There's been a bafflingly stupid amount of hoopla about this Norse God "Racism" bollockry cropping up. There's been threads here on the escapist as well as a comic by the Critical Miss guys, and it's in the media like a bad stench. The thing is, to any 40K fans the stink is a familiar one. It's the simmering, snarky smell of the Female Space Marines. The lingering aroma of bad blood and polarised viewpoints, of anger and outrage. Not at the concept itself, but at the attitudes of those who don't agree with you.
I don't have the answers, but I would appreciate if I could tell you about Female Space Marines... you may learn something in the process.
Spess Mehrens are men. Manly men. These men are so manly they devote themselves to centuries of war so fully that they forgo their humanity and sexuality. It's a hypermasculine ideal rooted in celibacy, for a greater cause. While some 'chapters' of the marines are based on vikings, street gangs or Mongols, they're still 'chapters'. The Space Marines are a monastic order, a warrior-priest culture evocative (quite overtly) of knights, templars and crusaders. While it strays into the overt, these are the trappings of a thematic device designed to evoke feelings of medieval battles... in 'Spess'. Women don't fit this goal.
Making female Marines, not just the ass-kicking Sisters of Battle but full fledged Astates, breaks down this image. It adds an equality where a bleak and deliberate statement is being made, this is a future where the best hope for humanity (the men and women of the guard are another story) are a bunch of dogmatic knights. And let me tell you, folks, the image 40K evokes is not one of honourable, shining templars and fair maidens. It's a regressive, opressive, sexist and xenophobic society whose greatest weapon are inhuman monsters cast to represent an unpleasant and ruinous sector of our past. Adding fem-marines is a nice thing to do. 40K is not nice. The monogender space marines are an integral part of forming the image and society of 40K, they wouldn't be the same with women around.
And yet...
This isn't the argument, the good argument, that opposition to femarines employ. They cite the genetic process of the in-universe marines that would kill women outright. They claim that femarine fans just want sexpot marines, rather than the equally grotesque and asexual metahumans that all marines are. The problem is that they don't think The Story can't (an acceptable and reasonable claim), they are opposing the idea on the basis that Women Can't. Women Can't, they say, do this. They can't survive the process because they 'Just Can't', the Marines won't have them because they Just Won't. They aren't consciously denying women, but they're holding up a very easily-edited passage of lore as 'Proof' that there can't be Femarines. In a universe where the lore and story changes with every new paragraph, that kind of 'Proof' means jack shit. Proof is nothing, a good reason is something else.
Sexism doesn't spring from some Disease, something that makes your actions sexist because you're a misogynist. Sexism is something that can spring from even the most well-intentioned of actions. And I hate to break it to anybody who thinks females can't be transformed into equally sexless hulks of killing power because 'They Can't', but you're being sexist. You're not 'a' sexist, you're not a misogynist, you're just Being Sexist. Your statement is, quite simply, 'Women Cannot' based on the virtue that they're women. You're standing up for something you love, but not because you believe it will suffer, but because the inclusion is wrong.
Thinking that the story will be damaged not because of a compromise of narrative integrity, but because the passages of text claiming that Women Can't are somehow inviolate... can you see the subtle reason why this is wrong? There's another book that claims it's passages concerning the limitations of women are Gospel. It's the Gospel. We got past that one.
For the record, I don't think there should be Femarines. I think that the images evoked by the monogender Space Marines are a bleak and compelling part of the 40K mythos. I think what we would gain with the inclusion of women into their order would come at the expense of some of the character of the Marines.
But thinking this for the right reasons is important.
When next you hear about a Black Norse God, make sure anything you feel in either support or opposition to the concept comes from the right emotions. You can want a Black God for some very bad reasons, and dislike the idea for some truly evil ones. I want a Black Hiemdall, incidentally, mostly because the actor playing him is great and will rock your world. I don't think his blackosity will jar in the face of Norse mythology any more than his being an alien superhero.
And it's the 'Real' Mythology these anti-Hiemdall'ers are 'Defending', by the way, not the fact that the actual comic book character was white. That, my friends, is an argument with infinitely more merit.
I don't have the answers, but I would appreciate if I could tell you about Female Space Marines... you may learn something in the process.
Spess Mehrens are men. Manly men. These men are so manly they devote themselves to centuries of war so fully that they forgo their humanity and sexuality. It's a hypermasculine ideal rooted in celibacy, for a greater cause. While some 'chapters' of the marines are based on vikings, street gangs or Mongols, they're still 'chapters'. The Space Marines are a monastic order, a warrior-priest culture evocative (quite overtly) of knights, templars and crusaders. While it strays into the overt, these are the trappings of a thematic device designed to evoke feelings of medieval battles... in 'Spess'. Women don't fit this goal.
Making female Marines, not just the ass-kicking Sisters of Battle but full fledged Astates, breaks down this image. It adds an equality where a bleak and deliberate statement is being made, this is a future where the best hope for humanity (the men and women of the guard are another story) are a bunch of dogmatic knights. And let me tell you, folks, the image 40K evokes is not one of honourable, shining templars and fair maidens. It's a regressive, opressive, sexist and xenophobic society whose greatest weapon are inhuman monsters cast to represent an unpleasant and ruinous sector of our past. Adding fem-marines is a nice thing to do. 40K is not nice. The monogender space marines are an integral part of forming the image and society of 40K, they wouldn't be the same with women around.
And yet...
This isn't the argument, the good argument, that opposition to femarines employ. They cite the genetic process of the in-universe marines that would kill women outright. They claim that femarine fans just want sexpot marines, rather than the equally grotesque and asexual metahumans that all marines are. The problem is that they don't think The Story can't (an acceptable and reasonable claim), they are opposing the idea on the basis that Women Can't. Women Can't, they say, do this. They can't survive the process because they 'Just Can't', the Marines won't have them because they Just Won't. They aren't consciously denying women, but they're holding up a very easily-edited passage of lore as 'Proof' that there can't be Femarines. In a universe where the lore and story changes with every new paragraph, that kind of 'Proof' means jack shit. Proof is nothing, a good reason is something else.
Sexism doesn't spring from some Disease, something that makes your actions sexist because you're a misogynist. Sexism is something that can spring from even the most well-intentioned of actions. And I hate to break it to anybody who thinks females can't be transformed into equally sexless hulks of killing power because 'They Can't', but you're being sexist. You're not 'a' sexist, you're not a misogynist, you're just Being Sexist. Your statement is, quite simply, 'Women Cannot' based on the virtue that they're women. You're standing up for something you love, but not because you believe it will suffer, but because the inclusion is wrong.
Thinking that the story will be damaged not because of a compromise of narrative integrity, but because the passages of text claiming that Women Can't are somehow inviolate... can you see the subtle reason why this is wrong? There's another book that claims it's passages concerning the limitations of women are Gospel. It's the Gospel. We got past that one.
For the record, I don't think there should be Femarines. I think that the images evoked by the monogender Space Marines are a bleak and compelling part of the 40K mythos. I think what we would gain with the inclusion of women into their order would come at the expense of some of the character of the Marines.
But thinking this for the right reasons is important.
When next you hear about a Black Norse God, make sure anything you feel in either support or opposition to the concept comes from the right emotions. You can want a Black God for some very bad reasons, and dislike the idea for some truly evil ones. I want a Black Hiemdall, incidentally, mostly because the actor playing him is great and will rock your world. I don't think his blackosity will jar in the face of Norse mythology any more than his being an alien superhero.
And it's the 'Real' Mythology these anti-Hiemdall'ers are 'Defending', by the way, not the fact that the actual comic book character was white. That, my friends, is an argument with infinitely more merit.
- A lot of 40K media has recently crapped all over the idea of Marines as Asexual metahumans. The moment they cease to truly be prominently evocative of Knights and become Frat Boys With Bolters, there will be no good reason to keep the ladies out. This may have already happened, depending on who you ask and what you're reading. I acknowledge that depictions of marines can vary wildly (Yet oddly not Wildly enough for Femarines...)
- Many of the people here on the Escapist do oppose the Hiemdall casting based on his comic book appearance, and I don't mean to accuse anybody of false intentions or premises.
- 40K is largely a stupid universe filled with awesome. I'm aware of all it's stupid trappings and the wider complexity of the arguments I have made here. I have simplified so people don't go mad. I am aware of how Gene-seed works and where it comes from. The Marines used to be psychotic mercenary-police and Emps was just a regular guy. Shit changes.
- Many of the people here on the Escapist do oppose the Hiemdall casting based on his comic book appearance, and I don't mean to accuse anybody of false intentions or premises.
- 40K is largely a stupid universe filled with awesome. I'm aware of all it's stupid trappings and the wider complexity of the arguments I have made here. I have simplified so people don't go mad. I am aware of how Gene-seed works and where it comes from. The Marines used to be psychotic mercenary-police and Emps was just a regular guy. Shit changes.
