Is the Empire sexist?

[bibotot1995]

I have played through the first game and watched the playthrough of VC3 and VC4. This has been bothering me: Is the Empire sexist?

In all the games, you never encounter any female Imperial troop aside from some named characters. In fact, in the anime where people don't wear buckets that cover most of their head, you can still see that all Imperial troops are male. Even all the drivers of Batomys are male despite the lack of muscles needed to push buttons and swinging the drive wheel. This stands in contrast to both Gallia and the Federation who recruit their troops from both sexes. In game banters indicate in this universe, gender means nothing when it comes to conscription and military volunteering. Some people point out that the regular Gallian army is also all male, but since quite a few of the Nameless are disgraced female soldiers expelled from the regular army, I would reckon the regular army has quite a few females as well.

The models of enemy troops are unisex as armour covers all parts of their bodies, but the voices in cutscene indicate they are all men. The anime is more guilty, though.

The only females in the Empire are NOT soldiers. They are experimental weapons, often inhumane. It seems the only way for a woman to enter the Empire's military is to sacrifice her body for whatever ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t the Empire's scientists have for them. I feel like the female antagonists are shoved in for fan-service rather than making sense of the Empire's military.

From a gamer's perspective, I would not see any game without female opponent as sexist if there is no implication that women are a prominent force at arms in the first place. Examples include most realistic FPS games, most WW2 or historical games, cowboy games, games featuring criminal mobs, Team Fortress, etc... Only selected units have female versions in Age of Empires 3 and Company of Heroes 2, and this is also historically accurate. If Gallia and the Federation have a lot of female soldiers, then where are all the Empire's?

So why can't we have more female enemies? So hard and expensive to hire some women to voice them? In Company of Heroes 2 also by Sega, Soviet Snipers, Medics and tank crew have female models/voices (which is true to history).

[Mistfox]

The military you're playing is a conscript army, they got no choice but to grab anyone that have at least one eye and pull a trigger. The 'regular' Gallian army is also a bit sexist and elitist but kept semi under control since the ruler is female.

The Empire is huge compared to Gallia and militistic/authoritarian, they can afford to pick an all male enlisted force that a democracy cannot.

To be fair, there are many reasons why you do not want women on the front lines, mostly due to the potential discipline problems and affairs that can happen with people being flushed with adrenaline and working together for long term. For example, the USS Acardia.

As for the 'female fan service', I do admit it is nice but the whole concept of Valkyries presupposes a female avatar. What would a male Valkyrie be other than a norse berserker?

Ug... off track. Yes the Empire is sexist. The Gallian military is too but they're too desperate to be picky.

[Shellbie]

[jeffers0329]

I would say that the Empire has a more conservative view of women compared to the Federation and Gallia. While there are female Imperial soldiers (Lilja Ritova in Selvaria's DLC or Nora the Tigress, lancer ace) they're extremely rare.

[~ Fabulous ~]

well look at the real world, it is very rare to find female grunt, infact only 2% of women choose to be a grunt in real world...in my opinion, hell who want to be a grunt?(your pay suck, you deal with most of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of war, you most likely gonna endup dead and when you are dead you are just statistic, no one care bout you, just the overall numbers)...it is not about sexism it is just that the female in the imperial do have the option of not becoming a grunt, gallians on the other hand...well they are just shorts on people, so if they were to survive, girls cant be picky they gotta join the grunt too

[Lanzagranadas]

Both the empire and the Gallian Regular Army are basically 99% male soldiers/officers, but as jeffers0329 pointed, there are a very few women, devs just won't bother making a skin variation for them just so we distinguish they're women.

The Gallian Regular Army is the same, in fact I only recall Audrey Gassenarl and Margit from VC3 but there are probably a few others, they're just very rare cases. It's the Gallian Militia which just grabs anyone who can fight from regular civilians so they have a more colorful soldier stock.

A similar thing happens with darcsens. Neither the Empire nor the Gallian Army wants them in their troops, but if they have to fight, they can do so in the militia.

[ertrick36]

There's actually an Imperial lancer in VC1 whose name is "Nora the Tigress". Generic lancer, but that's undoubtedly a female name. Some of the soldiers who don't speak/have male names might actually be female, but you just can't tell.

If one wears a proper suit of armor, you shouldn't be able to tell what gender they are because good armor doesn't take on a "female" appearance. Same with modern BDUs (battle dress uniforms); one's flesh tends to stick out more than fabric since it reflects light more and typically clashes with camouflage patterns, so the skirts that Alicia and Rosie wear are ridiculously impractical. Really, the only way one should be able to discern a soldier's gender is through the soldier's explicit discretion (a face/hair alone is not always a reliable indicator).

Also, you do hear female voices all the time over the radio chatter. The chatter in Behind Her Blue Flame on the Empire's side, while it is of a stern woman, doesn't necessarily sound like Selvaria (could be wrong, though; radio DOES distort voices). And of course Gallia has female radio chatter that isn't just Varrot. So there seems to be plenty of female officers who maintain operational command over various fields of combat. It is entirely possible they skipped gruntwork entirely, as in the real world you can go to an officers academy to train as a junior officer (lieutenant/cadet) with little actual combat experience.

[Mistfox]

ertrick, I don't ever recall having difficulty telling gender even in BDUs, think you might be exaggerating the effects a little.

[bizarre]

STFU CUCK

[Ferrante]

Well, the game is inspired by real World War I, so it is not weird to have an all male army.

[ertrick36]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

ertrick, I don't ever recall having difficulty telling gender even in BDUs, think you might be exaggerating the effects a little.

What I meant to say is that BDUs generally should look the same between genders. BDUs shouldn't be, like, skirts or hot pants for girls. Yeah, you can look at a female soldier and probably be able to discern her as such, but it shouldn't be in the sense that "oh, she's wearing a mini skirt, so she's a lady". That's all.

And to that end, I was mostly referring to the outfits worn by Isara, Alicia, and Rosie. And I was thinking of the Imperial uniforms in terms of "BDUs where you can't tell the gender apart".

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by ertrick36:

Originally posted by Mistfox:

ertrick, I don't ever recall having difficulty telling gender even in BDUs, think you might be exaggerating the effects a little.

What I meant to say is that BDUs generally should look the same between genders. BDUs shouldn't be, like, skirts or hot pants for girls. Yeah, you can look at a female soldier and probably be able to discern her as such, but it shouldn't be in the sense that "oh, she's wearing a mini skirt, so she's a lady". That's all.

And to that end, I was mostly referring to the outfits worn by Isara, Alicia, and Rosie. And I was thinking of the Imperial uniforms in terms of "BDUs where you can't tell the gender apart".

Kind of true. Seen in this light, it's the Galieans that are 'sexist'. IMO, unless you're Scottish, miniskirts have no place on the battlefield, and they need it for their big balls.

On a related but more humorous note, *cough...general issue blue underwear...cough*

[Kyorisu]

Generics are always male that's just the way it is. Female soldiers would be very low on my list of things to improve on. Besides it's not sexist it's protectionist. Keep the women safe working in factories while the men fight.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Big Yellow Duck:

Generics are always male that's just the way it is. Female soldiers would be very low on my list of things to improve on. Besides it's not sexist it's protectionist. Keep the women safe working in factories while the men fight.

You know what men are going to do if they ever caught a female alive who shot and killed their friends. Raped to death is the most likely outcome.

[Spacewolf88]

I think its less Sexist and more... well... Athintic for the time frame that is in the game. The game is set in 1935 and thus rules and mentality of the times goes with that. Women were not expected to fight in that time, so the Empire likely didnt want to or didnt need to send its fairer sex to battle, unlike the galians who LITRIALLY CONSCRIPTED EVERYONE, and the Federation who likely had a simular mindset, but from futage and trailers of VC4 looks like its mostly men in their army which again, makes sense for the time.
Galia is a small nation where everyone has to fight for its indipendince, the Federation is fighting tooth and nail and will likely accept female recruits, probably wont be conscripting any, i would say the same for the empire, largly because in the other VC games. You see a series of other female officers in the Imperial army. Now if it was sexist, would any man accept the orders of a female? i mean you gotta think about it, if it was sexist then soldiers wouldnt listen to Salvaria, even IF she had permission given to her by Maximilian. Also keep in mind that the Empire was based on the USSR and Nazi germany. Men sentric orgonizations, but in the USSR's case they had MANY female units, mainly pilots and tankers. Now the Nazi's actually never let women fight in the war, even the Volksturm (the last ditch CONSCRIPT EVERYONE plan the nazi party had in early 1945) didnt have women in it. So again, its likely that women ARE in the Imperial Army, just not as much as in the Galian army/militia and Federation. heck they may not let them be infantry sense females are usually physcally weaker then men, USUALLY trust me I know a few women who would easily kick my ass and look at any female member of the USMC, they are scary... but i digress.
TL:DR
I dont think its Sexist, it likely has many female axuileries, pilots, tankers, administrators, assistants, field hospital workers, ect... but doesnt conscript the fairer sex like Galia does.

[Bootleg Chauncey]

The Empire soldiers all have face-concealing helmets and are almost all male to make them less sympathetic. It is a common trope in movies, games, and etc. that when you want goons for your heroes to shoot and the audience to cheer, making them male and covering their face is the way to go.

That said, the setting sort of mirrors WW2, right? In WW2, the only side that really made much use of women was the Soviet Union, and only reluctantly and because they were absolutely desperate (and even then only as snipers, pilots, etc.) After the war, the Soviets discharged all women from service apart from a handful who'd go on to tour the US as sort of good will ambassadors. Women were (and are) still very much living in a sexist society in Russia despite being able to fight Nazis alongside the men, however.

Also, as others have mentioned, Galia certainly isn't advancing women by forcing them to wear sexy skirts and long stockings on the battlefield instead of pants like the men. This definitely is not a game that's trying to make a social statement. The devs probably a) couldn't be bothered to make female Empire models and b) want some sexy-ass babes to look at on the player side.