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 Gert wrote:
And yet the setting says otherwise when it beats you around the head with how brutal and cruel the Imperium is.

Women being kept to allow for reproduction isn't an issue when a tiny tiny tiny portion of the population is being sent to fight.

Applies once again only to two types of worlds, garrison worlds and hives which both rely on non garrison and hive planets for mere existence in some cases and can hardly be considered self sufficent. So no, it doesn't beat me on the head. We have never gotten numbers either for regimental makeup either.

This isn't like the World Wars where sending troops to fight means losing entire generations. A planet only raises Regiments when it can sustain them.

Even if half of the 0.00002% of the population that gets drafted are women, the impact on the overall population is utterly negligible.

overall, yes, local no. And that is the issue i point to.

Not every woman in the Imperium is reproducing at every opportunity because that would be monumentally messed up if that was the baseline for the background. But it isn't so women going off to join the Guard isn't an issue.

Also not the point raised. When you are done shifting straw tell me.

 Gert wrote:

 AldarionTelcontar wrote:
Total war mentality may lead to some females in the Imperial Guard, but the issues I had already noted before still mean that at least 95% of the Guard would be male.

Pulling percentages out of your rear doesn't make your point any more valid.

It is not out of my rear.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/05/10/nearly-half-of-female-soldiers-still-failing-new-army-fitness-test-while-males-pass-easily.html

44% of women fail AFCT compared to 7% of men. And this is for real-world militaries, which are basically equivalent to PDF, if that. In the Imperial Guard, disbalance would be even greater.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4151859/

As for what SOF soldiers themselves think:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/us-commandos-say-no-to-women-in-special-operations-jobs

Barring potential cultural factors (which would not develop in such a hostile galaxy)

Absolute tosh. The Imperium has a massive variety of cultures because it is absolutely huge. One system could be ruled by an aristocratic caste modeled on the Renaissance French while one system over is ruled by tribal warlords.
That's the whole point of the universe being a sandbox, if you want to have your world only produce Regiments staffed by women then you can do that. If you want a world that was ravaged by calamity and women hold the protected position of mothers and leaders while the men are soldiers and workers, you can do that too. As long as you aren't causing hassle for real people then do as you want but don't tell people they can't if it isn't hurting anyone.

Stop strawmaning. I have already said that I have no issue with occasional world having women serve in the army - hell, if you want a world where ONLY women serve in the army, go for it! So long as the explanation for why at least tries to make sense.

But biological and other realities mean that such worlds will be absolute rarity, which means that any Imperium-wide force WILL be massive majority male.

Let me remind you what the OP actually asked:

Is there any particular reason why we don't see female-majority regiments in books more often? Or women in combat roles in fiction in general, despite the setting clearly encouraging all genders to take up arms?

Reason is what I have explained above. We don't SEE such regiments in books more often because authors that write for 40k base their books on real-life militaries. And real-life militaries don't have female-majority regiments, or even all that many women, in frontline service, because doing so would simply be a bad idea.

In fact, "cultural factors" throwing practicality out of the window are the only way to HAVE large numbers of women in service.

Historically, societies that went for total war mobilization (West in the two world wars) punted men to the frontline and women to the factories.

Do you mean like Britain where the population was extremely small so there wasn't a choice? Or Germany where there were massive cultural restrictions on women serving until poop hit the fan and the Red Army was knocking on the bunker doors?
The Imperium is not like the Western allies nor is it similar in its treatment of women to the Axis powers.

Will men be more likely to sign up? Maybe, we can't say for sure because the culture of the Imperium promotes service to the Emperor above all else.

I mean, ALL historical societies where there was no ideological pressure to do otherwise.

Also, LOL at Britain having "extremely small" population. In 1939, United Kingdom alone had 48 million people. United States at the same time had 130 million, little less than three times the British population. And UK also had Commonwealth as well as the colonies.

I know. But just because you have to throw some logic out doesn't mean you should throw ALL logic out.

If you want to apply logic, don't pick the worst example possible. But even then your point is utter nonsense because none of the issues that we see with a modern armed force stuck with the limitations we have today in terms of genetics, population size, and technology exist in the 40k universe. Logic can be applied in very specific circumstances but using modern or even historical examples of militaries to prove your point is worthless because they are nothing alike.

Cobblers.

The Imperium is stagnant. Not regressive. The technology is does understand is churned in staggering volumes (such as Las Weapons, the understanding of which is such the Imperium can readily scale it up and down, depending on need)

The Cain novels (the main IG ones I’ve read) again make it clear that bionics are far from uncommon. Legs, arms, fingers, lungs, other organs are readily enough available, indeed you just need to survive long enough for them to be installed. And we see them being installed on and into Privates (not Rude Bits, Privates).

You again seem obsessed with physical strength. Whilst handy for fist fights, it just factor when you’re talking about the Imperial Guard, because they’re not a force designed around close range combat.

A Sentinel Pilot or tank crew doesn’t need to be beefcake rippling with well oiled muscles. A line trooper just needs to be able to tell one end of their Lasgun from the other, and shoot reasonably straight.

Your scouts need to be stealthy and enduring. But everyone else tends to fight from relatively static positions, relying on APCs to cart them about where suitable, or only have enough endurance to complete a march or redeployment without needing a Nice Bit Sit Down.

Feed them a high protein diet (hi Solyen Viridians!) and keep them well exercised, and the men and women under your command will perform quite competently.

We also live indolent lives the like most Imperial Citizens can only dream of. Not for us the eternal drudgery of living in a Hive. Not for us the honest physical toil of an Agri-World. Harsh environments breed resilient humans. Apply that selective pressure across 10,000 years, and what’s that going to do to baseline strength and toughness of the populace? That’s right, it’s naturally going to preserve the strongest and toughest members, as those not physically capable don’t breed as often or possibly at all.

Put steroids and growth hormones in the general water supply, and what’s that gonna do? Increase muscle mass. Making for a stronger population better able to carry out manual labour.

And again? You only need your Guard Soldiers to be strong and fit enough to carry their gear and fight effectively. That’s it. And if you argue women are inherently weak? Go Google “Rhea Ripley Back Muscles”. Whilst a genuinely exceptional woman, go back to my comment above about the different selective pressures 10,000+ years on an Imperial World, and how’ll they’ll shift the baseline norm.

The figures you shared are also barely relevant. Because there, you’re talking Optional Recruitment. Not Conscription. When you’re conscripting? You have a lower threshold because it’s the body count you’re after, not some (ultimately arbitrary) physical benchmark.

Now, not all Imperial worlds practice conscription or press ganging, but it’s far from unheard of.

While I don't doubt that the Imperium has technologies that could compensate for the inherent biological combat superiority of human males, I also suspect that such techniques are going to be viewed as not worth the effort. Why use strength enhancing technology to bring about some minor parity between the sexes when you could just make your mostly male soldiers even stronger?

Or just totally ignore the sex of your recruits and take what the local worlds give you, which going by all historical trends and cultural practices would be mostly male. The Imperium at its upper levels does not care about equality or sexism, only results matter. If a particular world has a female dominated society because of whatever arbitrary reason you set forth then the Imperium will accept female guardsmen from that planet. Though perhaps a pencil pusher somewhere might eventually take issue with potential combat shortcomings of such regiments, like noting their slower maneuvering times and greater than typical amounts of stress injuries from the weight of their equipment. He might even be notably confused as to why such things are happening, after all the sex of soldiers will likely be filtered out as irrelevant data at lower levels because they've never really had this as an issue.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


You again seem obsessed with physical strength. Whilst handy for fist fights, it just factor when you’re talking about the Imperial Guard, because they’re not a force designed around close range combat.

A Sentinel Pilot or tank crew doesn’t need to be beefcake rippling with well oiled muscles. A line trooper just needs to be able to tell one end of their Lasgun from the other, and shoot reasonably straight.

You seem to be discounting what strength actually means in combat. Its not just how much you can bench press. It's all the soft factors that come from that, and other things that having the better baseline strength of male bodies gives you.

As a whole, male soldiers will be better equipped to sustain the long term effects of carrying around their gear. The Imperium is not going to make the gear of female soldiers lighter to compensate, so overall they're going to be carrying a heavier load relative to their body size. This means they'll suffer more stress injuries over time.

In terms of walking long distances and marching, men and women have different gaits and stride anatomy. Men have a superior form for walking or running long distances, women do not due to having to give birth. This is a small difference, but small differences build up. Can specific individual women beat specific individual men in terms of strength or agility? Yes. But overall those trends show a distinct biological advantage to male bodies. Rhea Ripley, or indeed any unusually strong women, is not an argument against the biological difference between men and women. If you get to use outlier examples, then I get to bring forth The Rock and Hafþór Björnsson.

This is why men and womens sports are separated, its not a fair competition. And its a underlying reason why historically men make up most soldiers/warriors/etc... And the Imperium is no different, and with its brutal pragmatism it'll only care about results.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


The figures you shared are also barely relevant. Because there, you’re talking Optional Recruitment. Not Conscription. When you’re conscripting? You have a lower threshold because it’s the body count you’re after, not some (ultimately arbitrary) physical benchmark.

Now, not all Imperial worlds practice conscription or press ganging, but it’s far from unheard of.

Conscription just means you are forcing people to serve. It doesn't automatically mean you are lowering your standards. There is a reason why when you get drafted the first thing that happens is a physical. If you fail that you get sent home.

Given the absolutely massive population that the Imperium can draw upon, I would say that in normal circumstances they can afford to be picky. It'll only be on worlds where there is a truly desperate situation happening that they'll lower their standards.

You seem to be discounting what strength actually means in combat. Its not just how much you can bench press. It's all the soft factors that come from that, and other things that having the better baseline strength of male bodies gives you.

As a whole, male soldiers will be better equipped to sustain the long term effects of carrying around their gear. The Imperium is not going to make the gear of female soldiers lighter to compensate, so overall they're going to be carrying a heavier load relative to their body size. This means they'll suffer more stress injuries over time.

In terms of walking long distances and marching, men and women have different gaits and stride anatomy. Men have a superior form for walking or running long distances, women do not due to having to give birth. This is a small difference, but small differences build up. Can specific individual women beat specific individual men in terms of strength or agility? Yes. But overall those trends show a distinct biological advantage to male bodies. Rhea Ripley, or indeed any unusually strong women, is not an argument against the biological difference between men and women. If you get to use outlier examples, then I get to bring forth The Rock and Hafþór Björnsson.

This is why men and womens sports are separated, its not a fair competition. And its a underlying reason why historically men make up most soldiers/warriors/etc... And the Imperium is no different, and with its brutal pragmatism it'll only care about results.

I feel like you're disregarding a few points Mad Doc already made though. As they pointed out, plenty of women (especially in the 41st millenium) have enough physical strength to carry their kit around without having to worry about injury. Or at least, without having to worry about injury significantly moreso than their male counterparts.

Marching efficiency probably isn't a huge factor for most regiments because you're probably being carried by transport when going long distances.

Basically, if someone in the imperium is looking closely enough at individual performance to care about the physics of a soldier's stride, they're probably also looking carefully enough to see that a given soldier is strong enough for the guard's purposes. And if they really want to maximize stride efficiency or whatever, then you could be looking at segragated regiments or squads or whatever. Which would sort of support the idea of all-female groups of guard.

And if they aren't looking closely enough at those nuances, well, you'll get plenty of perfectly capable women in the 41st millenium who can march and shoot well enough for the guard to be happy to have them.

Seems like it would take a pretty specific level of scrutiny/recruitment optimization to make sex a deterrent for recruitment. You have to be looking close enough to care, but you also can't care enough to adjust kits, segragate squads, assign the women to tank units, etc.

Also, we've seen that there are plenty of perfectly competent and respected women in the guard. Like, that's just canon at this point. If a planet is going out of its way to *not* tithe women given how many woman we see swinging power swords and barking orders in the 41st millenium, that feels like more of a quirk of that planet at this point.

 Gert wrote:

Not every woman in the Imperium is reproducing at every opportunity because that would be monumentally messed up if that was the baseline for the background. But it isn't so women going off to join the Guard isn't an issue.

Honestly whilst the Imperium is pretty horrific, its actually got some very strong equal gender rights. Or if not actual rights, then there are least very limited to no gender based barriers at large.

Of course once you get to specific worlds and groups you can see disparity - such as Escher gangs or even potential feudal worlds which might have a more traditional "male dominated" social structure.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

You seem to be discounting what strength actually means in combat. Its not just how much you can bench press. It's all the soft factors that come from that, and other things that having the better baseline strength of male bodies gives you.

As a whole, male soldiers will be better equipped to sustain the long term effects of carrying around their gear. The Imperium is not going to make the gear of female soldiers lighter to compensate, so overall they're going to be carrying a heavier load relative to their body size. This means they'll suffer more stress injuries over time.

In terms of walking long distances and marching, men and women have different gaits and stride anatomy. Men have a superior form for walking or running long distances, women do not due to having to give birth. This is a small difference, but small differences build up. Can specific individual women beat specific individual men in terms of strength or agility? Yes. But overall those trends show a distinct biological advantage to male bodies. Rhea Ripley, or indeed any unusually strong women, is not an argument against the biological difference between men and women. If you get to use outlier examples, then I get to bring forth The Rock and Hafþór Björnsson.

This is why men and womens sports are separated, its not a fair competition. And its a underlying reason why historically men make up most soldiers/warriors/etc... And the Imperium is no different, and with its brutal pragmatism it'll only care about results.

I feel like you're disregarding a few points Mad Doc already made though. As they pointed out, plenty of women (especially in the 41st millenium) have enough physical strength to carry their kit around without having to worry about injury. Or at least, without having to worry about injury significantly moreso than their male counterparts.

You are suggesting that humans have evolved away our sexual dimorphism by the time of 40k. Given the artwork I would say you need to cite sources that humanity has lost that, otherwise we must assume it is the same as in the modern day.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9310503/

There is no reason to believe that these facts have changed in the 41st millenium. Women are more likely to injure themselves in military training compared to men, a fact which only goes away when you account for relative fitness. This suggests that women overall are less fit by default compared to men, which leads to the higher injury rates.

Yes, a women can improve her fitness to compensate and reduce injury risk. But this is still something that requires a deviation from the norm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Not every woman in the Imperium is reproducing at every opportunity because that would be monumentally messed up if that was the baseline for the background. But it isn't so women going off to join the Guard isn't an issue.

Honestly whilst the Imperium is pretty horrific, its actually got some very strong equal gender rights. Or if not actual rights, then there are least very limited to no gender based barriers at large.

Of course once you get to specific worlds and groups you can see disparity - such as Escher gangs or even potential feudal worlds which might have a more traditional "male dominated" social structure.

Correct. The Imperium won't discriminate because someone is a women, or a man, or whatever(as long as whatever isn't a filthy xeno or mutant).

But the Imperium will discriminate based on tangible effects, and you better believe they're not going to change their standards because potential recruits are women. Female guard recruits will need to pass the same requirements as the men, and if you are found wanting they're not going to give you a pass because you're a women.

This will naturally result in fewer women compared to men overall in the IG. Can there be exceptions with all female guard regiments? Might there be some regiments that have strict 50/50 mixtures? Absolutely, but its not going to be the norm.

For what its worth, in the novels I have read there always seems to be a few female characters in various Imperial guard regiments and nobody seems to comment on it being unusual. It certainly seems to be at least similar to what the modern US military has, so some but definitely in the minority.

I mean, it seems that the requirements for Guard service are:
1 - Are you breathing? (optional)
2 - Do you have the appropriate amount of limbs? (optional)
3 - Are you excited to kill the Xenos, the Mutant, and the Heretic? (required)

The Guard seems pretty loose about its standards considering Regiments like the Salvar Chem Dogs (who are all criminals) or the Jopall Indentured Squadrons (who are all born in debt to their lords and join up as a way of paying that life debt) exist.

And there’s still no allowance made that few, if any, worlds in the Imperium are much like our own.

As I said, in the real world, certainly in the west? We live pretty easy lives. I do office work, so don’t exactly do heavy lifting day to day. And our culture has traditionally kept women out of physical labour roles, seemingly because They Are Delicate Flowers.


40K? Hive Worlds, Agri-Worlds, Industrial Worlds all have physically intensive jobs, even if it’s just repetitive movement. That affects your overall fitness. Rinse and repeat over 10,000+ years and however many generations, and who knows what the average strength of each sex will look like, let alone on which exact planet.

Thus the counter argument simply falls away, because it’s solely rooted in our world, and makes no allowance for varied gravity, a life of physical labour, and untold generations who’ve developed in those much harsher conditions than we’re used to.

We could also consider things that GW often doesn't focus on such as varied air quality and gravity levels and the impacts those might have on multiple generations.
Even without considering that the Imperium clearly does a lot of genetic and mechanical alterations. 40K was birthed in an era where some fantasy/scifi did lean into the whole "the worse the environment the tougher people would evolve/grow to overcome it. Similar to how in Dune the Fremen and the Emperor's elite guard are shown to both be super-human warriors in their own settings; purely because they live in such harsh environments.


Plus there's every change that even if natural selection hasn't had time/allowed for it; that there's been tinkering here and there in so many genepools that the people are built very differently to how we are today.

We might even infer that people are more durable when we consider the absolute insane toxic hell that people in, say, Necromunda live in every day, and yet they appear to be able to survive, thrive and fight in such an environment. Whilst in reality chances are you'd be coughing up your lungs and dead pretty fast in such an environment.

Maybe 40k women are really as strong as men on average; but if that's the case, it's odd that most of the models don't seem to show them being as muscular.
The female chaos cultists are obviously slighter than their absolutely jacked male counterparts, for example.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Maybe 40k women are really as strong as men on average; but if that's the case, it's odd that most of the models don't seem to show them being as muscular.
The female chaos cultists are obviously slighter than their absolutely jacked male counterparts, for example.

They don't have to be as strong as men though. If we assume that things like weight and such are constants, then if the base line physical performance of men and women both increases over time from present day to 40K's era. Then it could be that whilst women are not equal to men; they are still much stronger than women are today. Thus able to perform on the battlefield to a high level of performance.

I would assume that is a attempt to show a difference between men and women models rather than near nakedness and a large bosom.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Thus the counter argument simply falls away, because it’s solely rooted in our world, and makes no allowance for varied gravity, a life of physical labour, and untold generations who’ve developed in those much harsher conditions than we’re used to.

This a BS argument.

You go measure the average strength and fitness of men and women in 3rd world countries where everybody is living in conditions more close to what you are describing, and you'll still find that there is still a physical difference between men and women. Heck, go back in time to any pre-industrial society and you'll find the same. You'll find that armies at the time were, shockingly, mostly men. If anything, harsher conditions amplify gender roles in societies.

Is life on many worlds harsh? Yes. Is it harsher than what humanity has survived in the past on our own planet? Not really. Not going by how people are drawn in the artwork.

Is living in the belly of a hive hard? Yeah. But is scrounging for rats and scraps in a metal cave harder than hunting and gathering on the Siberian Steppe? No, its actually probably easier because at least its not freezing cold.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Thus the counter argument simply falls away, because it’s solely rooted in our world, and makes no allowance for varied gravity, a life of physical labour, and untold generations who’ve developed in those much harsher conditions than we’re used to.

This a BS argument.

You go measure the average strength and fitness of men and women in 3rd world countries where everybody is living in conditions more close to what you are describing, and you'll still find that there is still a physical difference between men and women. Heck, go back in time to any pre-industrial society and you'll find the same. You'll find that armies at the time were, shockingly, mostly men. If anything, harsher conditions amplify gender roles in societies.
.

As I noted in my post on this, 40K was birthed in the same era as Dune and other sci-fi where harsher living conditions was shown to result in stronger people than those living in easier/softer conditions. Yes this is NOT how it works in our reality where harsher conditions do not make you any stronger and will, if anything, increase your chance of sickness/injury. However its something that is clearly present in things like 40K and Dune.

Of course its also got its limit points and there most certainly are many in 40K who are weak, sick, injured, crippled and such who are of no use to the Imperium save as Corpse Starch*

*allegedly, since we all know that Corpse Starch isn't really made of bodies.....

 Overread wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Maybe 40k women are really as strong as men on average; but if that's the case, it's odd that most of the models don't seem to show them being as muscular.
The female chaos cultists are obviously slighter than their absolutely jacked male counterparts, for example.

They don't have to be as strong as men though. If we assume that things like weight and such are constants, then if the base line physical performance of men and women both increases over time from present day to 40K's era. Then it could be that whilst women are not equal to men; they are still much stronger than women are today. Thus able to perform on the battlefield to a high level of performance.

Such changes would only result in the standards rising, so we'd still be in the same rough pattern as today. Women allowed into the IG, but still having to meet the same requirements and between that and the natural state of human society being for men to go to war over women results in fewer women overall in the IG.

And if humans have become stronger, it stands to reason that everything will have gotten heavier to match. You're carrying more body armor and gear because you can carry more.

I can see the AM wanting mixed regiments just on the basis that conquered worlds often keep their AM regiments in place, both to garrison the world as well as repopulate it.

Yes but at some point it starts levelling out. Even real world armies only maintain a certain level of physical fitness, despite the fact that both genders can achieve more and could thus carry more armour and be fitter than they are.

My point is that the bar has a point where once you go above it the gains become less and less great, esp for an army like the Guard which is equipment limited by doctrine. Yes you CAN make better armour - you can make Space Marine grade armour. However the Imperium does not because of its established structure of "how things are gone".

So if the physical body for healthy (or moderately healthy) imperial citizens in the 40K setting is basically at or above the standard bar for men and women then it doesn't matter if peak performance can be greater; they are already above the bar to perform to the required standard.



Again don't forget the Imperial recruiting is closer to when armed forces used Press Gangs to just force drunk men in bars into life in the Navy. Or in WW2 Stalingrad when troops were sent into battle without guns with the expectation that they'd pick up those of their fallen comrades. The Imperium does at least give you a gun.

It's "by the book" madness when the book was written thousands of years ago and some of the pages are probably missing.

We have to remember that they aren't building a modern army to modern standards. It's basically older style army building with the main change being a lack of any gender restrictions.

 Overread wrote:
Again don't forget the Imperial recruiting is closer to when armed forces used Press Gangs to just force drunk men in bars into life in the Navy. Or in WW2 Stalingrad when troops were sent into battle without guns with the expectation that they'd pick up those of their fallen comrades.

That's a gross over generalisation when you have worlds like Vostroya which are very invested in the quality of their military exports.

Given that we know what a basic conscript is represented by in tabletop terms, we know that a standard Guardsman/woman is better than that in most cases.

I would argue that the Guard doesn't have standardised recruitment practices, at least not Imperium wide.
Or if there is a standard, its going to be a damn low bar to pass seeing as how varied the people's of the Imperium are.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Again don't forget the Imperial recruiting is closer to when armed forces used Press Gangs to just force drunk men in bars into life in the Navy. Or in WW2 Stalingrad when troops were sent into battle without guns with the expectation that they'd pick up those of their fallen comrades.

That's a gross over generalisation when you have worlds like Vostroya which are very invested in the quality of their military exports.

Given that we know what a basic conscript is represented by in tabletop terms, we know that a standard Guardsman/woman is better than that in most cases.

True and like a lot of things 40K its sometimes hard to give a generalisation at times because you can always pick worlds and examples that go against any generalisation. Because when you've 1million worlds spread out over a Galaxy the potential for variety is insanely fast.

My view is more of a very general oversight of it all. Within that you will get worlds that don't care one bit about any standard and will use the Tithe to get rid of undesirables; through to worlds that will take it very seriously and produce extremely top-end troops through to worlds that use genetic cloning (illegally) to produce whole tithes. etc....

We even see this in the lore in some stories where there's competition and contrast between different regiments, showing some better trained than others and such. The game side of things does tend to lean heavily into the more quality side and I think that's partly to help highlight the contrast between the organised Imperial armies and the rabble of Chaos cultists and followers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
I would argue that the Guard doesn't have standardised recruitment practices, at least not Imperium wide.
Or if there is a standard, its going to be a damn low bar to pass seeing as how varied the people's of the Imperium are.

That actually makes my point better than I did

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Maybe 40k women are really as strong as men on average; but if that's the case, it's odd that most of the models don't seem to show them being as muscular.
The female chaos cultists are obviously slighter than their absolutely jacked male counterparts, for example.

They don't have to be as strong as men though. If we assume that things like weight and such are constants, then if the base line physical performance of men and women both increases over time from present day to 40K's era. Then it could be that whilst women are not equal to men; they are still much stronger than women are today. Thus able to perform on the battlefield to a high level of performance.

Such changes would only result in the standards rising, so we'd still be in the same rough pattern as today. Women allowed into the IG, but still having to meet the same requirements and between that and the natural state of human society being for men to go to war over women results in fewer women overall in the IG.

And if humans have become stronger, it stands to reason that everything will have gotten heavier to match. You're carrying more body armor and gear because you can carry more.

I completely disagree on that last point.

The humble Lasgun is an absolute miracle weapon. Easy to produce, ridiculously easy to use, lightweight in construction and ammo. An effective gun which even the most backwards of primitive recruits can quickly learn how to use. Flak Armour is “good enough”. Mostly there seemingly to prevent flesh wounds and shrapnel (which would include debris from exploding cover) is still made from materials available 39,000 years from now, so isn’t necessarily heavy.

You don’t base your equipment on the average strength, and keep upping its weight as your troops get stronger. You set your basic equipment, then ensure your recruits can like, carry it.

Plus as I said earlier? The Imperial Guard fights from fairly static, prepared positions. And where they need to move swiftly, regiments will have APCs or IFVs of some description to achieve that swiftly and efficiently.

Indeed, a Regiment noted for its widespread use and issue of APC/IFV can stow a lot of its extraneous kit in said vehicle, so they won’t have to lug it around on foot all the time, affecting just how strong you need them to be.

My point is that the bar has a point where once you go above it the gains become less and less great, esp for an army like the Guard which is equipment limited by doctrine. Yes you CAN make better armour - you can make Space Marine grade armour. However the Imperium does not because of its established structure of "how things are gone".

So if the physical body for healthy (or moderately healthy) imperial citizens in the 40K setting is basically at or above the standard bar for men and women then it doesn't matter if peak performance can be greater; they are already above the bar to perform to the required standard.

This. While sexual dimorphism is a thing, it should be basically irrelevant when it comes to strength provided women are strong enough to hit the minimum bar. How far above that bar you are doesn't make a huge difference. The important thing is just being able to reach that bar at all.

Being able to haul a heavy bolter around in your arms and fire it on the move is cool and all, but not a requirement for joining the guard.

And in the 41st millenium, there seem to be a lot of planets where people are encouraged to spend time running, jumping, fighting, etc. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the average woman from such a planet is sufficiently strong to clear the minimum requirements.

Also there is the genetic tinkering that happened in the Dark Age of Technology. Who knows what changes were made to the base human genome.

I agree that there would be far more male IG than female IG. But there would still be some female IG.

If you were waiting for reinforcements (a relief force) what would you rather 700,000 male IG or 740,000 IG.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cobblers.

The Imperium is stagnant. Not regressive. The technology is does understand is churned in staggering volumes (such as Las Weapons, the understanding of which is such the Imperium can readily scale it up and down, depending on need)

The Cain novels (the main IG ones I’ve read) again make it clear that bionics are far from uncommon. Legs, arms, fingers, lungs, other organs are readily enough available, indeed you just need to survive long enough for them to be installed. And we see them being installed on and into Privates (not Rude Bits, Privates).

Bionics are used exclusively to provide replacements for lost limbs. Again, if Imperium could do what you are suggesting, everybody in the Imperial Guard would have Mark VI MJOLNIR armor or something like that.

You again seem obsessed with physical strength. Whilst handy for fist fights, it just factor when you’re talking about the Imperial Guard, because they’re not a force designed around close range combat.

A Sentinel Pilot or tank crew doesn’t need to be beefcake rippling with well oiled muscles. A line trooper just needs to be able to tell one end of their Lasgun from the other, and shoot reasonably straight.

Your scouts need to be stealthy and enduring. But everyone else tends to fight from relatively static positions, relying on APCs to cart them about where suitable, or only have enough endurance to complete a march or redeployment without needing a Nice Bit Sit Down.

Feed them a high protein diet (hi Solyen Viridians!) and keep them well exercised, and the men and women under your command will perform quite competently.

You are obsessed with irrelevant stuff here. Or are intentionally misinterpreting my argument.

Physical strength was not very relevant for FIGHTING ever since humans made first weapons. Hell, medieval knights did not really need to be all that strong.

It is everything ELSE that you need strength (and endurance) for. Lugging around weapons and equipment. Digging trenches. Pulling out and carrying your injured squadmates. Climbing through forest. And so on.

And all these areas are a) absolutely crucial and b) something where women DO, generally speaking, underperform compared to men.

We also live indolent lives the like most Imperial Citizens can only dream of. Not for us the eternal drudgery of living in a Hive. Not for us the honest physical toil of an Agri-World. Harsh environments breed resilient humans. Apply that selective pressure across 10,000 years, and what’s that going to do to baseline strength and toughness of the populace? That’s right, it’s naturally going to preserve the strongest and toughest members, as those not physically capable don’t breed as often or possibly at all.

Put steroids and growth hormones in the general water supply, and what’s that gonna do? Increase muscle mass. Making for a stronger population better able to carry out manual labour.

And that will be true for men and women both, meaning that men will still perform better than women.

And again? You only need your Guard Soldiers to be strong and fit enough to carry their gear and fight effectively. That’s it. And if you argue women are inherently weak? Go Google “Rhea Ripley Back Muscles”. Whilst a genuinely exceptional woman, go back to my comment above about the different selective pressures 10,000+ years on an Imperial World, and how’ll they’ll shift the baseline norm.

The figures you shared are also barely relevant. Because there, you’re talking Optional Recruitment. Not Conscription. When you’re conscripting? You have a lower threshold because it’s the body count you’re after, not some (ultimately arbitrary) physical benchmark.

Now, not all Imperial worlds practice conscription or press ganging, but it’s far from unheard of.

Individual exceptions hardly support OP's argument that women should be anything more than... well... individual exception in the Imperial Guard.

Let me remind you that we are talking about the IMPERIAL GUARD here. It literally doesn't matter how individual worlds recruit their troops: Guard regiments provided by these worlds will be (or are supposed to be) the best of the best. And that means that yes, they will have standards.

Seems to me you just want to complain without even trying to understand the topic we are talking about.

I think there a lot of people over egging how high the standards are in the guard and the pdf.

To liken the pdf to a modern professional western army is a huge mistake. The pdf is much more like the territorial or reservist army. They famously in the setting aren’t that good. The bar for entry is pretty much being keen enough to do it.

The guard at least have semblance of professionalism about them but again it’s about numbers not quality. If a governor has to give a million able bodied people to the tithe the bar for entry again won’t be that high. All the fluff written of IG recruits has them being pretty poor and only toughened up and made good by experience.

As such recruiting women has no barriers at all in setting. And all the current guard books have a good number of women in most the regiments depicted.

It seems that a lot of people here are using real world “facts” that are really just thinly veiled misogynistic rhetoric to try and impose their world view on a fictional setting that is clearly now moving in a different direction, a direction that is much more inclusive.

Andykp wrote:

It seems that a lot of people here are using real world “facts” that are really just thinly veiled misogynistic rhetoric to try and impose their world view on a fictional setting that is clearly now moving in a different direction, a direction that is much more inclusive.

Yes. Absolutely this.

Indeed.

And to describe IG recruits as “the best of the best” is frankly laughable.

Different worlds have different approaches. All that matters to the Administratum is that when you’re told to provide recruits, you provide them on time. That could be fresh recruits to replace losses, or the founding of a whole new regiment.

Some will provide crack troops, well trained and drilled. Some will provide troops with a crack habit (hi Savlar!). Some will provide whatever they can. Formal recruitment, press ganging, conscription. It’s all fair game and largely down to the Planetary Governor’s discretion, and how far they want to take the recruit, equip, and train of their overall obligations.

And then you've some worlds like Cadia, Catachan and such which are clearly built as world-sized army recruitment and training worlds. Designed socially, structurally and all to produce elite trained troops for war. Their prime export and reason is to produce highly trained troops from their population.

Part of the tithing process is a requirement of levels of training/experience.

A governor who provides untrained cannon fodder when they were expected to provide trained, slightly experienced soldiers is going to be getting a visit from an Arbites Exaction Team.