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I think we had this topic before, or maybe it was why arent any of them black, or maybe it was both but it went a bit too far because of people with too strong opinions and it got locked if i remember correctly. I dont think warhammer is sexist. Its just that males are the ones that typically go to war and i dont think all female units would sell better than male units of the same type in a game that is all about fantasy battles.

Well Warhammer is set in a kinda medieval world - and in medieval times there were not an awful lot of women on the battlefield. You get a lot more female models in the "urban" settings of Mordheim, you see.

Also, Games Workshop's sculptors are, as a rule, pretty terrible at sculpting women that don't look like the kind of transvestites you'd see in bad TV comedies.

surely they're aztecian/peruvian (not sure of the term, i was going to say hispanic but, i assume, that has spanish). Anyway aren't they in the fluff shipwrecked Norse?

I think the lack of ethnic diversity is that, aside from Araby, the Human powers are western, medievil (brets)-rennaissance(Empire/Tilea/Est)-archaic (albion). Only cathay/Nippon really represent a non white imperial power, and getting enough figures for a tournament list of them requires some serious conversion work and a vivid imagination. Therefore, if i wanted an army themed around, say Great Zimbabwe, rather than choose human figures i'm far more likely to choose either savage orcs or southlands beastmen.

I've got to agree with Pyro Stick that, if the models were around to support those themes, then we'd see more of them, however, it's hardly a money spinner.

Actually, female Dwarfs in Warhammer don't have beards:

Perhaps she's just wipped out the gillette for a pre-battle trim.

On the sexist/racist thing, most of the sculptors are white blokes, so the majority of humans they sculpt are bound to be also. Having said that the ethnicity of your models is down to your painting.

If it really bothers you that much (and for the life of me I can't understand why it would) then just buy non-GW figures.
There are plenty of other companies that make female figures, and many of them are of a very high quality.

Indeed? I find the new daemonettes to be quite prudish, actually. I mean the last generation of them was practically nude and had much more daemonic appearance. The new models are basically merely punks in weird leather costumes.

I liked the daemonette models so much that I even put one on the base of my general: ^^

Now that's sexist.

It might be just me but the fantasy genre has always contained, ahem, women with interesting taste in clothing. Pretty much all the films, novels andartwork pre-2000 contained them in some way. Yes I find it irritating that nearly every female model has to be barely clothed and I'd love to see some new models which actually resembled female warriors as oposed to strippers. It 'aint gonna happen. The current range sell too well to certain hobbyists whos chances of getting near a woman (naked or otherwise) are limited to the internet and certain video stores. The new wood elves and the Eldar and Sisters of Battle in 40k are steps in the right direction

To be fair, a lot of male models are just as naked. There's kind of a double standard about nudity in our culture: if a man is naked, it's not sexual, but if a woman is naked, it's sexist titillation for adolescents. The Bloodletters are more naked than the Daemonettes and Chaos Marauders wear a loincloth and a few straps. There are other examples, I'm sure, but they don't seem offensive because you're a man from a patriarchal culture which sees the female body as a deviation from the norm.

/soapbox

It seems to me that the bloodletters and all the other daemons seem pretty A-sexual, and the marrauders are clothed below the waist. I agree with your cultural point but I'm struggling to think of a male model along the lines of a witch elf say

This is what I meant about the female body being seen as a "deviation from the norm" - the Bloodletters and Plaguebearers (okay, not Horrors, since they're shapeless masses of flesh) are pretty clearly male, but it's like our idea of average is masculine so we can see male bodies as asexual. I'm not knocking you here, btw, but it is a really interesting anthropological thing that, even when aware of this cultural bias, we can still describe something that's male as if it's just the way all bodies are, and females are just some sort of weird subtype.

The last lot of bloodletters I'd have agreed with you, but this lot are wierd creatures with serpentine bodies, muscly arms (and if you worked out where I do you'd know thats not exclusive to men) spindly hooves and horned heads. The plaguebearers are a personification of our fear of mortality. They are so decayed they could be from either gender. Again they have no distinctive male features and neither model has any sexual organs or distuinctions of any kind.

The deamonettes on the other hand are distinctly female. I doubt anyone would argue that point. As for other models mentioned, beastmen have the upper bodies of men agreed, but men walk about with their shirts off all the time. Where I would agree with you is that it is strange that in our cultures unlike many others it is seen as necessary for women to cover their chests but not men. That is a cultural thing and unrelated to WFB or GW. The lower half is that of an animal which you very rarely see clothed. Orcs are a-sexual monsters like dragons trolls and many others. The same can be said for lizardmen (although they are based on reptiles rather than monsters). I can't think of any portrayals of men in any elven, dwarf or human army which could be commented on in this way, (with the exception of the old slayers and BfSP) without any clothing. The slayers drew much comment at the time and many who have converted the BfSp model have added loincloths.

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you. I for one don't see GWs portrayal of women as sexist, just a little sad really

As far as race goes, most of the Warhammer world is based on medieval Europe and you wouldn't see many black men outside Spain and Southern Italy. Certainly not in Germany, France or Scandinavia (read the Empire, Bretonia and the Norse). Thats not to say they weren't there at all, but the vast majority would be white. The only army you'd really expect to see black men in in large numbers would be Khemri (Egypt) which for obvious reasons doesn't work, or DoW. As has been said colour schemes are up to the individual. When painting core troops most wouldn't want to paint the odd model with different skin as it takes time, stops batch painting and makes an ordinary model stand out too much in the unit which can spoil its look.

But they have to be one or the other - humans have two genders (intersex people aside, since they're a tiny minority), so a depiction of a human must be either masculine or feminine. What I'm saying is that you're seeing "male" as average, and therefore androgynous, whereas "female" only applies if there's some blatant deviation from that (i.e. breasts).

You seriously don't think this:



Is a representation of the male form? They have bulges, for Christ's sake!

Look, I'm kind of making two different points here because there are two kinds of sexism going on, in two different ways.

1) GW tends to depict its few female models in overtly sexualised ways, yes. Deamonettes are an example, as are Witch Elves. That's sexist.

2) On the other hand, Bloodletters, Marauders, Orcs, etc. are all men or masculine creatures that are similarly clad, but that doesn't seem sexual in our culture: that's a sexist double-standard that we have (and it's very much not just in the West - it's pretty much universal in any culture that has lots of clothes).

So, yeah, I guess what I'm getting at is that the way the nudity taboo works in our minds is a little warped, but Daemonettes are sex demons (why do they have to be women?) and Witch Elves are evil child-killers who have bloodthirsty orgies (because sex is only horrific if a woman does it). Similarly, the only way women get into 40K is in an army that is exclsuively female ("in the grim darkness of the far future, there is gender segregation").

Elves/Eldar are another case entirely - their women fight alongside their men...but that's actually used as a way of showing how "alien" they are. Wow - there are female Aspect Warriors! How weird and kooky!

How naked the models are is irrelevant: what is relevant is the way those models are depicted in the background - as terrifying sexual creatures, parodies of feminism and chastity or as a way of drawing a distinction between an alien race and humanity.

You can't be sexist towards a daemon.

The daemonettes are actually depicted and explicitly described in the current army book as being androgynous, i.e. neither male or female but both in a way, but I agree with you that this was not always the case in the past.

Then again, how do you imply slaaneshi sexual power in a 28mm miniature if you design a male model? I mean of course it can be done, but it wouldn't be acceptable to most parents. I know one guy from the Munich Games Workshop store once converted a Slaaneshi daemon prince with a penis the size of a missile launcher. Now imagine that taking place in the USA, where nudity of any kind is simply a no-go!

Aye, and the story of Khalida actually is a very tragic and somewhat even romantic one.

I would say anyone who has a healthy relationship towards sexuality wouldn't ever be "disturbed" by the women / men ratio in Warhammer at all, as Thommy H put it.

N.B., most of the people who play Warhammer have no relationship towards sexuality at all (yet) and might even refrain from buying any female models because they are not cool enough (I mean how many ppl had Teela back in the eighties, and how many had He-Man? ^^)

But the endless list of horrid sexisms still gave me a good laugh, so thanks for that!

Both dark elves and wood elves have parts in their plastic infantry that can make about 25% of the unit into women.

Seems odd how you'd default all the species with no obvious genders as males, when biologically they would actually be females.  Plus there are more species where the female is larger and more aggressive than the male (something to do with protecting and providing for their young).

The sexless armies are much larger than you'd expect: Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, Skaven, O&G, Lizardmen, Daemons.
That leaves the sexist armies as dwarfs, beastmen, ogres, and all humans.
So only elves are more balanced, possibly because their styles of combat are less reliant on strength and more on skill, or maybe there is less difference between the sexes.

If you look at modern real-life armies, you'd be unlikely to see even 25% female on the frontlines.  Even if you cut out the issue with mixed-sex squads, it is just that fewer women pass the physical since the average woman is weaker than the average man.  It's just biology.  It seems odd to suggest that Warhammer should artificially boost the number of women on the battlefield when it looks like they have the balance exactly correct already.

I wasn't replying to anyone in particular, I was using the royal "you".
And of course, Lizardmen and Beastmen are just given those names by the humans, who we've already established are rather sexist.  Not sure how you can sex a rat/lizard, let alone a rat/lizard model.  As for those who can't actually sexually reproduce at all (undead, daemons)...

It all depends on which aspects of reality you find most important

Okay, a lot of people are saying this doesn't matter. This thread shall be closed, a lot of points have been madre, but it is obvious thwere shall remain a lack of agreement, which would be fine if there were an agreement to disagree. That's a lot of the word agree.

Anyway, my points are:
Daemonettes appear to be the gender that the neholder prefers, thusly for males (the large portion of armies and players alike), they shall appear female. This is how it has always been.

The lizardmen and skaven are not shown as male or female because the modellers didn;t wish to sculpt reproductive organs onto the miniatures, for obvious reasons. To the average person, you cannot discern the sex of a lizard or rat without this sight, to the best of my knowledge.

Lizardmen and ratmen because they are named by the wempire, which as stated is sexist-esque at least. There is also the fact that humans are referred to as the race of man. It is a follow up of the English language there.

Not all females are depicted as being sex-objects. There are wood elf warriors, dark elf warriors, possibly some high elf warriors, there are the damsels of Brettonia, the Warrior Queen of Kislev, the Dwarf Queen Helga etc etc.

At the end of the day, this is FANTASY. Fantasy means it is what you wish it to be. The sculptors wished this world to vaguely represent our own in terms of culture. As for the lack of civilian female models, there are fewer male civilian models than female. The clothing item continues this FANTASY idea. It's mostly men scultping, the majority of men are heterosexual to my kowledge, thusly, the idea of a scantily clad woman is a fantasy...

There are possible elements of sexism. On the same note, it may be that people read too much into it. It is the way of most things. Topic closed for civility's sake.