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 the Signless wrote:
]One problem is that GW seems to be terrified of trying to change any of the lore that they have written for the Space Marines, treating their fluff books like a holy text. They created the current version of Space Marines when their audience consisted of a few men playing with metal models in England, making them epitomise the ideal version of manliness as it appears to a gamer. Since then, Games Workshop and the hobby have grown, but they refuse to let go of this aspect of the Space Marines.

I've never really seen it that way; aren't Space Marines supposed to be at least somewhat satirical? They're logisitically and politically insane, another tradition and superstition-steeped branch of the decaying Imperium that succeeds in spite of instead of because of itself.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Would you honestly believe that the Imperium is half that bad, but for some reason gender equality is absolutely fine? That for some reason a guardsman's life is worth less than the lasgiun he carries, but don't worry if he's transgendered they'll be sure to call him by his preferred pronoun before they tell him to run across a field to clear mines with his face?

On the other hand, I've never seen the Imperium at large as having problems with gender equality, and their racism tends to be reserved for abhumans, mutants, and xenos in order of increasing intolerance. What was that Pratchett quote? Something about black and white getting together and ganging up on green...

Why should the Departmento Munitorum care if someone identifies as male or female? Like you said, they work equally well for mine clearance duty. They'd probably shrug and get on with it, assuming all the right paperwork's been filed and nobody's lost it.

 Spinner wrote:
I've never really seen it that way; aren't Space Marines supposed to be at least somewhat satirical? They're logisitically and politically insane, another tradition and superstition-steeped branch of the decaying Imperium that succeeds in spite of instead of because of itself.

They used to be. Now they're more often portrayed as straightforward AWESOME WARRIOR HERO wish fulfillment.


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MorkorpossiblyGork wrote:
So its ok for Females to have an entire army (SoB) but god forbid IG and SM don't have females? Can we have Brothers of Battle to then?

Do you honestly think that a single mostly-forgotten army is the equivalent of GW's biggest product line (and by a huge margin) and one of the second-tier product lines combined?

How about we just throw the game away and hold hands and sing Kumbayah? would that make it all better?

It is possible for you to have a discussion without taking everything to ridiculous extremes? There are a wide range of possibilities between "do nothing" and "throw the game away entirely". For example, adding female models to the IG range would improve the situation significantly without hurting the game at all.

Here is a crazy idea. Instead of worrying about all the small things like plastic figurines in a table top game why not focus on the bigger issues? Like women in certain countries not getting to vote and being raped/molested because they are females?

Ah yes, the classic "someone else has a bigger problem so you can never try to fix anything smaller" argument. I could tell you all of the reasons why it's a terrible argument, but even you don't believe it's a good argument. A brief scan of your posting history shows that you're quite happy to spend time complaining about how weak your orks are in 7th. So, I'll just ask the same question of you: why are you worrying about small things like how powerful the formation rules are for your army when there are much bigger issues to worry about?

I will never understand why so many people focus so much on plastic people's privates.

Books written by men are largely men characters, books written by women are largely female characters.

Anyone see twilight? This girl who looks like a camel has a vampire willing to let his whole family get murdered for a chick he met hours ago. Then this other guy who is a werewolf puts his whole pack on the line because he wants to protect her and they walk around half naked around her 24/7. And one of them is a freaking human shiny aka diamond. Never heard one thing sexist in that. Hell even go to a book store and look at romance books, all them have half naked muscle bound men with perfect hair jobs and personallity. So the women are the prise and they have to do nothing but pick and choose if they let him get her. again not sexest?

But draw three men in a row and you get people up in your ass saying your sexest. But if you ever notice anything, notice this all the people who quote this bs and are male are more often then not the ones you look at and go "no one in a million years would sleep with that" so they jump on a cause to win pity points.

Long story short sexist behavior exist in both worlds they just pick the one they are involved in. Also I want to see more ugly fat hairless toothless men following a girl around and sending her flowers who gets the girl and is called a romantic rather then a stalker.

Guess which 3 images are on romance novels and which would be called stalkers or rapists. seems sexist to me








sexism is indeed here.

OgreChubbs wrote:
I will never understand why so many people focus so much on plastic people's privates.

Because there's way more to gender than what's in your pants.

Books written by men are largely men characters, books written by women are largely female characters.

Maybe books written by lazy authors. There are plenty of authors that have characters of the opposite sex.

Anyone see twilight?

What's your point? Twilight is a book/movie series with some major issues. It also has nothing to do with 40k.

But draw three men in a row and you get people up in your ass saying your sexest.

You really don't.

But if you ever notice anything, notice this all the people who quote this bs and are male are more often then not the ones you look at and go "no one in a million years would sleep with that" so they jump on a cause to win pity points.

...

I really have no idea how to respond to this without breaking forum rules. Let's just stick with saying it's wrong on the level of "OMG THE BLACK HELICOPTER MIND CONTROL IN THE CHEMTRAILS", and a rather nasty personal attack at the same time.

 Peregrine wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
3. Not every setting needs to be a champion of equality. I wonder, maybe part of having the space marines as genetic abominations that are male entirely is to point out exactly how INEQUAL people are in the imperium? You know, a universe that is so horrible to be an average Joe in that it makes 3rd world modern countries look like utopias? Inequality in a setting can help get across the idea that maybe, just maybe a setting that describes itself as "grimdark" is a gakky place to live? Many of these people are lucky to get a warm meal everyday and not fall into the machinery. They have way bigger things to worry about than what pronoun they're referred to by.

Would you honestly believe that the Imperium is half that bad, but for some reason gender equality is absolutely fine? That for some reason a guardsman's life is worth less than the lasgiun he carries, but don't worry if he's transgendered they'll be sure to call him by his preferred pronoun before they tell him to run across a field to clear mines with his face?

This would be a much stronger point if GW portrayed the lack of women in the military as a horrible dystopian thing, rather than just yet another case of the default hero being a white man. And, honestly, it doesn't make much sense for the Imperium's evils to neatly line up with real-world prejudices. For example, we know that the Imperium is actually fairly tolerant of differences in religion, as long as you throw a superficial layer of Emperor worship on top of your beliefs. And real-world racism wouldn't make any sense at all because the origins of that racism would be 38,000 years in the past on a planet that most citizens of the Imperium have barely even heard the name of. So yeah, maybe the Imperium would be perfectly happy to use a guardsman's preferred pronouns for a few seconds before that guardsman is splattered by a bolter shot in a suicidal human wave attack, because nobody 38,000 years in the future considers it an important issue anymore.

Also, even if it's not strictly realistic, the goal here is out-of-universe inclusiveness. If you have to bend the fluff a bit to let people who aren't middle-class straight white guys have people they can identify with then I don't think that's a very high price to pay.

\
I think it makes sense for the prejudices to match up, if only to make it relatable to the audience. And I don't know if I'd call the Imperium tolerant of religion when rejecting the emperor means your planet gets glassed, even if they give you some freedom in how you do worship him. I guess it's still more progressive than the Catholic church used to be though, so maybe you have a point.

As for the rest, I think it's more an issue of GW dropping the ball on how they handle the universe, and how poorly it's fleshed out when it doesn't have the words "Space Marine" in the book's title. Usually all you hear is "life sucks for average Joe working in the mines/ship's reload mechanism/factorums/scribe hive/etc." And the lack of female guard is a dropped opportunity as well when the background mentions them so much. When IG was redone, we really just needed redone infantry kits with a variety of head options and I think IG fans would have been way more happy than with what we actually got. I hope it's not coming across that I'm against women in the IG, I know that they're definitely a part of the background and make sense. Mainly just against the idea of Space Marines suddenly having women after 10,000 years of being boys only, and the idea that transgendered marines or whatever HAVE to exist. Honestly less for political correctness or resistance against it, and more because I think we all know GW would HORRIBLY screw up the implementation of that.

On the other hand, revive the Sisters of Battle line, clearly make a point of "hey, they're equipped as special forces of the church and can only be women because reasons" as a counterpart of "the space marines are equipped with the best stuff that the mechanicus isn't hording and can only be men because reasons" and then it's not a big deal. Then you have a special forces type deal comprising of women to counterpart the marines, MAKE THEM IN PLASTIC, and make a point to make them a relevant part of the background, not just the source of ready made purity paint for Grey Knight armor. If that could be done, and mixed IG units is a possibility, you fix the issues of "inclusiveness" for getting people into the game (for the Imperium at least), and don't have to completely handwave 10,000 years of "history" and hamfist female marines in awkwardly.

Really all I'm trying to say is that making women space marines at this point is a terrible idea. Maybe when the game first came out over 20 years ago, yes, you could make a point for a change, but the game is just way too far along now to make a change like that without it coming across as pandering, horrible pandering, or just screwing it up in general, and then NO ONE is happy.

The Imperium is vast, with cultures covering the whole spectrum of human experience. Most of these cultures will contribute soldiers and sailors to the IG and IN. You will get chem addicted ganger conscripts fighting alongside highly trained professional forces, Amazonian women besides Herculean men, male supremicists besides female supremicisists... and half of them will not even be able to talk with one another due to corruption of Low Gothic.

It would be nice if GW could reflect some of this background in their model line. The Last Chancers were a good mixed unit if I recall correctly, but that is about it...

In terms of female space marines, there was some interesting fluff for female CSM from... Doc Thunder? Basically Fab Bile made a genetically dominant strain of most of the SM implants that was passed on down the female line; these women were then infiltrated onto a target world and procrated, their daughters being more versions of themselves. When the time came for invasion their physiology changed as the implants became active and their programming and cult cells went to war... armour was either shipped in, made, or they used standard armours fron PDF, AA, IG, etc...

Im sorry but if we are going to go into this whole correctness thing why is the author going on about females? don't transgender have the same rights?

Then if we go that far what about gay and lesbian models being a stand out. shouldn't there be parts to depict these lifestyles?

shouldn't games workshop provide heads that depict Asian's Africans and Caucasian without being politically incorrect? Not a head that depicts a generic face? but specific faces for each race?

There has to be a line in the sand.

 XdeadpoolX wrote:
Im sorry but if we are going to go into this whole correctness thing why is the author going on about females? don't transgender have the same rights?

Quite so. One could address this issue by making female models to go alongside the male model lines as, generally, transgender people will either be male or female. There are of course those who identify as no gender and other things as well; I would welcome your suggestions on how this would be modelled at 28mm.

Then if we go that far what about gay and lesbian models being a stand out. shouldn't there be parts to depict these lifestyles?

Indeed there should! I think the inclusion of male and female model options would allow you to make as many homosexual (and indeed other alternative sexuality) models of either gender as you like!

shouldn't games workshop provide heads that depict Asian's Africans and Caucasian without being politically incorrect? Not a head that depicts a generic face? but specific faces for each race?

Wow, you are on fire in your drive for inclusivity! Perhaps rather than being included as standard, head sets should be available as a free out-of-box addon? That way you can specify what kind of heads you would like.

There has to be a line in the sand.

And your inspired suggestions have really demonstrated just how far short GW has fallen of that line in providing for even the most basic level of inclusivity reflective of the background of their own setting, not to mention their player base, both existing and potential!

 Ignatius wrote:

I'm very glad that I can dispel the idea that we are lowering standards to accommodate women. Because that's not true at all.

The US Army certainly is - the standards are lower in two of the three events of the APFT. The standard for push up is more than halved for females.


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 Peregrine wrote:

Not much difference =/= no difference at all. Why settle for mediocre kits and having to pretend that half your Tau are female when you can hold GW to a higher standard and demand actual female parts.

There are several female Tau heads available.

What exactly would these female body parts look like? Are you saying that a fire warrior can't be female unless she's got boob plate?

 XdeadpoolX wrote:
Im sorry but if we are going to go into this whole correctness thing why is the author going on about females?

Because this isn't a contest of "pick the least-represented group possible and only ask for that".

don't transgender have the same rights?

Then if we go that far what about gay and lesbian models being a stand out. shouldn't there be parts to depict these lifestyles?

Given that neither of those things have any external signs that you'd be able to see on a 28mm model, no, those aren't very relevant issues. And I think you know this already.

shouldn't games workshop provide heads that depict Asian's Africans and Caucasian without being politically incorrect? Not a head that depicts a generic face? but specific faces for each race?

You're right, they should have more variety in head shapes. Of course, given the limits of GW's sculpting talent, it's unlikely that this will ever happen. We're lucky if GW's faces are even identifiable as human.

There has to be a line in the sand.

Why? What is this catastrophic harm that a line in the sand is protecting against?

 Peregrine wrote:
Why? What is this catastrophic harm that a line in the sand is protecting against?

It used to be commies. That was the start of all this. Damned pinkos!

 Scott-S6 wrote:
There are several female Tau heads available.

What exactly would these female body parts look like? Are you saying that a fire warrior can't be female unless she's got boob plate?

There aren't really "several" heads available, there's a head option in (IIRC) one battlesuit kit but that's all. Most Tau kits don't have any female options.

Also, there's a difference between "visibly female" and "boob plate". The issue with "boob plate" armor isn't that it's shaped differently due to differences between male and female bodies, it's that it has wildly exaggerated breast shapes that have nothing to do with any realistic body that would be wearing it and compromise its ability to function as armor. IOW, it's designed to say "this is a (sexy) woman" as loudly as possible, not to be armor that a female soldier would actually wear.

Space Marines are Arthurian knights in space. Why they are male is the same reason they wear armor and have heraldry all over them. Because they're space Arthurian knights.

Obsessing about gender issues is really silly and tedious.

Alcibiades wrote:
Space Marines are Arthurian knights in space. Why they are male is the same reason they wear armor and have heraldry all over them. Because they're space Arthurian knights.

I see. So, if you put Arthurian knights into space, give them grenade launcher rifles and chainsaws instead of swords, drop them from orbit and have them ride armored motorcycles instead of horses, etc, the Arthurian knights theme is still clearly recognizable. But if you make any of them women that's just one step too far and they're no longer Arthurian knights. Makes perfect sense to me...

 Peregrine wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Space Marines are Arthurian knights in space. Why they are male is the same reason they wear armor and have heraldry all over them. Because they're space Arthurian knights.

I see. So, if you put Arthurian knights into space, give them grenade launcher rifles and chainsaws instead of swords, drop them from orbit and have them ride armored motorcycles instead of horses, etc, the Arthurian knights theme is still clearly recognizable. But if you make any of them women that's just one step too far and they're no longer Arthurian knights. Makes perfect sense to me...

One might even say that obsessing over them having to be male is really silly and tedious...

Women are not supposed to die in wars. They're more important than men cause they're needed to produce other people. Kill half the men and after one or two generations there's going to be the same number of people. Kill half the women and it's a much more severe blow to society. Besides, women are weaker physically.
Also, there allrady are adepta sorotitas and they're not a very popular army. Why bother make more of those?

 koooaei wrote:
Women are not supposed to die in wars. They're more important than men cause they're needed to produce other people. Kill half the men and after one or two generations there's going to be the same number of people. Kill half the women and it's a much more severe blow to society.

Fortunately the IG represents a tiny percentage of a planet's population, and even taking a planet's entire recruiting quota in women would make no difference in the planet's population. And in a total war situation where a planet is forced to commit more than its recruiting quota to a battle you have no choice. Everyone who is physically capable of fighting (or at least dying and making the enemy spend a bullet that could otherwise kill someone more important) gets a flashlight and a t-shirt and is thrown into battle, with no thoughts at all about the future. Being able to rebuild a planet's population is not very useful when everyone on the planet was literally eaten by Tyranids, or exposed to demonic influences and subject to mass execution anyway even if they win the war.

Besides, women are weaker physically.

And? Ignoring the difference in average physical strength is a pretty tiny violation of realism compared to everything else in 40k. In a universe where giant fungus monsters act like rioting soccer fans, interstellar travel is done by opening a literal portal to hell, WWI trench warfare is normal, etc, letting women be as strong as men is not an issue.


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 koooaei wrote:
Also, there allrady are adepta sorotitas and they're not a very popular army. Why bother make more of those?

The popularity issues with SoB have very little to do with the fact that they're female models and a lot to do with the fact that GW barely even acknowledges that they exist. They're all metal (IOW, expensive as hell even by 40k standards and a pain to deal with), their rules are OOP, and most of the kits are from 20+ years ago and desperately need an update to modern standards.

I don't say that women should NEVER be fighting. It's just not a normal situation.

However, in case of GW it's another issue. I think they're not sure if it would pay off fully to sculpt a whole bunch of new minis justto represent women of all the same faction.

 koooaei wrote:
I don't say that women should NEVER be fighting. It's just not a normal situation.

However, in case of GW it's another issue. I think they're not sure if it would pay off fully to sculpt a whole bunch of new minis just to represent women of all the same faction.

They don't think it would pay off to fully resculp the Cadian line to make them look like people, not potato men, I'm still baffled why people think GW need to make female IG when we don't have good IG to begin with.

Alcibiades wrote:
Space Marines are Arthurian knights in space. Why they are male is the same reason they wear armor and have heraldry all over them. Because they're space Arthurian knights.

Obsessing about gender issues is really silly and tedious.

This whole thread is based on the idea that the lack of women in 40K Is so trivial that it justifies a lot of argument to show that it is trivial.

This obviously is cognitive dissonance.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Space Marines are Arthurian knights in space. Why they are male is the same reason they wear armor and have heraldry all over them. Because they're space Arthurian knights.

Obsessing about gender issues is really silly and tedious.

This whole thread is based on the idea that the lack of women in 40K Is so trivial that it justifies a lot of argument to show that it is trivial.

This obviously is cognitive dissonance.

To be fair, we are gamers, and this is the internet, so basically we're the group that loves to argue trivial things in the place that has the most trivial arguments. I mean just look at the raging debates about the aesthetics of a lightsaber or who would win between coke and Muhammad Ali, this thread/discussion isn't even a blip on the radar compared to those.

Go look at Victoria Miniatures, some amazingly good female imperial guard there, they even look like real women rather than 80s stereotypes :-)

For varieties sake if nothing else I would love to see more female models and fluff in 40k and fantasy but to be honest does everything need to be pc these days?

Why do you want 40K to be unfriendly to women and girls?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Why do you want 40K to be unfriendly to women and girls?

Wargamers are directy descended from knights and should therefore only be men. Or something.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Why do you want 40K to be unfriendly to women and girls?

Is it exactly unfriendly to them that a group of essentially backwards fanatics don't have female representation in one sector of their army, while having an all female section as well? All the while the more reasonable factions like the Tau have a strong amount of representation.

I personally agree that they can have female heads in the IG line and it would be good, but making armour that looks female is silly. After all, the rumour is that when Joan of Atc was accused of the crime of crossdressing her defense was that there's no such thing as a armoured dress, and the notion of one is silly. Breast plates are unisex after all.

I don't mind girl soldiers. Just trying to explain why it's likely the way it is right now.


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 Tinkrr wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Why do you want 40K to be unfriendly to women and girls?

Is it exactly unfriendly to them that a group of essentially backwards fanatics don't have female representation in one sector of their army, while having an all female section as well? All the while the more reasonable factions like the Tau have a strong amount of representation.

I personally agree that they can have female heads in the IG line and it would be good, but making armour that looks female is silly. After all, the rumour is that when Joan of Atc was accused of the crime of crossdressing her defense was that there's no such thing as a armoured dress, and the notion of one is silly. Breast plates are unisex after all.

Dark eldar also have a lot of females. Mostly bikini-plate but still.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
There are several female Tau heads available.

What exactly would these female body parts look like? Are you saying that a fire warrior can't be female unless she's got boob plate?

There aren't really "several" heads available, there's a head option in (IIRC) one battlesuit kit but that's all. Most Tau kits don't have any female options.

Also, there's a difference between "visibly female" and "boob plate". The issue with "boob plate" armor isn't that it's shaped differently due to differences between male and female bodies, it's that it has wildly exaggerated breast shapes that have nothing to do with any realistic body that would be wearing it and compromise its ability to function as armor. IOW, it's designed to say "this is a (sexy) woman" as loudly as possible, not to be armor that a female soldier would actually wear.

One of the two battlesuits that has a pilot model has a female head and one of the two infantry kits has a female head. And there's shadowsun.

So what would these body shape differences be? Tau are already extremely skinny and they've got rigid plates over chest and thighs.

What is the point of this argument? I find it pretty funny how heated its getting.

"I reckon it'd be sweet to see some female heads on some of the factions that don't have them"

"YOU DARE COME INTO 'MY' HOBBY AND ADD FEMALE HEADS TO IT? You disgust me..."

Can I ask a question? Who cares? If they add a couple of head option that some people like, how the hell does that affect the people who don't want it? Don't need to put those heads on your figures, and you can continue to collect your army of men. Some people want some female heads in their army. "OH GOD! female heads?! SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS GETTING THEIR WAY!" Or maybe some people just want some female heads... Just like we all want updated chaos figures. What is the big deal? I'm baffled by how self righteous so many people are in this hobby when 40k is ALL ABOUT DIVERSITY AND CRAZY THINGS AND EVEYTHING UNREALISTIC! Has everyone forgotten what 40k was originally? A crazy hard rock 80's punk 'f*ck everything real' hobby of crazy sh*t.

And here we have a bunch of losers whinging about how it'd be "diversity for diversity's sake" to add a bunch of female heads to some factions that don't have them.....

I feel like some of you should grow up and get over yourselves and just let some things go for the sake of a few people who'd like them, which don't even impact you in any way.

Peace out peeps

The banality of evil: Who says I can't cosplay a SS-Totenkopfverbände officer because I'm a female? In my headcanon, the Schutzstaffeln were a very inclusive organization! Oh, and I love George Orwell's 1984, but I find Julia's reckless attitude towards sex degrading and frankly off-putting. And why there are no genderqueer Inner Party members?

Seriously, I think this has less to do with feminism and more with the fandom's obsession to transform every story ever written into playgrounds where fans can insert themselves.

I'm a male, and as I've written a dozen times before I have a hard time relating to any of the male characters in this game. Save for a handful rare specimens who are mostly written to provide a counterpoint (and who always end up dying horribly or having their worldviews and lives shattered by the horror that surrounds them) most characters in 40k are written as inhuman monsters. Deranged psychopaths in deformed, mutilated bodies. Precisely, some of the high moments in wh40k narrative come from the infrequent instances where the token "heroic" nazi-du-jour (be it Talos of the Night Lords, Lorgar, Gaunt or Eisenhorn) offers a rare glimpse of humanity.

This "article" is utter trash and not worth the name, let alone the discussion it's spawned.

Please not that I am, in fact, saying this as a woman, a feminist, and a Sisters player.

I'm also saying this as an academic who is utterly disgusted by the lack of research, data sourcing and actual, worthwhile content in the post.

About the only thing the author wrote that has any merit is that female Guard models would be cool, and the Sisters need updating... and that is pure opinion, no matter how much he tries to dress it up as fact!

Honestly, it's clickbait using the name Warhammer to try and expand its market share.