Why are there no female primarchs?

[evilmittens]

Side note, do Primarchs and Astartes even have genders in the tradtional sense, meaning do they have peniss and testicles? I assume they did, and GW/BL just do not write about them stopping to take a piss or whatever...

 

Then I got to thinking, maybe they are the 30k/40k versions of warrior eunichs with no pole and beans so to speak.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

For every example of a female MP or Kol's sister that is brought up, I can reply with multiple anecdotes about females who never passed an APFT or couldn't lift their own duffel bags.  Exceptions exist to every rule, and those exceptions tend to be all the more notable -- and thus stick out in our minds -- because they are exceptions, because they break the stereotype.  Game of Thrones has two major combat-oriented female characters, Arya Stark (at least she's heading in that direction) and Brienne of Tarth, both of whom are nominally considered fan-favorites. . . because they break the stereotypes of the simpering damsel in distress (Sansa Stark) and the cold-hearted villainous :cuss (played by Cersei Lannister).  The simple biological fact is that males are -- in general terms -- evolutionarily superior to females when considering the physiological requirements of combat.

[Týr]

Even in all male units you've got slow runners, fast runners, smokers with 5:30 miles, health nuts who can barely make height weight.

Again we are only talking the case where you follow the exact same training, eat the same food and follow the same sleeping patterns and so on.

[Kol Saresk]

And I can come up with just as many men who can't pass the AFPT or lift their duffel bags. I saw one guy who could run two miles like it was nothing complaining about ruck marches. There was another guy who complained about the sand. In Fort Sill And he was from Ft. Lauderdale. Meanwhile there's me, the guy who couldn't run two miles fast enough enjoying the ruck march even though I was the row guard every single march and the drill sergeants packed my ruck with rocks because I was the "special project". -.- And I loved BCT.

[Demus Ragnok]

Well, not to naysay your mother, Demus, but look at how that turned out for Empy.

My point exactly. think how it would have been with some females in the mix!

[depthcharge12]

Just want to point out...why no girls or not telling genders join this discussion?

 

seems a little one sided in train of thought.

 

plus i would definitely agree with the whole different body make ups for why men are more combat effective as a whole.

 

We could go on all day about stereotypes and exceptions to the rules, but as a fact, men have more muscle mass and are wired for fight and flight hunter/killer mumbo jumbo.

 

Its one reson why fitness tests for gym classes require less for girls/women.

 

Plus I have a hard time reading anything written by a woman in the sci fi/ fantasy department (except for karen traviss sometimes) because they make men waaaaaay to lovey feely and not beer swilling, table thumping, barrel chests who just like to hit eachother for the fun of it.

 

Sorry for those of you who also had to read Wuthering heights. That book for my brit lit class made me never want to pick up a book written by a woman ever again.

[lokkorex]

a female perturabo would be awesome! angron too actually. and corax. and...

 

yeah, I should calm down a bit.

 

did anyone else read that fan-story about the missing primarchs being women, and guilliman, being the galaxys biggest chauvinist a*****e, killed them off after the heresy out of sheer douchebaggery, but then the mechanicus resurrected their legions?

 

it was awesome!

 

also, 40k is set 38,000 years into the future, could you even fathom how much the human race might change in that time? nowadays there might be some difference between genders, but I doubt the human race will look and act like we do in 38,000 freaking years.

[Kol Saresk]

Don't know Depthcharge. Personally, I would love to get Ah-a-nothepsis since she is/was a female soldier, but I haven't heard form her in so long. To be honest, I don't mind books written by women. Provided there is blood, gore and all the goodness that comes with Sci-fi and fantasy. Karen Traviss is someone I look at greatly. Rachel Caine was also a very good author to read.

 

To be honest, other than all of the implied homo-erotica, I liked how vicious and amoral Anne Rice's vampires were. Much better than the Twihards. The only reason I'll never read anything of hers again is because I took one look at her facebook page and saw way too much hypocrisy to be comfortable with.

 

Again, I am not saying that women are equal to men in every aspect. But for every advantage a man has for combat, a woman has a different advantage. Men can hit hard. The average woman can deal with pain the average man can't. A man typically has more muscle mass. The typical woman has agility to make up for lack of power. A man has an easier time of picking up fifty pounds. A woman has an easier time carrying it for some reason. Men are more aggressive. Women are more analytical. Men are able to keep their emotions in check better. Women are more likely to act out on violent tendencies when they have them. There are more qualities to combat than "who's faster", "who can last longer" and "who can hit harder". And typically, what it comes down to is that men and women actually compliment each other. They are equal, if not uniform. For everything we lack despite our big guns and gallons of testosterone, they make up for.

 

The typical male is not expected to be a suitable parent. But speaking as a child of a divorce who grew up with other children in similar situations, it was usually the dad who pulled through more than the mom. Meanwhile, until a few years ago it was Florida "tradition"(wasn't exactly a written law) that the mother was without exception biologically, historically and factually proven to be the better single parent. And yet there were enough "exceptions" to kill that "scientifically proven fact" once you got past the bias "all women are made to be mothers".

 

Exceptions are only exceptions to the rule because they're the only stories we hear about. Reality is that an exception is only an exception in a situation where it is abnormal. But then we look at things like the fact that archeological digs have found that the Amazons are actually believed to have been inspired by the fact that about 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian soldiers buried in the lower Don and Volga Rivers in Russia are women. You get Fu Hao, wife Wu Ding of the Shang Dynasty who was a military general. You get Jezebel, one of the most notorious women of the Bible who was known for the slaughter of hundreds. Gladiatrix is not a new term. The Romans used it. For very obvious reasons. Western Africa had an all female militia. If Heathens joined in, he could probably do a better job of giving Native American women the respect they deserve for their contributions. There were also the Molly Pitchers from the American Revolution. Ng Mui created a kung fu just for women. And get this, she lived in a monastery.

 

Warrior women are not new. And to be honest, history says they are only the exception because we choose to see them as the exception. We say men are typically the hunters. Typically that is true. But look who the Greek deity of hunting is. Artemis, the Archer. The Valkyries, Choosers of the Slain are typically female. The Morrigan from good ol' Ireland is a woman. A woman I would never want to cross. The Erinyes(literally, the "avengers"; Ha, take that Marvel!) are female. Sort of fulfilling the Hell Hath No Fury. The idea of warrior women, has existed as long as the idea "Men are better for combat". Heck, even God appointed a woman to be a Judge for Israel and to lead its army into battle at one time.

[Marshal Rohr]

The best part about scifi is imagining us as we are now though. The idea of trying to wrap my head around a plot while simultaneously trying to understand why these humans don't act like humans is too much :P

[Kol Saresk]

I'm still trying to figure out why the humans who live around me don't act like humans. Maybe they're aliens............ Jumping Jehoshaphat! I've been abducted!

[depthcharge12]

I'm still trying to figure out why the humans who live around me don't act like humans. Maybe they're aliens............ Jumping Jehoshaphat! I've been abducted!

 

Bum bum bum...youre in the matrix

 

times to kill some squiddies

 

We've been expecting you Mr. Saresk...

[Conn Eremon]

Every time I catch up on this thread, I start formulating a response, only to have to ditch when I get to Kol's posts. God damn it, Kol. Stop saying things I want to say.

[Kol Saresk]

I can fly!

BAM! OOH!

Maybe I should watch out for those trees.......

Every time I catch up on this thread, I start formulating a response, only to have to ditch when I get to Kol's posts. God damn it, Kol. Stop saying things I want to say.

What can I say, I take after Calamity Jane when it comes to the draw

[Legatus]

 

And to be honest, history says they are only the exception because we choose to see them as the exception.

Perhaps our views are skewed because the male chauvinist artisans by and large chose to only include the male warriors in their writings, sculptures and paintings. Or because the male chauvinist historians keep the material telling of female warriors under wraps. Damn that patriarchy. 

[Entei]

Just want to point out...why no girls or not telling genders join this discussion?

 

seems a little one sided in train of thought.

 

plus i would definitely agree with the whole different body make ups for why men are more combat effective as a whole.

 

We could go on all day about stereotypes and exceptions to the rules, but as a fact, men have more muscle mass and are wired for fight and flight hunter/killer mumbo jumbo.

 

Its one reson why fitness tests for gym classes require less for girls/women.

 

Plus I have a hard time reading anything written by a woman in the sci fi/ fantasy department (except for karen traviss sometimes) because they make men waaaaaay to lovey feely and not beer swilling, table thumping, barrel chests who just like to hit eachother for the fun of it.

 

Sorry for those of you who also had to read Wuthering heights. That book for my brit lit class made me never want to pick up a book written by a woman ever again.

You should read some stuff by Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm, exceptional (mostly)fantasy author. 

[depthcharge12]

I also feel that the Walking Dead has some really strong individual female characters and would wish that they could write some of that stuff.

 

I do like Dan Abnett's female characters quite a bit but feel like they get less screen time. The mechanicus chick in KNF was awesome and so were the ones in the gaunts ghost series/holy writ :P

[GrandMagnus]

I would like to add to the topic:

 

From and anthropological point of wiev men have always been naturally designed for hunting, war and other dangerous objectives because we are EXPENDABLE. Why? Because a man can plant his seed in 10 women, but a woman can only have 1 - 2 children every year (with 2 being an oddity). So this means that for the survival of the tribe/clan/family the males must protect the females. If the men die but the women still live on protecting the young there is hope for survival. But if all the women (and for the sake of the argument) the children die, the clan is doomed to extinction. This is the main reason why most military forces have always been made up by men. Its nature, its survival instinct.

 

Of course in the 41st Millenium is a very different world, but I would imagine this to still be encoded in the human instincts. The whole "the men must protect the tribe" is still an existing image, THAT is why the Emperor had sons, because by having god-like sons to lead his armies of humanity he can inspire a sense of security to the mortal population in the sense of "These brave MEN are ready to die to protect us and these men are undefeated".

 

I do not doubt that the Emperor could have made daughters with the same physical strenght as his sons because after all he is a master of biomancy, but he chose males because of the reasons I pointed out above.

[Entei]

I also feel that the Walking Dead has some really strong individual female characters and would wish that they could write some of that stuff.

I do like Dan Abnett's female characters quite a bit but feel like they get less screen time. The mechanicus chick in KNF was awesome and so were the ones in the gaunts ghost series/holy writ

Well his female characters might have had less screentime compared to male characters, but the reason for that might be that the protagonists have been male to this point. I don't think the minor female characters in Ravenor had noticeably less screentime than the male ones, and it might be hard to give female characters more screentime in a book like Know No Fear, which focuses on Astartes. The protagonist in Pariah and the upcoming sequels that make up the Bequin trilogy is a young woman actually. :)

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Why on Earth would muscle-mass matter in a future where everyone carries a gun? Why on Earth would muscle-mass matter in a future where everyone carries a gun and genetically-modified humans are a thing?

 

You can make the argument that males are better suited to hand-to-hand combat because we're generally bigger and stronger than females, but not that being stronger makes them better in combat in general. After all, there's more to even hand-to-hand combat than brute strength and being male gives no inherent advantage in any of it.

 

It doesn't matter how much you can bench-press if I'm thirty feet away and have, say, a bolter in my hands.

[depthcharge12]

Why on Earth would muscle-mass matter in a future where everyone carries a gun? Why on Earth would muscle-mass matter in a future where everyone carries a gun and genetically-modified humans are a thing?

 

You can make the argument that males are better suited to hand-to-hand combat because we're generally bigger and stronger than females, but not that being stronger makes them better in combat in general. After all, there's more to even hand-to-hand combat than brute strength and being male gives no inherent advantage in any of it.

 

It doesn't matter how much you can bench-press if I'm thirty feet away and have, say, a bolter in my hands.

 

 

Uh dude you almost answered your own question.

 

Do you have the strength to hold a bolter? Fluff indicates that humans who hold BOLT PISTOLS need two hands to hold it up and brace it or it would break their wrist.

 

Plus the whole carrying your gear thing mentioned by our resident military members.

 

Oh and i would definitely take the muscle mass and strength to wear and use effectively power armor to run you over while you point your flashlight lasgun at me to little avail.

[Wade Garrett]

Yes, Kol, we can't prove that warrior women weren't a common sight on battlefield but THE MAN wrote them all out of the history books. We also cannot prove the pyramids weren't built by Venusian Bat People but the Moon Gerbil cabal covered up all the evidence.

 

And anyone who says size and strength don't matter in a fight has never been in a fight or even a hard sparring session with someone bigger and stronger than them. There are reasons why every combat sport has weight divisions.

[depthcharge12]

Yes, Kol, we can't prove that warrior women weren't a common sight on battlefield but THE MAN wrote them all out of the history books. We also cannot prove the pyramids weren't built by Venusian Bat People but the Moon Gerbil cabal covered up all the evidence.

 

And anyone who says size and strength don't matter in a fight has never been in a fight or even a hard sparring session with someone bigger and stronger than them. There are reasons why every combat sport has weight divisions.

 

And psychological factor to boot

[lokkorex]

Depthcharge12: you realise that the sororitas wear power armour and use bolters too, you know?

 

and last time I checked they sure don't have any gene-seed in them.

 

I've seen a female soldier wear 150 kg of gears and run at least two kilometres with it, so gender doesn't matter when it comes to war.

 

some people are weak, some are strong, that's how it will look for a long time I think, but males sure as hell ain't the only strong ones, and I believe that what females lose in capacity to build muscle-mass they make up in ability to endure pain.

[depthcharge12]

Depthcharge12: you realise that the sororitas wear power armour and use bolters too, you know?

 

and last time I checked they sure don't have any gene-seed in them.

 

The..what? who are they? are they like the squats? Sisters of...come again? Just kidding...im sure GW will bring them back...in 9th edition

 

The power armor does enable them to be stronger yes i will give you that.

 

But we are looking at the genders as a whole. Great job for that girl! but you know ive seen more men do it on a regular basis...and for a longer period of time.

 

Armies aren't made up of 4 girls who, can on occasion, carry large loads and run with them. They are made up by large groups of men who can do that quite commonly and are adapted to do that.

 

Dont mean for this to sound rude but you guys are looking at some trees and not the whole forest

[Marshal Rohr]

Yes, Kol, we can't prove that warrior women weren't a common sight on battlefield but THE MAN wrote them all out of the history books. We also cannot prove the pyramids weren't built by Venusian Bat People but the Moon Gerbil cabal covered up all the evidence.

And anyone who says size and strength don't matter in a fight has never been in a fight or even a hard sparring session with someone bigger and stronger than them. There are reasons why every combat sport has weight divisions.

I get knocked on my ass and do my share of knocking against bigger and smaller opponents. I don't think about a persons strength or size, just their ability to kick my :cuss and my ability to kick theirs.