A sensitive issue...

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**AllSeeingSkink**

Peregrine wrote:
Women knights or monks are ridiculous enough to kill the reference dead. You could smuggle some Jeanne d'Arc esque general but on massive scale it would reek of parody or at least look artificial and forced.

Are you serious? You can't possibly believe something this absurd.

I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown. It may sound harsh but I don't really see wanting females/blacks as anything more than me wanting Space Wolves that are less wolf and more viking, it's just an aesthetic desire which GW unfortunately don't seem to agree with for whatever reason

**Plumbumbarum**

Id like to add that I dont consider all feminist claims artificial problems. Date rapes are a problem, women underpayed is a problem, women position in India is a problem. Sexism in a niche space fantasy game for nerds is not a problem. And no first world problems fallacy doesnt apply.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Peregrine wrote:Have you actually looked at the current IG codex? Almost all of the fluff/art is Cadians and Catachans, and virtually all of the photographs are those armies. Their presence in codex art is massively disproportionate to their numbers in the fluff.

Yes there is a pic of Vostroyan, Valhallan, Steel Legion, DKoK guardsmen. Battle arts are mostly Cadian but there's not a lot of pictures in general tbh. There's not a single woman and it looks intended imo.

Peregrine wrote:
Female guardsmen you posted are from licensed sources, I take GW over them when it comes to 40k vision.

Why? GW has no such policy. Why is your personal opinion about what is canon more important than the actual owners and creators of the setting

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Can you tell the difference between Roman inspired and straight Roman building?

Yeah. How did the buildings I posted inspire anything about 40k architecture?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Dictator is an anachronism when used in context of Rome?

Yes it is. Unless you are talking about the Roman title of dictator which is something completely different:

In the Roman Republic the term "Dictator" did not have the negative meaning it has later assumed. Rather, a Dictator was a person given sole power (unlike the normal Roman republican practice, where rule was divided between two equal Consuls) for a specific limited period, in order to deal with an emergency. At the end of his term, the Dictator was supposed to hand power over to the normal Consular rule and give account of his actions – and Roman dictators usually did.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
It's not the first time you quote me in a way that my words look bad, cant say intentional or not but it gets annoying.

It is not intentional. Actually, the only way to not make your words look bad, in my opinion, would be to not quote them at all.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Female guardsmen you posted are from licensed sources, I take GW over them when it comes to 40k vision.

So, if I give you an artwork featuring an female guardswoman by GW proper, from as early as 2nd edition, will you give up your silly position? I happen to have one. Or what about models? If I show you official GW proper models for Imperial Guardswomen, will you then give up your ridiculous claims? I have that to. I am surprised Peregrine did not mention either.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Ofc reference is not a copy. That you can recognise it doesnt mean that it's not ridiculous. Women knights or monks are ridiculous enough to kill the reference dead. You could smuggle some Jeanne d'Arc esque general but on massive scale it would reek of parody or at least look artificial and forced.

Spoiler:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
The equivalent of woman legionaire would be putting curtains with flower patterns on said building.

.
I am pretty sure the Sisters of Battle might do just that. The flowers would be Lys, though

.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
On the contrary actualy, it was made by punkish nerds in times were every punk was obligatory anti Thatcher and if I was to define it politicaly it would be some leftist grimdark parody on church, racism and facism that got dulled over the years because of its commercial succes.

Yeah. And guess how they parodied racism, from the very beginning? The very same way that comics like X-men and movies like District 9 did: putting mutants and aliens as the victims of bigotry rather than black peoples.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Now, the dialog:

Crazy pc person from USA: GW has a racist problem.

Plumbumbarum: Well that would actualy be great because the setting is extreme and offensive and it would fit the IoM making impression of bad people.

Crazy mac person from France: No, because the Imperium already gives the impression of being oppressive and bigoted by how mutants and abhumans are treated. Even down to using “Xenos”, like in xenophobe, as a derogatory term for aliens.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Crazy feminist person from USA: Not enough women. Sexism.

Plumbumbarum: Well too much women. Id love if there was a mysogynist problem there just like history and stuff.

Crazy feminist person from France: No, because we already have history for that, and tons and tons of already written books with sexists societies. It would not be novel, it would not be interesting, and it would not be enjoyable, except maybe for you. But that is totally unrelated to you being a bigot, right.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I am myself an insane person and consider it as one of my upsides.

Uh, what?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Swaping weapons and armour for future one is not the same as swapping the strong cultural and historical connotations for a supposedly better suited future one.

Oh. What about spitting acid, psychic powers, intense xenophobia and indoctrination, becoming small independent entities rather than one unified army, swapping from polytheism to very strong monotheism/atheism and all that? Those do not count either because… reasons, amirite? Reasons totally not being “I want my own prejudices catered to”.
You have still to explain what is ridiculous about the idea of a female knight. You need to explain history how it is wrong and how we should go back into the past to prevent it from happening multiple times over.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I dont know, when I look at GW IG art it's ussualy balls to the walls epic yet grimdark, maybe women just make it harder to showcase gritty, brutal soldiers of grimdark or sth.

Sorry, I cannot hear you over the sound of all the grimdark balls to the wall epicness of this picture:

Spoiler:

**Peregrine**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

And I would call it a badly-needed redesign of a kit that is years overdue for one. The only problem with female Cadians would be the fact that GW would need to significantly improve the kit to make it work, at least without resorting to idiotic "sexy" armor.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown. It may sound harsh but I don't really see wanting females/blacks as anything more than me wanting Space Wolves that are less wolf and more viking, it's just an aesthetic desire which GW unfortunately don't seem to agree with for whatever reason

It's a difference because it's not just about personal preference, it's whether a potential new player can find any characters like them to identify with. Right now if that's something you value and you aren't a white man you're probably not going to be interested in the game. And something that's so easy to fix should not be pushing people away from the hobby.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Sexism in a niche space fantasy game for nerds is not a problem.

It's not a problem for you. Those two words are very important.

Yes there is a pic of Vostroyan, Valhallan, Steel Legion, DKoK guardsmen. Battle arts are mostly Cadian but there's not a lot of pictures in general tbh. There's not a single woman and it looks intended imo.

There are hardly any pictures of those other regiments compared to the Cadians and Catachans. And how do you know that the DKoK soldiers are all men? A woman in the same uniform would look exactly the same as a man.

Might be not easy to say to the US based company you just licensed your IP to "you know...if you could... just not put any wome in there. Oh also black people. Thanks". Or get the book to endorse and tell them to cut all women out. Or they dont give a crap because money. All speculation ofc but my speculation is like an average person fact. That good.

As you said, this is all just speculation. Why are you wasting our time with speculation that has no evidence at all to support it? There is no reason to believe that FFG/BL/etc are doing anything that "main GW" doesn't approve of, or that those sources are any kind of lesser canon.

Even Vasquez times 100 would look more delicate than typical GW screaming Cadians.

Lol. That's really all that comment deserves.

**RazgrizOne**

I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown.

What I see is that many other people would be glad to have more diversity in their IG ranks. If you want to stick with the 10yo ugly cadians faces that are sold in the kit, it's fine, but don't pretend everyone would want it too.

Without being an excited leftist - kind of people I usually don't like - I would be happy to have some women in my army. I don't advocate a 50/50 head sprues because that would look forced; even a single female head model out of ten would be a great improvement. It would not be forced, it would not be stupid, it is just a better way to stick to the fluff. Note that I don't talk about colour, since Cadian faces are so generic that you can paint them African or Chinese without problem.

Plus if you think gender equality is merely a "PC" whim then we can't do much for you. The mere fact that this thread has now 11 pages shows that people are actually interested and it's not because YOU don't care that the world don't.

**Plumbumbarum**

Hybrid Son of Oxyotl, I'll be brief to give you as little to quote as possible, also this is my last post to you in this topic. Id love to get low to your level into cheap discussion techniques multiple quote match but it's too much of a chore and waste of time on the phone. Sorry.

It's nice to see you still completly missinterpret at least half of what I say. I never meant that girl cant be epic grimdark. After that I mention brutal soldiers. If you look at most of the IG art, they are mostly looking like really vicious super bastards. I know GW can pull it off with girls as evidenced by sororitas codex but maybe they just use men becase brutal men are brutal brutal heh.

You only made my words look bad with three quotes and not in the way you think you did, dont flatter yourself.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Peregrine wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

And I would call it a badly-needed redesign of a kit that is years overdue for one. The only problem with female Cadians would be the fact that GW would need to significantly improve the kit to make it work, at least without resorting to idiotic "sexy" armor.

Female or not I'd be happy with a Cadian redesign, but I still think it'd come across as being forced. Though I tend to be of the opinion GW would need to rethink the entire scaling of 40k to make female models look reasonable.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown. It may sound harsh but I don't really see wanting females/blacks as anything more than me wanting Space Wolves that are less wolf and more viking, it's just an aesthetic desire which GW unfortunately don't seem to agree with for whatever reason

It's a difference because it's not just about personal preference, it's whether a potential new player can find any characters like them to identify with. Right now if that's something you value and you aren't a white man you're probably not going to be interested in the game. And something that's so easy to fix should not be pushing people away from the hobby.

I still don't see the difference. Someone wants an aesthetic option that GW don't provide. Maybe it's an untapped source of customers, maybe it's not.

Not being able to identify because of sex/race seems like a personal problem more than anything as it's hardly a requirement. If someone struggles to identify with a sex/race that's not their own then they should probably be asking themselves if they're just a little bit racist/sexist, not the other way around

**Plumbumbarum**

Peregrine have you looked at IG faces recently, Vasquez looks like a nice girl in comparision. GW actualy have some faces that could work in multiples but the examples of female guardsmen you posted are closer to sorority girls than to a true grimdark grit (tm) of IG. The obligatory minimum would be every IG gal with a face like first pic in adepta sororitas dex, under schola progenium.

Sexism in space fantasy is not a problem for me. If it is for you then you qualify for the forefront of the ridiculous pc overeaction club instantly. For me. And any not yet "corrected" individual. Really I can understand that you want women into 40k because it makes sense from this or that standpoint. Finding sexism in a fictional (and offensive all around) space fantasy universe a problem? That's like our flagship national feminist when she was doing book reviews, she claimed women issues as a theme with every single book they reviewed, it was ridiculous, even some of the authors didnt know what she was talking about. Btw we're talking in circles now.

Something to identify with? Black people have salamanders, Asian have white scars, women have sisters. You cant have anything. Should I write to Rockstar because I cant identify with San Andreas protagonist? What if I want white Salamanders- sure I can paint how I want but I want them in the art and fluff 50/50 or how will I identify? Sounds a bit ott charging the windmills pointless and kind of makes everything the same, no? It's funny btw that if all this forced diversity succeeds, it will actualy kill diversity heh.

Here's a great post from mr. (or mrs.) Code about the identify thing.

Code wrote:
Mustela wrote:
@Mysterious Pants

That's a fair explanation. However, 40K is fantasy, a place that people escape to. Not everyone's perfect escape involves a single race and a gender imbalance. It seems a little messed up to me if you escape to a reality where there is arbitrarily only white people and a gender imbalance. Some people, like you, have offered speculation as to why there might only be white people. While I don't think there's anything wrong with that, there are just as many explanations for why there would be racial diversity. And honestly, why not have more racial diversity? I don't see what that changes. I'm pretty sure a little creativity can solve whatever potential issue people throw out.

I can see how social justice can be annoying when you're trying to have fun but I try to follow the tenets of: real world > fake world and real people > fake people.

And the bottom line which I support is that you can paint your models any way you want and anyone who actually cares how you paint them can go themselves.

I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.

1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.

You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.

Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.

3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...

4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.

This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?

In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

RazgrizOne wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown.

What I see is that many other people would be glad to have more diversity in their IG ranks. If you want to stick with the 10yo ugly cadians faces that are sold in the kit, it's fine, but don't pretend everyone would want it too.

Without being an excited leftist - kind of people I usually don't like - I would be happy to have some women in my army. I don't advocate a 50/50 head sprues because that would look forced; even a single female head model out of ten would be a great improvement. It would not be forced, it would not be stupid, it is just a better way to stick to the fluff. Note that I don't talk about colour, since Cadian faces are so generic that you can paint them African or Chinese without problem.

Plus if you think gender equality is merely a "PC" whim then we can't do much for you. The mere fact that this thread has now 11 pages shows that people are actually interested and it's not because YOU don't care that the world don't.

Fair enough. Im talking about pc to the people that have pc like agenda. Women in IG would not be the end of the world (forced diverity everywhere would though imo) tbh but it's just better now.

In the end, the artwork goes to crap anyway, it got much worse in 7th edition with some of the new pictures looking cheap, low quality and less 40k ish than ever imo. Not all dexes though skitarii was really ok and at least model wise they seem to dodge stormraven tauroxes like debacles. Anyway women or not it might die in my eyes anyway.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Id love to get low to your level into cheap discussion techniques multiple quote match

How is pointing to precise part of your message cheap discussion techniques?
I could have done basically the same message without the citations, if that is what you want.
Your pretense that there is no guardswomen in the art and models of GW proper is wrong, because there is. Do you need me to show them to you, or do you already know them and just pretend they do not exist for some reason?
There is absolutely no need for “modern day racism/sexism” because there is already plenty of space fantasy racism in this space fantasy game, and GW decided it would only contain space fantasy racism rather than modern day racism long ago, for very good reasons.
Spitting acid is about as far as you can be from the idea of a Roman legionnaire, so if you say that a legion of acid-spitting Roman legionnaire that have sorcerers and spacecraft is not ridiculous, but having some of those acid-spitting Roman legionnaire be female is ridiculous, that is only telling about your bias.
And if the concept of a female knight seems so wrong to you, though luck, because history have them. And history does not have acid-spitting knights with machine gun. Therefore, female knights are less ridiculous than acid-spitting knights with machine gun. Deal with it.

Makumba wrote:
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Well, should 40k cater to Polish people over the rest of the world?

No but how does it change the fact that for me and people living here a dictator is a white dude, and a black or female would feel at best out of place and at worse funny.

Okay. Then we can ignore this fact for the sake of the many, many people for which not having them would feel out of place or funny.

Makumba wrote:
It has nothing to do with miss conceptions or how italians may or may not look like. It is all about what people think an space marine who is an ultramarine should look like.

It has everything to do with it, because 40k is an international product, which has certainly more consumers in Italy than it does in Poland.

Makumba wrote:
The closest non white on the pole made is mao and his is not even in top 10.

But do he look ridiculous or out of place?

Makumba wrote:
I worked for 3 months in UK last year. more then half of my co workers and all of my employers were called mustafa etc

Yeah, it is called immigration.

Makumba wrote:
An association or feeling can't be false. If I look at a spider and feel nothing and boyfriend gets scared out of his wits. Then my lack of being repulsed by it is not false, neither is his reaction.
.

If that “association of feeling” makes you believe the tarantula crawling up your arm is not dangerous and you die as a result, I am pretty sure it would be wrong. Any “association of feeling” that makes you believe stuff that is false (like “Black people cannot be bloody dictators”, or “Women will never hold position of power”) is wrong. Especially if they make one act in dangerous or otherwise bad ways.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Not being able to identify because of sex/race seems like a personal problem more than anything as it's hardly a requirement. If someone struggles to identify with a sex/race that's not their own then they should probably be asking themselves if they're just a little bit racist/sexist, not the other way around

Can I ask you your race and gender? I would like to know if you have ever been subjected to the problem and are talking from experience, or if you are just talking about other people experiences about something you never had to experience.
Because I remember an Iranian friend of mine, which is really as far as one can be from a racist, telling me how it was going to be so nice to actually see people that looked like her on screen when we went to see Prince of Persia. While she had never complained about it before, and has never complained about it after either, by the way.

**RazgrizOne**

In the end, the artwork goes to crap anyway, it got much worse in 7th edition with some of the new pictures looking cheap, low quality and less 40k ish than ever imo. Not all dexes though skitarii was really ok and at least model wise they seem to dodge stormraven tauroxes like debacles. Anyway women or not it might die in my eyes anyway.

I agree to say artworks in codex are not what they were anymore but it is not the point we're making here. We're talking women in the IG, and I will be glad to discuss why you'll be so pissed to see women in plastic kits.

Women in IG would not be the end of the world (forced diverity everywhere would though imo) tbh but it's just better now.

The thing you said there, and it is as clear as water, is that adding women would get the kit worse. I had difficulties to identify what you were arguing for since the beginning of this thread but now it seems pretty clear to me.

**Plumbumbarum**

text removed.

Reds8n

Don't bypass the language filter like this.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Even fething Dark Heresy

Do not bypass the word filter like that, or you will get a temporary ban by the mod.

If I am going to sum up, an old picture showing an imperial guardswoman would not convince you (it is old!), a new picture showing an imperial guardswoman would not convince you (they are caving under pressure from “us pc people”). Nothing will convince you, then. This picture is quite a good proof that in the original version of the fluff, without any commercial pressure yet, there was already imperial guardswomen.

I would be fine with a 30% women and 70% men, actually, and I am quite sure that most people would. But that is beside the point. That Wikipedia article is there to show you that the concept of a female knight is not ridiculous. Way less so than an acid-spitting knight. It was never intended to be an argument in its own right, it was intended as a counter to your argument that a female knight would be a ridiculous concept.

Why not complement fictional racism with “real” racism? A bunch of reasons. The satire/criticism usually works better that way. It will serve better as a form of escapism. It makes much more sense in-universe.
Basically the same reasons why the criticism of religion is not attacking actual Christianity but “the cult of the God-Emperor”.

**Sienisoturi**

Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away. However, of course to this many people will say that including women would increase the number of female gamers, but I find that to be untrue. It is funny how many people have said that females are especialy attracted to female models, but nobody has provided any evidence. However, from my empirical data it would actually seem that inhumane armies like tyranids that are more animal like seem to attract female gamers more. Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing.

Also it is very funny, how many people in this thread first complain that there are not enough females in the fluff, yet when it supports their argument they can come up with several examples. Although to be honest the number of women in the fluff at the moment seems to be about okay, as you would not expect the gender ration in the military to change after staying the same for as long as history has been recorded. However it actually makes a lot of sense though that there are much more females in the FFG material, as the ratio could be much more balanced in the navy, and would be more balanced in the terms of the civilian population.

**RazgrizOne**

Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away

"People will be driven away by women. The most obvious reason for this is they would be driven away by women". That's a fair point.... And don't say SoB are a proof of the commercial unattractivity of women, you perfectly know they were forsaken for too long. My bet new SoB plastic army would sell very well, just like Skitarii and AdMech are.

Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing

I would be curious to witness your "empirical data". Can you shed some light on it? Cause at first glance it just seems to be your short-viewed personal observations gathered without any methodology.

And what if I told you that it's not all about bringing girls in? Many male hobbyists would be glad to add women in their army and that's why you have such a flourishing parallel market on female minis on the internet. I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be.

Your argument about the historical military ratio is also irrelevant : you compare real history where male domination was a thing for 2000 years with a dystopian universe where everybody is expected to fight for the Emperor, regardless of its gender. On Cadia, conscription rate is actually 100% so 50% of Shock Troopers should be women on the field. This is not a golden rule on Imperial worlds but on the grim darkness of a far future, there's only war and everybody ends up being threatened one day.

**Psienesis**

Sienisoturi wrote:
Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away. However, of course to this many people will say that including women would increase the number of female gamers, but I find that to be untrue. It is funny how many people have said that females are especialy attracted to female models, but nobody has provided any evidence. However, from my empirical data it would actually seem that inhumane armies like tyranids that are more animal like seem to attract female gamers more. Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing.

Also it is very funny, how many people in this thread first complain that there are not enough females in the fluff, yet when it supports their argument they can come up with several examples. Although to be honest the number of women in the fluff at the moment seems to be about okay, as you would not expect the gender ration in the military to change after staying the same for as long as history has been recorded. However it actually makes a lot of sense though that there are much more females in the FFG material, as the ratio could be much more balanced in the navy, and would be more balanced in the terms of the civilian population.

... the other options are the ultra-expensive Sisters of Battle or limited choices in the two Eldar lines. It's a self-fulfilling issue. The argument is never "not enough women in the fluff"; the complaint is always "not enough women in the model-line for armies where they should be".

as you would not expect the gender ration in the military to change after staying the same for as long as history has been recorded

This line doesn't make any sense. The span of time between now, 2015, and M41 is eight times longer than the entire span of recorded human history, starting now and working backwards.

**Sienisoturi**

RazgrizOne wrote:
Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away

"People will be driven away by women. The most obvious reason for this is they would be driven away by women". That's a fair point.... And don't say SoB are a proof of the commercial unattractivity of women, you perfectly know they were forsaken for too long. My bet new SoB plastic army would sell very well, just like Skitarii and AdMech are.

Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing

I would be curious to witness your "empirical data". Can you shed some light on it? Cause at first glance it just seems to be your short-viewed personal observations gathered without any methodology.

And what if I told you that it's not all about bringing girls in? Many male hobbyists would be glad to add women in their army and that's why you have such a flourishing parallel market on female minis on the internet. I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be.

Your argument about the historical military ratio is also irrelevant : you compare real history where male domination was a thing for 2000 years with a dystopian universe where everybody is expected to fight for the Emperor, regardless of its gender. On Cadia, conscription rate is actually 100% so 50% of Shock Troopers should be women on the field. This is not a golden rule on Imperial worlds but on the grim darkness of a far future, there's only war and everybody ends up being threatened one day.

I'll just underlight the areas that are quotes from your text.

""People will be driven away by women. The most obvious reason for this is they would be driven away by women". That's a fair point.... And don't say SoB are a proof of the commercial unattractivity of women, you perfectly know they were forsaken for too long. My bet new SoB plastic army would sell very well, just like Skitarii and AdMech are."

We are talking about increasing the ratio of female models in the IG and SM here by replacing some male models, not about making a completely new army or remaking its models. I hope you misread me accidentally.

"I would be curious to witness your "empirical data". Can you shed some light on it? Cause at first glance it just seems to be your short-viewed personal observations gathered without any methodology."

My empirical data is just as valid as your claim that females are more attracted to female models. Until somebody posts an actual source it can't be said for sure if either of these claims are correct.

"And what if I told you that it's not all about bringing girls in? Many male hobbyists would be glad to add women in their army and that's why you have such a flourishing parallel market on female minis on the internet. I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be.

Your argument about the historical military ratio is also irrelevant : you compare real history where male domination was a thing for 2000 years with a dystopian universe where everybody is expected to fight for the Emperor, regardless of its gender. On Cadia, conscription rate is actually 100% so 50% of Shock Troopers should be women on the field. This is not a golden rule on Imperial worlds but on the grim darkness of a far future, there's only war and everybody ends up being threatened one day."

Just as some people might prefer to have more females in the armies, some might prefer the more realistic gender ratio the same way that many people would prefer a new design for the leman-russ. Also the sources upon Cadia seem to conflict. I recall that some sources claim that only males are sent to frontline duty, and some say that all people are sent to the duty without regard to gender.

**RazgrizOne**

Claiming for realism (also known for your purpose as XXI°century/real human history reference) in a fictional universe where pretty much everything we know does not exit anymore is utterly out of any logic, I guess you get that.

Plus I never said that females minis = auto-female customers. You even copy/paste my sentence "I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be" but you did not understand it very well.

About empirical stuff, you just prove me right saying you have nothing. All along my posts, I tried to emphasize on the difficulty of the gender topic and made moderate claims to stick as close as possible to reality, taking in account that social situations can be completly different.

You just came saying : "lol girlz will make guyz quit the hobby because they are girlz".

So much social understandiiiiiing and careful thinking !! I don't pretend to be a sociologist but come on.

**Sienisoturi**

RazgrizOne wrote:
Claiming for realism (also known for your purpose as XXI°century/real human history reference) in a fictional universe where pretty much everything we know does not exit anymore is utterly out of any logic, I guess you get that.

Plus I never said that females minis = auto-female customers. You even copy/paste my sentence "I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be" but you did not understand it very well.

About empirical stuff, you just prove me right saying you have nothing. All along my posts, I tried to emphasize on the difficulty of the gender topic and made moderate claims to stick as close as possible to reality, taking in account that social situations can be completly different.

You just came saying : "lol girlz will make guyz quit the hobby because they are girlz".

So much social understandiiiiiing and careful thinking !! I don't pretend to be a sociologist but come on.

Most of your post appears to be a straw man, could you please refrain from making mistakes like that. I never said that all the players would leave if there were more female models, nor that there could not be female soldiers due to historical reasons. What I stated instead was that some people might be driven away from the game because of that, as they are used to the setting and would feel that changing it would be forced.

**Psienesis**

It's not changing the setting, it's simply changing the product line... and changing it back to what it was 20 years ago, at that, in some instances.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Not being able to identify because of sex/race seems like a personal problem more than anything as it's hardly a requirement. If someone struggles to identify with a sex/race that's not their own then they should probably be asking themselves if they're just a little bit racist/sexist, not the other way around

Can I ask you your race and gender? I would like to know if you have ever been subjected to the problem and are talking from experience, or if you are just talking about other people experiences about something you never had to experience.
Because I remember an Iranian friend of mine, which is really as far as one can be from a racist, telling me how it was going to be so nice to actually see people that looked like her on screen when we went to see Prince of Persia. While she had never complained about it before, and has never complained about it after either, by the way.

I'm male, half Indian (from India) and half Australian. Maybe because I grew up in that environment it's not really a "thing" for me.

It's not that I don't appreciate wanting diversity, I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires. Especially because when people do go out of their way to do that, they rarely do it justice unless they have a genuine passion to do it.

That's assuming having a personal or cultural connection with the models is even necessary. My first army was Lizardmen, I have no links with South American culture nor am I a lizard

I think the end goal should be a society that doesn't need a model that fits their race/gender in order to be able to identify with them. At that point I see no difference between wanting a Hispanic female model and not getting them or wanting any other aesthetic design choice and not getting it.

**Peregrine**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires.

Why? People complain about everything else about GW's models and demand changes, so why is this any different?

I think the end goal should be a society that doesn't need a model that fits their race/gender in order to be able to identify with them.

That's nice, but it's very easy for you to say that since you have plenty of male characters to identify with. Many women feel that the lack of female characters is a problem and are less interested in stories/hobbies/etc where that lack of representation exists.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Peregrine have you looked at IG faces recently, Vasquez looks like a nice girl in comparision.

IG faces don't look mean, they look poorly sculpted.

If it is for you then you qualify for the forefront of the ridiculous pc overeaction club instantly.

IOW, "STOP CRITICIZING THIS THING I LIKE". And you say I'm overreacting...

Something to identify with? Black people have salamanders, Asian have white scars, women have sisters.

Do you really not see a problem with being limited to token characters/armies? That's still sending a message that the default is a white man, and everyone else is stuffed into their token niche where they can be mostly ignored.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Peregrine wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires.

Why? People complain about everything else about GW's models and demand changes, so why is this any different?

That's exactly my point. Why is it any different? We don't need a 20 page thread about it twice a week because it shouldn't be any different.

I think the end goal should be a society that doesn't need a model that fits their race/gender in order to be able to identify with them.

That's nice, but it's very easy for you to say that since you have plenty of male characters to identify with. Many women feel that the lack of female characters is a problem and are less interested in stories/hobbies/etc where that lack of representation exists.

But who says a designer has to make something that is trying to appeal to everyone to begin with? A designer should (IMO) stick to producing what THEY want to produce and what THEY have a vision for. Which is why, to me, the question isn't "why isn't there a larger mix of gender and race in models?", it's "why aren't there more designers who want to make those models?" (and I'm not saying the answer to that is a simple one, but IMO it's both the more useful and productive one to ask).

**Aben Zin**

Just a quick point about female guard torso. Here is a female soldier:

Spoiler:

Here is another:

Spoiler:

And another:

Spoiler:

Really the Cadian torso is actually a pretty realistic model for a female torso in body armour. Some female heads would be nice still, of course.

Az

**Peregrine**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That's exactly my point. Why is it any different? We don't need a 20 page thread about it twice a week because it shouldn't be any different.

We don't get that many threads on the subject, and there are plenty of posts/threads complaining about GW's other design issues. The main reason this one gets more attention than the others is that there are a lot more people willing to stubbornly defend the absurd lack of female models than things like the Taurox or Wolfy Claus and his sleigh.

A designer should (IMO) stick to producing what THEY want to produce and what THEY have a vision for.

That's not a very good way to run a company. If you're working as a designer for a company larger than your personal sculpting work you're going to design what your boss tells you to design, based on what the company wants to sell. It's nice if the designer is happy with their work, but you don't just tell them "make us whatever stuff you like".

**nudibranch**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

You think what they're already doing isn't pandering? It is.

It's just pandering to you.

**SilverMK2**

Aben Zin wrote:
Just a quick point about female guard torso. Here is a female soldier:

Spoiler:

Here is another:

Spoiler:

And another:

Spoiler:

Really the Cadian torso is actually a pretty realistic model for a female torso in body armour. Some female heads would be nice still, of course.

Az

Victoria Miniatures has an excellent range of female guardswomen which are realistic but still give you the sense of them being female soldiers; it is the little things like slightly shorter models, slightly thinner arms and legs, and of course well sculpted faces.

http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/products/female-troops-and-bits?pagesize=12

Personally I enjoy having a mix of male and female troops in my Eldar. It adds a lot to be able to see that the entire population is out to ensure the survival of the Eldar race. Sadly I sold my IG before Victoria sculpted her guardswomen otherwise I would have included them. My D&D/Pathfinder/RPG model collection has a huge number of female models of various races and classes, though strangely most of the bad guy races are male (orcs, zombies, etc

).

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's not that I don't appreciate wanting diversity, I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires.

What is the problem with complaining about it? It that not called feedback, and something that companies like to get so they can make more attractive products?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That's assuming having a personal or cultural connection with the models is even necessary. My first army was Lizardmen, I have no links with South American culture nor am I a lizard

My first army was lizardmen too. And then Sisters of Battle (which I painted black). And then trollbloods. I do not think I own any model of a white man, which I am. I still have tons and tons of white male present in almost every setting of every media I ever consume. Be it comics, movies, video games, wargames, …
So of course, not getting a white male once in a while (say, in Shadow Warrior, very nice FPS which I am currently playing where the hero and the other human characters are all Japanese) is absolutely not a problem to me. I still can see how it could grew tiresome and annoying if there never, or almost never was any white man in there.

**Ulverus**

Drager wrote:

Personally my human models are painted a mix of different races, as I find monochrome human groups weird and off putting, I've seen plenty of private collections painted as different races too. Much as I've seen many private collections with more women. GW as a company, though, seems to have a bit of a racism and sexism problem.

I don't think they have a problem I think it just is simply due to multiple factors.

Their primary demographic is white and male. Generally when I make a character in a video game or paint I project my own being into a model / character. I assume these artists or painters do the same so you are left with a scheme that reflects the creators.

I also figured the Imperium is very culty-religious like with the Emperor so they were naturally anti-women. Even they have Sisters of Battle, Assassins, female inquisition. Some Eldar craft worlds are matriarchal.

As others have said it just seems up to preference. To say GW has a bit of a racism or sexism problem is looking at what simply is through a narrow perspective making it seem like this conclusion could only come about from negative items. I'd look to other games that ONLY make female characters and exploit that type of marketing if you want to look at a sexism problem.

**nudibranch**

Whilst they might not be the majority, a lot of woman and PoC do play 40k, and more probably would if they had better representation within the setting., which I personally think would be awesome!

Also, as others have pointed out, the IoM has never been particularly racist, sexist, homophobic etc., probably because 1) it's been 40,000 years, presumably most modern bigotry has died out in that time (and has been replaced by NEW bigotry! Burn the heretic!) and 2) they probably can't afford to be bigoted when you need a bajillion soldiers to fight off some alien bugs!

**General Kroll**

SilverMK2 wrote:
though strangely most of the bad guy races are male (orcs, zombies, etc ).

Hehe I always kind of thought the IoM were the main "bad guys"