A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[CoffeeGrunt]

So Apple's crappy swear filtering program is proof of the systematic oppression of women via engraving naughty words into their iPads? Not like Apple haven't been known to roll with half-assed software in the past.

[Rissan4ever]

Taken by itself, it's meaningless. But if you look at as part of a larger pattern, it has meaning.

[Kirsten]

The Victorian women who punished a man for assault

[url]http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28262808[/url]

[YorkNecromancer]

Can we not?

No. Not until one of two things happens:

1.) People actually admit that this crap is sexist as all get-out. Which it is. Which also doesn't mean you can't enjoy 40K. I love 40K like you wouldn't believe, I love it more than any other hobby, but I freely admit it is hugely problematic on almost every level. That doesn't mean I don't love 40K - it means I'm an adult who's capable of holding more than one idea in my head at any given moment. 'My hobby, right or wrong' is a very poor excuse justification for things that cannot be justified. Understanding and acknowledging that these prejudices exist, that they are unfair, that they are artificial? That does not magically wash away the sexism, and saying 'it's escapist fun, it's not supposed to be real' makes it worse, because then you're explicitly saying women aren't welcome to join in. Which is vile. Maybe in the 80's, back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, maybe that sort of 'we need a safe male space' nonsense was acceptable. IT IS 2014: IT IS NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE. So people who want their boys-only paradise can have it, but the price is THAT YOU WILL BE CALLED OUT ON IT FOREVER BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THE INTERNET WORKS.

or

2.) We get some female sculpts.

The homogeneity argument clearly boils down to two different levels of analysis. You can have 10 armies, each of which is 23% female. Within each army, mix of sex is heterogeneous. Between armies however, they're homogeneous (all armies are 23%). Sisters of battle are homogeneous but add heterogeneity to the across-faction mix.

This core argument here is irrelevant, because NONE of the armies are 23% female; I mean, if we're allowed to make up statistics to help us win arguments, then what relevance do they have? I mean, fair enough, if you were talking about real-world statistics to demonstrate this, you might have a leg to stand on, but across the 40K range, there is NOTHING like 23% female sculpts for every army.

Given that Warmachine, Infinity, Malifaux, DUST, Super Dungeon Explore, all have something like 40% to 50% representation of either gender? Games Workshop's fear of the Female Bad Places looks antiquated and embarrassing.

But let's have a run down of armies with female models that aren't limited collecter's editions shall we (I mean, you can count that tokenism if you like, but I won't.)

• Marines: NOT ONE FEMALE.
• Blood Angels: NOT ONE FEMALE.
• Dark Angels: NOT ONE FEMALE.
• Space Wolves: NOT ONE FEMALE.
• The entire Horus Heresy Line: NOT ONE FEMALE.
• Mechanicum: NOT ONE FEMALE. Not even some weird cyber snail-thing.
• Chaos Marines: apart from the Slaaneshi marines, NOT ONE FEMALE. And the Slaaneshi marines hardly count, now do they? NOT EVEN A SINGLE FEMALE CULTIST. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT?!
• Orks: NOT ONE FEMALE.
• Tyranids: The Tervigon. Possibly every other tyranid except the Genestealers... although there has never been any confirmation besides fanwank that says 'Tyranids are like ants', but you know what? Why don't we say 23% of Tyranids are female? Why not?
• Eldar: on a model-by-model ratio? around 40% female. Unless you count Aspect Warriors, in which case every Aspect has male only models except Banshees. But go on. Let's say they earn their 23%.
• Dark Eldar: around 40% female again.
• Chaos Daemons: Slaaneshi rears her bulbous, pulsing head again. So let's be generous and say 23% of all Daemon models are female, including the giant bull thing and the jiggling booby monsters. Then let's halve that because they're only half female amirite?
• Tau: have one female model. Yay for equality! ('No, you can't say that, they could be female under their helmets!' BUT WE DON'T KNOW DO WE BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL WEARING HELMETS. So until the Fire Warrior sprue gets an alternative female sergeant head? Tau have only one female model.
• Astra Militarum: NOT ONE FEMALE. Yeah, there's two Last Chancers, that rubbish Games Day commissar, and the Catachan lass with a grenade launcher, but those were all limited, one-off sculpts. They don't count.
• Grey Knights: One female inquisitor (who's getting dropped next codex because she has no miniatures) and as many women in gimp suits as you like - at £8 a pop for one of two sculpts. So two models.
• Sisters of Battle: almost 100% female, depending on if you take no henchmen. Also out of production at this stage. So a ghettoised, ignored one at that. Great example of inclusivity, there. 'Oh but plastic Sisters are too difficult to build' YES OF COURSE. THAT 'DARK VENGEANCE' SET WAS CERTAINLY A SIMPLE KIT. WHY, THE HELBRUTE MODEL WAS A ONE PIECE CAST AS I REMEMBER - IN NO WAY AN EXCEPTIONALLY COMPLEX, MULTI-PART SCULPT WHICH DEMANDED HIGH LEVELS OF C.A.D. SKILL.

So, by my reckoning, that's a lot fewer than all the armies that have 23% female; not to mention that 100% of Space Marine armies will never have a female model because the world might actually f***ing end if that happened.

At best, most armies that aren't Eldar have a variety of female models, unless they're human in which case they have almost none. But the percentage is not equal across the board, and thus your argument falls apart.

This argument never goes anywhere, because there are two sides who literally cannot agree - it's an ideological conflict. The only way to resolve it is for one side to assimilate the other or for GW to make female sculpts. GW will never do that, I will never recant my belief in female equality everywhere, including in seemingly irrelevant things like tabletop wargaming: I've heard every argument against female marines/models, and I find every single one disgusting. Those who are opposed to female space marines, I suspect, would probably choose to die than see female marines happen.

But we're all so passionate about our beliefs, that we labour under the misapprehension we might somehow change the other side's view, either with reason, or statistics, or emotion, or pictures of cool models, or any one of a hundred other attempts which fall upon ears that remain deaf because there's none so deaf as those that won't listen.

[skeletoro]

You're ranting. People who already agree with you will no doubt cheer, but you're not going to convince anyone else. So go ahead, waste your time writing lengthy posts on the matter, if you think that's the pragmatic thing to do here. I'm not going to engage with you and will hope this thread goes somewhere interesting.

[DWest]

Keep in mind that GW is horribly slow at updating their lines, period. Taking IG as an example, you want power-anything-besides-swords-or-fists? Go take a flying leap at a rolling donut. You also can't the complete set of weapon options without mixing and matching sub-lines (Catachans come closest, but still not complete). So while I would like to see GW implement equality between the genders, even if they put out a press release saying "we intend to do this" tomorrow, it will still be years before you see any meaningful results. Also, there is a very good reason for Space Marines to remain all-male, and that is because without gender parity, they are incomplete. Damaged, flawed, right from the start, which is what Chaos exploited to cause the Heresy.

[Path Walker]

Keep in mind that GW is horribly slow at updating their lines, period. Taking IG as an example, you want power-anything-besides-swords-or-fists? Go take a flying leap at a rolling donut. You also can't the complete set of weapon options without mixing and matching sub-lines (Catachans come closest, but still not complete). So while I would like to see GW implement equality between the genders, even if they put out a press release saying "we intend to do this" tomorrow, it will still be years before you see any meaningful results. Also, there is a very good reason for Space Marines to remain all-male, and that is because without gender parity, they are incomplete. Damaged, flawed, right from the start, which is what Chaos exploited to cause the Heresy.

Fluff reasons, that could be easily retconned, aren't real reasons.

[eldargal]

Taken by itself, it's meaningless. But if you look at as part of a larger pattern, it has meaning.

Right and this is the important thing a lot of men miss. On their own most of the sexism in society is minor, the trouble is there is so much of it and it is so constant the pattern it forms is one of systemic oppression. In the case of the apple thing it is just further evidence of how womens bodies are viewed as both desirable and shameful, so they are commodified and women are then punished for 'allowing' their body to be commodified.

The Victorian women who punished a man for assault

[url]http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28262808[/url]

Awesome.

[eldargal]

You're ranting. People who already agree with you will no doubt cheer, but you're not going to convince anyone else. So go ahead, waste your time writing lengthy posts on the matter, if you think that's the pragmatic thing to do here. I'm not going to engage with you and will hope this thread goes somewhere interesting.

He's not ranting, he is calling you on your bull****. The fact you can't come up with any kind of response between backing off and trying to shift the blame onto him is pathetic frankly. If you don't want to engage in a debate about sexism in geek/hobby cultures then don't get involved, don't come in, spout some nonsense and then come over all passive aggressive and defensive when you get your 'argument' torn to shreds.

Can we talk about how absurd the notion of adding women to all male armies actually makes them more homogenous? I mean the only way that works is if you assume that women are all identical and interchangeable. Having 25% women in the IG range and 25% women in the eldar range makes things more homogenous because women are identical but all those men the women are supplanting were somehow unique? But having most armies 100% male is not homogeous. It's ****ing insane.

[Path Walker]

I don't understand why some people get so worked up about the idea of their being decent female models in their wargames?

Brb, emailing GW to ask for more female models in their ranges.