Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Insectum7 wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I wonder if all these saying that female marines is a travesty and against the “lore” and dragging gender politics into 40K, would they be willing to be vocal in their opposition if the issue was black Spacemarines?

Seems unrelated, since black Space Marines are allowed by the lore.

Okay, and why are women not allowed? Fundamentally, that's my question at the bottom of all this: why aren't women allowed by lore?

Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:I mean, it's real easy to get people hooked on catachan and cadians through use of stuff like predator and starship troopers

I'm not sure GW want to have to rely on third party films which may or may not appeal to the audience they're after to promote their own models.

If people aren't already drawn to Predator and Starship Troopers (both very venerable films in their own right), why would they now?

some new lore that shows them actually being competent would also help.

It's not really competency that outlines success - Tau are a rather popular army, but galactically are insignificant in terms of success.

What matters is representation - in this case, simply *showing* Space Marines all the time. A large reason that Space Marines are so marketable is their helmet, or rather, lack of a face. It's an icon, it's not tied to any specific identity - it *is* the identity. Same as why stormtroopers or Darth Vader are so latched onto as cultural icons - the helmet is a strong form of merch.

Unfortunately, while many Guardsmen do have full facial helms and masks, most guardsmen do have faces (ironic, considering they're meant to be the faceless goons), which isn't as marketable.

Space marines are male because of weird made up biology stuff but also because they're made in the image of the emperor and their primarchs.

They're still not identical looking though. And again, why does the Primarch being male mean that only men can be Astartes? There's no real world biology at play here, it's all made up science.

Plus i'm only against official GW stuff doing it, I don't want the 20 plus kits that would happen because of this.

You'd literally only need one sprue - sell it as an upgrade sprue or whatever else.

If you want to just hobby up some female go ahead, you'z still gonna get krumped by da orkz.

I appreciate that, but some people don't accept that - and I'd prefer that they have as little ammunition as possible when they try and keep women out.

Again - adding women doesn't stop people from rolling dice or collecting their own all-male armies. I don't see the panic.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Spoiler:

Insectum7 wrote:1. One argument goes something like "Gender identity isn't important to Space Marines anyways, so why not include women too?" Which is to say "Gender identity isn't important, but it's important enough that I want this change." It seems fundamentally flawed.

It's not saying gender identity isn't important full stop, it's "gender identity shouldn't be a factor in what Space Marines are, so they should be neutral".
You mistake being all-male for being the norm. It's not.

2. Another major issue I have is seeing demands for changing "creative works" to reform them in "their" image. This appears to be where the accusations of narcissism comes from. "I need to see myself represented." There's a certain (dare I say it) 'entitled petulance' about it.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but are you someone who has ever felt unrepresented?

I may be wrong, but I find it difficult to take comments like that seriously when they come from people who don't actually know what it's like to not feel represented.

On the one hand it's easy for me to understand the issues of representation, on the other hand . . . it's a fictional setting that has it's own rules, values, systems and traditions.

Exactly - fictional rules. Why are real life people being held to the account of fictional rules? Why do fictional rules trump real life feelings and representation?

The more you break/change the more you potentially erode the integrity of the setting overall.

Potentially, but why are women Space Marines the catalyst? Should the setting not change at all from the moment of it's creation?

Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.

If you're not allowing people to feel represented, how can they find escapism?

More importantly, and I'm sure you don't mean it, but you're implying that "women aren't allowed here" is an escapist desire for people. Is that something we want to foster?

3. Another aspect is the 'apparent' responsibility of GW to somehow police the behavior of their players. "There has to be female Space Marines because some players are donkey-caves to group X". I can't really get on board with this one. I see it as roughly the same "enabling/emboldening" issue with people showing up with "full-redband-swastika-IG armies" because the "Imperium is fascist, yo". Or for that matter, the accusations of video game violence causing real-world violence. It's a fictional setting, and people should understand it/treat as such. If people can't do that, that's more a problem with the individual player or local community than the game/setting itself.

Sorry, but no. If I produce something, and a considerable amount of people taking my products are using them to enact or support harmful ideals, I need to question why they're using *my* product to do so, and if I oppose those ideals (which I would hope everyone here does), is it not my responsibility to deny them that?

Sorry, but I take a very active stance in opposing donkey-caves, and I believe that should be a responsibility of everyone.
But, even morals aside, from a monetary standpoint, GW have a responsibility to do this too: making the environment more attractive to women and other marginalised groups has actually only increased profits for media companies that have done so. The whole "get woke, go broke" narrative is completely untrue, and appealing to a wider audience (and making them welcome) shows increased profits and markets.

4. Another thrust of the matter is the 'requirement' that SMs change because the SMs are the poster-boys. Imo GW could just as easily make Space Marines less of the focus.

And undo decades of market focus, cultural inertia, and simple memetic awareness? I don't believe so for a second. Not without investing an absolutely MASSIVE amount into new book lines, new media, new models, new codexes and subcodexes, new factions, and whole new branding.

Versus "anyone can be a Space Marine"? No chance.

There's also a shadow of "If you don't want female SM you are a bigot" that looms over everything that's rather irritating.

If people are seeing that, it's because they're choosing to see it there. They're more than welcome to outline in detail why their points about how "THE LORE WOULD BE RUINED WITH WOMEN SPACE MARINES" isn't sexist - I invite them to do so.

Unfortunately I've got limited time atm, but that's what I can post for now.

Appreciated.

RegularGuy wrote:I I think the best representation for the Christian in 40k is the discussion between the emperor and the last priest on earth, who walks back into the burning church to die rather than join the imperium.

Exactly - it's a single non-core book where an unmentioned faith (implied to be Christian, but is never explicitly named so) is wiped out. It being Christian is never the important part of the book, and as such, is most likely why it it never explicitly named. It's not exactly the same dominance that Space Marines have over 40k, is it?

Comparing the two is rooted in downplaying the position women occupy within the population, and their total absence in the flagship faction.

 Gert wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'd be interested to see responses from someone other than Smudge.

Have you even looked through this thread mate? There's been a fair few people who have taken the same position as Smudge, myself included. The difference is that most of us cba repeating everything we've already said 20 times already for the 21st time because some new has jumped into the thread.

I have looked through the thread, yes. I haven't seen what I feel are good answers to what I'm asking. I'm genuinely interested in this, but if I'm only going to get glib removed-from-context responses then I won't bother.

Example:

2. Another major issue I have is seeing demands for changing "creative works" to reform them in "their" image. This appears to be where the accusations of narcissism comes from. "I need to see myself represented." There's a certain (dare I say it) 'entitled petulance' about it.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but are you someone who has ever felt unrepresented?

I may be wrong, but I find it difficult to take comments like that seriously when they come from people who don't actually know what it's like to not feel represented.

"You just can't understand, man." is not something worth responding to, imo. It's both making assumptions about my person, and also failing to address the point. So, not worth my energy.

As much fun as moustachio'd Scions look, it was a prime opportunity to add some variation in with a brand new kit when they brought Scions out.

 the_scotsman wrote:

There's generally like six or seven people responding about how it'd be cool if there were female marines between each dramatic soliloquy about how THEY and their sinister cabal of THEM are INFILTRATING the innocent hobbies and VILIFYING and DESTROYING the poor people who just... just want to..... grill........

It still seems sorta beside the point? There's some amount of talking-point-leakage involved spilling in from the larger cultural debate sphere I think. I'm not surprised it shows up, as the issues are difficult to navigate and talk about.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Spoiler:

Insectum7 wrote:1. One argument goes something like "Gender identity isn't important to Space Marines anyways, so why not include women too?" Which is to say "Gender identity isn't important, but it's important enough that I want this change." It seems fundamentally flawed.

It's not saying gender identity isn't important full stop, it's "gender identity shouldn't be a factor in what Space Marines are, so they should be neutral".
You mistake being all-male for being the norm. It's not.

2. Another major issue I have is seeing demands for changing "creative works" to reform them in "their" image. This appears to be where the accusations of narcissism comes from. "I need to see myself represented." There's a certain (dare I say it) 'entitled petulance' about it.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but are you someone who has ever felt unrepresented?

I may be wrong, but I find it difficult to take comments like that seriously when they come from people who don't actually know what it's like to not feel represented.

On the one hand it's easy for me to understand the issues of representation, on the other hand . . . it's a fictional setting that has it's own rules, values, systems and traditions.

Exactly - fictional rules. Why are real life people being held to the account of fictional rules? Why do fictional rules trump real life feelings and representation?

The more you break/change the more you potentially erode the integrity of the setting overall.

Potentially, but why are women Space Marines the catalyst? Should the setting not change at all from the moment of it's creation?

Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.

If you're not allowing people to feel represented, how can they find escapism?

More importantly, and I'm sure you don't mean it, but you're implying that "women aren't allowed here" is an escapist desire for people. Is that something we want to foster?

3. Another aspect is the 'apparent' responsibility of GW to somehow police the behavior of their players. "There has to be female Space Marines because some players are donkey-caves to group X". I can't really get on board with this one. I see it as roughly the same "enabling/emboldening" issue with people showing up with "full-redband-swastika-IG armies" because the "Imperium is fascist, yo". Or for that matter, the accusations of video game violence causing real-world violence. It's a fictional setting, and people should understand it/treat as such. If people can't do that, that's more a problem with the individual player or local community than the game/setting itself.

Sorry, but no. If I produce something, and a considerable amount of people taking my products are using them to enact or support harmful ideals, I need to question why they're using *my* product to do so, and if I oppose those ideals (which I would hope everyone here does), is it not my responsibility to deny them that?

Sorry, but I take a very active stance in opposing donkey-caves, and I believe that should be a responsibility of everyone.
But, even morals aside, from a monetary standpoint, GW have a responsibility to do this too: making the environment more attractive to women and other marginalised groups has actually only increased profits for media companies that have done so. The whole "get woke, go broke" narrative is completely untrue, and appealing to a wider audience (and making them welcome) shows increased profits and markets.

4. Another thrust of the matter is the 'requirement' that SMs change because the SMs are the poster-boys. Imo GW could just as easily make Space Marines less of the focus.

And undo decades of market focus, cultural inertia, and simple memetic awareness? I don't believe so for a second. Not without investing an absolutely MASSIVE amount into new book lines, new media, new models, new codexes and subcodexes, new factions, and whole new branding.

Versus "anyone can be a Space Marine"? No chance.

There's also a shadow of "If you don't want female SM you are a bigot" that looms over everything that's rather irritating.

If people are seeing that, it's because they're choosing to see it there. They're more than welcome to outline in detail why their points about how "THE LORE WOULD BE RUINED WITH WOMEN SPACE MARINES" isn't sexist - I invite them to do so.

Unfortunately I've got limited time atm, but that's what I can post for now.

Appreciated.

RegularGuy wrote:I I think the best representation for the Christian in 40k is the discussion between the emperor and the last priest on earth, who walks back into the burning church to die rather than join the imperium.

Exactly - it's a single non-core book where an unmentioned faith (implied to be Christian, but is never explicitly named so) is wiped out. It being Christian is never the important part of the book, and as such, is most likely why it it never explicitly named. It's not exactly the same dominance that Space Marines have over 40k, is it?

Comparing the two is rooted in downplaying the position women occupy within the population, and their total absence in the flagship faction.

Insectum7 wrote:I'm genuinely interested in this, but if I'm only going to get glib removed-from-context responses then I won't bother.

There's no context removed. People are more than welcome to scroll up to go through what I choose to delete for the sake of avoiding massive ziggurats of text.

Example:

2. Another major issue I have is seeing demands for changing "creative works" to reform them in "their" image. This appears to be where the accusations of narcissism comes from. "I need to see myself represented." There's a certain (dare I say it) 'entitled petulance' about it.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but are you someone who has ever felt unrepresented?

I may be wrong, but I find it difficult to take comments like that seriously when they come from people who don't actually know what it's like to not feel represented.

"You just can't understand, man." is not something worth responding to, imo.

Likewise, people having no idea or appreciation for why representation is important is barely worth having a discussion with, but here I try.

It's both making assumptions about my person, and also failing to address the point.

What point can be made when you make it clear that you don't appreciate that representation is important?

You outright say that you find people asking for representation to be entitled and petulant - and instead of considering that maybe that's something you might need to review for yourself, you blame me for pointing out how maybe, because you self-admittedly don't understand it, you might want to listen to people who do.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I wonder if all these saying that female marines is a travesty and against the “lore” and dragging gender politics into 40K, would they be willing to be vocal in their opposition if the issue was black Spacemarines?

Seems unrelated, since black Space Marines are allowed by the lore.

Allowed is a strong word. The “lore” doesn’t prevent anything because it is entirely made up and subject to GW whim and want.

Exactly. People are acting like the lore is immutable and unchangeable. The only reason things are "allowed" or "disallowed" is because someone actively wrote that in. And I'm questioning *why* they're still in.

or, as you much better put it:

Or we could accept that things change and always have and always will. The “lore” is not a reason to maintain a status quo that limits inclusion and enjoyment.

Well put, by the way.

I frankly think adding female primaris and/or custodes would have been fine.

"Marines are male because incomprehensible biotechnology rules" is fine, in that it's an extent rule in the lore. I don't mind changing it but there's a difference between changing it "because Cawl's new super-implants no longer need a specific gender" and changing it and claiming that the original rule was never a thing.

Female-ish chaos marines should always have been fine- if geneseed can cope with the amount of mutations some chaos marines have, a second x chromosome is hardly a big deal.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

That really needs an ‘in the West’ qualifier tbf - not necessarily true everywhere in the world.

But as noted previously no real religion is explicitly represented in 40k so no individual religion is specifically excluded either.

Unlike gender where men are allowed in the popular club but not women. (And I agree, it’s the fact that it’s the ‘popular club’ which makes it the issue).

I'm trying not to be annoyed at how you missed the point I was making.
When I say "religion is a choice", what I am saying is "religion is a social construct and nobody is biologically determined to be religion X. You might be forced into being religion X by the society you live in but that is sociological and not biological, unlike sex which is biological. Note I say SEX and not GENDER because Gender is also a social construct and changes as society does."

I think it's hilarious the american is attributing "western privilege" to a person from the UK....

I’m a Brit too, my flag is just broken since I started using a VPN - I seem to get a different country every time I post

And devaluing people’s lived experience is uncool regardless - which is a large part of the point of this thread.

Also, the circumstances of ones birth are all random chance regardless. An individual has no more choice whether they are born into one culture or another than they do to be born one sex or another. Yes one is easier to change, but you have no more choice on start position for either.

Additionally, the Imperium can totally change both, which is another the (old) lore reason for only male marines is somewhat dubious.

(And @Gert, I agree with your point I just think you’re example is not entirely accurate, which potentially undermines it (and I’m a bit of a pedant))

Edit: Romanian now apparently

I understand that it might be disquieting to change existing stories or alter them for the purpose of representation.

What I would say is that no one is advocating for the alteration of finished stories. No one is (or at least should be) advocating genderswapping, say, Atticus Finch, or adding trans representations to Lord of the Rings. No one is suggesting changing the famously awful name of H.P. Lovecraft's cat in Rats in the Walls. No one is advocating making the Emperor trans, except me for 37 seconds, and that was only out of a moment's flabbergasted irritation. The point is that these stories are all products and snapshots of their time, and it is not worthwhile to creatively alter them to suit modern tastes and sensibilities.

40K might have its roots in the 80's, but 40K is not finished, nor is it merely a story, nor is it the product of one author's creative vision; it's been heavily collaborated on and market-altered and adulterated by a thousand hands, creative and financial, over three and a half decades. It is a living setting that is still being vigorously sold to people in the 2020s, and the reason I don't buy that the requests for representation are 'petulant' is because you are quite heavily encouraged to invest some of yourself into the setting in order to engage with it fully. The lack of representation is a completely unnecessary roadblock to this personal investiture in an evolving setting, especially one the company touts as being "For Everyone."

It's not history we're trying to revise, it's the present we need to revise.

So Cawl and Bile should figure out female marines as soon as they bloody can.

The only downside to allowing female/transgender representation in Space Marines, to my mind, is that it makes the Imperium seem slightly less douchey, but it'd be worth it.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.

Coincidentally, this is exactly why it is so important for women to be adequately represented in fantasy settings

 insaniak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.

Coincidentally, this is exactly why it is so important for women to be adequately represented in fantasy settings

I'm sure the number of females playing this game would absolutely surge to unseen numbers after the first revealed girl Space Marine, after all AoS has unprecedented number of woman playing it what with all them female Stormcast running around.

 Castozor wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.

Coincidentally, this is exactly why it is so important for women to be adequately represented in fantasy settings

I'm sure the number of females playing this game would absolutely surge to unseen numbers after the first revealed girl Space Marine, after all AoS has unprecedented number of woman playing it what with all them female Stormcast running around.

There wouldn’t have to be a surge, just a few not being put off, here and there and in time the numbers would increase. In time, people like you would stop saying things like “girl spacemarine” and “girls” as you call them would start to feel more welcome and less insulted and patronised by “boys” like you. Over all the hobby would be a nicer place to be. And hopefully you would see that “girls” aren’t that scary and that the setting and lore survived another minor change and it’s all ok, but if you didn’t see that and you still thought that girls playing war games was a problem, or fantasy super soldiers being girls still appalled you then you would leave the community. Either way the community gets better and 40K carries on.

 Castozor wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.

Coincidentally, this is exactly why it is so important for women to be adequately represented in fantasy settings

I'm sure the number of females playing this game would absolutely surge to unseen numbers after the first revealed girl Space Marine, after all AoS has unprecedented number of woman playing it what with all them female Stormcast running around.

I mean, AoS genuinely *is* less of a male-dominated community. Is it because of all the Stormcast? Maybe, maybe not - but having their "flagship" faction (which is nowhere near as prominent as Space Marines are) be openly inclusive is definitely more likely to appeal to a wider audience. So, while I see that your comment is likely deliberately hyperbolic and sarcastic, it's not even wrong. Adding women Astartes would appeal to many women, who happen to be a pretty good consumer market.

And again, would having women Space Marines drive people away from 40k?

I know of at least 5 women who I TT game with on a regular basis who actively avoid anything to do with 40k, and have often said, it's a "real Boy's club". I have also had complete strangers judge me for being part of "that crowd", mostly women. 40k has a stigma problem, AoS on the other hand does not. I've never personally had a single person say anything bad about my AoS purchases at a hobby store, or similarly, my DnD purchases. You are sticking your head in the sand if you don't think a majority of people who know anything about TT wargamming don't have immediate negative connotations with 40k or it's player base.

So as I've mentioned before, a woman going through the same processes to becone a space marine will have the same things happen to them that happen to a man. Massive growth in stature, muscles. To be representative of what a space marine is, the female space marine would have sculpts like this, beefier than sisters repentia (and they would likely have short hair for armor/combat reasons):


Now if your goal is inclusion of more women in 40k (a laudible goal) what evidence has been collected that a female line of marines that are faithful to what the concept of a marine would cause the appeal to women you are seeking? So I don't question the goal of female inclusion (and 40k allows that already in many factions), I question the effectiveness of the suggested program of female space marines as a vector to encouraging female players without GW making female marines something feminine like sisters and inconsistent with what a space marine is, or GW making them masculine as they should be, and potentially finding out after the fact that it wasn't adopted because of aesthetic reasons.

Mind you, some repentia head swaps on current marine models should acheive the effect pretty well ready, so maybe all GW would have to do is issue a similar head sprue.

I'm skeptical it would have the adoption postulated here.

is inclusion of more women in 40k (a laudible goal) what evidence has been collected that a female line of marines that are faithful to what the concept of a marine would cause the appeal to women you are seeking?

I've been on Twitter long enough to know that no woman can resist the allure of a gigantic muscle waifu.

Are you asking people to set up a survey to see if more women would do 40k if they had an option of female SM?
There are already hobbyists, not just women, who have made female SM using the SoB and Stormcast heads. The Angels of Purification project is a great example:
https://www.nomoredamselsrpg.org/angels-of-purification
Nobody is saying that adding female SM is going to magically change the hobbyist base overnight to be 50/50 guys and gals. It's about making a change now for the long-term betterment of the hobby. We can't know if it'll affect a huge change but it would sure go a long way in reforming the general view of 40k as a boys club filled with creepy weirdos who don't know how to interact with the opposite sex while potentially bringing more people into the hobby with their own stories/ideas.

The goal is making hobby and community more accessible to women. Of the diverse programs that could be followed, the program explored in this thread is for GW to modify the lore and model line to add women to the space marine line. A reasonable question is, would this program if adopted by GW actually materially advance the goal commensurate with the investment (modifying lore and model lines), or given the level of female representation already available in 40k, are there alternative programs with a better cost benefit (e.g. making it so marines aren't so dominant a model line that female players who must identify with female models to play feel they can't be real players or competitors without representation in marines faction)
To make the judgement I suggest that GW should move beyond speculation that lack of female marines is a driving problem and that affirming female marines is the best corrective program, and collect real data ( and oerhaps they already are given the attention the sisters line is getting)

I suspect that female marines that accurately represent the hypermasculinized physiology that marines would have would not have a very large response in market advancement for the female demographic beyond the current baseline. I said before, I'm not persuaded that the program of GW affirming female marines is necessary nor necessarily the best/only path toward the goal of expanding to the female player market. I don't believe it is s moral failing to question the merits and neccessity of this specific program to the objective.

Data here would be very informative. As I said, I suspect GW is already studying this sort of thing.

I’d suggest the CBA of making Space Marines not so prevalent is going to be significantly worse than making female marines since, while the benefits would be undoubtedly greater, the difficulty (and therefore cost) of doing it would be monumental compared to what could be done with a single sprue and a paragraph of lore...

 RegularGuy wrote:
The goal is making hobby and community more accessible to women. Of the diverse programs that could be followed, the program explored in this thread is for GW to modify the lore and model line to add women to the space marine line. A reasonable question is, would this program if adopted by GW actually materially advance the goal commensurate with the investment (modifying lore and model lines), or given the level of female representation already available in 40k, are there alternative programs with a better cost benefit (e.g. making it so marines aren't so dominant a model line that female players who must identify with female models to play feel they can't be real players or competitors without representation in marines faction)
To make the judgement I suggest that GW should move beyond speculation that lack of female marines is a driving problem and that affirming female marines is the best corrective program, and collect real data ( and oerhaps they already are given the attention the sisters line is getting)

I suspect that female marines that accurately represent the hypermasculinized physiology that marines would have would not have a very large response in market advancement for the female demographic beyond the current baseline. I said before, I'm not persuaded that the program of GW affirming female marines is necessary nor necessarily the best/only path toward the goal of expanding to the female player market. I don't believe it is s moral failing to question the merits and neccessity of this specific program to the objective.

Data here would be very informative. As I said, I suspect GW is already studying this sort of thing.

Gosh d'you think that might be why they've added female heads to IG, massively expanded sisters of battle, added female GSC and put out many more female models of late for both 40k and AOS?

Because I'm guessing they do know the buyer demographics of both 40k and AOS. and the growth numbers in AOS. And the demographics of those new players coming in to AOS.

End of the day, you're doing precisely what you should be doing if you want to achieve your desired outcome. GW is handling the space marine playerbase with all the delicate special snowflake care that many people of a certain political persuasion love to apply to the other side, precisely because of the vocal reaction from established whale consumers about any kind of change no matter how slight.

Andykp wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

-snip-

Seems unrelated, since black Space Marines are allowed by the lore.

Allowed is a strong word. The “lore” doesn’t prevent anything because it is entirely made up and subject to GW whim and want. The whole marines can’t be women lore originated in the same paragraph as some lore saying that new chapters could only be made on the emperors command, he had to actually instruct people from the golden throne to make more marine chapters. He sat there chatting to folk and issuing orders. Not to mention Marie s weren’t allowed new kit but then there was new LANDRAIDERs, new land speeder models, anti aircraft rhino variants, new load outs for predators, new types of veterans, new dreadnoughts, marines in power armour in more power armour, special dark angels and special vehicles for them and like wise for blood angels as well as marines riding frickin wolves and ones turning into wolves and even one in a flying sled pulled by wolves.

But the lore says they can’t evolve like this and develop new kit so you obviously don’t use them. Let alone any of the primaris stuff! As you are so attached to the lore not changing you won’t play tau, necrons, dark eldar, sisters of battle.....breathe.... grey knights as they appear now or ynnari, guiliman is still dead and the blacklibrary horus heresy books appalling to you because of how much they change the lore. So let’s protect this unchangable lore that is so important to everyone and set in stone.

Or we could accept that things change and always have and always will. The “lore” is not a reason to maintain a status who that limits inclusion and enjoyment. As for race, GW are actively pushing racial representation in their models with out the push back from the community like is happening about female marines. I just wonder why people feel it’s ok exclude women but not black people? Are they as against racial inclusion as they are gender inclusion but too scared to voice that less palatable opinion or is just women they want excluded?

I never asserted that lore can't change. I only assert that lore still requires handling with care, generally speaking. When people invest a bunch of money into something, and a company changes that thing out from under them, people get upset. Right? That should be obvious.

I'm more of the opinion that increased gender representation can be achieved without lore changes, since female warriors of various types already exist in the lore, they just aren't as loftily promoted or even represented with the models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Perhaps more harmful, the more it reflects 'real life', the less of an exotic, escapist setting it becomes.

Coincidentally, this is exactly why it is so important for women to be adequately represented in fantasy settings

Ehhh. . . sorta? I'd think the ideal is for fantasy settings to be of all types/ranges/and colors. Some will be egalitatian, some more geared towards niche audiences. Just as some products are more geared towards women, some can be more geared towards men or even aimed at teenage boys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CEO Kasen wrote:
I understand that it might be disquieting to change existing stories or alter them for the purpose of representation.

What I would say is that no one is advocating for the alteration of finished stories. No one is (or at least should be) advocating genderswapping, say, Atticus Finch, or adding trans representations to Lord of the Rings. No one is suggesting changing the famously awful name of H.P. Lovecraft's cat in Rats in the Walls. No one is advocating making the Emperor trans, except me for 37 seconds, and that was only out of a moment's flabbergasted irritation. The point is that these stories are all products and snapshots of their time, and it is not worthwhile to creatively alter them to suit modern tastes and sensibilities.

40K might have its roots in the 80's, but 40K is not finished, nor is it merely a story, nor is it the product of one author's creative vision; it's been heavily collaborated on and market-altered and adulterated by a thousand hands, creative and financial, over three and a half decades. It is a living setting that is still being vigorously sold to people in the 2020s, and the reason I don't buy that the requests for representation are 'petulant' is because you are quite heavily encouraged to invest some of yourself into the setting in order to engage with it fully. The lack of representation is a completely unnecessary roadblock to this personal investiture in an evolving setting, especially one the company touts as being "For Everyone."

It's not history we're trying to revise, it's the present we need to revise.

So Cawl and Bile should figure out female marines as soon as they bloody can.

The only downside to allowing female/transgender representation in Space Marines, to my mind, is that it makes the Imperium seem slightly less douchey, but it'd be worth it.

There are many factions in 40K that are not Space Marines. Why is it so absolutely necessary that Space Marines in particular be changed?

And if the answer is "Because Space Marines are on all the posters." then why not feature other factions on posters?

Andykp wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
I'm sure the number of females playing this game would absolutely surge to unseen numbers after the first revealed girl Space Marine, after all AoS has unprecedented number of woman playing it what with all them female Stormcast running around.

There wouldn’t have to be a surge, just a few not being put off, here and there and in time the numbers would increase. In time, people like you would stop saying things like “girl spacemarine” and “girls” as you call them would start to feel more welcome and less insulted and patronised by “boys” like you. Over all the hobby would be a nicer place to be. And hopefully you would see that “girls” aren’t that scary and that the setting and lore survived another minor change and it’s all ok, but if you didn’t see that and you still thought that girls playing war games was a problem, or fantasy super soldiers being girls still appalled you then you would leave the community. Either way the community gets better and 40K carries on.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anywhere where he implied that "girls are scary" or that women playing wargames was a problem. You brought that all on your own.

Nor did he imply that fantasy super soldiers being women was a problem. In fact to my memory the vast majority of defendant opinions in this thread haven't had any objections to female super soldiers, just female space marines. And only because it goes against a central aspect of what many people consider the space marines' identity as it has been understood for almost 30 years.

In fact the commanders for my Bloodbound and Stormcast are both female beyond just having female members in both of my armies...

Also what is your specific offense at someone using the word "girl"? I hear grown men and women use both "boy" and "girl" in conversation very regularly regardless of the age of who they are referring to.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And again, would having women Space Marines drive people away from 40k?

Simply put, no one does or can know, but that's never been the actual issue as people have told you over and over yet you continue to either ignore them or mentally cannot process it.

It is a matter of respecting the fiction as has existed for nigh on 30 years now. Space Marines being all male is one of the primary elements of their identity. That's not debatable. Either you believe sex doesn't matter, in which case there's no more reason to change the lore than to leave it the same. Or if you do believe that sex is significant then them being all male is in fact a notable part of their identity.

But the specific objection is that I can vouch for myself and people I personally know, that the lore of 40k matters to us because we grew up with it. It became a shared culture and language, something that you engrossed yourself in and became a tool that helped you facilitate conversation and build bonds. If you broke the IP into isolated components of it's visuals, lore, and game then I know a lot of people who care way more about the setting/lore of 40k than the game or the miniatures. And part of actually appreciating a fictional setting is accepting the idea that it is an utterly arbitrary playground with it's own conventions and boundaries. Certainly you can criticize a work if it is promoting or glorifying ideologies that are driving harmful behaviors in the real world, but it'd be pretty hard to argue that 40k is actually positively advocating for any of the negative ideologies woven throughout it (with the many characters being depicted as trying to be decent despite the terribleness around them). This is especially true of Space Marines in the context you are trying to argue.

Nothing about Space Marines being all male has anything to do with misogyny. You've even inadvertently supported that by bringing up Alan Merrett's explanation of the transition from the C range of figures to RTB01 and how it was a result of at the time, low demand by consumers for female models. So they made RTB01 all male and then later explained that noticeable element while building the 2/3 edition groundwork for what we recognize as modern 40k (not Rogue Trader) But even that in setting lore is layered into the themes of limited societal decay with Space Marines only being male because the technology is tied to the male genetic structure and that was where the Emperor stopped. No one in setting is telling girls they can't become Space Marines because "ew, you're icky", it's just a convention of the setting.

And the funniest part is, that hasn't even stopped women from playing significant nuanced roles within the sphere of Space Marines in recent expansions of the lore.
Lotara Serrin who was respected by the World Eaters and was basically the only sane person keeping their flagship from falling to pieces.
Amar Astarte who is just as, if not more, instrumental in the original creation of space marines as the Emperor was.
Calliphone, Perturabo's sister and the only one of his siblings he actually respects, who's death serves as the moment where Perturabo realizes that he's gone to far to redeemed in the eyes of the Emperor.
There's the Blood Angels ship captain shown for the Angels of Death series who will hopefully be a well written character that features prominently within the plot.

None of them are Space Marines, but they are absolutely strong characters and are central to Space Marine stories without being "just a hanger-on" from some other faction.

And yet the idea that with 12 major tabletop factions (not including smaller factions like SoS or Inquisition) containing both gendered representation; excluding Space Marines (all flavors + Custodes), Orks (who are asexual), and Tyranids (who are so alien as to not represent anyone directly); the idea that a woman couldn't find a faction she identified with because of her real world gender not being reflected in one (very over represented) faction doesn't tread with me.

I can one-hundred percent get behind the idea of more female representation through increased focus on non-Space Marine factions or even significant female characters in Space Marine stories, but I absolutely oppose altering the identity of a faction just because you don't care about Space Marines as they are now.

Also let's drop the pretenses and be honest about what your stance is (which I am piecing together from your posts). Just like RTB01 ended up being all male because of low interest in metal female Space Marines, you don't have faith that naturally boosting female characters through increased depiction will lead to more interest from women. And despite all evidence to the contrary you don't think that GW will actually commit to increased depiction of other factions because Space Marines are so popular and account for a massive amount of GW's sales. So instead you'd rather just forcefully ram female Space Marines into the lore because that's "easier" to achieve your goals, and you also hope it has a secondary effect of "smoking out the rats" so to speak, by riling up fethwits in the community so they get mad and leave. Is that accurate?

 Gert wrote:
Are you asking people to set up a survey to see if more women would do 40k if they had an option of female SM?
There are already hobbyists, not just women, who have made female SM using the SoB and Stormcast heads. The Angels of Purification project is a great example:
https://www.nomoredamselsrpg.org/angels-of-purification
Nobody is saying that adding female SM is going to magically change the hobbyist base overnight to be 50/50 guys and gals. It's about making a change now for the long-term betterment of the hobby. We can't know if it'll affect a huge change but it would sure go a long way in reforming the general view of 40k as a boys club filled with creepy weirdos who don't know how to interact with the opposite sex while potentially bringing more people into the hobby with their own stories/ideas.

See it's gak like this that really lights a fire in my gut. The reason it has that reputation is because a lot of the people who are part of this community were/are boys who felt disaffected from society. Boys with social anxiety, with various mental health factors, boys who were picked on bullied and ostracized. They never learned how to socialize or couldn't/wouldn't socialize in the same way as other people so they turned towards something like 40k to find a place where they could interact with other people and feel a sense of community without the fear of denigrated or judged.

People like you saying that we should cast them out for being "creepy weirdos who don't know how to interact with the opposite sex" is the exact same cycle of bullying and hate that drove them to find hobbies like this to begin with. Why? Because you think that you and your chosen people are more deserving of this space?

It's this gak that drives people into joining actual hate groups, becoming shut-ins, or committing suicide. And it only has gotten worse nowadays where boys/men can be bullied and humiliated in school/on the street/at conventions only to be told that because of their sex (and if you are white, also your race) that they are oh so privileged and are somehow oppressing everyone around them.

I used to be super socially awkward and anti-social when I was younger. That changed because I wanted to be more social and I was lucky enough to meet people who believed in me, encouraged me to be more confident, and slowly helped push me out of my comfort zone. I strive to treat everyone I meet regardless of race or gender with courteous respect until I can learn who they are as an individual. I believe that no matter what someone's own hardships are it doesn't excuse you from harming others, but I'm also very sympathetic to those who struggle to operate in society like other people can.

Which is why it's equal parts depressing and upsetting to see people say "don't you care about _____'s feelings" while at the same time implying that it's okay to denigrate and try to oust any existing people in that community who don't conform someone else's ideals.

^exalted

Yeah, i have an exceedingly difficult time finding empathy for people who negatively affect people around them, even if it can be sourced from mental health issues with that person or past abuse that person has experienced.

If someone came to the 40k community as a safe space where there are no women, and acts in a gakky exclusionary way towards women in order to attempt to keep them from joining the space because in the past women have acted negatively towards him, the reason doesn't actually matter.

Most abuse, bad behavior, hate, violence, whatever, has some kind of reason for it. People aren't born prejudiced against some kind of group or another. The actions that somebody takes are the actions that somebody takes, and the impact that they have on the people you perform them towards is the same regardless of your reason for doing it, and at the end of the day if I'm in charge of maintaining a community, my goal is to have the largest, safest community possible.

I can simultaneously feel some sympathy and even empathy for someone, while also acknowledging that their removal from a social group can be good for the overall health of that group. Anyone who manages a group of real human beings in any capacity is going to run into this situation. It is inevitable.

The people I want "cast out" of the hobby as you put it, are racists/sexists/homophobes/transphobes/Nazis because they all have enough of a presence in the hobby that it's noted by people outside of the hobby. A greater part of the 40k community probably doesn't fall into any of those categories but that doesn't matter because the vast majority of vocal 40k hobbyists who post on social media, which BTW is where most people will go to find hobby-related content, routinely fall into one or more of the aforementioned tropes. Just look at the weeks of nonsense that came about because Black Library had a Black SM on the cover of Dawn of Fire and when they did the sort-of-helpful-but-not-really "Warhammer is for everyone" message. There is a HUGE difference between social anxiety and flat-out sexism/racism/homophobia/transphobia. Nobody is "more deserving" of a place in the hobby, people just want to be able to get started in the first place without being harassed.
To be more on topic, if an individual is hiding their sexism/racism/homophobia/transphobia behind a piece of lore, which BTW is changed at will by the IP holders and isn't some sacred text, then they are creating a hostile environment directly linked to the 40k hobby.



Yeah, that ain't it. If you looked past right-wing soundbite rage-bait then you would know that like 0.00000000000000001% of people go around shouting at straight white guys that they're oppressing them by existing. People are bullied at school for thousands of reasons but being straight, white, and cis is not one of them. But of course, you know that.



Cool, join the club. School was horrible for me as well but I didn't use 40k as an excuse to be sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic. Once again there is a very big difference between being socially awkward or anxious and being sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic.



Nobody is harassing 40k hobbyists because they are white, straight, and cis. People are however harassed for being not white/a woman or a girl/LGBT+/being supportive of any of these people and it seen all over the place that "Gatekeeping is good because it keeps out SJW lefties who want to RUIN 40k ".

Mental health problems suck without any reservation but if you're excluding someone from the hobby and saying "it's because I'm socially anxious" then I am not going to agree with you.

It is also worth noting that I do not hold any kind of special dis-regard in this note towards people who lack 'special buzzwords'. If someone theoretically came in and started attempting the essentially impossible task of excluding white dudes from my 40k group, I'd hold them to exactly the same standard as the people over the years who have done things like

-joke extremely loudly about sexual assault the first time in a while that a female player was in attendance and brought her young daughter along

-get angry to the point of screaming because someone came in with an accent that they found difficult to understand during the game

-follow the only black person currently in the shop around the store, explicitly to 'make sure that they don't steal anything'

Can many of these behaviors be framed in a such a way that a person's past experiences or mental health issues could be pointed to as a source of the bad behavior? Absolutely they could. Does that change anything about the nature of the actions and the correct response as a person responsible for maintaining a social group? No it does not.

 Insectum7 wrote:
There are many factions in 40K that are not Space Marines. Why is it so absolutely necessary that Space Marines in particular be changed?

And if the answer is "Because Space Marines are on all the posters." then why not feature other factions on posters?

Space Marines are, by far, the most popular, marketed, and well-supported faction in 40k. This is not up for debate; this is fact. New edition? New smurfs. Another faction gets a unique mechanic? Gotta port it over to smurfs. Artists on GW payroll make random bs? That's a new primaris lieutenant, baby!

As the scotsman said a few pages back, in order to equalize space marines being an all boys club, every other 40k release would have to be expressly feminine (including orks and tyranids).

In an ideal world, space marines would not be so overbearingly popular that it's an active detriment to the hobby. The game would be closer to AoS, where each faction has its limelight and support in fairly equal measure, and entire editions wouldn't be put on hold because they have to re-release an entire line for their creator's pet cash cow.

But we're not in an ideal world. We're in a world where GW has created a circular, self fulfilling prophecy where Space Marines are the best supported because they're the most popular because they're most marketed because they're the best supported. Saying that GW could do the same with another faction is about as likely as space marines being limited to a single codex and maybe two or three new kits in an edition like most other armies--nice but extremely unlikely. Space Marines are the face of 40k and 99% of the time you see them, they're your generic heroic white guy because it's 'safe.'

Given how pathetic women are represented in the rest of 40k outside of Space Marines, GW really should do both--expand out the female options in other armies AND include women astartes.

 Gert wrote:
The people I want "cast out" of the hobby as you put it, are racists/sexists/homophobes/transphobes/Nazis because they all have enough of a presence in the hobby that it's noted by people outside of the hobby. A greater part of the 40k community probably doesn't fall into any of those categories but that doesn't matter because the vast majority of vocal 40k hobbyists who post on social media, which BTW is where most people will go to find hobby-related content, routinely fall into one or more of the aforementioned tropes.

I'd argue that seems to be a lot more of a function of social media and the algorithms that drive views, than an issue with the IP itself. I think it was noted earlier in the thread that that's "the business model of twitter" more or less.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Altima wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
There are many factions in 40K that are not Space Marines. Why is it so absolutely necessary that Space Marines in particular be changed?

And if the answer is "Because Space Marines are on all the posters." then why not feature other factions on posters?

Space Marines are, by far, the most popular, marketed, and well-supported faction in 40k. This is not up for debate; this is fact. New edition? New smurfs. Another faction gets a unique mechanic? Gotta port it over to smurfs. Artists on GW payroll make random bs? That's a new primaris lieutenant, baby!

As the scotsman said a few pages back, in order to equalize space marines being an all boys club, every other 40k release would have to be expressly feminine (including orks and tyranids).

In an ideal world, space marines would not be so overbearingly popular that it's an active detriment to the hobby. The game would be closer to AoS, where each faction has its limelight and support in fairly equal measure, and entire editions wouldn't be put on hold because they have to re-release an entire line for their creator's pet cash cow.

But we're not in an ideal world. We're in a world where GW has created a circular, self fulfilling prophecy where Space Marines are the best supported because they're the most popular because they're most marketed because they're the best supported. Saying that GW could do the same with another faction is about as likely as space marines being limited to a single codex and maybe two or three new kits in an edition like most other armies--nice but extremely unlikely. Space Marines are the face of 40k and 99% of the time you see them, they're your generic heroic white guy because it's 'safe.'

Given how pathetic women are represented in the rest of 40k outside of Space Marines, GW really should do both--expand out the female options in other armies AND include women astartes.

Well you're already arguing for one ideal (female Space Marines), why can't we examine the possibility of a different one (more representation of other factions)? Imo the second is the better choice for the game itself in particular. It seems like the pro-representation side is a little too quick to throw it out.

I think it's fair to say also, there are far more instances of non-white-cis people being negatively interacted with in society than instances of white cis men being oppressed.

Why is it always the white cis male that is the first to cry "help, I'm being oppressed" whenever someone says, lets be more inclusive to different types of cultures/ideas/people?