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 Gert wrote:
Because SoB being women is their identity, it's literally in the name.
Space Marines being only men is not their identity.

Honestly, it’s not even the lore I’m that concerned with.

It’s the fact that men already have plenty of representation, while women have much less. Makes those who aren’t men feel less welcome. Again-no massive harm to adding “Misters of Battle” but no real benefit either.

The thing is though that the "template" is a prepubescent child that has none of the gribblies an adult has so cutting them open and sticking in more organs and doing some genetic tampering isn't really a big deal, especially when the genetic tech of 40k can be described as "future science that us modern simple folk wouldn't understand".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Because SoB being women is their identity, it's literally in the name.
Space Marines being only men is not their identity.

Honestly, it’s not even the lore I’m that concerned with.

It’s the fact that men already have plenty of representation, while women have much less. Makes those who aren’t men feel less welcome. Again-no massive harm to adding “Misters of Battle” but no real benefit either.

That too.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Because SoB being women is their identity, it's literally in the name.
Space Marines being only men is not their identity.

Honestly, it’s not even the lore I’m that concerned with.

It’s the fact that men already have plenty of representation, while women have much less. Makes those who aren’t men feel less welcome. Again-no massive harm to adding “Misters of Battle” but no real benefit either.

So it's about releasing more female models period and not Space Marines specifically? Or is it Space Marines because they are the center piece of 40k and we can't have only men in that role?

Bit of column A bit of column B.
More female models is a good thing but they keep getting made as either single-choice characters (Raine) or limited ed (Catachan officer).
Of course I don't want to see anymore SM releases for some time but if GW did have to do more then making the most marketed and marketable faction in the game less boy's club would be neat.

 Gert wrote:
Have none of these peeps claiming boys don't play with "dolls" had GI Joe or Action Man when they were young 'uns?
Of course anyone arguing A is for boys and B is for girls because of "biology" is spouting pseudo-science nonsense or ideas that were disproven yonks ago.

Take a step back, lol. Have none of these peeps claiming boys don't play with dolls painted a warhammer miniature?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BertBert wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Because SoB being women is their identity, it's literally in the name.
Space Marines being only men is not their identity.

Honestly, it’s not even the lore I’m that concerned with.

It’s the fact that men already have plenty of representation, while women have much less. Makes those who aren’t men feel less welcome. Again-no massive harm to adding “Misters of Battle” but no real benefit either.

So it's about releasing more female models period and not Space Marines specifically? Or is it Space Marines because they are the center piece of 40k and we can't have only men in that role?

I mean it is, but 50% of the model releases for 40k are space marines, so you'd literally have to make every other model for every other faction from now on a woman to come close to parity, lol.

 Gert wrote:
Bit of column A bit of column B.
More female models is a good thing but they keep getting made as either single-choice characters (Raine) or limited ed (Catachan officer).
Of course I don't want to see anymore SM releases for some time but if GW did have to do more then making the most marketed and marketable faction in the game less boy's club would be neat.

To be fair, GW already addressed this to a lesser extent with their GSC range and, more prominently, with SoB. They are very much trying to establish sisters as the new "postergirls", for lack of a better term, shoulder to shoulder with marines. It's been there from the Indomitus animation and has continued since with increased BL and model support, even a pseudo primarch/chapter master character coming up in the near future. Don't you feel this is sufficient to satisfy both columns A and B?

 the_scotsman wrote:

I mean it is, but 50% of the model releases for 40k are space marines, so you'd literally have to make every other model for every other faction from now on a woman to come close to parity, lol.

Sisters should push that ratio by quite a lot.

Not really. I don't deny that SoB have seen a marketing push but even still they don't hold a candle (hehe cos church) to SM. We've only had the main codex, DW, BA, SW, and DA as codexes/supplements and there still needs to be updates for RG, UM, IF, IH, and WS.
The biggest problem is just by sheer weight of kits and units SM outclass any other army attempting to take away it's spot of poster faction and I think that is the crux of the matter. It wouldn't matter if GW updated the Guard and Craftworlds lines to include more diverse models because in between those there will be huge releases for SM.

Fair enough, that helps me understand your position.

 Gert wrote:
Not really. I don't deny that SoB have seen a marketing push but even still they don't hold a candle (hehe cos church) to SM. We've only had the main codex, DW, BA, SW, and DA as codexes/supplements and there still needs to be updates for RG, UM, IF, IH, and WS.
The biggest problem is just by sheer weight of kits and units SM outclass any other army attempting to take away it's spot of poster faction and I think that is the crux of the matter. It wouldn't matter if GW updated the Guard and Craftworlds lines to include more diverse models because in between those there will be huge releases for SM.

Wow what a great pun... truly amazing, you may want to buy a indulgency for that pun though.


The core problem of 40k is SM are so prevalent that they singlehandedly curb any opportunity for other factions to shine or even have a place.
See the SoB window panels and the cultists on them? yeah those, they don't even have an army anymore.

You don't solve that issue that the hobby has by including female SM, you solve it by finally bringing other factions up to snuff, guard, f.e. Chaos as a whole and not just spikey marines f.e. The craftworld line etc...

The thing is I'm like 90% sure I did say that at some point but this thread is 14 pages long and has gone on for about a month. I do confess that the pun was entirely by accident.

So to dispel any confusion. Absolutely update the old models and when that's done, start looking at how they can introduce more diversity to the main poster faction to make the hobby more welcoming to certain groups. In the meantime keep with the diverse cast in novels/animations/art.

Animus wrote:
Sure, but they don't have the ability to spread gender memes powerful enough to override their basic instincts.
Again, there's not biggoted monkey dad's making sure there sons aren't sissies.

Read all about it https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

So according to science, wheeled toys are masculine and plush toys are feminine. That's what I learned from that article.

If changing SoB to include men would make the game easier for certain groups of people to be able to join and engage with the hobby sure go for it.

Despite otherwise agreeing with many if not all of Gert's points in this thread, I have to disagree with this. Frateris Militia would be a great addition but adding literal Misters of Battle would be harmful and the only groups it would make easier to join and engage in the hobby are the already over-represented group within it. However! I think it would be very interesting (but not 100% sure how it would really be implemented modelwise? It would probably be something to happen in a Black Library novel or an animation) to include trans people in the Sisters of Battle.
It honestly is probably better off for us to never know how the Imperium handles trans people because it will probably be handled horribly...

TBF with that one I was very much just sick and tired of people making disingenuous points purely to annoy and had 0 energy left to care.

The explanation in terms of lore would be pretty simple.

Your physical features aren't determined by your chromosomes: you can have masculine traits with an XX, or feminine ones with a XY (there are some studies yet still inconclusive that correlate it with testosteron level - there's interesting sports medicine research on thst).

The reatment to become a Space Marine impacts Initiate brutally: it's not a stretch of imagination that Initiates are both make and female, and the transformation in Space Marine make them apparently all male (whatever their genes). Dante may be a gal, for what we know.

Crawl new treatment is either less impactful or simply different, and we can have female Primaris.

Done.

Rihgu wrote:

Animus wrote:
Sure, but they don't have the ability to spread gender memes powerful enough to override their basic instincts.
Again, there's not biggoted monkey dad's making sure there sons aren't sissies.

Read all about it https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

So according to science, wheeled toys are masculine and plush toys are feminine. That's what I learned from that article.

Well yeah, it's a rare boy in my experience who had no interested in trucks.
Here's another paper that says Toy preference based on gender has already developed to some extent by nine months.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/icd.1986
And here's a whole meta review that looks at a number of studies.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7
I think it's a bit silly to believe culture has nothing to do with the biology that creates it.

Animus wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

Animus wrote:
Sure, but they don't have the ability to spread gender memes powerful enough to override their basic instincts.
Again, there's not biggoted monkey dad's making sure there sons aren't sissies.

Read all about it https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

So according to science, wheeled toys are masculine and plush toys are feminine. That's what I learned from that article.

Well yeah, it's a rare boy in my experience who had no interested in trucks.
Here's another paper that says Toy preference based on gender has already developed to some extent by nine months.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/icd.1986
And here's a whole meta review that looks at a number of studies.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7
I think it's a bit silly to believe culture has nothing to do with the biology that creates it.

Both boys and girls showed a trend for an increasing preference with age for toys stereotyped for boys.

Very interesting paper, thanks for the link! Wonder what the implications of that, are! Hmm!

Well yeah, it's a rare boy in my experience who had no interested in trucks.

Well, of course. It's just human biology that boy hormones make them interested in trucks. Trucks, a completely natural, biological thing, that wild humans would find.

The whole biology tangent is barely relevant IMHO.

Yes men are more likely to be interested in TT games, but the keyword here is "likely". Biology factors are rarely hard rules, and women that are into TT do exist, they are a minority true, but that doesn't mean they deserve less representation (and as a minor note, here is always the male gamer that prefers to play with female characters).

That's why most AAA videogames, specially RPGs provide the option to play as female (and more recent games are even giving the option of playing with different gender characteristics by splitting them as individual traits, but that is another topic I don't want to discuss here).

And I would argue GW is well aware of that, see AoS. It is just that GW treats AoS and 40k very differently (AoS is a mostly successful gamble, 40k is the cash-cow, corporations do not mess with their cash-cows unless forced to by market forces), and things should get interesting if AoS ever surpasses 40k as GW's cash-cow.

Rihgu wrote:

Well, of course. It's just human biology that boy hormones make them interested in trucks. Trucks, a completely natural, biological thing, that wild humans would find.

Just because trucks aren't naturally occurring objects it doesn't mean it's bizarre that one sex would take a greater interest in them. Again, even male monkeys find trucks interesting.
I'd hazard a guess that it's due to men's generally superior mechanical aptitude. Before you harrumph, here's a link for that too.
https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1129&context=ojii_volumes#:~:text=Also%20as%20expected%2C%20males%20scored,than%20females%20on%20the%20BMCT.&text=The%20finding%20that%20women%20performed,on%20the%20BMCT%20is%20promising.

This is, as pointed out, off topic at this point but...
Yes, I can imagine that when studying males and females raised by a society where males are generally raised in a way that supports interest/aptitude in mechanics and females are generally raised in a way that supports interest/aptitude in other things, that the females would demonstrate inferior mechanical aptitude.
Seems like we can just as much draw conclusions that it's related to society/culture as it is biology from this paper - that is to say, it doesn't say anything interesting.
Is it too much to ask for these studies to include trans people in them as well? There's some data points that may be half-interesting.

Rihgu wrote:
This is, as pointed out, off topic at this point but...
Yes, I can imagine that when studying males and females raised by a society

But again, we have babies incapable of speech or walking, and monkeys demonstrating that the males have greater interest in these things without society intervening.
How do you think society came to the conclusion that boys liked trucks in the first place?
What do you think is more likely?
1) There's a cabal that decided for no real reason that boys should like trucks more than girls
or
2) Generally boys like trucks more than girls do
If you picked one, then can you tell me how they convinced the monkeys and babies to go along with their plan?

We're talking about the paper than demonstrates the respective mechanical aptitudes of college aged males and females, are we not?

I'm going to go with option 3, though, as it's actually supported by the papers you linked.
3) Generally boys reject non-trucks more than girls do.

Rihgu wrote:
We're talking about the paper than demonstrates the respective mechanical aptitudes of college aged males and females, are we not?

I'm going to go with option 3, though, as it's actually supported by the papers you linked.
3) Generally boys reject non-trucks more than girls do.

No, we're talking about all the papers so far, that one was really just me pondering why males liked trucks better than females and having a bit of backing so I wasn't called sexist for imagining it had something to do with the generally superior mechanical aptitude in men.
So are you willing to admit there are general biological gender biases present here?

Animus wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
We're talking about the paper than demonstrates the respective mechanical aptitudes of college aged males and females, are we not?

I'm going to go with option 3, though, as it's actually supported by the papers you linked.
3) Generally boys reject non-trucks more than girls do.

No, we're talking about all the papers so far, that one was really just me pondering why males liked trucks better than females and having a bit of backing so I wasn't called sexist for imagining it had something to do with the generally superior mechanical aptitude in men.
So are you willing to admit there are general biological gender biases present here?

If you mean biological sex, then yes, I guess so. Seems biological males have a tendency to take earlier interest in... wheeled toys, specifically, and are more likely to reject... non wheeled toys. Over time, biological females have a general tendency to take more specific interest in... wheeled toys. Can't tell from the papers presented whether they become more likely to reject non-wheeled toys.

So, we have biological males, who we can say are generally more biologically prone to rigidity. For the purposes of resisting Chaos, this could be seen as a preferable trait, but since Sisters of Battle are shown to be extremely resistant to Chaos and are an entire biologically female subsection of population, we can't say that it's significant.
However, the general flexibility of biological females, taking no particular preference, does seem to be good for combat scenarios which often require flexibility more that rigidity.

If we use the video game Space Marine as an analogy, Leandros seems more generally biologically male, and Titus seems more biologically female.

Animus wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
This is, as pointed out, off topic at this point but...
Yes, I can imagine that when studying males and females raised by a society

But again, we have babies incapable of speech or walking, and monkeys demonstrating that the males have greater interest in these things without society intervening.
How do you think society came to the conclusion that boys liked trucks in the first place?
What do you think is more likely?
1) There's a cabal that decided for no real reason that boys should like trucks more than girls
or
2) Generally boys like trucks more than girls do
If you picked one, then can you tell me how they convinced the monkeys and babies to go along with their plan?

1 is true, actually. Big conglomerate toy makers like to section off its toys for marketing purposes and will actually act with hostility to the point of cancellation if toys made for one gender become too popular with the other (this is what got the original Teen Titans cancelled, it was a boy show and was supposed to market toys for boys but it got too popular with girls).

 Arachnofiend wrote:

What do you think is more likely?
1) There's a cabal that decided for no real reason that boys should like trucks more than girls
or
2) Generally boys like trucks more than girls do
If you picked one, then can you tell me how they convinced the monkeys and babies to go along with their plan?

1 is true, actually.

Just to be clear, your contention is that... *breathes deeply*

...since interest in toys and play is biologically determinate, rather than a product of learned social role scaffolding acting on infant neuroplasticity...

...thus options in gendered play should not be offered to humans...

...because those humans are just like every other primate.

*whispers* biotruths...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's a bit daft, isn't it?

Seems like a lot of work getting to the punchline, is all.

https://www.pointandclickbait.com/2016/04/female-space-marines-no-way/

I'm almost afraid of the types of replies we'd get in this thread if I asked, well, what about the boys that want female space marines.

Considering the fox newsy excuses that keep getting repeated and the absolutely insane reaching I'm seeing some people go for so that they can be against a hypothetical situation, I imagine many would end up getting removed by mods.

 SpikeyBits wrote:
I find that the Sisters of Battle and the Silent Sisters add a bit of mysticism to the game. From a purely male-centric view having a more limited class(es) of female fighters makes their contributions more significant and allows for richer and deeper story telling. Throwing them into the grinder with all the other male classes would dilute this. I would be against it

Except there are mono gender regiments of IG who are fed into the grinder as much of their male counterparts. In fact, it's implied and outright stated that the majority of mixed gender regiments exist because two regiments--one male and one female--were so devastated that it's easier for the Imperium to combine them--or one regiment was so depleted that they recruited from any locals who wanted to fight, regardless of the gender on either end.

But I guess since GW doesn't actually make any female IG troops, we can ignore that too?

SoB have been in the setting since the 90's. Apart from the current push, do you know how much 'rich and deep' storytelling GW gave them? They had two mediocre BL books, a comic, and their most significant contribution was to be slaughtered for daemonic sun tan lotion for Grey Knights. Sisters of Silence popped into existence in the Horus Heresy novels, which are also fairly recent. SoB were the punching bag for BL and lore writers for decades.

 BertBert wrote:
Can we have misters of battle, too? What would be the harm in that?

As stated previously, not really anything. It wouldn't add much, because men are already far more represented in the setting than women. However, I'd like to point out that the Sisters of Battle can include more men in their battle line-up than the rest of the Imperial forces can include women in theirs, combined. So it's a bit disingenuous to imply that both issues are equal especially since you can count the factions that offer more than three female options on one hand and still have fingers left over.

Nobody has answered the question in any meaningful way as to; why you'd want female space marines instead of a new female centric flagship faction or SOB taking the spotlight on its own merit.. Other then "coz its easier"

This despite the fact that if you did do this, you'd alienate the biggest current participating demographic IF we apply the standard of representation. After all if boys can no longer see themselves in space marines they'd not want to play right ? right? riiight?
But they don't matter because reasons.. Isn't it ironic...

So it like a zero sum game of ruining a thing a lot of people enjoy for the sake of SOME people that MIGHT enjoy int he furute despite data showing this is UNLIKELY.

After all all GW needs to do is switch its marketing and we will have the magical equality utopia right ? Right? Riight?


All female sisters of battle are fine, all male space marines are bad, and "misters of battle" would also not be ok.. all at the same time? Its so stupid.. The amount of double think is just staggering..

Its lazy activism and agenda pushing, that nobody cares about; outside of some regions of America and the west where people stopped being able to tell what objective reality is...

Nobody gives a crap if you want to GS boobs to your marines or give them female heads...

And to answer a question from earlier, why would I have this discussion in my club while gaming night is on, and demand people explain themselves and their army choices?

That's idiotic. People are there to play games and not talk about politics or sociology.

Id rather be discussing why Blood Angels dont make sense as they were all wiped out, and what on earth are the tyranids up to and also why did nobody threw up a stink about wolves having psykers after nikea which he wolves themselves wanted..

40k has a lot of issues. Poor balance, terrible business model of ever expanding pile of rotating books behind a paywall and abysmal model support.

Representation really isn't one of them unless you set out specifically to make it an issue...

At no point have myself or anyone else opposed more diversity in 40k. Learn to read. If you want more female models in 40k and GW wants to make, I don't care I don't think anybody normal cares. Heck I might buy some myself if they are any good.
But you are talking about tearing down something people enjoy out of spite and selfish laziness..

For the record I couldn't give less of a toss about marines. Dont own any dont care. Id ratehr there be much less marines being made and more plastic eldar and guard.

The issue is this exact thing happens in every conceivable sphere of entertainment where communities capitulate to shut people up... But it never ends and it becomes the sole objective of the medium.. resulting in much lower quality and creativity being censored.

How have people not caught on this con ideology is astonishing.
If you want change, create parallel structures. Don't try to take over and destroy things. Building is a lot harder than destroying. So get to work.

Catulle wrote:
Just to be clear, your contention is that... *breathes deeply*

...since interest in toys and play is biologically determinate, rather than a product of learned social role scaffolding acting on infant neuroplasticity...

...thus options in gendered play should not be offered to humans...

...because those humans are just like every other primate.

*whispers* biotruths...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's a bit daft, isn't it?

Seems like a lot of work getting to the punchline, is all.

https://www.pointandclickbait.com/2016/04/female-space-marines-no-way/

No, frankly this is a tangent from when a couple of people were mistaken and said biology played no role in the types of toy and play men and women generally liked. I've never been against options for boys or girls to play with whatever toys they want.
I suppose I could relate it to the fact that I don't believe there are hordes of women waiting to break into wargaming but they're being held back by a lack of female space marines. I don't think women are
interested in wargames compared to men proportionately, and I think those who are genuinely interested wouldn't be so easily put off.

Animus wrote:

Catulle wrote:
Just to be clear, your contention is that... *breathes deeply*

...since interest in toys and play is biologically determinate, rather than a product of learned social role scaffolding acting on infant neuroplasticity...

...thus options in gendered play should not be offered to humans...

...because those humans are just like every other primate.

*whispers* biotruths...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's a bit daft, isn't it?

Seems like a lot of work getting to the punchline, is all.

https://www.pointandclickbait.com/2016/04/female-space-marines-no-way/

No, frankly this is a tangent from when a couple of people were mistaken and said biology played no role in the types of toy and play men and women generally liked. I've never been against options for boys or girls to play with whatever toys they want.
I suppose I could relate it to the fact that I don't believe there are hordes of women waiting to break into wargaming but they're being held back by a lack of female space marines. I don't think women are
interested in wargames compared to men proportionately, and I think those who are genuinely interested wouldn't be so easily put off.

Also warhamer 40k is a far cry from being the only miniature range or game out there.
There's is something for everyone I think in the general hobby of miniatures and wargaming. .