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 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd still like someone to explain why "feminism = female space marines". Is everyone so unimaginative that the only way they can think of to increase the presence of women in the 41st milennium is to make them Space Marines?

No idea who else mentioned it if anyone (as I refuse to read this thread in its entirety), but I mentioned it because I remember an absolutely moronic article from one of those clickbait site. I also remember my more... easily upset friends reacting somewhat strongly to it as well. So it really encapsulates the entire situation for me. Morons on one end, paranoid nutters on the other, everyone sane just moves on and ignores them, maybe while agreeing yes SoB need to get some new models and more attention overall.

SilverAlien wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd still like someone to explain why "feminism = female space marines". Is everyone so unimaginative that the only way they can think of to increase the presence of women in the 41st milennium is to make them Space Marines?

No idea who else mentioned it if anyone (as I refuse to read this thread in its entirety), but I mentioned it because I remember an absolutely moronic article from one of those clickbait site. I also remember my more... easily upset friends reacting somewhat strongly to it as well. So it really encapsulates the entire situation for me. Morons on one end, paranoid nutters on the other, everyone sane just moves on and ignores them, maybe while agreeing yes SoB need to get some new models and more attention overall.

I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

 Luciferian wrote:

 Aesthete wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
Aaaaaand now we get to implied insults and false dichotomies which label only one specific way of viewing things as correct, and anything else as the last gasp of threatened, inadequate manchildren etc. in spite of the fact that literally everyone here is advocating for more female representation in the models.

Yawn.

Is this targeted at anything or anyone in specific?

Why, looking for recognition? Here, have this award for posting in bad faith.

No, I was wondering who you were responding to since it wasn't immediately clear from your post.

Luckily your subsequent posts have made it pretty clear what point you're going after

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

 Sherrypie wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

When were the current Cadian models sculpted? GW are only just getting a handle on decent female faces now (even then...). I dread to think what they would have looked like if they were sculpted back then. Oh wait, we do know.



Truly a face that represents women everywhere.

Which doesn't really change the fact that we all agree now would be a good time to show these armies some love, since GW has clearly shown they can do female sculpts now. Though frankly that is more or less what I'd expect a female catachan to look like.

Though, for the more veteran players who might remember, when was the current succubi sculpt for dark eldar released?

I mean, she doesn't really look like more or less of a potato than any guardsman ever, to be honest. Guardsmen look pretty silly and the whole line could use an update.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

When were the current Cadian models sculpted? GW are only just getting a handle on decent female faces now (even then...). I dread to think what they would have looked like if they were sculpted back then. Oh wait, we do know.

Spoiler:

Truly a face that represents women everywhere.

... why are you posting that like it would be a bad thing? The male scuplts sucked almost as badly, but since they made more of those, the sculptors had more skill in making them. Had they simply done more female faces too, they would've been better. And that posted model is actually pretty nifty.

Also, I find it funny that "since they couldn't get it right on first try they shouldn't try" is even implied as an argument.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Oh wait, we do know.

{image}

Truly a face that represents women everywhere.

To be fair, it's not like most of GW's male faces are any better.

 Luciferian wrote:
I mean, she doesn't really look like more or less of a potato than any guardsman ever, to be honest. Guardsmen look pretty silly and the whole line could use an update.

That was my point. As a man I don't really identify with whatever those stubby armed abhumans in cadian armor are (saying that, I don't choose armies based on wether or not I identify with them at all amd I'm skeptical that anyone does) and I doubt women would want to buy models that looked like someone stuck wax lips and a fake nose on a potato. I don't think its fair to blame GW for a lack of diversity when the model line most suited to it is like 15 years old and dates back to when they could barely make MEN look decent let alone women.

Yeah, the whole idea that you have to identify with your army in order to feel welcome or comfortable with the hobby is absolute nonsense. And it's also one I've never seen espoused by a single woman who plays 40k.

Indeed. It would be difficult to identify with Nids or Orks.

 Sim-Life wrote:
That was my point. As a man I don't really identify with whatever those stubby armed abhumans in cadian armor are (saying that, I don't choose armies based on wether or not I identify with them at all amd I'm skeptical that anyone does) and I doubt women would want to buy models that looked like someone stuck wax lips and a fake nose on a potato. I don't think its fair to blame GW for a lack of diversity when the model line most suited to it is like 15 years old and dates back to when they could barely make MEN look decent let alone women.

Respectfully, i have no idea what point you are driving at, these barely seem to be coherent thoughts. Women wouldn't want to buy gakky looking models of women but men and women alike were fine with it when they were gakky looking models of men? GW chose not to update a line therefor it isn't GWs fault that the main female line is really out of date, making for a less diverse range of models? I legitimately don't understand what you are driving at.

GW didn't bother making female models for whatever reason, which is fine but we'd all like a change on that front. They lack any good reason to not do so currently, as SoS and the handful of SoB releases were both well received and good quality. Therefor, they should do this with other female model lines that have been neglected, such as the rest of SoB and possibly even female IG. If you take issue with any part of that statement, please point at it and explain why because I'm frankly lost.

He's saying that it's not easy to identify with IG even as a male, because their models are potatoes.

 Luciferian wrote:
He's saying that it's not easy to identify with IG even as a male, because their models are potatoes.

Alright, that's first of all pretty subjective, as I guarantee you a lot of people fill in the blanks and tend to take only the most basic impressions from the models themselves, but whatever I can't be bothered to argue because...

That's still totally irrelevant to the matter at hand? Even if people don't identify with them there is no reason we can't have more female models and armies represented in the production line. It'd be good if only for the sake of variety.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
He's saying that it's not easy to identify with IG even as a male, because their models are potatoes.

Alright, that's first of all pretty subjective, as I guarantee you a lot of people fill in the blanks and tend to take only the most basic impressions from the models themselves, but whatever I can't be bothered to argue because...

That's still totally irrelevant to the matter at hand? Even if people don't identify with them there is no reason we can't have more female models and armies represented in the production line. It'd be good if only for the sake of variety.

You seem to be under the impression I was making any kind of serious point. I forgot humour isn't allowed in the discussion of gender politics.

Yes, shut yer patriarchal mouth! But really, nobody can sense humour over text.

 Sim-Life wrote:
You seem to be under the impression I was making any kind of serious point. I forgot humour isn't allowed in the discussion of gender politics.

You literally said "that was my point" and then went on to explain it. If you want to keep defending it, as you already started to earlier i feel i should again point out, feel free. But don't pull the "lol it was all a joke man, why so serious" stuff when someone points out why your point was an idiotic one.

I am way more bothered by the weird paranoia of some people who keep shouting about some imaginary feminist conspiracy, which honestly act way more aggressive and vocal about their ideas than actual feminists.

And honestly Sargon is an dubious individual with a long history of being an utter gakker, so I would rather ignore people like him

Black Library has had loads of female characters in all sorts of rolls since the beginning, sadly for whatever reasons GW have been extremely reluctant to have many models that reflect this.

Not talking about female marines - that's as bad an idea as male Sisters of Battle.

But we know that there are females in every other branch of the Imperium to the highest level, they are starting to appear on the table top now which to me is a good thing but its still very slow and bitty.

I'm against this identitarian nonsense myself, but I have never seen anyone actually pushing for it with regards to 40k, except the obvious parody articles.

As earlier mentioned in the thead, I think GW is to small to really attract that crowd, there isn't enough money involved to make it worth it to them

 Spinner wrote:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
You need only look at Marvel, Magic the Gathering, Hollywood, the new Star Wars movie to see where that road leads. Devastation, ruin, decay & billions in lost revenue everything that ideology touches.

Heaven forbid we see more women as major characters in our imaginary worlds.

If I believed that was their goal, I'd be on their side. Female soldiers are basically my favourite thing in fiction, and I've got the fanfiction to prove it.

The reason why I am not on their side is because when they say "female representation" they don't mean "humans with XX chromosomes," they mean "members of their political ideology." People don't hate modern Marvel comics because they hate women - the Marvel of yesteryear made Storm the leader of their most popular superhero team and to my knowledge nobody hated them for that. People hate modern Marvel comics because they have become a vehicle for the same ideology that ten years ago was calling superheroes a fascist fantasy.

I'm out of the hobby because GW became 70% more expensive overnight when they banned international sales, but if the Australia Tax was lifted female representation would be the thing most likely to bring me back. But that's because I like a good-looking woman in uniform, not because I subscribe to the entire grab-bag of left-wing politics.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


I get the lore argument, but frankly, lore in every medium needs a refresh every decade or three anyway. The game can't sit forever in 80's sensibilities and has really needed to advance for years now. There's just no reason to make a sandbox universe in which women can't be the heroes too.

I disagree with this logic. 40k prides itself, or used to anyways, on bringing together a particular blend of tropes, media backgrounds, and mythological characteristics that made 40k well... 40k. Having a bit of a refresh once in a while can be good, but taking a swing at the longstanding logics of the universe is needlessly destructive. Really, it would be better to let it die a hero than have it live to become a (possible) abomination.

Sure, but "no girls allowed" is just... not important. It's just not.

You don't even need a massive retcon or anything. We just had a huge timeskip. During that time, someone figured out how to make the space marine process compatible with women. Now we have women space marines. Done.

Except it would undermine the Space Marine's thematic element of knightly medieval warrior monks in space.
Monks, from the time period the Imperium takes its cues at least, were an all male religious organisation. I think even today its an all male thing, but there might be an outlier somewhere.
If you want a female equivalent, then look at the Sororitas, who are based off of nuns.

It would be like giving Tau vehicles that look like Mustangs and Abrams tanks. It wouldn't make sense thematically and would run contrary to their source of inspiration (anime, mecha, vaguely Asian inspired, etc)

 Sherrypie wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I think it' because (as discussed earlier) Marines are the only truly all male army (if they really are male) in the setting. So asking for more representation kind of implies that it has to be Marines because they're arguably the only faction with no women by definiton. They're also the only faction that would require changing the lore in order to include women.

Or for the all female army to get more attention. Or for the hypothetically egalitarian guard to get some female models.

40k has pretty awful gender diversity on the tabletop, and that's what most reasonable people are talking about, not the lore. The lore is frankly pretty diverse already, its just not really represented well in the models.

SilverAlien hits the spot here. Reasonable people are cool with the all boys marines, they'd just like to get more normal human females on the table, as there should be. Inquisitors, guard, scions, sisters, knight pilots, mechanicus troops. Things. Even though the lore is pretty diverse with all sorts of ethnicities and genders, there's next to no female models compared to the male cast.

I give GW a pass on this simply because of human gender dimorphism. Sprues for WHFB dark elves and eldar, which are represented as more androgynous, have l long included both male and female torsos. Including female models on the human-based sprues wouldn't be impossible, but it does reduce inter-changeability of parts, and GW almost never offers enough useful parts for mono-gender miniatures to begin with (at least in terms of weapons options).

I'm never entirely sure why "female Space Marines" is the hill so many choose to die on. OK, it's part of the background going back to ... not quite the Rogue Trader rulebook, because I don't think it comments one way or the other. The article in WD 90-something about the surgical implant process is where it came in, I think. But other bits have been dropped along the way (Squats, for example, or the wholesale re-writing of the Eldar in 1990) without becoming such a cause. If GW didn't want to just drop that tiny notion (which makes no biological sense anyway), then the introduction of Primaris Marines would have been as good a place as any to introduce them; there was enough whining about them anyway, making half of them wimmin wouldn't have made any difference.

Male Sororitas? The Sisters of Battle being all-female makes more sense in-universe than Space Marines being entirely male.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I'm never entirely sure why "female Space Marines" is the hill so many choose to die on. OK, it's part of the background going back to ... not quite the Rogue Trader rulebook, because I don't think it comments one way or the other. The article in WD 90-something about the surgical implant process is where it came in, I think. But other bits have been dropped along the way (Squats, for example, or the wholesale re-writing of the Eldar in 1990) without becoming such a cause. If GW didn't want to just drop that tiny notion (which makes no biological sense anyway), then the introduction of Primaris Marines would have been as good a place as any to introduce them; there was enough whining about them anyway, making half of them wimmin wouldn't have made any difference.

Male Sororitas? The Sisters of Battle being all-female makes more sense in-universe than Space Marines being entirely male.

But it's just an easily updated minor detail with no plot significance. Why not have male SoB?

The reasons to pick the SM hill are:

- It's the only all-male faction in 40k
- Space Marines are the definitive article of 40k
- Space Marines take up some of the oldest and most fundamental parts of 40k
- Space Marines are all directly relatable to every 40k player
- They're based on masculine tropes, and historical examples of all-male traits and orders
- And they are the paragons of masculinity, for better or worse

As far as humans are concerned we have an all male faction (sm), an all female faction (sob) and a mixed one (ig). This could be balanced enough*. I do think it's unfortunate that the poster boy faction that gets promoted and expanded over all else is the boys only faction, this kind of skews these proportions.

I also think that Cawly Sue easily could have made the supermarine formula work on women while he was meddling with it. Fluff it as "Now that the process works on all humans we get double the recruits! Hooray for Cawl!" and as "Of course they look exactly the same as the male ones, boobplate is ridiculous!", allowing each player to decide for themself which gender their marines are. That's just me though, and as a xenos player I have no vested interest in Imperial fluff.

 Selym wrote:
Indeed. It would be difficult to identify with Nids or Orks.

Put a bag of candy in front of me and witness The Great Devourer.


* To be fair sisters desperately need an update and ig could definitely use some more female options (to be even more fair; they need a redesign in general, see spoiler)

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I'm never entirely sure why "female Space Marines" is the hill so many choose to die on. OK, it's part of the background going back to ... not quite the Rogue Trader rulebook, because I don't think it comments one way or the other. The article in WD 90-something about the surgical implant process is where it came in, I think. But other bits have been dropped along the way (Squats, for example, or the wholesale re-writing of the Eldar in 1990) without becoming such a cause. If GW didn't want to just drop that tiny notion (which makes no biological sense anyway), then the introduction of Primaris Marines would have been as good a place as any to introduce them; there was enough whining about them anyway, making half of them wimmin wouldn't have made any difference.

Male Sororitas? The Sisters of Battle being all-female makes more sense in-universe than Space Marines being entirely male.

Indeed - if GW actually bothered to create more non Marine models it would be helpful - but that's another argument. we don't need female Marines we need female models where the lore and luff tells us they should be

We know have Escher gangs - but are we going to have a few female Orlocks, Delaque, outlaws etc - there is nor reason not too but will we get a few....?
We had no female cultists, beast"men" - even though these are all in the fluff.
Gensestealer Cults - no female models - again in the fluff
Imperial Guard - loads in the fluff - table - nope, finally got some images in the last Codex which is good but models?
Ad Mech - we don't need female models as such - although a few would be ok - but why do GW ignore them in the Codex fluff when its all over the BL novels - just stick a few female names in here and there to confirm that Ad MEch does not care about your gender as such, in fact many have that element removed but retain their names - little things that help.

Oh and of course Sisters of Battle - three plastic models and 1 resin in 20 years - really?

Forgeworld are no better in terms of general or character models - which is why various 3rd party makers are doing them and doing them well.

To clarify I don't need or want Female Marines or Orks, but I really want to have the above models

just add a upgrade pack of female heads, 5 normal and 5 with berets and two with cybernetics and then just make sisters plastic and done.