[Archive] wh:sexist

Archive [Archive] Wargame News and Discussion
21

Thommy H:

It seems to me that the bloodletters and all the other daemons seem pretty A-sexual
This is what I meant about the female body being seen as a "deviation from the norm" - the Bloodletters and Plaguebearers (okay, not Horrors, since they're shapeless masses of flesh) are pretty clearly male, but it's like our idea of average is masculine so we can see male bodies as asexual. I'm not knocking you here, btw, but it is a really interesting anthropological thing that, even when aware of this cultural bias, we can still describe something that's male as if it's just the way all bodies are, and females are just some sort of weird subtype.
22

AGPO:

The last lot of bloodletters I’d have agreed with you, but this lot are wierd creatures with serpentine bodies, muscly arms (and if you worked out where I do you’d know thats not exclusive to men) spindly hooves and horned heads. The plaguebearers are a personification of our fear of mortality. They are so decayed they could be from either gender. Again they have no distinctive male features and neither model has any sexual organs or distuinctions of any kind.

The deamonettes on the other hand are distinctly female. I doubt anyone would argue that point. As for other models mentioned, beastmen have the upper bodies of men agreed, but men walk about with their shirts off all the time. Where I would agree with you is that it is strange that in our cultures unlike many others it is seen as necessary for women to cover their chests but not men. That is a cultural thing and unrelated to WFB or GW. The lower half is that of an animal which you very rarely see clothed. Orcs are a-sexual monsters like dragons trolls and many others. The same can be said for lizardmen (although they are based on reptiles rather than monsters). I can’t think of any portrayals of men in any elven, dwarf or human army which could be commented on in this way, (with the exception of the old slayers and BfSP) without any clothing. The slayers drew much comment at the time and many who have converted the BfSp model have added loincloths.

I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you. I for one don’t see GWs portrayal of women as sexist, just a little sad really

As far as race goes, most of the Warhammer world is based on medieval Europe and you wouldn’t see many black men outside Spain and Southern Italy. Certainly not in Germany, France or Scandinavia (read the Empire, Bretonia and the Norse). Thats not to say they weren’t there at all, but the vast majority would be white. The only army you’d really expect to see black men in in large numbers would be Khemri (Egypt) which for obvious reasons doesn’t work, or DoW. As has been said colour schemes are up to the individual. When painting core troops most wouldn’t want to paint the odd model with different skin as it takes time, stops batch painting and makes an ordinary model stand out too much in the unit which can spoil its look.

23

Thommy H:

Again they have no distinctive male features and neither model has any sexual organs or distuinctions of any kind.
But they have to be one or the other - humans have two genders (intersex people aside, since they're a tiny minority), so a depiction of a human must be either masculine or feminine. What I'm saying is that you're seeing "male" as average, and therefore androgynous, whereas "female" only applies if there's some blatant deviation from that (i.e. breasts).

You seriously don't think this:



Is a representation of the male form? They have bulges, for Christ's sake!

Look, I'm kind of making two different points here because there are two kinds of sexism going on, in two different ways.

1) GW tends to depict its few female models in overtly sexualised ways, yes. Deamonettes are an example, as are Witch Elves. That's sexist.

2) On the other hand, Bloodletters, Marauders, Orcs, etc. are all men or masculine creatures that are similarly clad, but that doesn't seem sexual in our culture: that's a sexist double-standard that we have (and it's very much not just in the West - it's pretty much universal in any culture that has lots of clothes).

So, yeah, I guess what I'm getting at is that the way the nudity taboo works in our minds is a little warped, but Daemonettes are sex demons (why do they have to be women?) and Witch Elves are evil child-killers who have bloodthirsty orgies (because sex is only horrific if a woman does it). Similarly, the only way women get into 40K is in an army that is exclsuively female ("in the grim darkness of the far future, there is gender segregation").

Elves/Eldar are another case entirely - their women fight alongside their men...but that's actually used as a way of showing how "alien" they are. Wow - there are female Aspect Warriors! How weird and kooky!

How naked the models are is irrelevant: what is relevant is the way those models are depicted in the background - as terrifying sexual creatures, parodies of feminism and chastity or as a way of drawing a distinction between an alien race and humanity.
24

Baggronor:

Yes, it could seen as sexist, however, if you sell your product almost exclusively to young males then its hardly surprising.

The elves field female troops, being more open minded and culturally developed. Some races don’t have females (Orcs) or their females are incapable of fighting (Skaven). (And would you really want female orcs? Really?) For some, it doesn’t matter (Elves, Lizardmen.) For some the women are predatory (Dark Elves, Lahmian Vampires, but Vampires are all predatory). Ultimately, women taking part in battle as part of the standard draft is a recent thing in our world, and certainly didn’t happen in medieval Europe, upon which WHFB is based. It was a sexist, racist world. These are modern concepts.

And lets not forget the female Ogre Man-eater. She isn’t scantily clad, and a good thing too.

Daemonettes are the incarnations of the god of sex. Now, while I don’t want to offend anyone, I feel the sales potential of male Daemonettes would be exceptionally low. I know I wouldn’t buy one for my Slaaneshi. Look at the male wyches for Dark Eldar. They are an example of this, and everyone I know with DE has mail ordered the female ones exclusively. Coz they look nicer to them.

This is used by GW to show the Eldar in contrast to the Imperium, and yes they say, “perverted xenos” but its equally to show how backwards and narrow-minded the Imperium is.

And lets face it, I feel sexism is pretty low down on the Imperium’s list of faults (genocide, xenophobia, dictatorship, repression of free speech and individual thought, etc). No one seems to be offended that the Imperium is basically space nazis :slight_smile: They shoot aliens on sight for Christ’s sake. They even have an eagle for their symbol. Frankly I love their political incorrectness, it makes them interesting. If they were super-PC good guys I wouldn’t play 40k at all, its only the background that keeps me interested in it these days.

And ultimately its a game of toy soldiers :slight_smile:

25

Ishkur Cinderhat:

Now that's sexist.

Thommy H
You can't be sexist towards a daemon. ;)
Daemonettes are sex demons (why do they have to be women?)

Thommy H
The daemonettes are actually depicted and explicitly described in the current army book as being androgynous, i.e. neither male or female but both in a way, but I agree with you that this was not always the case in the past.

Then again, how do you imply slaaneshi sexual power in a 28mm miniature if you design a male model? I mean of course it can be done, but it wouldn't be acceptable to most parents. I know one guy from the Munich Games Workshop store once converted a Slaaneshi daemon prince with a penis the size of a missile launcher. Now imagine that taking place in the USA, where nudity of any kind is simply a no-go! :o
26

Thommy H:

but it wouldn't be acceptable to most parents
What about the parents of female gamers though?

See what I'm getting at here? Our cultural notions are coded for heterosexual males. Sex = woman, never mind that for 50% of the population (heterosexual women, homosexual men and bisexuals of both genders) sex = man. I just think it's a shame that none of us find it a bit odd that the only time female daemons should appear is serving a god of sex - it's an unfortunate message and I can see why there's a serious lack of girls playing Warhammer. What's a young girl to think where her perfectly normal sexual identity is presented as something to be feared in the form of Deamonettes or Witch Elves?
And ultimately its a game of toy soldiers
Agreed. I don't want to get into an argument about this, I just think it's an interesting cultural thing that Warhammer is an excellent posterboy for - women and their sexuality are literally demonised in the game's setting. It would be nice to see a female hero of the Empire or something (though we do have the Tzarina of Kislev, I guess). Warmachine seems to have no problem with female special characters hanging with the men.
27

Steven:



Agreed. I don't want to get into an argument about this, I just think it's an interesting cultural thing that Warhammer is an excellent posterboy for - women and their sexuality are literally demonised in the game's setting. It would be nice to see a female hero of the Empire or something (though we do have the Tzarina of Kislev, I guess). Warmachine seems to have no problem with female special characters hanging with the men.


Thommy H
Hellebron and Morathi. Though not sure if they are in the newer books. Back in 4th or 5th Edition you could take them both as characters, but now that I think about it, I don't think they did any model specifically for Hellebron, but they did have a Morathi on a pegasus.
28

Thommy H:

Isn’t Morathi the “hag sorceress”? The leader of the Witch Elves who is horrifically ugly, then becomes terrifyingly sexy when she bathes in the blood of young men?

Yeah…

29

Steven:

Sorta. Morathi was the Hag Queen, Malekith’s mother, and she was a sorceress. Crone Hellebron was the leader of the Witch Elves. I don’t think the blood was male or female, just Dark Elven, but I could be wrong about that part. But that said, you are correct about Morathi bathing in blood to keep her young. Crone Hellebron wasn’t allowed to use the Cauldron of Blood, so she’s the one that remained old and hideous. That’s from memory though, so again I might not be remembering that completely right.

Isn’t Morathi the “hag sorceress”? The leader of the Witch Elves who is horrifically ugly, then becomes terrifyingly sexy when she bathes in the blood of young men?

Yeah…

Thommy H

30

Thommy H:

Either way, what I was actually appealing for was a normal human female character who was performing a normal military role but just happened to be the opposite gender. That’s what Warhammer lacks.

Incidentally, I did a quick survey of the Warhammer armies to see how they treated their womenfolk:

- Empire: no women models in the range.
- Bretonnia: Grail Damsels (associated with virginity and purity).
- Kislev: the Ice Queen (Kislev scores a point there).
- Dogs of War: had a special character who was essentially a black widow-type woman, renowned for poisoning her lovers.
- Wood Elves: Dryads (associated with capriciousness, spite and being unknowable to outsiders).
- High Elves: a small minority of figures in normal units are modelled to resemble females (half a point).
- Dark Elves: Witch Elves (psychopathic killers who use their sexuality to tempt men into being murdered. They abduct young men to become assassins).
- Beastmen: no female models in range.
- Chaos Warriors: no female models in range.
- Daemons: Daemonettes (followers of the god of sex; cause Fear, despite not looking scary).
- Orcs and Goblins: possibly no females in the species at all - in which case they naturally default to male…
- Vampire Counts: Lhamians (female vampires are seductresses, whereas male vampires are depicted with several different possible characteristics).
- Tomb Kings: no female models in range, not that you’d be able to tell anyway.
- Dwarfs: no female models in range.
- Lizardmen: no female models in range; arguably in a similar situation to the Orcs and Goblins, since they possibly don’t reproduce like normal reptiles (“spawnings” seem few and far between, but I don’t know the background that well), and they are lizardmen.
- Skaven: no female models in range; the background refers to “breeders”, suggesting a highly subjugated female underclass. Of course, the Skaven are pretty horrible in every other way too, so this is hardly out of character or surprising for them.
- Ogre Kingdoms: one female model in range (depicted as a comedic ‘housewife’ with a rolling pin, pretending to be male with a false beard).
- Chaos Dwarfs: no female models in range.

I think that’s all kind of disturbing when you look at it like that.

31

Thane Godri GoblinSlayer:

Dwarfs have female models in the range, haven’t you seen the dwarf queen figure.

32

Thommy H:

I linked to it in this very thread. I’m actually just talking about the current ranges though - the Wood Elves used to have a model for Queen Ariel, and there were the Handmaidens of whatever in the High Elf range. Oh, and I forgot the female spellsingers in the Wood Elf army (although, strangely, in the Army Book, the women are lowly Hero-level spellsingers, but the male model gets to be a might Lord-level Spellweaver) and the special character(s) riding the forest dragon, who are a set of sisters (kinda).

So, in conclusion, Elves are usually a lot better than the other armies as regards depicting female characters, but that might be because Elves are always kind of efemininite anyway, so it’s very easy to integrate female characters into their background. And, even now, it’s definitely gotten worse, not better over time.

33

zorn sabretooth:

tomb kings have 1: tomb queen khalida

34

Repone:

why are therev hardly any female models in the warhammer range the only ones are wycths lamhia demons (purely to show of flesh) dwarfs(one!) wood elves (they suck)
And why are there no children and cows? :idea
Because it's a WARgame!
Women, just like children and cows, don't go making war! The contrary can happen, but the basic position is : 15-55 years old men goes to war! :mad

So : you can blame GW for a lack of imagination, not for sexism! :~
35

Thommy H:

Women, just like children and cows, don't go making war!
Elves and daemons don't go making war either, because neither of those things exist. It's a fantasy setting: they can do what they want, can't they? An army based on a historical culture (like the Empire and Bretonnia) can just about get away with "women don't fight in real wars", but it's a bit bizarre that entities made of pure magic would default to being male unless they serve the god of sex, and that the main fighting units of a race with such low sexual dimorphism as Elves have to be bloodthirsty nymphomaniacs.

EDIT: Also, there are cows in Warhammer anyay - they're called Minotaurs, Bull Centaurs and Great Tauruses, but that's neither here or there...
36

Ishkur Cinderhat:

tomb kings have 1: tomb queen khalida

zorn sabretooth
Aye, and the story of Khalida actually is a very tragic and somewhat even romantic one.

I would say anyone who has a healthy relationship towards sexuality wouldn't ever be "disturbed" by the women / men ratio in Warhammer at all, as Thommy H put it.

N.B., most of the people who play Warhammer have no relationship towards sexuality at all (yet) and might even refrain from buying any female models because they are not cool enough (I mean how many ppl had Teela back in the eighties, and how many had He-Man? ^^)

But the endless list of horrid sexisms still gave me a good laugh, so thanks for that! ;)
37

Thommy H:

I would say anyone who has a healthy relationship towards sexuality wouldn't ever be "disturbed" by the women / men ratio in Warhammer at all, as Thommy H put it
It's not the ratio so much as the fact that the very few female models are always defined by their relationship to sex and sexuality, or by their opposition to men that I find fault with. I never even thought about it before - it was only when I looked through the armies in the BRB that I realised how skewed it was.
38

cornixt:

Both dark elves and wood elves have parts in their plastic infantry that can make about 25% of the unit into women.

Seems odd how you’d default all the species with no obvious genders as males, when biologically they would actually be females. Plus there are more species where the female is larger and more aggressive than the male (something to do with protecting and providing for their young).

The sexless armies are much larger than you’d expect: Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, Skaven, O&G, Lizardmen, Daemons.

That leaves the sexist armies as dwarfs, beastmen, ogres, and all humans.

So only elves are more balanced, possibly because their styles of combat are less reliant on strength and more on skill, or maybe there is less difference between the sexes.

If you look at modern real-life armies, you’d be unlikely to see even 25% female on the frontlines. Even if you cut out the issue with mixed-sex squads, it is just that fewer women pass the physical since the average woman is weaker than the average man. It’s just biology. It seems odd to suggest that Warhammer should artificially boost the number of women on the battlefield when it looks like they have the balance exactly correct already.

39

zorn sabretooth:

yah i suppose so but couldn’t we have civillan models to use in scenarios

40

Thommy H:

Seems odd how you'd default all the species with no obvious genders as males, when biologically they would actually be females.
Me? Do you ever refer to Orcs as "she" or "it"? No, you treat them as males. Same with Beastmen and Lizardmen. Everything else is clearly male or female.
It seems odd to suggest that Warhammer should artificially boost the number of women on the battlefield when it looks like they have the balance exactly correct already.
Dragons, elves and magic is fine, but having women fighting would be a step too far in the direction of unrealistic?

Look, I'm not debating the ratios of male to female models - in the human races, at least, there is historical precedent and the non-human races usually have good reasons to not have women around. The only thing I'm taking issue with is that what few women there are in Warhammer are depicted in a way that their sexuality is someting to be reviled, or are defined solely by their relationship towards males.