discussion Female model representation in Age of Sigmar

[Greyshadow]

I really like the Warrior Chamber Stormcast but I am waiting for their kits to be about fifty fifty male and female. Yes, maybe they could be under all that armour but I just really like the Leena Stormspire and Angharad Brightshield models as well as the female Stormcast on the cover of the core book. They just look boss.

It is also a problem that much of the current range just doesn't fit the background as presented in the Battletome stories and Black Library novels . Female heroes (and anti-heroes) should be plentiful. Also, the history of the setting suggest multicultural societies. We should be seeing all the ethnicities from the near-earth analogue Old World.

I have a wonderful one year old daughter and by the time she is old enough to ask to play models I want to offer her a space to realise that women are boss. I actually feel pretty positive that we might actually get there.

[Maddpainting]

Its a game about war, honestly how many women read, play, get into games about war? Yes it is fantasy and yes it is for everyone for the most part but in the end its fluff about battles, you are simulating a battle as well. There are ways to make full armies of females. So really for what type of game it is I honestly feel women are well representative for what would be if in real life if a chaos and death god kill off 90% of the population.

At least their faces are better than 40k Female faces too... IDK who is doing 40k vs aos but dang, they need to learn to make female faces lol.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Maddpainting
edit grammar english hard for me

[Enoby]

6 minutes ago, Maddpainting said:

Its a game about war, honestly how many women read, play, get into games about war? Yes it is fantasy and yes it is for everyone for the most part but in the end its fluff about battles, you are simulating a battle as well

I think this is an interesting question, but it's very difficult to answer. While I don't have data, I think it's safe to say that there are fewer women interested in WH compared to men. This could be for a few reasons, but we get into a chicken and egg situation:

1. Women are naturally less interested in wargames (or war in general)

2. Women feel alienated when approaching wargames, perhaps due to othering from male peers 

3. Women would be interested in wargames, if there was greater female representation within the models and the hobby. As there has always been a low model count for women in either WH (looking at the full games, not specific factions), women have not been as interested which has lead to a more male community

4. A combination of all of the above

As a woman, I can say I do have an interest in war, tactics, and wargames. Even when I was younger, I wanted to play Warhammer but was put off when a male friend (well, kind of friend) said that Space Marines were the best things in the entire 40k universe and made a big deal how men were only strong enough to become them, and how the Witch Hunters (I think the SoB) were the weaker all female variant.  That put me off starting WH40k for years, and I only regained interest when reading a bit about Neferata in WHF at the beginning of AoS. 

However, this is only my personal account and I don't speak for all women. 

 Historically, men have made up the vast majority of soldiers and generals, and so wargames (as we know them) when they first began were marketed towards boys. Look at HG Well's book, Little Wars (considered the primogenitor of modern wargames) - its full title is "Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books". From the very start, women and girls have been alienated from this community as the original book insinuated that girls are less intelligent to enjoy certain things. 

 I think it would be short sighted to view this as not having an affect on women joining in the hobby. 

When nerd culture was more insular and far more male dominated, female models just didn't sell as well (adding to the idea that people like to play armies the same gender as them). This would also help explain the drought of female models; I've attached a comment from one of the creators of 40k as to why we don't have female space marines any more. This is more tangential to any points, but people may find it interesting and it does help frame the discussion a bit as to why we may be lacking female models 

To get back to my original point; I think that we shouldn't dismiss women in wargaming on the basis of 'just not liking it'. Maybe that is the case, but there are plenty of other good reasons (as discussed). If we look at comic books, which used to be similarly insular, their breach into the mainstream has caused an uptick in female fans and popular female super heroes. 

[zilberfrid]

Small thing about Little Wars: I consider that quite an inclusive book for for the time.

Women were not allowed to vote in the vast majority of the world, and here we have someone including them in their hobby in the title (though a bit clunkily).

[Beliman]

I would add to what @Enoby said that cultural and pop reference are part of that too.
We can do an experiment (I already did that some years ago for my studies).

• Ask to a whole classroom (8-12 years old) who would play a war-game (no need to be a tabletop game, anything related to war counts) and another random game. You can imagine how it went in my case...

• Go to another classroom, read about war stories/historical conflicts  with female heroines (Ching Shih or Disney's Mulan, no need to be accurate or real, only matters if the weight of the main story is moved on by the heroine). And then ask the same and see how it will differ from the other classroom.

  Well, nobody was impressed with the results but I got my point (btw, that didn't have anything related to war-games, but that's another story).

 

In the second classroom we had more girls than boys playing with toy soldiers.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Beliman

[Kramer]

3 hours ago, Whitefang said:

superhuman

Well they are super human, that’s their whole point 😂

[Clan's Cynic]

5 hours ago, Whitefang said:

Hot take

Stormcast should remove boob armor and both male and female should wear similar heavy plate like chaos warriors 

I think part of it comes down to how recognisable you want the models to be as women at 28mm. In artwork it's all well and good, but when you're staring down at 28mm models the distinction between what's a man and a woman in heavy plate becomes very muddled. Now whilst I'm sure that's what most people on this thread would say they'd like, you sort of end up in this redundant position where none can actually tell they're women without squinting - Schrodinger's Woman, if you will. Now if you're trying to pitch an army that might appeal to women, at first glance I imagine the vast majority of people would just assume they're men anyway and if you're after models that are distinctly women, they're sort of... not. 

I won't claim to be a fan of boob plate, but I can see the out-of-game logic of Stormcast keeping it in order to affirm the distinction that they're a mixed gender bunch rather than making someone squint hard and see a few of them have slightly narrower faces.

I think something that's also worth mentioning is that most women I've wargamed and RPG'ed with (be that on an MMO or D&D) are not, shock horror, adverse to their characters being attractive, having a distinctively feminine appearance, etc. It's not a hivemind of, "silly boys just want to sexualise us!" There's a reason that Elves tend to be absurdly popular amongst the fairer sex. (anyone who's ever been in a large RP group can tell you this)  That's not me saying every female model has to be beautiful and lithe and a spellcaster (they shouldn't), but similarly not everyone of them needs to be grungy, gritty, grizzled and indistinguishable from men.

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Overread]

I think its important to realise that the reason(s) a person might or might not engage with a particular hobby can have many reasons which will vary person to person. I think it would be folly to highlight one single aspect as the golden solution and to push it harder and harder as the solution. I'd also say that there are elements in this which are beyond the company (in this case GW) ability to influence on its own. I'd also say that sometimes its a situation where because someone has no interest in engaging with the hobby, they don't put their thoughts under the lamp to analyse why they don't want to take part in any depth. They just aren't interested and that's enough for them. As a result it can be hard to pool accurate information. What you tend to get is information from those on the edge, who are just about to be interested and who might have identified one bugbear that, to them, is a huge issue, but which might not represent the greater body who are not engaging at all. 

 

Gender division within a hobby isn't anything unique to wargames and I'd consider that the representation of male and female characters and models is but one element and might be a more minor one than we are be considering. Lets put aside fantasy for a second and consider Historical Wargames. Where barring the exception of individuals like Mulan or small groups like the Night Witches*, the predominant leaders, troops, heroes and basically every model that isn't a camp follower, is going to be male. Within the bounds of history there isn't even the scope to present a 1/4 female presence let alone consider 50/50 for a recreation of WW1 trench battles or the Napoleonic Wars. 

Ergo lets consider a situation where the gender presentation in model form is a fixed constant and not open to modification of history/lore/background. 

So lets ask the question there of why there aren't more women involved when there is no option to create a 50/50 representation of men and women within the game.

 

 

I think we also have to be open to the idea that social elements play a part, perhaps the biggest part. Even without any insults or socially awkward people, if you get a group predominately comprised of one gender, it can be hard to encourage the other gender to take part. This is nothing unique to wargames, if you look at ponyclubs in the UK they are predominantly girls with very few boys. However if you then look at other nations and cultures you can see the opposite gender representation. I'd wager in regions of the USA the gender divide is the other way around. 

The saddles haven't got more masculine or girly; the horses aren't changing colours/genders/being more fancy etc... 

However the culture surrounding those hobbies is different. The marketing, the presentation, the role models within the groups are very different. I'd argue here is an area that the greatest change can be made and would result in perhaps the greatest shift in uptake of the hobby. Having women presenting youtube videos; in the white dwarf magazine; in the store as staff; on the website; on the twitch streams and podcasts. Women who are clearly enjoying themselves, presenting the hobby as something they engage with and that other women can engage with. 

I think this is something that has a much greater impact than we realise. OF course its not alone, sometimes you've also got to have shifts and changes in other areas of society to promote it all along. So that girls and women even bother to look at a White Dwarf or warhammer youtube channel in the first place. These can be more subtle and tricky things to change, though I'd argue that change is steadily happening generation to generation at present. 

 

*Soviet female pilots

[silverstu]

I always like having female models within a faction- I really like the added variation and interest [and I'm a bloke]. I've always wanted female dwarf models, I like having female leaders and heroes alongside the male ones as well as in units. It just improves the visual diversity within a faction and gives the sense of a fuller society and I like that sense of depth in a faction. I was so happy to see female Kharadron represented in the artworks and the fluff in the recent Kharadron book and a few novellas- hoping they are added on model form too when ever we get some new sculpts [thought it was a shame the new endrinmaster wasn't female]. The art looks really good with different helmet designs for the females so I'm hopeful they can be done well. 

 

[Overread]

Ps - in summary to my long post I guess my question is, which is the greater role model. The model on the table or the people playing the game. 

[Frowny]

16 hours ago, Enoby said:

 

What a lovely thoughtful post.

I 100% agree that there should be way more female minis, characters and names characters. 100% female models weekly for 2 years as you suggest probably isn't realistic (and mightironically lead to the opposite problem eventually when they eventually retire old mostly male minis) bit a female/male ratio of  60/40 or something over many years would get us there too. Even a 50/50 for ages would do the same, albeit slowly (which is the strategy for most professions with a prior male bias).  Sadly I don't think there even to half female for new releases.

Expanding marketing to women seems like a good business move. Currently they are really only targeting 50%of the populatíon even in countries where they already have infastructure.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Frowny

[Whitefang]

50 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

but I can see the out-of-game logic of Stormcast keeping it in order to affirm the distinction that they're a mixed gender bunch rather than making someone squint hard and see a few of them have slightly narrower faces.

Fair point, honestly I do understand at this stage it is the best way to represent the diversity in the miniatures from a commercial viewpoint.
However I just feel it’s a shame they choose a very old fashioned troupe(males are buff and strong, females are slender and with boob plate etc.) rather than a more clever and subtler way to represent gender diversity.

[Kramer]

31 minutes ago, Whitefang said:

However I just feel it’s a shame they choose a very old fashioned troupe(males are buff and strong, females are slender and with boob plate etc.) rather than a more clever and subtler way to represent gender diversity.

I personally don't mind it as it's superhumans. Taking the 'fantasy prefection' and then exaggerating it. I do feel they did it very well with Deepkin thralls and Reavers. So in a bigger picture I don't necessarily mind the stormcast take. Same with the DoK take on female models, as long as its more balanced with factions with the 'Deepkin' take. So a bit of everything is always cool. 

But that takes it back to the original point, is it in balance, not it's not yet. 

[Okonomiyakimarine]

21 minutes ago, Kramer said:

I personally don't mind it as it's superhumans. Taking the 'fantasy prefection' and then exaggerating it. I do feel they did it very well with Deepkin thralls and Reavers. So in a bigger picture I don't necessarily mind the stormcast take. Same with the DoK take on female models, as long as its more balanced with factions with the 'Deepkin' take. So a bit of everything is always cool. 

But that takes it back to the original point, is it in balance, not it's not yet. 

‚Fantasy perfection’ is something that Is changed quite a bit in the last years. Mattel‘s barbies are not realistic, but things got toned down quite a bit. Superhumans are shown to be less and less super is the last years In cinema. In my opinion this is not only a challenge for more diversity, but something closer to reality, with more greys and way more interesting narratives. But then again some people prefer the perfect unscratched gold and silver supermen over the shells of Warriors made supernatural And being reforged again and again. Tastes are different of course, I enjoy The 30k grimdark over 40k for example and I would applaud GW for evolving Warhammer and explore various possible narratives. Fierce female goblins and all.

[Kramer]

2 minutes ago, Okonomiyakimarine said:

‚Fantasy perfection’ is something that Is changed quite a bit in the last years. Mattel‘s barbies are not realistic, but things got toned down quite a bit. Superhumans are shown to be less and less super is the last years In cinema. In my opinion this is not only a challenge for more diversity, but something closer to reality, with more greys and way more interesting narratives. But then again some people prefer the perfect unscratched gold and silver supermen over the shells of Warriors made supernatural And being reforged again and again. Tastes are different of course, I enjoy The 30k grimdark over 40k for example and I would applaud GW for evolving Warhammer and explore various possible narratives. Fierce female goblins and all.

Thats very true of the changing norm. That will always be a struggle for a company that sells products that last 15-20 years. Good point. 

 

3 minutes ago, Okonomiyakimarine said:

But then again some people prefer the perfect unscratched gold and silver supermen over the shells of Warriors made supernatural And being reforged again and again.

Haha, i Showed the girlfriend, who never played, of a mate I often play the stormcast I bought cheap last summer. They were unpainted so I showed her the GW golden paint scheme online as well. 
And she said something along the lines, of okay they are cool, i'll play them against you both. Now that I've painted them with black armour and dark red accents... she doesn't really like them anymore because they look too evil 😂 So i'm gifting him a starter set and a rattlecan of gold come christmas. 

[Rhetoric]

I got into AoS with Deepkin, and seeing even the moderate levels of female representation in the army was a breath of fresh air after not being involved with GW products for 12 years.  I think the Reavers are 50% female, Thralls are 40%, Akhelian Guard are 33.33%.  The Tidecaster is an amazing miniature.  I think GW is doing a good job of bringing for female representation into AoS, but there is a lot of work to be done.   

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Rhetoric

[RuneBrush]

Firstly, thanks for everyone keeping this post civil and largely on topic!

The information collated together is really interesting as a cross-section across the available armies somebody could collect for AoS.  I do think it would be an interesting exercise to see the comparison of new male & female miniatures released specifically within the lifetime of AoS - I would hope that there's a general incline.  I do think topics like this help because it shows a maturity in the community which wasn't as prevalent going back.

I do think the topic of the gender split within AoS is one that will always come up and always have a pretty complicated mix of opinions, because it will depend upon your own views and the views of people around you.  There has been a definite increase in diversity within gaming over the past years now that the "stigma" that used to be associated with being a wargamer has started to vanish.  Oddly, within my own circle of geekery, I've at least three friends who aren't fans of GW miniatures due to the proliferation of unnecessary skulls and models that are have permanent dour angry faces.  I've also a number of friends who just don't enjoy PvP gaming and the choice of co-op games available is pretty limited.  I'm fairly positive that other people and their friends may feel differently though.

[Eevika]

Arent greenskins all Agender? I believe they reproduce like mushrooms. 

[michu]

2 minutes ago, Eevika said:

Arent greenskins all Agender? I believe they reproduce like mushrooms. 

Not exactly. They're asexual but they use male pronouns and call themselves "boyz".

[Azamar]

18 minutes ago, Rhetoric said:

I got into AoS with Deepkin, and seeing even the moderate levels of female representation in the army was a breath of fresh air after not being involved with GW products for 12 years.  I think the Reavers are 50% female, Thralls are 40%, Akhelian Guard are 33.33%.  The Tidecaster is an amazing miniature.  I think GW is doing a good job of bringing for female representation into AoS, but there is a lot of work to be done.   

 

It always seems that elf kits lead the way for gender balance, as the older dark elf infantry kits had a similar mix, and elder guardians too going back 10+ years. Its also true of newer kits like eternal guard and the lumineth (it’s really subtle in the latter case but there are female torsos in the warden kit). 
 

why only elves and not humans and dwarfs is odd though. How many female Order hero models  in AOS aren’t aelves? 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Azamar

[EccentricCircle]

3 minutes ago, Eevika said:

Arent greenskins all Agender? I believe they reproduce like mushrooms. 

While that is technically true, they are still coded as male, which is what was being counted in the original post.

 

Its interesting to compare wargames to RPGs, where there has been a substantially faster shift towards there being better female representation in the hobby. I absolutely believe that both styles of games can appeal to anyone. However, there are definitely social factors at play. I don't think we can blame everything on lack of model diversity, even if that can be a factor.

Certainly its possible to relate to characters of a different gender to yourself. A lot of RPG players play characters of the opposite gender. When it comes to models I'd say I have a mild preference for female models, despite being male. But then I've never particularly been interested in macho body builder type stuff, which is the overwhelming majority of male representation in warhammer. However, I can absolutely appreciate that if you are uncertain about the hobby, and then are presented with a set of options non of which appeal it will be very off putting, so the more diversity we can get in the model range the better.

[Kramer]

10 minutes ago, Azamar said:

why only elves and not humans and dwarfs is odd though. How many female Order hero models  in AOS aren’t aelves? 

I still play those dark elf models. Never noticed it either until I started building them.  
by just scrolling through the app, with only matched play turned on, Iroughly  count 26. But including Bretonnia, slaanesh deamons. And the only destruction one is the troll hag. Might have counted some things double I realised later if they are in two catagories

[Whitefang]

7 minutes ago, Azamar said:

It always seems that elf kits lead the way for gender balance, as the older dark elf infantry kits had a similar mix, and elder guardians too going back 10+ years. Its also true of newer kits like eternal guard and the lumineth (it’s really subtle in the latter case but there are female torsos in the warden kit). 
 

why only elves and not humans and dwarfs is odd though. How many female Order hero models  in AOS aren’t aelves? 

That, I think it’s based on the design elements and what kind of faction culture designer want to express with these miniatures. 

What I can see is GW’s elves generally represents a more advanced and civilized (no offence to other factions) society to a point which is nearly akin to the reality, while the humans (especially back in the day of WHFB) are deliberately designed as a civilization around certain historic era. So it ends as elves are quite gender balanced while humans are not.

Although it’s quite controversial, I think it was not a bad idea for designing a fantasy world setting at the moment.

Now in the AoS we are having much more choices and possibilities to explore for many factions, but generally speaking I guess GW will still retain some unique elements for each faction. For example elves are still more gender mixed than traditional dwarves (like fyreslayers), though we now have capitalist Kharadron which gives female dwarves much more spaces to shine.

 

[Beastmaster]

Plus, elves are depicted to fight more with speed, agility and magic, and to rely less on strength and size. Which makes female fighters being at the same level as males more believable.

(Yes, I know, the dimorphism in humans is actually not that big (=not as big as young men tend to believe). Could be considerably bigger or smaller or even the other way around in fantasy races, but that theme has not really been explored all that much in Fantasy as a whole)

Edited September 7, 2020 by Beastmaster

[Frowny]

I've never bought the 'historic armies are mostly male argument'. There are factions of ghosts, dinosaurs, skeletons (which I suppose could be male or female skeletons), just to name a few. Clearly history has little bearing if any,  as this is so clearly a fantasy setting, from the very onset. I'm happy it stays that way and am 100% behind a totally mixed gender army, where applicable (the skeleton or dinosaur example being a pretty solid gender neutral example). 

In terms of new releases for heroes since malignant portends

Fungoid Cave Shaman: Male

Darkoath Warqueen: Female

Ordinator: Male

Knight of Shrouds: Male? Could be non-gendered

Warlock Bombadier: I am unsure of rats genders. Maybe a Skaven player can help me. I always assumed male but that is actually likely my own bias.

Arch-Revenant: Female

Loonboss on Cave Squig: Male

Syll-esske: Both

Epitome: Female

Keeper of Secrets: Non-binary

Infernal Enrapturess: Female

Chaos Lord on Karadrak: Neutral, armor plates are non-gendered

Endrigger on dirigible Suit-Male

Ogor Tyrant: Male

I'm sure I'm missing some.  Since malignant portends thats ~6/14 male releases and 4/14 female with a further 4/14 neutral, non-binary or both on the same mini. Not as male heavy as I'd expected when I started counting. 

 

Edit: I forgot a ton of nighthaunt, actually. And the sacrosanct chamber. I guess the creation of lady orlynder and Kurdross implies that many of the nighthaunt heroes are male? What is others interpretation of that.