Any fantasy based setting or sci-fi setting are based directly or indirectly in reality. I am not saying that in the 40k universe women don't fight or don't fight well, i am saying that from a logical standpoint it is reasonable to deduce that the proportion of fighting forces is heavily based on male soldiers, not because females aren't capable but because of other sociological and biological reasons. I am also not saying there aren't women in the guard or other military institutions (except like SM chapters and some others). I'm just saying that in the 40k univers men are more likely to have to go to war than women (exceptions exist, but it only confirms the rule). I am talking about fighting forces not auxiliaries, some families serve for generations in the guard, a lot of guardsmen are born into the regiment. From this point you can conclude that women who get pregnant during service don't serve in battlefields during that time for example or are part of auxiliary institutions who are not made for combat. It also depends on the homeworld, in Cadia everybody is expected to serve, but in other worlds like feral worlds they aren't likely to send women to fight as they exist in "pre-modern" societies. Why is it ilogical to not send women to the battlefront seeing how important they are for society in the biological and social sense???? except in dire or important situations like Cadia. SoB for example are made up of women who signed up voluntarily, SM try to find the most able and tough youths who are then indoctrinated on such a level that it would be considered inhumane. Also not many females would like to serve in that way, like men they like to form families and have a "normal" life. Basically men HAVE to fight whilst generally women CAN. See the difference, from this conclusion you can say that most female forces are extremely driven and convinced of what they do compared to their male counterparts. Maybe i'm wrong but from art to literature you get the feeling that a lot of guard forces are made up of a high percentage of men (not talking about men).
Neither did they have mechs employed in their armies. That's why I said it merely borrows a lot from the Soviets Anyway, at least the Space Marine game included a female IG;
forgive me, but your coming across as somewhat sexist...not that i agree but disagree, but just...pointing that out.
This thread is pointless... this serves just to widen the gap between male and female. If you really want gender equality stop bringing this stuff up. And most of special forces around the world dont employ women on their ranks. I think we can put the space marines in the special forces of the empire. Keep this up someday we might have a female ork. Now that would be dandy.
just to clarify--thats not because people see women as inferior--or it isn't the reason a lot of the time. Both males and females undergo the same testing for spec ops assignment. Space marines need to have an X and a Y chromosome for the gene-seed to work--among other things.
I must disagree. The IG doesn't take on women and men in equal capacity, and even those Worlds that recruit females usually keep them in gender-seperate regiments for the sake of moral. Yes, the IG throws all the bodies it gets onto the enemy (or at least certain regiments do). But you have to ask yourself this: Where does the IG get these bodies from? In some cases, such as the Krieg Death Troopers, they allegedly use clone vats, but I dare to say that in most cases more traditional methods are prefered. Or simply put: The Imperial Guard generally wants the average Imperial female to churn out as many healthy sons as biologically possible. "But that's evil Nazi rhetoric!" you might scream now, invoking power of Godwin. And you know what? It is. Just as is the entire "purge the alien, the mutant, the xeno" thing is. 40k is so grimdark that even the "good" Space Marines are basically Roman Catholic Space Nazis. And this I fear, is the problem for females in the 40k setting: 40k isn't politically correct, or "fair" for that matter. It's as far away from politically correct as you can get without employing warp drives. Whether this is a male power fantasy or not, I do not wish to judge. They get sent to Ultramar. Just kidding, what Chaplain Valerius said. They'd probably turn into some hideous abomination because the Geneseed doesn't get along with their bodies.
