatants on Cadia.

That would do it - I read the Guard Codex and it claims that any Cadian who can't strip, clean and resemble their lasgun by age ten "shouldn't be on this planet." Its probably raise them till they can walk and talk and then go back to the trenches, knowing their child will do great things, barring Chaos invasion, Commissarial rage or critical weapon malfunction.

Edit - This kind of language is not tolerated at Dakka. Please familiarize yourself with the rules. MT11

 Lynata wrote:
Such a culture is the real reason for why "until recently women were precluded from combat units in the US armed forces" - otherwise a limitation would have simply enforced a certain minimum of physical capabilities rather than prohibiting entire population groups regardless of individual ability.

Not quite.

The Marines, for example, have been trying to get a female successfully through Infantry Officer's Course using male physical standards for a few years now. None of them have made it.

We're going to see a few women make it into a combat arms MOS, but it's not going to be a lot. Special operations might get symbolically opened up, but we won't be seeing any women there.

It'd also be logical to say that when it gets to some stages, pregnant Cadian women are more just reassigned to non-combat roles until their due date.

 Compel wrote:
It'd also be logical to say that when it gets to some stages, pregnant Cadian women are more just reassigned to non-combat roles until their due date.

That's also likely. An army isn't totally comprised of frontline soldiers, after all.