discussion Female model representation in Age of Sigmar

[Grim Beasties]

3 hours ago, BrownDog said:

Yes definatly. Fyreslayers need a revamp model wise anyway, they have good models but as units they blend way to easiliy into a bland mush. For me a faction that would be cool to have female characters is Seraphone, i've had this character of an old granny skink starpriest in my head for a while. But every seraphone character in the fiction (the few there are) seems to be male presenting and i'm hoping GW can change this.

For what I remember for some species of lizard females will be bigger, or may have different scale patterns. But this can vary between species. (Male on the left vs female on right) so this might help if you want to make that model.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Grim Beasties

[BrownDog]

3 minutes ago, Grim Beasties said:

For what I remember for some species of lizard females will be bigger, or may have different scale patterns. But this can vary between species. 

There dosn't even need to be a stark visual differnce in models for Seraphon between male and female, just maybe and acknowledgment and stories identifying that some characters male and female. Dosn't need to go beyond that. Transformers are a great example (nowadays) of female reprasentation in not human but humanoid fictional creatures.

[Grim Beasties]

1 minute ago, BrownDog said:

There dosn't even need to be a stark visual differnce in models for Seraphon between male and female, just maybe and acknowledgment and stories identifying that some characters male and female. Dosn't need to go beyond that. Transformers are a great example (nowadays) of female reprasentation in not human but humanoid fictional creatures.

Oh I agree just wanted to give some advice on how you could visualize it.

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Mattrulesok said:

This model lives in my nightmares

🤣

Did you know that that same model exists with mammaries? Which are, quite obviously, a mammalian thing.

Link not safe for work just to add to your nightmares. EDIT: you knew.

In the quoted text, the pronouns are for just one character, though I haven't seen female or neutral pronouns for Seraphon.

Edited September 12, 2020 by zilberfrid

[BrownDog]

16 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Did you know that that same model exists with mammaries? Which are, quite obviously, a mammalian thing.

Link not safe for work just to add to your nightmares. EDIT: you knew.

In the quoted text, the pronouns are for just one character, though I haven't seen female or neutral pronouns for Seraphon.

That was just the one example, there are plenty others through the battletome and the short amount of fiction their in for AOS. And thats a bit of a problem, it's either not adressed or they revert to standard as male. The mere possibility of female Seraphon either unclear or not possible.  You can come up with reason why they shouldn't but these are excuses really, and with such a creative driven hobby it seems so limiting.

 

Like I'm homebrewing a Seraphon Oldblood, she's a baddass matriarch looking out over her clan of coalesced  after their slann left. Her being a her isn't important its fun, and being told that can't be because it's not lore appropriate but it can be a guy instead then that sucks.

Edited September 12, 2020 by BrownDog

[Sartxac]

28 minutes ago, shinros said:

You're trying to divert from your point. My point stands. Because you got caught out. Merit should decide, talent should decide. Denzel Washington(who is black) said this, a host of white writers pushed me to write. 

There are other reasons why you don't see more minorties. I won't say why due to the mod notice.

Exact. Merid and talent.

The really racism is separate the humans (one race) in etnics, sexual orientation, etc. The excellent penciller Doug Braithwaite drawn in all of his work white caucasic mans, not black mans as himself. Black phanter was created by Stan Lee and jack kirby (white mans). 

This seems that a few people want quotas not merits. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Sartxac

[BrownDog]

1 minute ago, Sartxac said:

Exact. Merid and talent.

The really racism is separate the humans (one race) in etnics, sexual orientation, etc. The excellent penciller Doug Braithwaite drawn in all of his work white caucasic mans, not black mans as himself. Black phanter was created by Stan Lee and jack kirby.

This seems that a few people want quotas not merits. 

come on, 'the real sexist are the ones asking for more female characters' is dumb and you should know that

[Enoby]

Some more numbers!

I think some interesting points have been raised in this thread, and a lot of them ended up falling short because we just don't have the numbers so we end up leaning on anecdotes. Even Games Workshop probably doesn't have accurate stats for number of male and female fans; they'll have a better idea than we do, but I doubt store owners keep tabs on everyone who buys from their store, not to mention those who buy online or from third party retailers, or who just don't buy at all. 

At first I was a bit stumped as to how we can provide anything numbers wise when it comes to GW's demographics, and even now I'm still not sure for those specific numbers. Websites that may take surveys will usually just measure the demographics of their website, and they could be misleading.

However, I did think it could be useful to look at the demographics of something quite similar -  Game of Thrones. 

Obviously, there are loads of differences between the two series - most Starkly (hah) that one is predominantly a TV show whilst the other predominantly a miniatures game. However, the reason I'm looking at it is because I want to investigate the differences in interest of a fantasy world where women make up a good proportion of the characters. The reason for this is to try and lead some credence to the argument that women can be interested in a stereo-typically male oriented world so long as they're represented and welcome into the fandom. 

Game of Thrones has themes of violence, war, politics, magic, general fantasy, and dragons. While not identical in their inception, these are also themes in AoS. If we go by the theory that the average woman just isn't interested in these themes and so wouldn't like Warhammer no matter if the female model representation and community attitude changed, then we should also find that women aren't interested in Game of Thrones. 

It should also be noted that GoT came under fire earlier on in its runtime for sexist portrayal of female characters, so there was at least some stigma attached to the show. People seemed to talk about this stigma much less as the show went on, but whether that's because it's old news or the show changed, I couldn't say. Regardless of the claims of sexism, there are many important female characters doing many different things in the show - Daenerys, Cersei, Sansa, Arya, Brienne among many others are well liked by fans and have very important roles within the TV show. 

I can't speak for how welcoming the fandom of GoT is, but as it's a TV show, there's much less social stigma attached to privately watching compared to entering a shop or having to interact with other fans to take part. I also have some stats of number of male vs female characters in the books ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/707436/game-of-thrones-character-gender/ ). The stats (M/F) are: book 1 270/115 (70/30%), book 2 266/171 (61/39%), book 3 210/146 (59/41%), book 4 210/181 (54/46%), book 5 64/40 (62/38%). Obviously not perfectly equal, and it does get gradually more equal as the series continues, but still more equal than AoS's split (80/20% for named characters, 83/17% for generic now we've included all male Stormcast, which I accidentally missed before). 

Yes, these are the books, but the TV show is faithful enough to the books early on (sometimes merging characters and taking parts out to save time) and we're more interested in proportions than exact figures as the exact figures are hard to come by. 

It was a lot harder than I thought to get exact demographic numbers that didn't come from surveys with sites that may have a gender bias either way, but the best I could do was Statisa looking at Italians responding to what popular shows they were watching in 2018 ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/707436/game-of-thrones-character-gender/ ). They found that 20% of male respondents said they were watching GoT compared to 16% of female respondents. 

In addition, another stats collection found that 52% of social media mentions of GoT for season 7 (2017) were by women ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/737521/game-of-thrones-social-media-gender/ ). It should be noted that some social media platforms are more used by women than men (Facebook and Instagram have a female bias, YouTube has a male bias); unfortunately I don't have a premium account so I can't share exactly what sites they looked at - it was more than one, but I can't get more specific).  

To drag this back to AoS

As we can see, women are interested in fantasy stories with violence, war, politics, magic, and dragons. GoT, despite the accusations of sexism early on, does have a large selection of important female characters who don't all fit into one stereotype and are treat like people, as well as a more equal representation compared to Warhammer.

I believe this provides evidence that women are interested in violent fantasy stories, and this could include AoS. GoT is more visually grim than AoS and is more 'realistic', but still has a stronger representation of women and a larger percentage of the fanbase seems to be women (assuming than significantly fewer women play AoS than men, which seems to be the case).

It should also be considered that the community (or lack there of) has less stigma attached to it. To be a fan of GoT, you never have to interact with another fan and so fanbase toxicity plays far less of a role. In Warhammer, in order to play games, you will need to interact with at least one other fan and likely many others in a hobby shop, which can have a toxic (or even just unwelcoming) environment; this also isn't accounting for the rather unsavoury online personalities who have unfortunately clung onto the Warhammer IP (mostly 40k to be fair) and come up frequently when searching for lore videos.

I hope this provides further area for discussion

 

[Sartxac]

19 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Some more numbers!

I think some interesting points have been raised in this thread, and a lot of them ended up falling short because we just don't have the numbers so we end up leaning on anecdotes. Even Games Workshop probably doesn't have accurate stats for number of male and female fans; they'll have a better idea than we do, but I doubt store owners keep tabs on everyone who buys from their store, not to mention those who buy online or from third party retailers, or who just don't buy at all. 

At first I was a bit stumped as to how we can provide anything numbers wise when it comes to GW's demographics, and even now I'm still not sure for those specific numbers. Websites that may take surveys will usually just measure the demographics of their website, and they could be misleading.

However, I did think it could be useful to look at the demographics of something quite similar -  Game of Thrones. 

Obviously, there are loads of differences between the two series - most Starkly (hah) that one is predominantly a TV show whilst the other predominantly a miniatures game. However, the reason I'm looking at it is because I want to investigate the differences in interest of a fantasy world where women make up a good proportion of the characters. The reason for this is to try and lead some credence to the argument that women can be interested in a stereo-typically male oriented world so long as they're represented and welcome into the fandom. 

Game of Thrones has themes of violence, war, politics, magic, general fantasy, and dragons. While not identical in their inception, these are also themes in AoS. If we go by the theory that the average woman just isn't interested in these themes and so wouldn't like Warhammer no matter if the female model representation and community attitude changed, then we should also find that women aren't interested in Game of Thrones. 

It should also be noted that GoT came under fire earlier on in its runtime for sexist portrayal of female characters, so there was at least some stigma attached to the show. People seemed to talk about this stigma much less as the show went on, but whether that's because it's old news or the show changed, I couldn't say. Regardless of the claims of sexism, there are many important female characters doing many different things in the show - Daenerys, Cersei, Sansa, Arya, Brienne among many others are well liked by fans and have very important roles within the TV show. 

I can't speak for how welcoming the fandom of GoT is, but as it's a TV show, there's much less social stigma attached to privately watching compared to entering a shop or having to interact with other fans to take part. I also have some stats of number of male vs female characters in the books ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/707436/game-of-thrones-character-gender/ ). The stats (M/F) are: book 1 270/115 (70/30%), book 2 266/171 (61/39%), book 3 210/146 (59/41%), book 4 210/181 (54/46%), book 5 64/40 (62/38%). Obviously not perfectly equal, and it does get gradually more equal as the series continues, but still more equal than AoS's split (80/20% for named characters, 83/17% for generic now we've included all male Stormcast, which I accidentally missed before). 

Yes, these are the books, but the TV show is faithful enough to the books early on (sometimes merging characters and taking parts out to save time) and we're more interested in proportions than exact figures as the exact figures are hard to come by. 

It was a lot harder than I thought to get exact demographic numbers that didn't come from surveys with sites that may have a gender bias either way, but the best I could do was Statisa looking at Italians responding to what popular shows they were watching in 2018 ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/707436/game-of-thrones-character-gender/ ). They found that 20% of male respondents said they were watching GoT compared to 16% of female respondents. 

In addition, another stats collection found that 52% of social media mentions of GoT for season 7 (2017) were by women ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/737521/game-of-thrones-social-media-gender/ ). It should be noted that some social media platforms are more used by women than men (Facebook and Instagram have a female bias, YouTube has a male bias); unfortunately I don't have a premium account so I can't share exactly what sites they looked at - it was more than one, but I can't get more specific).  

To drag this back to AoS

As we can see, women are interested in fantasy stories with violence, war, politics, magic, and dragons. GoT, despite the accusations of sexism early on, does have a large selection of important female characters who don't all fit into one stereotype and are treat like people, as well as a more equal representation compared to Warhammer.

I believe this provides evidence that women are interested in violent fantasy stories, and this could include AoS. GoT is more visually grim than AoS and is more 'realistic', but still has a stronger representation of women and a larger percentage of the fanbase seems to be women (assuming than significantly fewer women play AoS than men, which seems to be the case).

It should also be considered that the community (or lack there of) has less stigma attached to it. To be a fan of GoT, you never have to interact with another fan and so fanbase toxicity plays far less of a role. In Warhammer, in order to play games, you will need to interact with at least one other fan and likely many others in a hobby shop, which can have a toxic (or even just unwelcoming) environment; this also isn't accounting for the rather unsavoury online personalities who have unfortunately clung onto the Warhammer IP (mostly 40k to be fair) and come up frequently when searching for lore videos.

I hope this provides further area for discussion

 

I thought that game of thrones has tabletop games. These have more womans players?

With the pass of the time we see more % of womans in other competitive games as chess or draughts? With the pass of the time i'm refering in the last 10 years. And is this comparable with the inclusion of womans in sports like basketball, football?

[Cayce]

44 minutes ago, shinros said:

You're trying to divert from your point. My point stands. Because you got caught out. Merit should decide, talent should decide. Denzel Washington(who is black) said this, a host of white writers pushed me to write. 

There are other reasons why you don't see more minorties. I won't say why due to the mod notice.

I wasn’t trying to divert.

I was trying to engage positively with a post which misrepresented my argument, and avoid derailing the thread.

To get back on track, I think the community can have a negative impact, but this only really becomes apparent in large gatherings (where being a woman surrounded by a sea of men can feel isolating), in online communities, where individuals hostile to increased representation are more likely to give voice to their opinions, or if you are unlucky enough to have a ‘toxic’ individual (or two) at your local store.

GW are actively working to provide welcoming environments, and I have always felt at home at the local GW store. At the local independent I feel like an exotic creature. Not exactly unwelcome, just a novelty.

[Sartxac]

33 minutes ago, BrownDog said:

come on, 'the real sexist are the ones asking for more female characters' is dumb and you should know that

No, the real problem is demand black, asiatic soldiers or womens in every army that have the aesthetics of some real armies like cities of sigmar (the empire has tecnology and little steam punk appareance similar to the occidental armies of Europe in S.XVI). If you want more representation i think that is better make new armies like armies of mercenaries with a lot of strong womans, pirates of any nations workings together (i think that ogors have some mongols aesthetics), etc.

I repeat, for the aesthetic of stormcast i think that is better and more realistic make a army of black soldiers (black people of north africa have better hipertrofic conditions for wear stormcast armours). Is impossible for white mans make a army where every soldier have a big bodybuilding whitout take stereoids or magic potions.

For other band, i think that slaves to darkness must be white mans with viking aesthetic in their soldiers .

AOS is fantasy but i want armies that are based in phantasy versions of real and identificable armies. For example, the savage orks with their tattos for me are versions of the humans tribes and ancient tribes like the native americans of Apocalypto (movie of 2006).

Edited September 12, 2020 by Sartxac

[BrownDog]

4 minutes ago, Sartxac said:

No, the real problem is demand black, asiatic soldiers or womens in every army that have the aesthetics of some real armies like cities of sigmar (the empire has tecnology and little steam punk appareance similar to the occidental armies of Europe in S.XVI). If you want more representation i think that is better make new armies like armies of mercenaries with a lot of strong womans, pirates of any nations workings together, etc.

I repeat, for the aesthetic of stormcast i think that is better and more realistic make a army of black soldiers (black people of north africa have better hipertrofic conditions for wear stormcast armours). Is impossible for white mans make a army where every soldier have a big bodybuilding whitout stereoids or take magic potions.

Putting asiatics or black boys to slave to darkness that have a viking aesthetic in their soldiers 

I'm sorry but this is a very ugly and off-putting mindset to have for AOS

Edited September 12, 2020 by BrownDog

[shinros]

9 minutes ago, Cayce said:

I wasn’t trying to divert.

I was trying to engage positively with a post which misrepresented my argument, and avoid derailing the thread.

To get back on track, I think the community can have a negative impact, but this only really becomes apparent in large gatherings (where being a woman surrounded by a sea of men can feel isolating), in online communities, where individuals hostile to increased representation are more likely to give voice to their opinions, or if you are unlucky enough to have a ‘toxic’ individual (or two) at your local store.

GW are actively working to provide welcoming environments, and I have always felt at home at the local GW store. At the local independent I feel like an exotic creature. Not exactly unwelcome, just a novelty.

Nope, that's basically what you said. When I walked in a gamesworkshop over 10+ years ago. I didn't think "hey where are x?" 

I saw walking rat people and went, hey that's pretty cool and got started on my first fantasy army. Largely in my eyes community is not keeping people away.

I can list the reasons why but my post would go on for a long time and it would veer off topic.

That last post also fuels the mentality for people not to try and be succesful because of x. I live in a family where my brother got beaten almost half to death because of what goes on in OUR community. When he deicded to pull his socks up and get serious he is now a network engineer.

Edited September 12, 2020 by shinros

[Sartxac]

4 minutes ago, BrownDog said:

I'm sorry but this is a very ugly and off-putting mindset to have for AOS

Sorry, this is your opinion. All fantasy constructions are based in aspects of the real world. I don't see any problem in this.

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, shinros said:

Right, so since I am black person shouldn't write white people because I have limited ideas about white people?

No because you are a black person you are more likely to challenge a status quo where nobody writes about black people. 

at least that’s how I interpreted his argument. that current designers don’t notice their own prejudices in designing more male models, and female designers would be quicker to notice that desparity. 
but to get the female designers they need to feel excited about the job and hobby.

[shinros]

16 minutes ago, Kramer said:

No because you are a black person you are more likely to challenge a status quo where nobody writes about black people. 

at least that’s how I interpreted his argument. that current designers don’t notice their own prejudices in designing more male models, and female designers would be quicker to notice that desparity. 
but to get the female designers they need to feel excited about the job and hobby.

Why does the status quo doesn't change because many black people believe they can't be succesful. Because most live in broken enviroments, surrounded by crime and violence. Which leads to criminal records and dead careers. Also writers and designers should not be forced to inlcude anything if they don't want to.

[Kramer]

24 minutes ago, shinros said:

Why does the status quo doesn't change because many black people believe they can't be succesful. Because most live in broken enviroments, surrounded by crime and violence. Which leads to criminal records and dead careers. Also writers and designers should not be forced to inlcude anything if they don't want to.

Which I all agree. Well not with it happening of course, but with your points 😅 

but I do feel it speaks to the core of this thread. It’s that negative spiral that’s hard to break. 
wether it’s inequality in our little hobby, or bigger picture in society as a whole. 

so to pull it back To the original post, I feel it would be good to break that spiral by making sure this hobby becomes More inclusive. If that starts with the model range, all the better. But GW will have to accept it will always have push back.  

[shinros]

19 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Which I all agree. Well not with it happening of course, but with your points 😅 

but I do feel it speaks to the core of this thread. It’s that negative spiral that’s hard to break. 
wether it’s inequality in our little hobby, or bigger picture in society as a whole. 

so to pull it back To the original post, I feel it would be good to break that spiral by making sure this hobby becomes More inclusive. If that starts with the model range, all the better. But GW will have to accept it will always have push back.  

Anyway I'm going to apologise I got heated. Since I feel certain talking points in this thread stifiles success in the very people they want to see.

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, Sartxac said:

No, the real problem is demand black, asiatic soldiers or womens in every army that have the aesthetics of some real armies like cities of sigmar (the empire has tecnology and little steam punk appareance similar to the occidental armies of Europe in S.XVI). If you want more representation i think that is better make new armies like armies of mercenaries with a lot of strong womans, pirates of any nations workings together (i think that ogors have some mongols aesthetics), etc.

I repeat, for the aesthetic of stormcast i think that is better and more realistic make a army of black soldiers (black people of north africa have better hipertrofic conditions for wear stormcast armours). Is impossible for white mans make a army where every soldier have a big bodybuilding whitout take stereoids or magic potions.

For other band, i think that slaves to darkness must be white mans with viking aesthetic in their soldiers .

AOS is fantasy but i want armies that are based in phantasy versions of real and identificable armies. For example, the savage orks with their tattos for me are versions of the humans tribes and ancient tribes like the native americans of Apocalypto (movie of 2006).

Most of Cities of Sigmar is in the realm of fire, the others in the realm of life, much of which is a jungle. If you want to restrict race, neither are optimal for pasty white people (with Greywater being the sole exception). They also came from all humans that were in Azyr, so either they should form a melting pot of all races, or all races should be represented. The only reason the Freeguild look as they do, is because GW has only made one Order human since tge start if AoS, which has since been discontinued. The Excelsior Warpriest had distinctly African facial features (as well as the cutest little Gryph hound).

Stormcast harvest their souls from all humans Sigmar wants to take, they should reflect every human the hammergod wants to use.

Slaves to Darkness' aesthetic has nothing to do with historic vikings, so I don't see a reason for racial restrictions.

And yes, I do think Bonesplitters are not in good taste, taking African elements and putting them on the barbaric subhumans that are orcs isn't the most respectful way to treat a culture. Not dissimilar with the mongolian themed ogres.

[shinros]

25 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

 

And yes, I do think Bonesplitters are not in good taste, taking African elements and putting them on the barbaric subhumans that are orcs isn't the most respectful way to treat a culture. Not dissimilar with the mongolian themed ogres.

I was agreeing with your post until this part. I hope GW never take note of this when it comes to making new models for the faction. So you see orcs as black people instead of largely football hooligans? You also see orcs as disrespecting african people in a setting where you can actually be a black man or woman.

Edited September 12, 2020 by shinros

[michu]

6 minutes ago, shinros said:

I was agreeing with your post until this part. I hope GW never take note of this when it comes to making new models for the faction. So you see orcs as black people instead of largely football hooligans? You also see orcs as disrespecting african people in a setting where you can actually be a black man or woman.

I think it was more pronounced in WFB when feral orcs were common in Southlands  (WFB's Africa). In AoS they are vanilla barbaric horde with no links to any real culture.

[shinros]

4 minutes ago, michu said:

I think it was more pronounced in WFB when feral orcs were common in Southlands  (WFB's Africa). In AoS they are vanilla barbaric horde with no links to any real culture.

And? They're tribal orcs. They look the part and I love whazzag, I think he is a cool character. I don't want to go down this rabbit hole. I just find his comment concerning.

Edited September 12, 2020 by shinros

[michu]

3 minutes ago, shinros said:

And? They're tribal orcs. They look the part and I love whazzag, I think he is a cool character. I don't want to go down this rabbit hole. I just find his comment concerning.

I agree that Bonesplitterz are cool looking models. It's not their look is a problem (at least for me). It's their Old World lore. Fortunately it's irrelevant in AoS.

[shinros]

7 minutes ago, michu said:

I agree that Bonesplitterz are cool looking models. It's not their look is a problem (at least for me). It's their Old World lore. Fortunately it's irrelevant in AoS.

Well I never had a problem with it myself. Orcs who simply go back to the old ways. If the old ways was body paint abd being half naked along with almost a cockney accent. That's neat.

Cause if they are now racist should they be removed from total war warhammer? Should they no longer be shown in any fantasy related media? Cause he also mentioned Bonespiltters which is AOS.

PS I don't consider them racist, same with ogres.

Edited September 12, 2020 by shinros

[michu]

3 minutes ago, shinros said:

Well I never had a problem with it myself. Orcs who simply go back to the old ways. If the old ways was body paint abd being half naked along with almost a cockney accent. That's neat.

Cause if they are now racist should they be removed from total war warhammer? Should they no longer be shown in any fantasy related media? Cause he also mentioned Bonespiltters which is AOS.

PS I don't consider them racist, same with ogres.

Look at it that way. Southland is Old World's Africa. What faction is the most prevalent in the non-egyptian, non-arabian part of it? Wild brutes that are too stupid to use something better than stone spears. Not the best picture.

And I've already said it twice - AoS solved that problem - Bonesplitterz are not related to any real-world culture. They're their own thing.