Charax wrote: Funnily enough Tyranids are female coded for the most part despite being Dino-insects from another galaxy - Norn Queen, Heirodule, Termagant, Harridan...
But even then those names are explicitly stated to be human names forced upon them, even the name Tyranid is because of the Imperial world Tyran.
So yes they are in-universe female coded by the humans, because humans forcing their concept of gender on everything else is just human 101.
I am not going to make a giant quote pyramid because there are so many people making the same point that I want to address.
If you see Orkz as male coded than that is on you. YOU are accepting what the cultural expectation of male and female are and using those to describe these factions. By cultural norms you will not see any female coded armies because war and fighting are tied to masculinity in our culture and in the history of humanity. If you feel that Orkz are male coded then that is because of what you label as male or not-female and the only reason then to ask for them to be more feminine is because you yourself take exception to the fact that they are male coded.
With that said I KNOW that no one is asking for feminine Orkz, at least not that I have seen thus far, but we can extrapolate that to Custodes. If you want female Custodes it is because you take exception to them being all male, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Gender is so arbitrary and on a spectrum that it is difficult to comprehend how to make a war game more inclusive when you approach it from a human perspective because of our biases towards what is and is not masculine or feminine.
More representation is never a bad thing and I am all for it. Despite the fact that I am adamantly against adding female space marines for reasons I have previously stated I am not about to rage if they do add them. It will just be one more thing driving me away from the setting because it is losing the grim dark nature of the setting slowly by adding so many heroes and humanity resurgence.
I live as the only male in my household and my daughter is fascinated with paleontology, loves horror movies, loves keeping reptiles and likes to play sports. I'd love for her to get into 40k or war gaming with me and her grandpa but so far she has only shown mild interest in it and not because she doesn't feel like she can relate to any of the armies, although she like so many other women does like Tyranids cause again, dinosaurs. I just don't understand the need to identify with fictional characters but that might just be me; for better or worse maybe I am just completely out of touch with social norms.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I am not going to make a giant quote pyramid because there are so many people making the same point that I want to address.
If you see Orkz as male coded than that is on you. YOU are accepting what the cultural expectation of male and female are and using those to describe these factions. By cultural norms you will not see any female coded armies because war and fighting are tied to masculinity in our culture and in the history of humanity. If you feel that Orkz are male coded then that is because of what you label as male or not-female and the only reason then to ask for them to be more feminine is because you yourself take exception to the fact that they are male coded.
With that said I KNOW that no one is asking for feminine Orkz, at least not that I have seen thus far, but we can extrapolate that to Custodes. If you want female Custodes it is because you take exception to them being all male, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Gender is so arbitrary and on a spectrum that it is difficult to comprehend how to make a war game more inclusive when you approach it from a human perspective because of our biases towards what is and is not masculine or feminine.
More representation is never a bad thing and I am all for it. Despite the fact that I am adamantly against adding female space marines for reasons I have previously stated I am not about to rage if they do add them. It will just be one more thing driving me away from the setting because it is losing the grim dark nature of the setting slowly by adding so many heroes and humanity resurgence.
I live as the only male in my household and my daughter is fascinated with paleontology, loves horror movies, loves keeping reptiles and likes to play sports. I'd love for her to get into 40k or war gaming with me and her grandpa but so far she has only shown mild interest in it and not because she doesn't feel like she can relate to any of the armies, although she like so many other women does like Tyranids cause again, dinosaurs. I just don't understand the need to identify with fictional characters but that might just be me; for better or worse maybe I am just completely out of touch with social norms.
Are Sisters of Battle male-coded because they engage in war?
Charax wrote: Funnily enough Tyranids are female coded for the most part despite being Dino-insects from another galaxy - Norn Queen, Heirodule, Termagant, Harridan...
to be fair, such terminology is pretty common for insects. unless we get a not!kerrigan, it doesn't really mean much
LunarSol wrote: I think the (newer) Cheerleader style could be added to existing Ork units pretty well.
I'm actually surprised GW created those models. I always assumed they're gun shy about things like large, overly muscled women such as female orcs/orks, female ogryns, etc. was the rise and popularism in certain circles of anti-trans sentiments and they absolutely did not want to open that can of worms. I remember Fatshark saying they wanted to include female ogryns in Darktide, but GW said no.
If you see Orkz as male coded than that is on you. YOU are accepting what the cultural expectation of male and female are and using those to describe these factions. By cultural norms you will not see any female coded armies because war and fighting are tied to masculinity in our culture and in the history of humanity. If you feel that Orkz are male coded then that is because of what you label as male or not-female and the only reason then to ask for them to be more feminine is because you yourself take exception to the fact that they are male coded.
No, the game literally male codes orks. Orks are referred to with male pronouns. They call themselves male names. They have traditionally masculine appearances (such as it is). All of their special characters follow the same route.
Sure, as a species, they reproduce asexually and--I hope--don't have anything resembling human primary sexual characteristics. As space aliens, humans would likely be more related to a tree than to orks. But if we're talking about socially constructed gender? Yeah, they're dudes.
Same with Necrons, who are an even worse example of this effect. Though Necrons do at least have a few mentioned characters who identify as female. In books. But as far as I know, within the 40k game, if someone refers to a Necron, they treat it as male.
With that said I KNOW that no one is asking for feminine Orkz, at least not that I have seen thus far, but we can extrapolate that to Custodes. If you want female Custodes it is because you take exception to them being all male, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Gender is so arbitrary and on a spectrum that it is difficult to comprehend how to make a war game more inclusive when you approach it from a human perspective because of our biases towards what is and is not masculine or feminine.
You may feel that gender is arbitrary, but it's quite important to some people. Even most people, given how upset so many people seem to get at the mere suggestion that maybe the plastic toy soldiers should also include non-masculine models. Not even replace or displace, just in addition to in a way that wouldn't really affect said people.
One could also reverse your thinking, and say that if you only want male custodes, you take exception to the inclusion of females among their ranks. Sure, there are some lore inconsistencies and some unfortunate implications to GW suddenly explicitly pointing out that female custodes have always been a thing, but it's far less consistent than GW suddenly making custodes a playable faction in the first place.
I'm sure many people would have reasons for wanting to field only female custodes. Just as there are reasons they might want to field male custodes. The fact that there's not an option and so many people knee jerk it in opposition is the problem.
Will female custodes make me go out and get an army of them? No, not likely. Would female marines make me go out and get an army of them? Also not likely, but it would make it easier to swallow getting some marine crap thrown into my purchases when I really don't want them as a faction (for example, when I bought one of the new edition boxes).
However, if I started minigaming today, and walked into a Games Workshop, I would almost certainly go with Age of Sigmar over 40k, both because I think the models are of superior quality--none of those 10, 15, or 20 year old models stepchildren factions--and because AoS isn't afraid of boobs.
More representation is never a bad thing and I am all for it. Despite the fact that I am adamantly against adding female space marines for reasons I have previously stated I am not about to rage if they do add them. It will just be one more thing driving me away from the setting because it is losing the grim dark nature of the setting slowly by adding so many heroes and humanity resurgence.
Because...female marines are less grim dark? I'm not sure how to respond to this. Is it because women can't be grimdark, in which case I wonder why you haven't left the hobby after the resurgence of Sisters of Battle. GW even had the audacity to put them--and a female guardsman!--in the 9th edition announcement cinematic.
Space Marines are already treated as basically super heroes that usually fall somewhere on the spectrum between Superman and Batman. They're everywhere in the setting, and GW keeps focusing more and more on them. If you would leave the hobby at the introduction of female marines because it's suddenly less grim dark, then your issue isn't female marines, it's just females.
I live as the only male in my household and my daughter is fascinated with paleontology, loves horror movies, loves keeping reptiles and likes to play sports. I'd love for her to get into 40k or war gaming with me and her grandpa but so far she has only shown mild interest in it and not because she doesn't feel like she can relate to any of the armies, although she like so many other women does like Tyranids cause again, dinosaurs. I just don't understand the need to identify with fictional characters but that might just be me; for better or worse maybe I am just completely out of touch with social norms.
Anecdotes aside, have you considered the possibility that the reason you don't understand the need or why anyone wants to identify with fictional characters is because you're in the demographic that has a majority of marketing or fiction aimed at you?
I'm not sure why you brought up your child's hobbies. I love horror movies and wanted an iguana when I was younger. My spouse is such a dinosaur nerd that I'm able to tease her about non-dinosaur dinosaurs and played sports as a child and continues to be sporty. She's also into tanks and medieval weapons. My other spouse is an NFL enthusiast and spends the weekends chatting with my FIL about draft picks like it's some kind of alien language. All three of us look traditionally femme and wouldn't consider any of us outside of the norm. Coincidentally, my first 40k army was in fact Tyranids, probably due to my love of Aliens and Starship Troopers both of which featured pretty rad female representation.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: .... I just don't understand the need to identify with fictional characters but that might just be me; for better or worse maybe I am just completely out of touch with social norms.
How can you not understand, it's been explained so many times in this thread. No one is saying that no women would play an all male Space Marines army. No one is saying that every woman would play a mixed gender or all female Space Marine Army. Lots and lots of people have repeatedly explained that representation matters to some people and at the moment there is very few representations that are not aimed at men, including the main faction and focus of the majority of the lore and media. It's extremely simple.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: .... I just don't understand the need to identify with fictional characters but that might just be me; for better or worse maybe I am just completely out of touch with social norms.
How can you not understand, it's been explained so many times in this thread. No one is saying that no women would play an all male Space Marines army. No one is saying that every woman would play a mixed gender or all female Space Marine Army. Lots and lots of people have repeatedly explained that representation matters to some people and at the moment there is very few representations that are not aimed at men, including the main faction and focus of the majority of the lore and media. It's extremely simple.
if someone doesn't get it at this point, they never will
Arbiter_Shade wrote: .... I just don't understand the need to identify with fictional characters but that might just be me; for better or worse maybe I am just completely out of touch with social norms.
How can you not understand, it's been explained so many times in this thread.
Look, you can explain it until you run out of breath/get tired of typing.
And no one's denying its a thing.
But that doesn't make needing to "identify" with a toy soldier any less of a completely alien concept for some.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I am not going to make a giant quote pyramid because there are so many people making the same point that I want to address.
If you see Orkz as male coded than that is on you. YOU are accepting what the cultural expectation of male and female are and using those to describe these factions. By cultural norms you will not see any female coded armies because war and fighting are tied to masculinity in our culture and in the history of humanity. If you feel that Orkz are male coded then that is because of what you label as male or not-female and the only reason then to ask for them to be more feminine is because you yourself take exception to the fact that they are male coded.
With that said I KNOW that no one is asking for feminine Orkz, at least not that I have seen thus far, but we can extrapolate that to Custodes. If you want female Custodes it is because you take exception to them being all male, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Gender is so arbitrary and on a spectrum that it is difficult to comprehend how to make a war game more inclusive when you approach it from a human perspective because of our biases towards what is and is not masculine or feminine.
Not trying to rake you over the coals, but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. It sounds like you object to people reading orks as male-coded because they're not literally sexed/gendered as male. But that's what coding is. If they were sexed/gendered as male, we wouldn't be calling them "male-coded." We'd just be calling them male.
If you want to argue that they are "male coded" then you have to admit that this entire discussion is arbitrary based on personal views.
Like, you agree that orks are clearly male-coded, right? That they possess signifiers that everyone in this thread would identify as masculine? How does an army being full of masculine signifiers somehow make them irrelevant to the topic of 40k having lots of male-coded or explicitly masculine armies?
LunarSol wrote: I think the (newer) Cheerleader style could be added to existing Ork units pretty well.
I'm actually surprised GW created those models. I always assumed they're gun shy about things like large, overly muscled women such as female orcs/orks, female ogryns, etc. was the rise and popularism in certain circles of anti-trans sentiments and they absolutely did not want to open that can of worms. I remember Fatshark saying they wanted to include female ogryns in Darktide, but GW said no.
If you see Orkz as male coded than that is on you. YOU are accepting what the cultural expectation of male and female are and using those to describe these factions. By cultural norms you will not see any female coded armies because war and fighting are tied to masculinity in our culture and in the history of humanity. If you feel that Orkz are male coded then that is because of what you label as male or not-female and the only reason then to ask for them to be more feminine is because you yourself take exception to the fact that they are male coded.
No, the game literally male codes orks. Orks are referred to with male pronouns. They call themselves male names. They have traditionally masculine appearances (such as it is). All of their special characters follow the same route.
Sure, as a species, they reproduce asexually and--I hope--don't have anything resembling human primary sexual characteristics. As space aliens, humans would likely be more related to a tree than to orks. But if we're talking about socially constructed gender? Yeah, they're dudes.
Same with Necrons, who are an even worse example of this effect. Though Necrons do at least have a few mentioned characters who identify as female. In books. But as far as I know, within the 40k game, if someone refers to a Necron, they treat it as male.
With that said I KNOW that no one is asking for feminine Orkz, at least not that I have seen thus far, but we can extrapolate that to Custodes. If you want female Custodes it is because you take exception to them being all male, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have. Gender is so arbitrary and on a spectrum that it is difficult to comprehend how to make a war game more inclusive when you approach it from a human perspective because of our biases towards what is and is not masculine or feminine.
You may feel that gender is arbitrary, but it's quite important to some people. Even most people, given how upset so many people seem to get at the mere suggestion that maybe the plastic toy soldiers should also include non-masculine models. Not even replace or displace, just in addition to in a way that wouldn't really affect said people.
One could also reverse your thinking, and say that if you only want male custodes, you take exception to the inclusion of females among their ranks. Sure, there are some lore inconsistencies and some unfortunate implications to GW suddenly explicitly pointing out that female custodes have always been a thing, but it's far less consistent than GW suddenly making custodes a playable faction in the first place.
I'm sure many people would have reasons for wanting to field only female custodes. Just as there are reasons they might want to field male custodes. The fact that there's not an option and so many people knee jerk it in opposition is the problem.
Will female custodes make me go out and get an army of them? No, not likely. Would female marines make me go out and get an army of them? Also not likely, but it would make it easier to swallow getting some marine crap thrown into my purchases when I really don't want them as a faction (for example, when I bought one of the new edition boxes).
However, if I started minigaming today, and walked into a Games Workshop, I would almost certainly go with Age of Sigmar over 40k, both because I think the models are of superior quality--none of those 10, 15, or 20 year old models stepchildren factions--and because AoS isn't afraid of boobs.
More representation is never a bad thing and I am all for it. Despite the fact that I am adamantly against adding female space marines for reasons I have previously stated I am not about to rage if they do add them. It will just be one more thing driving me away from the setting because it is losing the grim dark nature of the setting slowly by adding so many heroes and humanity resurgence.
Because...female marines are less grim dark? I'm not sure how to respond to this. Is it because women can't be grimdark, in which case I wonder why you haven't left the hobby after the resurgence of Sisters of Battle. GW even had the audacity to put them--and a female guardsman!--in the 9th edition announcement cinematic.
Space Marines are already treated as basically super heroes that usually fall somewhere on the spectrum between Superman and Batman. They're everywhere in the setting, and GW keeps focusing more and more on them. If you would leave the hobby at the introduction of female marines because it's suddenly less grim dark, then your issue isn't female marines, it's just females.
I live as the only male in my household and my daughter is fascinated with paleontology, loves horror movies, loves keeping reptiles and likes to play sports. I'd love for her to get into 40k or war gaming with me and her grandpa but so far she has only shown mild interest in it and not because she doesn't feel like she can relate to any of the armies, although she like so many other women does like Tyranids cause again, dinosaurs. I just don't understand the need to identify with fictional characters but that might just be me; for better or worse maybe I am just completely out of touch with social norms.
Anecdotes aside, have you considered the possibility that the reason you don't understand the need or why anyone wants to identify with fictional characters is because you're in the demographic that has a majority of marketing or fiction aimed at you?
I'm not sure why you brought up your child's hobbies. I love horror movies and wanted an iguana when I was younger. My spouse is such a dinosaur nerd that I'm able to tease her about non-dinosaur dinosaurs and played sports as a child and continues to be sporty. She's also into tanks and medieval weapons. My other spouse is an NFL enthusiast and spends the weekends chatting with my FIL about draft picks like it's some kind of alien language. All three of us look traditionally femme and wouldn't consider any of us outside of the norm. Coincidentally, my first 40k army was in fact Tyranids, probably due to my love of Aliens and Starship Troopers both of which featured pretty rad female representation.
I really got to say that I feel like you missed my point in a couple of things so let me calrify;
The codex using gendered language is a construct of English as a language, language is merely trying to convey ideas and yes we default to the two biological sexes because for most of human history female and male were universally understood and unquestioned. Gender identity is a relatively new scene for our society and language is slowly adapting to it but to point out that a setting made fourty years ago uses pronouns that may be inaccurate is hardly indication that they intent is to portray Orkz as a certain gender.
You are completely correct about female Custodes and pointing out that my logic goes both ways, I am not disagreeing with it. What I am asking is that people introspectively look to see why they are upset about something. Wanting to vindictively take down the patriarchy because of over representation of men in 40k isn't exactly a positive take, if that is what someone feels. Wanting to change things for no other reason than to spite people without any care for the product that you are changing happens a lot in our current society. Wanting to continue toxic practices just because "that's the way it has always been" is the inverse awful take. I am not taking either position to be absolutely clear.
You missed my point entirely because I didn't want to continue to repeat myself over multiple post but female Space Marines being added to the lore is about as obnoxious to me as Primaris. Over all, I don't really care all that much but such technological advancement is antithetical to what I view 40k as. If humanity is making progress like that they are no longer the backwards, hateful joke that they were when I started that I grew fond of. The return of Primarchs is more offensive to my senses than either female Space Marines or Primaris because heroic characters fighting for the best of everyone is boring and very un-40k in my opinion. None of the above listed things have chased me away from the setting yet, but if they continue painting the Imperium as good guys and making them more progressive as a society while at the same time painting Chaos as more and more cartoonishly evil multi-Satans then I will leave the setting. When all factions are evil they are more real to me because societies are never universally good and making characters more human by showing them flaws and all makes them more compelling.
Lastly, I am not going to argue that the majority of fiction is aimed at me demographic. I disregard that because it never occurs to me when watching a movie with a female lead, or a different ethnicity or a cultural setting outside of my own that I should feel someway about it. As long as a story and characters are good why should I care about their gender or any other cultural traits they posses? I am most certainly not someone to get upset over some or the frankly ridiculous complaints I hear from the "anti-woke" crowd that you seem to be lumping me in with. My personal favorite is the whinning over Hades 2 portrayal of fictional gods.
I brought up my child because never once have I ever considered her hobbies as "masculine" nor do I consider war gaming as "masculine. Hobbies are hobbies, setting are settings, they wont appeal to everyone and everyone is free to like different things. I truly must be so out of touch with the passion some people feel over this because I just can't understand people not wanting to get into 40k because of its male centered focus or what ever, when they are plenty of reasons like the abominable rules to keep people out.
@Wyldhunt to what you posted, I agree Orkz are what I consider male-coded. But I also understand that is only because I have a limited understand of the universe and the actually implications of a completely gender-less sentient species are completely alien to me. I guess that is my point, THINGS only have gender because we give them gender. We label things for convenience because the human mind is lazy and looks for shortcuts but we can't really change that.
@Wyldhunt to what you posted, I agree Orkz are what I consider male-coded. But I also understand that is only because I have a limited understand of the universe and the actually implications of a completely gender-less sentient species are completely alien to me. I guess that is my point, THINGS only have gender because we give them gender. We label things for convenience because the human mind is lazy and looks for shortcuts but we can't really change that.
Right. I don't think anyone is trying to argue that orks *aren't* genderless asexual fungus monsters. I think we all understand that that's why the term "male-coded" is being used.
But if someone is trying to point out that a lot of the factions in 40k are exclusively masculine, you can see why they'd bring up orks as supporting that point, right?
And if someone wants to make the point that marines being all boys is only a problem because they're the poster boys, you can see how orks would serve as a useful counter-example (as they're all "boys" but not the flagship faction).
So I'm not sure why you're trying to make the case that orks are irrelevant to the discussion. But again, I'm not trying to harp on you about this, so I'm good to let it drop if you are.
@Wyldhunt to what you posted, I agree Orkz are what I consider male-coded. But I also understand that is only because I have a limited understand of the universe and the actually implications of a completely gender-less sentient species are completely alien to me. I guess that is my point, THINGS only have gender because we give them gender. We label things for convenience because the human mind is lazy and looks for shortcuts but we can't really change that.
Right. I don't think anyone is trying to argue that orks *aren't* genderless asexual fungus monsters. I think we all understand that that's why the term "male-coded" is being used.
But if someone is trying to point out that a lot of the factions in 40k are exclusively masculine, you can see why they'd bring up orks as supporting that point, right?
And if someone wants to make the point that marines being all boys is only a problem because they're the poster boys, you can see how orks would serve as a useful counter-example (as they're all "boys" but not the flagship faction).
So I'm not sure why you're trying to make the case that orks are irrelevant to the discussion. But again, I'm not trying to harp on you about this, so I'm good to let it drop if you are.
I think something that often gets lost in these debates is the calls for inclusivity don't generally seek to change the identity of the faction. Female Custodes don't really change what Custoders "are"; it simply says that women can be giant golden warriors that zealously guard the Imperium. When people want female marines, they want women that are everything marines represent.
I think that makes Orks a super interesting example because defining a female Ork forces that separation. Ultimately you'd want female Orks to love a good scrap and WAAAGH! with the best of them because those women exist and would be well served by the faction. Give those Cheerleaders a Choppa and lets go!
Just because something is masculine doesn't mean it has to be men. That's a huge part of what inclusivity is about; letting people choose the roles that suit them, rather than what's been prescribed by tradition.
What I am asking is that people introspectively look to see why they are upset about something. Wanting to vindictively take down the patriarchy because of over representation of men in 40k isn't exactly a positive take, if that is what someone feels. Wanting to change things for no other reason than to spite people without any care for the product that you are changing happens a lot in our current society.
I think you've done a decent job of trying to be civil and argue rationally, but I think this quote here really goes to the heart of some issues.
They people who support these kinds of changes and advocate for them are usually doing so as a way of advocating for the marginalized populations whose experience could be improved by changes like these. We often find it strange when people in the majority camp feel like their "rights" are being taken away by giving rights to other people. And I think that people who feel victimized by "political correctness" or "wokism" should reflect on why they feel the way they do. It's come up in this thread a few times that this has a very limited impact upon people who are disappointed in the retcon. If they want to play all boy Custodes, this does not stop them.
Now I do know that there are some advocates for changes like these who do get angry, and I concede that it might seem like the anger is the motivator for their advocacy... But in most cases the anger that people see in these folks is not the motivator, but rather a reaction to the backlash that they experience when they try to express their support for marginalized populations. The left doesn't generally cancel people just because they make an occasional mistake with a pronoun; they cancel people who double down on this behaviour, begin to advocate for the primacy of their right to harm over the rights of others to not be harmed, and eventually end up convincing themselves that they are somehow the victims.
And finally, I do understand that this retcon does affect people in the sense that they may end up fighting against a female presenting Custodes, or that they might end up encountering a female presenting Custodian in books or as models eventually... But I'm not sure it's worth the sturm and drang when those things may just as likely never happen.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
Which is exactly the point that Dudeface was making. The writing constantly refers to Orks as male. One line saying they are genderless followed by many, many lines referring to them as the male gender, which is gonna stick in the audiences mind more?
This is like the difference between the text and framing in a movie. For example, in the text of the first Transformers movie, Megan Fox's character is a skilled mechanic who is smarter and more competent than the male protagonist. Yet the framing of her character is that of a sex object, with lingering shots of her body. And you know which of those the audience left the theatre remembering and identifying as her character? The visual framing of eye candy.
Yet you guys bend over backwards to try and claim that all previous mentions of Custodes using that same framing of language that refer men and sons is gender neutral as a way to justify the sudden GW's sudden statement of Custodes having women in their ranks this entire time. You can't have it both ways.
You actually CAN have it both ways and that's a problem with the language. Or do you think the Imperium of Man only has men in it?
English has historically and still does use masculine terms to refer to all of humanity and individual people - mankind, hey guys, you dudes etc.
The way we use language isn't actually neutral. It still requires context cues, indicating that no matter how all encompassing the language is trying to be, it's STILL gendered.
Cis straight men do not describe themselves as sleeping with guys, or going down on dudes. For it to be truly neutral, these terms should be applicable in all situations.
The fact we do this is itself the problem, because we need external context to the terms to determine when its being neutral and when its being gendered. Which shows that 1) it's no actually neutral even though we act like it is, and 2) it causes problems like this very discussion where people's perceptions of the language as neutral mean they don't look any deeper to the underlying issues.
So yes, it is both true that GW uses masculine neutral language (cf Imperium of Man, Emperor of Mankind) where we are told to take is as neutral while ALSO showing that even neutral masculine still runs masculine.
So congrats, you've discovered some of the underlying issues.
What I am asking is that people introspectively look to see why they are upset about something. Wanting to vindictively take down the patriarchy because of over representation of men in 40k isn't exactly a positive take, if that is what someone feels. Wanting to change things for no other reason than to spite people without any care for the product that you are changing happens a lot in our current society.
I think you've done a decent job of trying to be civil and argue rationally, but I think this quote here really goes to the heart of some issues.
They people who support these kinds of changes and advocate for them are usually doing so as a way of advocating for the marginalized populations whose experience could be improved by changes like these. We often find it strange when people in the majority camp feel like their "rights" are being taken away by giving rights to other people. And I think that people who feel victimized by "political correctness" or "wokism" should reflect on why they feel the way they do. It's come up in this thread a few times that this has a very limited impact upon people who are disappointed in the retcon. If they want to play all boy Custodes, this does not stop them.
Now I do know that there are some advocates for changes like these who do get angry, and I concede that it might seem like the anger is the motivator for their advocacy... But in most cases the anger that people see in these folks is not the motivator, but rather a reaction to the backlash that they experience when they try to express their support for marginalized populations. The left doesn't generally cancel people just because they make an occasional mistake with a pronoun; they cancel people who double down on this behaviour, begin to advocate for the primacy of their right to harm over the rights of others to not be harmed, and eventually end up convincing themselves that they are somehow the victims.
And finally, I do understand that this retcon does affect people in the sense that they may end up fighting against a female presenting Custodes, or that they might end up encountering a female presenting Custodian in books or as models eventually... But I'm not sure it's worth the sturm and drang when those things may just as likely never happen.
To be clear I am not at all saying that anyone here is arguing in effect out of anger or malice.
I agree with everything you posted, including the bit about Custodes.
The point I was trying to make is that people need to make sure they are sticking to their point at not getting too emotionally involved in an argument. When people get emotionally involved that is when the hate and anger start to come out and you can lose so much validity by going down that path. I see it here with people reducing arguments down to "they must hate women" when that is not the argument being presented.
Just because I personally don't understand why someone would be upset about female Custodes doesn't mean that their feeling are invalid and I sure as hell can't reduce their argument to "women bad" because I disagree with them.
stratigo wrote: Slaanesh is the fear the queer god. Us LGBT folk reclaim that sort of stuff, but let's make no mistake, a core of the identity of slaanesh is how scary non cis, non hetero people are to many cis het folks. How scary we are to society over all.
I think it may be fairer to read Slaanesh as all that stuff that our amygdala can pick up and respond to as part of the process of addiction - excess as desensitisation working from (relatively) humble beginnings. It certainly makes "she who thirsts" make a good deal more sense coming from that paradigm.
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StudentOfEtherium wrote: yeah the original idea was definitely queerphobic but i still think it's noteworthy as an army playing into intersex and queer bodies and ideas. we can and we should reclaim this sort of thing, because simply put, it's cool. gw should do a heavily queer-coded slaanesh kill team or warcry warband
I don't think that can be reclaimed, so long as the other armies in the game aren't inclusive. Chaos is so beyond-the-pale abusive to its devotees that it hits kind of differently.
Edit: by which I mean in an immediate, existential/body horror way. I'm not in any way absolving the abuses of the Imperium (fascist), Eldar (puritan), Drukhari (...yeah) or any of the rest of it. As my primary factions, those are just the ones I feel best situated to critique.
Further edit: the answer that I feel they already stumbled across is in the Drukhari model line (not you, though, Covens - do better) - interchangeable parts that let me utterly randomise my Wyches and Kabalites leading to some really queered up models. I just wish that it wasn't locked into the "degenerate" factions, that GWs general trend wasn't away from that kind of kit and that the baseline human models had a bit more going on with them.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: The point I was trying to make is that people need to make sure they are sticking to their point at not getting too emotionally involved in an argument. When people get emotionally involved that is when the hate and anger start to come out and you can lose so much validity by going down that path. I see it here with people reducing arguments down to "they must hate women" when that is not the argument being presented.
Just because I personally don't understand why someone would be upset about female Custodes doesn't mean that their feeling are invalid and I sure as hell can't reduce their argument to "women bad" because I disagree with them.
Of course nobody was presenting an argument that they hated women - in a place like Dakka Dakka, despite its reputation for rampant negativity, such a declaration would earn someone a permanent vacation away from here. So they have to hide it behind arguments they can make, such as, "But... the lore!" And when they hold something as recent as the gender of Custodes up as sacred and inviolate despite the decades-long trail of retcons, it really makes you wonder: "Why?"
And then, when they actively advocate against inclusivity, you kinda have to put two and two together.
Ok so im racking my brains trying to find the quote and can’t find it so I’m throwing it out to the floor, does anyone remember a scene in one of the earlier books talking about the custodies being picked from the sons of noble houses effectively as hostages and it’s only the sons taken because the women were needed to continue the lines?
Altima wrote: I'm actually surprised GW created those models. I always assumed they're gun shy about things like large, overly muscled women such as female orcs/orks, female ogryns, etc
There are also female ogre and troll models, though not many.
Their decision to not include female ogryns in a computer game may well be concern over backlash against the representation of mental incapacity. Men are frequently presented as low intelligence brutes in games and other media so no-one cares, but a whole line of moronic, deformed, child-like women and the associated voice acting will summon the professionally offended.
Altima wrote: Will female custodes make me go out and get an army of them? No, not likely. Would female marines make me go out and get an army of them? Also not likely...
I suspect GWs projected sales may reflect this. They are probably eyeing up the cost of a single limited availabilty female custodes model much like their other 'inclusivity' models balancing the cost of making them against the demand for them.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: The point I was trying to make is that people need to make sure they are sticking to their point at not getting too emotionally involved in an argument. When people get emotionally involved that is when the hate and anger start to come out and you can lose so much validity by going down that path. I see it here with people reducing arguments down to "they must hate women" when that is not the argument being presented.
Just because I personally don't understand why someone would be upset about female Custodes doesn't mean that their feeling are invalid and I sure as hell can't reduce their argument to "women bad" because I disagree with them.
Of course nobody was presenting an argument that they hated women - in a place like Dakka Dakka, despite its reputation for rampant negativity, such a declaration would earn someone a permanent vacation away from here. So they have to hide it behind arguments they can make, such as, "But... the lore!" And when they hold something as recent as the gender of Custodes up as sacred and inviolate despite the decades-long trail of retcons, it really makes you wonder: "Why?"
And then, when they actively advocate against inclusivity, you kinda have to put two and two together.
Project any harder. Go on, show your repressive tolerance here
But funnily enough, even since rogue trader custodes were male and the recent more cannonised was also clear but sure.. everyone disagreeing with you is a misogyinist and everyone agreeing with you is a good person on that basis so you are just wrong
And inclusivity is not per allways good, or can you not understand that?
And inclusivity is not per allways good, or can you not understand that?
I think you've got to be careful with statements like this.
Is inclusivity always good for fiction? That's an argument you can make. I personally believe it is, but I can see how one might argue otherwise, and I think debate around the issue could remain civil.
Inclusion in society, on the other hand, is almost universally good. A discussion about this is far less likely to remain civil; much of the history of the 20th century can be perceived as a series attacks on various forms of segregation; and people fought, died and devoted their lives to the cause to make it happen.
And inclusivity is not per allways good, or can you not understand that?
I think you've got to be careful with statements like this.
Is inclusivity always good for fiction? That's an argument you can make. I personally believe it is, but I can see how one might argue otherwise, and I think debate around the issue could remain civil.
Inclusion in society, on the other hand, is almost universally good. A discussion about this is far less likely to remain civil; much of the history of the 20th century can be perceived as a series attacks on various forms of segregation; and people fought, died and devoted their lives to the cause to make it happen.
No, i don't think i have too be carefull with truth at all. It just is.
-fiction: Exclusive structures are a far more interesting from a world building structure within the reality of the universe. Just flat out via enforcing depth that needs to be written into that structure and the wider structures of a faction.
-society: Nooooooooooooooo! Never, nada. "Military or civilian" intelligence, nope. Womens shelters: Nope. gender segregated Toilets: considering why they were implemented at the start of the 20th /end of the 19th Nope. Military, especially in combat roles no. Infact the israeli military to this day has debates raging due to complete general conscription and lowered effectiveness as dangerous and potentially problematic due to protective issues of the males in an mixed unit and in regards to effectiveness..
So no most certainly NOT universally good at all and the perception of the civil rights movement and everything as an offshoot of it as such is nothing more than a narrative in itself. So no logically on the most fundamental level "A can not be = A / and NotA" at the same time hence why it is not an accurate statement and should be if brought up flat out rejected at every opportunity because the case is not made honestly if that is the fundament of it and that is the problem here. Hence why i also pointed out the "debate strategy" employed by said poster because whilest this is the underlying fundament take a look at the implied message with the last part whilest simultaniously also basing that on faulty factual case.
Not Online!!! wrote: And inclusivity is not per allways good, or can you not understand that?
inclusivity is always a good thing. full stop.
In this case I actually agree with Not Online, but I doubt we agree about why.
Certain groups, such as Nazis, must be excluded in order for inclusivity of others to survive as those groups seek to destroy inclusivity.
nazis (and anyone who wants to exclude others) don't count as inclusivity
So in essence you'd have to exclude any party, any club, any bar even since all of these places are borderline exclusive. That is even more of an illogical stance.
Not Online!!! wrote: So in essence you'd have to exclude any party, any club, any bar even since all of these places are borderline exclusive. That is even more of an illogical stance.
You're either arguing in bad faith, or being deliberately obtuse.
