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.

IIRC in the "salute to armed forces" special issue of Maxim that was floating around last year, there was a USMC sergeant who posed for a shot or two.

Not homely by any means.

Looks more kickass than sexy to me.

 Psienesis wrote:
I've not spent a lot of time (any, actually) around Chinese soldiers... but I did spend years in the US Army. You know what? We did have some incredibly hot women soldiers around. We also had some that weren't. By the same token, some of the guys were extremely homely. Some of them would not be out of place in one of those fire-fighter beefcake calendars.

Why do people find it so hard to wrap their heads around the concept that there are attractive people in the military?

I was a Marine for ten years. I ran through a small, but fair share of the best looking girls the Army and Air Force had to offer. Those girls sure do love Marines.

However, my comment was more on the way they were dressed and all made up, not that it was impossible for attractive women to be in the military. More that the way the RH models are set up is in unrealistic and impractical uniforms that accentuate the femininity, and don't appear to actually be functional gear, lol. That, and the fact that they are model thin, lacking any hint of the musculature to actually life and use any of the weapons they are holding, lol.

Don't get me wrong, I love models. I dated a couple. Tall, hot, skinny. What's not to enjoy? They'd have had trouble effectively lifting and shouldering an M16, let along a Heavy Bolter facsimile. :p Heck, most of the female Marines, sailors, soldiers, etc had the same problem though, to be fair. Being able to just lift it and sight in only scratches the surface of the muscle strength and endurance needed to actually be an effective infantry(wo)man.

However, the women in those pictures above are models, posed up, and made up, for publicity purposes. The Chinese are well known for it, actually.

Heavy bolter, or M60, maybe... those are beasts, but we're replaced the pig with the M249 SAW, which weighs far less. A child can operate an M16, it's practically recoilless and weighs under 10 pounds.

As to her makeup... it's a photoshoot, not a candid shot. I mean, sure, the Chinese probably are using some sort of propaganda ministry to make their military appear to be filled with nubiles and beefcake, but that's really no different from the various recruiting ads the US DoD produces.

Me? I love the cyberpunk feel of the TGG line. I don't play wargames for a sense of realism.

No, and neither do I. I don't have any issue with the Raging Heroes line. I wouldn't buy them because they're a tad too cheesy for me.

But they're pretty good for the "I want an army of sexy girls" crowd.

If you get right down to it and be totally honest, any faction that goes into battle in power assist armor doesn't need a physical fitness program. Assuming they knew how to work the weapons, any girl/guy off the street would be equally strong and dexterous once they put on a suit of the stuff, and depending on the level of power assist they could probably all run for about the same amount of time anyway.

But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

 dementedwombat wrote:
If you get right down to it and be totally honest, any faction that goes into battle in power assist armor doesn't need a physical fitness program. Assuming they knew how to work the weapons, any girl/guy off the street would be equally strong and dexterous once they put on a suit of the stuff, and depending on the level of power assist they could probably all run for about the same amount of time anyway.

But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

In most cases, if the enemy has reached distances close enough for upper body strength to matter, the trooper is dead, male or female. The toughest a human can naturally be is still far weaker than the average ork and the average Hormagaunt can still rip their throats out before they can throw a single punch.

 Kain wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

In most cases, if the enemy has reached distances close enough for upper body strength to matter, the trooper is dead, male or female.

Which means the only reason most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units is simply that we don't like women getting hurt. After all, we recruit men to protect our homeland, our civilians... which to many means our women. Many men have a stupidly strong urge to protect women even if they don't need it. I'm sure a lot of it is cultural, but surely part is from our more primitive animal heritage?

Or for some more backwards places we don't think women should ever learn they could do just as well as men if the whole "swinging a 30-pound motorized chainsaw club" thing was taken out. As I recall some men even complain that (fit) women have an easier time completing a lot of the tests for basic infantry because, well, being six feet tall with three foot wide shoulders is often a disadvantage no matter how strong you are. And ofc, women on average can take more G than a man in a fighter but we don't like sending them out either, even if the closest they're likely to get to an enemy is the max range to launch a missile.

No one remembers this lady?

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

Spetulhu wrote:most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units

You'd be surprised.
Although that list is kinda outdated by now. For example, Australia has removed any and all purely gender-based restrictions in 2011. [src]

Spetulhu wrote:I'm sure a lot of it is cultural, but surely part is from our more primitive animal heritage?

According to the most recent studies, gender segregation in human evolution (aka hunter-gatherer society) is actually a fairly recent thing, "just" about 45-10k years old. It is theorised that back then, this allowed our ancestors to survive whilst the Neanderthals (whose females had comparable physical capabilities to the males) died out as they were only hunting but not gathering. [src]

Contemporary attitudes really are just a cultural thing. It's not like female warriors haven't been around before - an interesting example being the Mino regiment of the African Dahomey Empire, or some of the Germanic and Britannic tribes before Rome invaded.

Spetulhu wrote:And ofc, women on average can take more G than a man in a fighter but we don't like sending them out either

That seems to be less controversial, I think, even though aerial combat is quite physical as well all things considered. Even India and Pakistan have female fighter pilots by now - with the Indian Air Marshal commenting that on average they test consistently better than their male colleagues.

All in all, it's just a fairly new thing that, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, faces quite a bit of resistance. Give it one or two decades and an evolved society will have gotten used to it. It's no different than back then when black people were allowed to join the US military. There are some rather shameful "studies" in the archives about how they would supposedly destroy the esprit-du-corps as well, or how they'd always need a white officer to watch them etc.
It is in humanity's nature to segregate .. whether you do this based on gender, skin colour, religion, etc. is secondary, as long as those in power can feel superior.

 Lynata wrote:
It is in humanity's nature to segregate .. whether you do this based on gender, skin colour, religion, etc. is secondary, as long as those in power can feel superior.

Well, I might not have all the newest information (though I knew about the Dahomey women warriors - they used to beat their husbands, especially after the empire was taken down by France). But what I've seen is we don't like to place them in danger, not even the women I know who could beat me 1v1. I'm just a slacker 5' 10'' guy weighing too much after all. I know there are women who can beat me either through skill (my basic ju-jutsu training vs some really fast and supple ladies) or brawn (a farm girl I dated who is both taller and stronger than me). But I do remember that the nations that actually see combat aren't usually too keen on sending women into it as a first choice.vYou can have 1-2 pretty girls come back as casualties to make the enemy seem barbarians, but sacrificing a whole platoon of support women had better be kept silent. Bad publicity is bad, and letting your women die is very bad publicity.

You've seen it too - incredible newsflashes on a single pretty US servicewoman getting out alive when most of her unit didn't. And far as other soldiers can tell she was actually knocked out the whole fight while her squadmate, the less-cinematic mother of three held the line.

 Lynata wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units

You'd be surprised.
Although that list is kinda outdated by now. For example, Australia has removed any and all purely gender-based restrictions in 2011. [src]

Spetulhu wrote:I'm sure a lot of it is cultural, but surely part is from our more primitive animal heritage?

According to the most recent studies, gender segregation in human evolution (aka hunter-gatherer society) is actually a fairly recent thing, "just" about 45-10k years old. It is theorised that back then, this allowed our ancestors to survive whilst the Neanderthals (whose females had comparable physical capabilities to the males) died out as they were only hunting but not gathering. [src]

Contemporary attitudes really are just a cultural thing. It's not like female warriors haven't been around before - an interesting example being the Mino regiment of the African Dahomey Empire, or some of the Germanic and Britannic tribes before Rome invaded.

Spetulhu wrote:And ofc, women on average can take more G than a man in a fighter but we don't like sending them out either

That seems to be less controversial, I think, even though aerial combat is quite physical as well all things considered. Even India and Pakistan have female fighter pilots by now - with the Indian Air Marshal commenting that on average they test consistently better than their male colleagues.

All in all, it's just a fairly new thing that, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, faces quite a bit of resistance. Give it one or two decades and an evolved society will have gotten used to it. It's no different than back then when black people were allowed to join the US military. There are some rather shameful "studies" in the archives about how they would supposedly destroy the esprit-du-corps as well, or how they'd always need a white officer to watch them etc.
It is in humanity's nature to segregate .. whether you do this based on gender, skin colour, religion, etc. is secondary, as long as those in power can feel superior.

The problem with women on the frontline is that men actually make different choices if a women were in danger compared to a man. They take stupid risks for them. It's no ones fault really, it's just biological, but it is a major reason why many militaries allow women in to service but actively try to keep them away from any roles that involve regular contact with the frontline.

If they can perform the same or better as the average male then no one cares; it's just when an inconvenient evolutionary history gets in the way that it's a problem. There was a lot of debate over it over the past few years here.

Having all-female units doesn't solve the problem either, but there's no reason for them not to be NCOs or in the airforce or navy which aren't typical frontline roles (and you can't exactly go out of your way riskily to save a female pilot)

Because we know a society can bounce back if it suffers a defeat that sees many of its men die. If the young healthy women who produce the next generation are also killed then the population crashes and takes longer to recover.
This is the number 1 reason having too many females in frontline combat is stupid. Then you throw in having to have extra facilities for females, particularly noticeable in confined environments like ships, those monthly mood swings, lack of physical strength in the field and the problems compound.
Modern technology has mitigated some of these drawbacks but they're still there.

I assume with the Cadians, the females would have their children first, then go join their regiment and the children would be raised by veterans no longer capable of fighting.

For people who find the Raging Heroes line too sexy (I won't mention Shadowforge here ), Victoria Miniatures is working on more realistic female troopers.

cadbren wrote:
Because we know a society can bounce back if it suffers a defeat that sees many of its men die. If the young healthy women who produce the next generation are also killed then the population crashes and takes longer to recover.
This is the number 1 reason having too many females in frontline combat is stupid. Then you throw in having to have extra facilities for females, particularly noticeable in confined environments like ships, those monthly mood swings, lack of physical strength in the field and the problems compound.
Modern technology has mitigated some of these drawbacks but they're still there.

I assume with the Cadians, the females would have their children first, then go join their regiment and the children would be raised by veterans no longer capable of fighting.

Ever heard of whiteshields? Cadian children don't get off the hook either. They get thrown into the meatgrinder like everyone else.

Contrary to popular ignorance, the 'monthly mood swings' are not only controllable chemically, but pretty firmly disconnected from the lunar cycle.

Trust me, girls can get angry or moody at any time of their cycle... just like men. It's just that being in pain tends to make people grumpy, and some girls find themselves in a lot of pain at certain times of the month. That can be managed too though.

So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

I mean I have plenty of whiteshield models I count as conscripts, with Chenkov for added lulz. I had a friend run them and I think last time he used them my Hormagaunts ate them.

Mmmm, Children.

Kain wrote:So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

This is tricky. Frontlines, for sure. The 13th Black Crusade's Force Disposition Chart mentioned "36 Regional Commands" being deployed to fight the forces of Chaos. Whether or not they would fight away from Cadia is more difficult to say. I would suspect not, even though there's no material to say so, just because they're expected to progress into regular Cadian units after a few years of training - and I suspect Cadian regiments on "away missions" to be away for a longer time than this training takes.

That being said, don't necessarily let that stop you as this is (a) just my interpretation, and (b) there is no actual uniform canon in 40k anyways.

Alternatively, however, you could let your kids not come from Cadia but a different world's regiment. The Codex fluff notes that in other regiments, "Whiteshield" units commonly consist of those children born of IG troops after they have begun their service, meaning either in-transit, during a campaign, or during garrison duty. In essence, the regiment takes the children with them, and once they are old enough they're handed a lasgun and grouped into platoons to help in the fight.

As a third option, you could come up with your own planet and culture that (perhaps at least partially) donates kids instead of grown-ups as part of their tithe to the Munitorum. In this case I'd recommend coming up with a bit of a backstory as to how this came to be, maybe they're youth convicts from a hive or whatever.

Shaozun wrote:It's no ones fault really, it's just biological

It really isn't, else less advanced societies would have discovered this and not have female warriors in the ancient times or, in the case of Neanderthals, even before. It's nothing but the result of cultural indoctrination promoting a specific behaviour - which doesn't even work as reliable as you suggest. The US military, for example, would have probably less of an extreme issue with cases of sexual abuse, intimidation and even murder if male troops would instinctively feel protective of their female colleagues. This "two types of soldiers" mentality just doesn't work out, and there's only one way to stop it - by promoting equality.

And I'll rather trust the success stories of mixed-gender units with actual combat experience than theoretical studies whose authors may well suffer from the same bias that caused doctors and military strategists to advise against letting black people into the army. It's quite simply up to the individual nation's military leaders to establish a climate of discipline, cameraderie, fairness and trust. This is part of the reason why some nations struggle more than others with this change in culture.

 phatonic wrote:

Looks more kickass than sexy to me.

These two things a synonymous to me ;D


But in all seriousness Warhammer never pretended to be depicting realism people. They choose aesthetics over realism all the time. Of course they'll maximize the quality of their miniatures basic aesthetics, and that means they will make the women sexy.

I do see the sexism in this, but all the lady war gamers I know choose sexy female characters over plain ones, and I don't think it's an attractiveness fantasy or anything like that. I think beautiful people are simply aesthetically more pleasing.

And hey, it's not like the Raging Heroes depicts women as stereotypically helpless or anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:
So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

The Imperial Guard are as evil as s**t. One of the most evil teams, lol. I mean no one in 40k is great, the best is probably the mind-controlling space communists, but still... IG are this Hitler-esque evil military regime. I don't think they care about what's morally sound.

 Lynata wrote:

Kain wrote:So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

This is tricky. Frontlines, for sure. The 13th Black Crusade's Force Disposition Chart mentioned "36 Regional Commands" being deployed to fight the forces of Chaos. Whether or not they would fight away from Cadia is more difficult to say. I would suspect not, even though there's no material to say so, just because they're expected to progress into regular Cadian units after a few years of training - and I suspect Cadian regiments on "away missions" to be away for a longer time than this training takes.

That being said, don't necessarily let that stop you as this is (a) just my interpretation, and (b) there is no actual uniform canon in 40k anyways.

Alternatively, however, you could let your kids not come from Cadia but a different world's regiment. The Codex fluff notes that in other regiments, "Whiteshield" units commonly consist of those children born of IG troops after they have begun their service, meaning either in-transit, during a campaign, or during garrison duty. In essence, the regiment takes the children with them, and once they are old enough they're handed a lasgun and grouped into platoons to help in the fight.

As a third option, you could come up with your own planet and culture that (perhaps at least partially) donates kids instead of grown-ups as part of their tithe to the Munitorum. In this case I'd recommend coming up with a bit of a backstory as to how this came to be, maybe they're youth convicts from a hive or whatever.

I had a big post on that create your own IG regiment site Moustaffa once had linked in his sig for the Rodinav Sabre Tyrants and some other Inciphis region regiments, but my computer reset itself and I lost all the work on it.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Contrary to popular ignorance, the 'monthly mood swings' are not only controllable chemically, but pretty firmly disconnected from the lunar cycle.

Trust me, girls can get angry or moody at any time of their cycle... just like men. It's just that being in pain tends to make people grumpy, and some girls find themselves in a lot of pain at certain times of the month. That can be managed too though.

Why are you saying this, lol? Who is arguing against you? Please people, I know this is a male-centric hobby, but lets not talk about women like they're some kind of alien race please.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you want to reduce sexism in the Raging Heroes models, get a Catachan army. Then there would be a standard of ridiculousness and all that. That would be hilarious.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

In most cases, if the enemy has reached distances close enough for upper body strength to matter, the trooper is dead, male or female.

Which means the only reason most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units is simply that we don't like women getting hurt.

Well, that, and they can't pass infantry school.

Sure they are Cadian women serving, just that, as most of the 40k's art is taking its roots into those old painting of the gunpowder-enlighten age where rows of lancers charged gloriously, infantry regiments walked to their death and hold their ground as they get killed to the last man around their flag.

One thing that wasn't around on those painting (or on the battlefileld) was women.

At least they made a few female models back in the old Rogue Trader days, a couple of soldiers and even a Rogue Trader in power armour. Even now you can find a female Inquisitor, and there's also that all female gang from Necromunda (granted they have a heavy dosage of 80s in'em).

One ressource that is in large quantity in the Imperium is human beings and 'pretty sure the Emperor is an equal opportunity employer (except if you're a Witch or a mutie- and even then He'll find a way to get you to be useful whatever you like it or not)

As for the Whiteshield, it only follow the same mentality as the Boy Scouts: just a somewhat loose para-military organisation to give basic fieldcraft, leadership values, survival tips etc etc to young boys to hopefully push them toward military careers. More recently, the Hitler Youth was in a similar (if more direct) line. Hey, Canadians faced'em in Caen, so it is not that far of a stretch that the Imperium send thier Whiteshield up front for some hands-on experience.

 Kroothawk wrote:
For people who find the Raging Heroes line too sexy (I won't mention Shadowforge here ), Victoria Miniatures is working on more realistic female troopers.

It isn't "too sexy", so much as it is "not professional enough". They look less like soldiers and more like "supermodels in fake soldier outfits" and are designed to titillate the male buyer, nothing more. One can have a professional looking soldier that's also sexy.

Then again, I might be biased. I like the look of the Cadian military uniform, along with such things as the US Marine Corps dress uniform, It's hard not to look good in the USMC Blues.

I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the significance of an upper body strength difference. The issue isn't that it makes you less able to fight, it's that it makes you less able to soldier. The weight of 'kit' an infantry soldier carries has historically fallen somewhere between 60-100 pounds, depending on era - early Roman infantry carried upwards of 100 pounds of gear, while a Victorian British infantryman had closer to 60 pounds, with a modern US infantry soldier falling somewhere in the middle at around 80 pounds average including a rucksack. Given that most of the Imperial Guard seems fixed at somewhere around a WWI/WWII IN SPACE level of technology, we could probably assume that 75 pounds (a loaded set of British Army Pattern 1908 webbing) before weapons is relatively close to what a typical Guardsman carries with them into the fight. Even troops who don't have to haul their own gear, like tankers, do a lot of physically intense labor, for example replacing broken track sections (each link of an M1 Abrams' track weighs over 60 pounds) or loading and unloading vehicles. The simple fact of the matter is that soldiering is, always has been, and probably always will be a very labor-intensive job that requires a lot of physical strength and bodily resilience, and that's something that human males just have more of than human females. Life isn't fair.

 Lynata wrote:
And I'll rather trust the success stories of mixed-gender units with actual combat experience than theoretical studies whose authors may well suffer from the same bias that caused doctors and military strategists to advise against letting black people into the army. It's quite simply up to the individual nation's military leaders to establish a climate of discipline, cameraderie, fairness and trust. This is part of the reason why some nations struggle more than others with this change in culture.

Which successful mixed-gender units with actual combat experience would those be? A lot of people seem to have serious misconceptions in this regard, both in how other countries employ female troops, and in how other countries fight. The Israelis are a perfect example - very few people know that after the disastrous showing integrated units had in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the IDF barred women from serving in combat roles in 1950. Even since the decision was officially reversed in 2000, the IDF has created only a single integrated combat formation - the much-romanticized Caracal Battalion - which has coincidentally been posted to patrolling the relatively quiet Egyptian border ever since its inception, sitting out both Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2010. There's also the noteworthy and rarely-discussed fact that the IDF is very much not an expeditionary force - they fight close to their own borders, to the extent that they typically rotate troops back home every three days even when they are engaged in combat. Hardly comparable to even the modern-day US Army, where deployments can last months or years, let alone the Imperial Guard where the regimental founding is probably the last time a typical Guardsman will ever see home.

Genosaurer wrote:I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the significance of an upper body strength difference. [...] The simple fact of the matter is that soldiering is, always has been, and probably always will be a very labor-intensive job that requires a lot of physical strength and bodily resilience, and that's something that human males just have more of than human females.

I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the fact that contrary to popular belief, female humans do not belong to a different species.

"Every male on the planet is stronger than every female on the planet, ever" is an utterly ridiculous statement to make ... and with the wording you have chosen to employ, you've just made it.

Genosaurer wrote:The Israelis are a perfect example

Which is why I'm advocating not looking to the IDF, as a lot of people (apparently you included) do, but to nations such as Canada, Russia, Germany.
The number is growing. It's up to you whether you want to stay behind or not - but according to recent changes in policy, it just looks like it'll be a somewhat more bumpy road for US women than elsewhere. But at least society is starting to acknowledge what they've been doing for the past ten years.

Oh, and as far as the Imperial Guard is concerned - guess which real world army the Valhallans are modeled after, and what they thought about female troops.


PS: I'm having a deja-vu here - but I suppose that, just like with the last thread on female IG, it was unavoidable that the topic would at least touch upon the real world situation.

Every Cadian female is stronger than you, Genosaurer.

 phatonic wrote:



Looks more kickass than sexy to me.

Given the armor (or lack thereof) I'd pitch these as Catachan women, not Cadian women, were I you...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Genosaurer wrote:
I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the significance of an upper body strength difference. The issue isn't that it makes you less able to fight, it's that it makes you less able to soldier. The weight of 'kit' an infantry soldier carries has historically fallen somewhere between 60-100 pounds, depending on era - early Roman infantry carried upwards of 100 pounds of gear, while a Victorian British infantryman had closer to 60 pounds, with a modern US infantry soldier falling somewhere in the middle at around 80 pounds average including a rucksack. Given that most of the Imperial Guard seems fixed at somewhere around a WWI/WWII IN SPACE level of technology, we could probably assume that 75 pounds (a loaded set of British Army Pattern 1908 webbing) before weapons is relatively close to what a typical Guardsman carries with them into the fight. Even troops who don't have to haul their own gear, like tankers, do a lot of physically intense labor, for example replacing broken track sections (each link of an M1 Abrams' track weighs over 60 pounds) or loading and unloading vehicles. The simple fact of the matter is that soldiering is, always has been, and probably always will be a very labor-intensive job that requires a lot of physical strength and bodily resilience, and that's something that human males just have more of than human females. Life isn't fair.

Your logic is sound except for a big issue smack dab in the middle: Assuming 75 pounds of kit ignores the fact that we actually have weight figures for a lot of Guard gear from Dark Heresy (a loaded lasgun is about half the weight of a loaded M16. Fancy that.), plus the fact that Guard miniatures don't appear to be hauling around backpacks loaded with extra stuff. Not to mention: Forty thousand years of tradition, training, altered cultures, selective breeding experiments, and Emperor only knows what else is going on throughout the Imperium between its millions of worlds could potentially scrap the muscular differential before the weight of the kit starts to matter at all.

"The ranks of the Imperial Guard are as varied as the countless worlds they hail from across the galaxy. All soldiers are equal in the eyes of the Departmento Munitorum and the Emperor. "
-- First two sentences in the "Gender and Appearance" section of Only War.

The Imperium as an administrative organization doesn't really recognize a difference between male and females when considering candidates for soldierhood. Soldiers are numbers to be expended on the battlefield, nothing more. Never mind the differences in culture between Cadia and modern society. You're thinking of Cadia as like the USA or UK, but that's very much wrong.

For Cadians, the birth rate and recruitment rate are the same. A child, male or female, learns to strip and clean a lasgun before they learn to walk. They are drafted in to the whiteshields to serve on the front lines before most modern children ever have their first romantic kiss. They train relentlessly, fight off daemons and mutants, slaughter and are slaughtered, et cetera. There's no comparison to modern societies. It is a culture that is utterly alien to us. Their women are not lazing about watching American idol and chatting about boys. Their women on the battlefield killing heretics. And that's before they become teenagers. Before the age that the various soldiers (and wannabe soldiers) on this forum ever thought of joining the military, Cadian women were fighting enemies that would make you crap your pants in fear.

Cadia is an alien culture unlike anything Earth has ever seen . The closest that one could get would be Russia in WWII... and that's a very long stretch to make that comparison.

When you need endless amounts of bodies to throw at the enemy, sex makes no difference. I'm sure there are just as many females in the Cadian army. GW just hasn't made any models because little timmy doesn't want to open is pack of toy soldiers and get girlie dolls . They should make some alternate packs though, it would be cool