Does it bother anybody that Warhammer 40k seems to be really focused on men?

[Mtjeeves]

It's always seemed to me that women are kind of under-represented in 40k. None of the primarchs are women. And why? I can't think of any good reason. A few of my friends have said that the answer is obviously because men are physically stronger than women. So they have to be men. But space marines wear power armor, so... their physical strength is clearly augmented anyway. And the primarchs aren't meant to be just like, eversor assassins. They're generals. They're strategists before they're on-the-line warriors. Physical strength has little advantage in the war college.

And then it seems like any time a High Lord of Terra is mentioned, it's a man. Almost every one of the little pieces of fluff I read in the codices are about men.

I know that the common rebuttal is to say, "But what about the Battle Sisters? And the Sisters of Silence?" And okay, sure. But it seems that the vast majority of important people in the Imperium are men. So yes, I'm not saying that women are entirely absent from the setting (but why are they generally mentioned in women-only units? Why can't they just be space marines, etc?). But I think it's reasonable to say that the setting is heavily slanted towards men.

Or alternately I know there's an argument of "Warhammer 40k is about war, and war is a men's thing. Women have no place in war!" And that just seems... like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ attitude, to be honest. Plenty of women in America serve in the military, and they do just fine. Plenty serve with distinction. I don't think there's a reasonable argument to say that only men can fight in a war.

But... does it bother anybody else? Do any of you feel like the setting could or should include more women?

I see no reason why we can't play as a female in this game in 2024.

[Imahich]

Men go to war, Woman don't. Take that up with history

[Eren Jäger]

Why are you all so obsessed with women? Does there have to be a woman everywhere?

[Akemua]

Chat GPT thread, don't waste time engaging.

[Shard of Manus]

A copypaste.

._. Go back to reddit where you got this from.

[Anticitizen 1]

Don't feed it clowns, that's encourages the trolls that farm worthless Monopoly money.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Mtjeeves:

And why? I can't think of any good reason.

money. money is the reason.

[Clint NoNerdyW✪✪D]

Originally posted by Imahich:

Men go to war, Woman don't. Take that up with history

Lots of women medics in the war.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Clint NoNerdyW✪✪D:

Originally posted by Imahich:

Men go to war, Woman don't. Take that up with history

Lots of women medics in the war.

usually not on the front lines.

[Dosmor]

in the early stages of wh40k when it was called as Rouge Trader not warhammer 40.000 yet, there ware woman space marines, even models extremly rare but they still exist, and women in power, but due to lack of buyers from women back in the early 90's they dropped it and retconned it but, influential women rouge traders still exist, whoms words are the law and protected by the warrant of trade, what was given by the emperor to each induvidual houses personally, and gives them the right to rule on the newly founded and found planets on the fringes and so on and forth, even the Inquisition cant do much about them. Hope this answered your question. Plus, most of the writers are male, so maybe if a few women writers would join the black library maybe would solve your issue. Oh and the Imperial guard has planty of women, what is the same as the army, but the space marines are due to the gene seed only males

[General High Ping]

If you think women are under represented in 40k, you know nothing about 40k.
Your mind is poisoned by ideology.
Get help but most of all...stopping pissing on everyone else chips, just because YOU like the taste of piss...

[DancesWithDoggos]

I'm a woman. I do not need to play as a woman in every game. I do not expect to have women inserted into every single role. I do not find some false sense of accomplishment in seeing "the first woman to be <insert position>" since I do not go about my life living vicariously through others who just happen to be the same gender as me. Collectivism makes people stupid. Be an individual.
I can play as a man or a woman, or a freaking alien, or a giant Ogryn because I'm secure in who I am as a person. I can enjoy works of fiction as they are written / programmed. Stop insisting others change the universes they have created to suit your ideology.

[Corrupt-nz]

Zzz this fish didnt bite

[freshoutofmiracles]

I'd like to say, I think giant hairy men are underrepresented in Barbie games, I mean, it's 2024...

[Lazirhays21]

I see no reason as to why all of us must cater to whiny special needs people who craves attention and only contributes a negative percentage to human civilization like you? like can you shut up?

[Thrakerzod]

as far as I can tell the main lore explanation for Space Marines all being male is that they use the genetics of the Primarchs and the Primarchs are all male.

and the known Primarchs (it should be noted that there are 2 lost Primarchs that we've never seen, we don't even know their names) are all male because they use the genetics of the Emperor, who is almost always male (though they have displayed the ability to shapeshift into any human form).


as for it being a really male focused setting, I'd say that's been fading away slowly in more recent years. yeah, the male-exclusive Space Marines have always been GW's favorite child (that's more due to them being the most profitable army than anything else. trust me, it's frustrating for basically anyone that prefers any of the other armies (saying this as a Tyranid player)) but the female-exclusive Sisters of Battle have been getting pushed pretty hard for the past few editions.

then looking at the other armies
the Astra Militarum has pushed to have both men and women in recent years and things seem pretty equal as far as newer models are concerned
Aeldari (Craftworld, Dark, Harlequins, and Ynnari) have gender equality and representation of men and women (and that applies even to the models that are older than I am)
T'au have gender equality and representation of men and women
Orks are genderless
Daemons are genderless (except for Slaanesh ones which are both male and female at the same time)
and Tyranids are genderless and probably don't even have a concept of gender due to just how alien they are


so... on the whole the only real gender disparity in Warhammer (at least among modern stuff, I need to note that thing about modern stuff because, as noted when I talked about the Aeldari models, a bunch of the more neglected factions are still filled with models that are older than I am (and GW seems to be in no rush to update them, but they'll happily release a new Primaris Lieutenant every couple of months, seriously if you include named characters and limited-time releases I think we're at around 20 at this point. I wonder if they'll release a model for Primaris Lieutenant Titus...)) is Space Marines getting more stuff than Sisters of Battle, and this situation will remain in place for as long as Space Marines continue to sell more models.