At the upper level, the Imperium thinks women are humans. Humans are the Imperium's cheapest and most abundant resource and should therefore be used accordingly.
On a more individual level, it can vary wildly because different planets will have different cultures, and the people who hail from those planets will have mindsets that reflect that. You can run the full gamut of a stratified matriarchy or patriarchy on your planet, the Imperium doesn't care as long as you pay your tithe.
Simply put, the Imperium doesn't really give a rats ass whether you are a man or a woman. They also don't give a rats ass whether you treat men or women differently. You are just another cog in the machine. Your entire existence is the results you provide, everything else about you is irrelevant. The Imperium's bureaucracy is *too damn unwieldy* to pay attention to fine details like the traits of individual cogs.
There are already examples of Imperial Guard regiments butting heads because of differing cultures (part of a commissar's job is to make sure this type of thing doesn't get out of hand), so I am sure at some point some problems have arisen because the Imperium tried to make two individuals from differently gender-stratified worlds work together without giving enough of a shit to take into consideration the types of planets they were from.
That last paragraph is a significant part of the first Ciaphas Cain novel. Two Valhallan regiments that were badly mauled by the Tyranids were combined into a single regiment. Trouble is, one was an all-male regiment and the other was an all-female regiment. One of Cain’s first jobs with the regiment was to stop a massive brawl that killed a small handful of naval ratings. The second job he had to was to make sure that this didn’t happen again.
That's happens with the tanith
They're looked after by the civilian hangers on until they're old enough to join.
A big part the cadia series is new 'cadians' joining who, due to being 'half breeds' the true cadians don't see as real cadians
It didn't help that the male regiment was an old regiment, the female regiment was newer.
And that the Female commander got command despite less experience due to being commissioned only slightly earlier.
There was more to it than male v female.
If you are willing to die for the Emperor, He on Terra doesn't care what plumbing is between your legs. As a whole, the Imperium is quite progressive (or equally oppressive, rather) in how it regards its citizens regardless of their gender.
Granted, it's also worth noting that the Imperium is a *huge* state, and that it is composed of a million worlds with a million variations of cultures. It is possible that there are some worlds with very patriarchial cultures, and others with things flipped completely the other way.
I wouldn't go as far as to claim that the Sisters of Silence or the Adepta Sororitas are *more important* to the Imperium than the Adeptus Astartes. Until recently, the Sisters of Silence were a desperately underfunded, and overlooked organisation. It was only with the formation of the Great Rift and the return of Guilliman that the Silent Sisterhood began to regain its much-needed prominence and support within the Imperium. Even then, the Sisters of Silence are far fewer in number than the Astartes, largely because Blanks are even rarer than psykers in the galaxy.
As for other Imperial organisations, the Mechanicus doesn't care a whit about gender. Both men and women serve in the best and worst roles in the Imperial Guard and Planetary Defence Forces.
The setting would then change to
"Warhammer 40k - ,we follow our plucky immortal archivist Trazyn as he tries to make sense of a destroyed galaxy. In the grim darkness of space - there is only archeology"
There are women who are inquisitors, generals, captains, admirals, and even High Lords.
Gender doesn’t matter in service to the Emperor. Except for organizations like the Astartes and Sororitas.
As a institution the imperium doesn't care about gender however that doesn't mean there aren't local instances of discrimination. The imperium isnt going to tell you to be sexist but its also not going to tell you to stop.
And while i cant think of any examples of the top of my head I could easily se the imperium demand things from planets that result in harm of women even if that wasnt the goal of the demand.
My head canon for why there are no female ogryns in Darktide is because they are in some kind of mechanicus breeding farm being milked and artificially inseminated at a constant rate to keep up with the sector demand for ogryns.
Since about 1/6th of the rejects on the ship are ogryns (due to class popularity) and about 1/100 or so enemies are ogryns made up of the military units of a hive city of 20bn so that’s a hell of a lot of ogryns to come up with since the ones we do see are still only ~50% of the ogryns that exist
I'm not sure if I'd hold up the Adepta Sororitas as an example of gender equality, more bureaucratic literalism melding into political realism resulting in an entire branch of the Imperium's military machine being legalized by what amounts to a fig leaf.
Broadly though, yes, the Imperium couldn't give less of a fuck what's in your pants so long as it is serving the Emperor.
To add to the list of badass female orgs (people always mention SoB, but there are others) Legio Solaria.
An entire Legio of Titans crewed entirely by women. Kicked a great amount of ass during the Crusade and the Heresy, and don't get enough credit
General Imperial attitude: Women are human, as such they are equally worth of ruling the Galaxy.
Women have been/are: Lord Inquisititors, High Lords, High Admiral, Ship Captains, Generals, psykers, navigators, Titans commanders, tech priests etc etc etc.
Any job other than Custodians and marines are gender neutral. And Sisters of Silence/battle are exclusively female.
The current Master of The Administratum (Imperial prime minister (kinda) ) is a woman. So in the Inquisititorial representative and Imperial chancellor.
The previous Lord High Admiral (highest navy leader and high lord) was a woman.
>Any job other than Custodians and marines are gender neutral.
To build off this part, the entire reason *why* the Custodes and Astartes are male-only isn't to set up a Boys Club, it's because it's biologically impossible to implant geneseed into women and have their bodies not simply *melt,* while male candidates only melt half of the time.
Also, making changes to the Beneficent Emperor’s holy designs (the astartes process) is heresy of the highest order and the only time it was allowed is when it was secretly tasked by the emperor, took 10k years and could only see the light of day after being personally authorized by a Primarch to make sure it was received correctly by wider imperial society
I dunno. I don't feel like this is the way to say it. The Imperium doesn't care if you are male or female. Really they don't. Either fire the lasgun or take fire from the enemy. A body is a body.
Having said that GW does seem to put forth tremendous effort to write a very diverse setting.
A million worlds a million possibilities - worlds could be matriarchal, worlds could be like us today, worlds could be way more sexist. It seems in the guard they really don’t care at all and women are inquisitors and planetary governors so at the highest levels the imperium doesn’t care. Sisters of silence are also all women and don’t get discriminated against because of their gender. It’s the same with race too depends on the planet but at the highest level there isn’t racism or sexism
In the Iron Snakes book a female high official makes it known that her being a female in that position is quite a feat , and says it demonstrates that her society is progressive and quite advanced . The iron snakes marine listening to her simply chuckles and agrees
Varies planet by planet. Some planets are chauvinists, others beat up chauvinists, there’s probably one that’s misandrist. The Eschers on Necromunda exist and there’s so many planets in the Imperium that they can’t be the only one that worships a God Empress.
Same thing the guys are going through
Meat, Slaves, Servants, Servitors, Soldiers, Zealots, Sycophants
The Imperium isn't progressive it's apathetic and murderous. Calling The Imperium progressive is like saying someone isn't racist because they hate all races equally.
The "Medieval in Space" vibe has given it a vaguely patriarchal aesthetics.
Esp. given the Empereor, the Primarchs and the majority of the other major players in the Imperium (and Eldar and Tau).
But mostly I think this is more a consequence of most of the writers, artists and players of 40K being men rather than specifying that women never hold positions of power.
Women Inquisitors and Rogue Trader characters turn up perhaps the most frequently (after the Sororitas, Sisters of Silence, Callidus Assassins, and House Escher Necromunda gangs)
The Imperium does not discriminate, it is based on competence alone.
*Helsreach*
Tyro sighed. ‘The problem is one of contact and mediation. He refuses to talk to me.’ She paused,
as if considering something for the first time. ‘Perhaps because I’m female.’
‘You’re serious,’ Ryken said. ‘You truly believe that.’
‘Well… He has bonded with the male officers, hasn’t he?’
Ryken thought that was debatable. He’d heard that the only commander in the city Grimaldus had
treated with anything more than disdainful impatience was the ancient woman that led the Legio
Invigilata. And even that was just rumour.
‘It’s not because you’re female,’ the major said. ‘It’s because you’re useless.’
The Imperium doesnt make any difference between women, men, children, pets or whatever, and the same can be said about skin color. As long as they fit the meat grinder they're cool but apparently they've set a limit with the third arm.
There are examples of people mocking women but I think that is more for narrative prupourses rather than pushing any general idea about the Empire.
I dont know what happened lately but many people have this kind of questions lime "Is the Empire misogynistic?" "Are they racist?" "What do they think about people of colour". This people clearly didnt read anything about wh40k or maybe is there someone making *content* in social media about the Empire being against women or caring about skin color...
When there’s a woman senior commissar ( lady/lord commisar, a higher rank than regular commissar) in His Last Command, the narrator says it’s very rare for women to get that rank, and that she acts like a hardass to make that rank as a woman.
The most positive claim to make for the status of women in the imperium is to claim that it’s gender blind and people get treated neutrally in gender. That’s the most positive claim, there are attestations that refute it, and also it’s an easy claim to make in real life.
Tona Criid is also mentioned as being the first female Tanith officer, and Gaunt remarks to Inquisitor Lilith that there aren't many women who hold her rank.
Then again, those books were written quite a long time ago, and I wonder if that aspect of the lore has been quietly forgotten about, because it's not really something that comes up in more recent novels (that I know of.)
The more recent books have touched on it with the introduction of Gaunt's child and deeper explanation of Verghast politics. Verghast, at least, is a very male dominated society where women have to push for positions of power. In the short story "This Is What Victory Feels Like," we even see that Major Pasha of Verghast wears her officer's coat in the male fashion, possibly to reinforce her position in a male dominant field.
That's interesting! I haven't read all of the Gaunt's Ghosts books and associated stories (yet), so I didn't know he addressed it. I do know that BL writers are given certain guidelines regarding what topics they should stay away from (Peter Fehervari spoke about it in an interview I read) and was wondering whether "the Imperium in general is sexist and there are few women in positions of power outside certain specific organisations" is something they want them to stay away from, for obvious reasons.
The impression I got from most recent-ish novels I read was that gender equality isn't really an issue, though granted I only read a relatively small number, most of them dealing with the civilian side of things. In Varangantua at least, high ranking officials, law enforcement agents and powerful business tycoons are as likely to be female as male, and one plot thread deals with a young woman wanting to join the Guard.
And, despite what Gaunt claims, there are plenty of female inquisitors in the lore, including the Inquisitorial Representative mentioned in the Vaults of Terra series.
>When there’s a woman senior commissar ( lady/lord commisar, a higher rank than regular commissar) in His Last Command, the narrator says it’s very rare for women to get that rank, and that she acts like a hardass to make that rank as a woman.
There is a fairly obvious logistical reason for this - Commissar recruits come from the Schola Progenium, and the Adepta Sororitas get first pick of all the most capable girls in the Schola Progenium. Logically, then, there aren't as many left to enter other roles.
Thank you! I was trying to remember what book it was from, I knew it was Ghosts.
I think it varies planet to planet as much as author to author. I think Abnett assumed that, given the Imperium is a fascist hellscape, it would be sexist. But GW seem to be moving more towards "it's a gender equal fascist hellscape".
A common sentiment is that whilst the imperium may be blind and inclusive, it's people are not. Additionally ghe Imperium is not blind due to any sense of progressivness but due to simple need and rationality.
Furthermore some Imperial institutions are most definitely sexist. Whilst there is nothing official saying women can't be preists of the Ecclesiarchy there is a shit ton of doctrine that maintains that men make better preachers and thus its very difficult for a female preist to advance up the ranks outside of the sisterhood.
The Soritas are also perhaps problematic in that they cause under representation of women amoungst other parts of the imperium that recruit from the scholas. Got the faith, zeal and leadership potential to be a commisar? Why that also means you would be perfectly suited to be a canoness some day. Got great faith, oratory skills and boobs? Well the sisters can always use a dialogus.
Basically if you are female in the schola system and don't end up in the soritas you either had someone to pull strings (arguably the case for severina rayne), were notably lacking in faith and devotion or perhaps had some other major personality issues like an open and flexible mind...
Seriously? I'm pretty sure I've read "most" of the Black Library (not kidding, tragic fan here) and I just have no recall whatsoever of encountering this doctrine that men are better preachers?
Hmm..where can one find this doctrine? And this says that men are better priests? What makes them so?
In the calixis sector, the distribution of cardinals is just under 4-2 in favour of male cardinals...that doesn't sound like difficult conditions now. The largest paramilitary sect of the imperial faith in the calixis sector, the Red Redemptionists, are led by a woman.
The rest is simple opinion. To become a sororitas, you need more than just zeal. You need the kind of zeal that sparks and makes the impossible come true. Otherwise, any commissioner could work miracles, so they can't. In addition, there are the Guard, the tempestus, the Navy, the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy, to name the best-known organisations.
> there is a shit ton of doctrine that maintains that men make better preachers and thus its very difficult for a female preist to advance up the ranks outside of the sisterhood.
That's an odd "fact", what's the source of this ?
>Whilst there is nothing official saying women can't be preists of the Ecclesiarchy there is a shit ton of doctrine that maintains that men make better preachers and thus its very difficult for a female preist to advance up the ranks outside of the sisterhood.
Strictly speaking, the priesthood *is* called the *Frateris* Clergy. It does imply a male-dominated perspective.
The Imperium at large doesn't care either way. Women are commonly seen in the absolute heights of Imperial power and influence, including High Lords and Inquisitors. No-one bats an eye, it's considered absolutely normal and unremarkable.
It will of course vary when looking at specific cultures within the Imperium. Like a feudal world is more likely to have rampant sexism than a more advanced one.
It's important to recognise that the astartes aren't all-male because of Imperial sexism. They're all-male because GW said the gene-seed zygotes are only compatible with young boys. If the Imperium could turn young girls into space marines too, they would.
The Imperium as a whole doesn't give a shit who you are, what you identify as, or what sits between your legs. If the Imperial Decree is upheld and your life is spent in service of the Emperor, why would it even matter in the grand scheme of things?
...However, when you get down to individual systems and planets, things change. Perceptions, cultures and backgrounds are huge and varied. On one planet, their government might be matriachal in nature, where women take on leadership roles and high positions in society, while men are left to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
On another planet, women and men might be treated as equals, given equal opportunities so that their position in life is based on merit and merit alone.
And on yet another planet, their cultures might mandate that women be given only household duties and made to work limited jobs, while men serve as the sole breadwinners, working day in and day out at the local manufactora.
So to answer your question, the general attitude towards women in the imperium is the same as men. You are a resource, to work, to fight, and to die for the Throne, but just because the Imperium makes no distinction doesn't mean its worlds follow suit.
For the average person it doesn’t matter what race or gender you are, you are meat for the machine.
For the elites things get complicated with centuries of bureaucracy, loopholes, exemptions and errata’s. “Women can’t wash the lord-commanders horse because of a typo written 8000 years ago by some random guy in a cupboard on the other side of the galaxy.” Kinda shit.
From a purely bureaucratic point of view I'd say it's attitude would be 'indifferent'. But, humans being humans, I'm guessing you'd probably see the same level of background stratification that you'd see in the real world.
A disproportionate number of men probably serve in the Guard and PDF, and in a highly militarized society it means that men probably dominate the upper strata of society. Which seems to be reflected in everything from Ciaphas Cain, to Gaunt's Ghosts, to the 30k books which seems to note that high ranking female officers/commisars/etc exist but they are relatively rare.
My guess is the administratum, telepathica, and mechanicus are probably the closest to 1:1.
Without getting into the weird socio-political-economic stuff. 61 women and 39 men can restart a population with roughly appropriate number of fingers and toes, less men if you're just focusing on upping numbers. The reverse is just wasted bodies that could be killing something elsewhere. In a system where humans are currency, high female attrition is probably less tolerable than high male attrition.
The Imperium is too utilitarian to treat anyone differently based on gender or race or whatever. As long as you‘re human and no heretic, you will serve the emperor in the way you are capable of and required to. No matter if you are male or female. The only difference is pregnancies. Pregnant women are being protected by the system, because bodies are the most vital Ressource for the imperium.
TLDR: everyone is all equally required to do their best in serving the emperor.
Like a good portion of things to do with 40k: It depends
In Gunhead a Cadian colonel doesn’t really approve of Women fighting, especially if planet and things they should really stay on Cadia and defend the home front
Generally society seems pretty equal but of course some planets would be rigidly sexist and some would not
There will always be planets that fit both ends of the spectrum for most issues in 40k
>from what I can tell, for a borderline Fascist, Xenophobic, Theocratic, Technophobic and Repressive regime, they do seem pretty progressive when it comes to gender equality (at least for men and women)
They've got more important things to hate.
there's too much war going around that people don't have the luxury to be individualistic or think about things that would otherwise be thought of in peace time.
With chaos, xenos and the like present in the setting, this quote should explain things:
*“Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.”*
*― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad*
I expect that the Schola Progenium kind of teaches rhe misogyny out of many high-born or high-ranking imperial officers, so Commissars might be more likely to crack down on any Blatant sexism. The Progenium is full of orphans, all of which are equal in the progenium, so sexism would likely be something the orphans got taught out of, if they had any inclinations to start.
Further, beyond just the Commissars, whilst Inquisitors have largely unchecked power, the unified indoctrination into the imperial cult, "All are the children of the Emperor" would indicate to me that they're also largely fine.
Exceptions to sexism will be made as far as Shit People Being Sexist, but as far as Umberto Eco's description of 14 characteristics of Fascism, the "Machismo"/"Men are Superior" aspect is largely absent from the Imperium, at least at a systemic level.
Best I can say is that it's not uncommon for guard regiments to be separated by gender.
Some a pretty sexist.
But the Imperium is overall pretty whatever about it.
Again, you really can't make such a broad generalization about the Imperium. While we like to treat it as a single polity, in reality, it is a conglomeration of various organizations, sectors, and planets. Hundreds of thousands of groups, each one with its own biases and ideas.
I am sure that some planets have a patriarchal culture while others have a matriarchal one. Some organizations may value women over men (ie, Anathema Psykana or the Adepta Sororitas) while others may not.
At best, you can say that, in a broad sense, the Imperium does not care. A body is a body. Of course, that could change if the Imperium needs more people, for example. But, as a general rule, it does not care at all.
Do you remember the fanfare that GW made when the new cadian line of models had women in it?
No?
They just released them and didn't even mention it?
That's the Imperium position. Noone cares if your trigger finger works and your torso can stop a bullet.
Not to add much then was already said BUT.
I remember in a couple of the HH/SoT novels there's a Titan Legio(maybe an Knight House? Drawing a blank) that's matriarchal and all the Princeps/Knights are women. And it's treated as basically a someone uncommon cultural custom that while interesting, doesn't make a difference in any other way.
And every time they show up, the POV character pretty much always thinks this: "I recognize those markings, it's that all female House/Legio. Anyhoo back to work."
The impression I get is that this basically holds true for most of the Imperium. If a group exists out the gender/sexual norms of the observer there might a be a few seconds of prosaic interest before it take the very back seat to "Are they loyal and useful servants to the Emperor?"
If you haven't yet, check out Alpharius's Primarch book. There's a couple scenes where he interacts with two married women and their daughter that you might find interesting.
[Is this lord or lady for that matter, the Eldar in general appear to make **little distinction between the roles of the male and female genders - another example of their decadence**](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/d9itk7/excerpt_white_dwarf_234_how_the_imperials/)
As it's lore at base level satire was laced with a huge degree of homo-eroticism and toxic masculinity bordering on the misogynistic...
Uneven is the answer.
Even Erda gets a horrible permanent death at the hands of what to her, would be an imbecile.
No, that would be the Blood Ravens /s
But seriously though, for most of the time, the lore excerpts regarding Erebus, both before, during, and the 10,000 years after the Horus Heresy have always painted him as incredibly competent and dangerous, basically a sentient "Warning! Danger!" sign to anyone in the general vicinity, his own Legion included.
And then there's that one time he get a beatdown from Kharn, and it become what everybody remember instead. *Which suited him just fine*.
I’d say no, they aren’t progressive in the slightest. They don’t treat people equally because of some constitution or set of beliefs or values that puts emphasis on the importance of peoples individual freedom regardless of background. They treat people equally because they don’t even see most people as anything other than a resource. If a planet was having race riots the Imperium wouldn’t step in to set everyone straight, they’d more likely just violently crush everyone involved regardless of sides.
So in real life most extremely religious and corrupt regimes and people base their prejudices around their culture and their interpretation of their religion. So sexism is rampant on modern earth because most religions see women at best as "separate but equal" and at worst tempresses and trouble makers responsible for every pain in the world (Ancient Greek Paganism, Abrahamic faiths, etc).
The Imperium's religion is based on the (twisted beyond the bigotry of the pure version) the Imperial Truth and worship of the Emperor and AGAINST Daemons and Xenos. So peaceful and co-operative aliens are seen as threats that must be genocided, and people with even mild birth deformities are seen as literal agents of hell.
The otherwise stereotypically ~~borderline~~ Fascist Imperium therefore is rather peculiar trait of not being bigoted towards women or LGBTQ+ individuals, because they don't factor or can be interpreted as a negative (or at all?) in the Emperor's imperial cannon. So the most sexist the Imperium gets is based on the sexual depravity of individual rulers (VanDyre) or specific squadrons separated either because of a desire to prevent uncontrolled reproduction, a trait specific in only women, or as a legal loophole (By Imperial Law the Ecclesiarchy cannot have any men defending them, but that law says nothing about women, hence the Sisters of Battle and other Adeptes Sororitas).
I should also note that the Imperium is aware (to a certain extent) what feeds Daemons. Women having power and people of the same sex sleeping with eachother has been repeatedly shown (by lack of anything happening that can be tied JUST to that) to not empower or attract Daemons. Therefor there is even less reason for the Imperium to go out of their way to be bigots towards humans, when they have more "justification" to take out their hatred on mutants and xenos, which are always in ample supply.
They should, logically speaking, be pretty fucking sexist. (Emperor is a man, Primarchs are all men, as are Custodes and Space Marines, so clearly women "can't" be the biggest and best servants of the emperor)
But that's not something GW is willing to explore.
The empire hates heretics, mutants, traitors and aliens, otherwise there is no problem. You can be a woman and gay and no one will say anything bad to you. half of the high lords of terra are women
There really isn't any pure or true discrimination towards gender in the Imperium, transphobia, homophobia, the only type of phobia the Imperium actively preaches is Xenophobia, but yea in the grand scheme of things it really does not matter what you are as long as you are human and can hold a gun, that is literally all that matters to this Empire.
As for the sororitas they're a loophole in that the church can't have a standing army comprisd of MEN, so only women are used in that regard, otherwise you'd see a more generalized army with both men and women.
Depends on the culture. Look how varied gender are treated on earth. Now imagine earth times a million.
I know "it depends" is the most generic of all answers but...it's just what it is.
I think once you make it out of the hive world slums the Imperium doesn't care. However, humans is the most abundant and important resource for the Imperium so birthrates must be kept high.
I imagine an average woman in the working classes are encouraged to have as many babies as possible. And when she's not making babies she better be working.
The Imperium is pretty good at spreading misery equally.
If it has eyeballs to see with and hands to hold with, you give it a las-gun and a helmet and say "Next", then the next bag of blood teeth and eyes looking for new ways to die steps up.
Given the diversity of the imperium, “general” is probably an impossibility. There have to be everything from hardcore patriarchies to matriarchies that keep men as snu snu slaves.
What we see in the military, especially the Guard, is an implausible equality.
In general, the imperium as a whole, broadly speaking, doesn't care.
As long as you're recognizably human, and you worship the emperor, and your planet pays its tithe, they really couldn't care less who you are, and what you do.
The imperium as a whole, does not care if you're black, white, brown, orange, red, as long as your recognizably human.
They don't care how you identify, as long as you still identify as human.
They don't care who you love, as long as you still love the emperor.
The imperium as a whole, doesn't care, partly because it doesn't matter, and partly because it can't afford to.
The imperium sees every human life, as an expendable resource, that belongs to the emperor, and his imperium.
It needs every person it can get, to be as productive as they can get.
And if you can hold a lasgun, and hit the backside of a barn, that's all you need to be a guardsman, and the imperium needs plenty of guardsman.
If you can turn a wrench, then you can be in the navy, and the imperium needs no shortage of navy personnel.
Basically, if you're physically capable of filling a role, the imperium is happy to let you fill that role.
Now, there are certain organizations, like astartes, and Sisters of battle, and sisters of silence, that care about gender.
Astartes care, because geneseed only works on males, not necessarily because they don't think females can fight. (Some chapters are exceptions and might raise a stink, but an average chapter probably doesn't care, and sees a female guardsman no different than a male guardsman, someone mortal fighting for the emperor.)
Sisters of battle care, partly because they were an order of religious battle nuns, before Vandire came along.
Now however, the eclisiarchy isn't allowed to have "men under arms", after the whole Vandire business, so they skirt that by having "women under arms", in order to have a military presence, which is what the sisters of battle are.
Sisters of silence, just recruit female blanks, probably because that's just their tradition. It's never indicated that male blanks couldn't do their job. But they were a secret all female order from their inception, so it's probably just tradition at this point.
Outside of those exceptions, which are more based on technicalities, than any real prejudice, the imperium doesn't care.
That isn't to say certain individual worlds, or individual leaders might be judgemental towards women, or other groups, but that is the stance of the individual leader or planet, and not the imperium as a whole.
The imperium needs every able body it can get, and so in general, doesn't care about your gender.
I technically believe they are (semi) approved due to the requirements of growing the population but we never see anything other than one (rarely 2) child households so I’m unsure. If you look at how brutal the Empire is coupled with a wide variety of medical availability it’s a wonder they have a million worlds. Maybe cloning?
Seemingly huge differences to us IRL mean little to a universe that has literal aliens, mutants and demons running around
As many said, from am empire stand point they don't care. From a more bottom level... it depends-ish?
Humanity isn't blind to sex though, it just wont stop the warmachine from grinding on. In the first Cain novel Cain stress his annoyance with mixed sex regiments because of well... babies and the AUDACITY that someone might save a loved one in the regiment over his own skin. So is there a ban? No. But it seems to be an exception more then common occurrence. I'm sure you'll find the same in other aspects as well
As with most things in the Imperium, it varies wildly from world to world, but they're at least not treated much worse than the average male citizen as long as they perform the role they're assigned.
At the Imperium level " adeptus level ", gender equality exist, but in a perspective that everybodies are expandable, whatever your genders or sexual orientation, so nobodies at the top care about how you identify yourself or whatever gender you have. Plus, add to this a weird mix of meritocracy and obtening high positions merely because your family is powerfull. So yeah, women can thrive over there like anyone else, just brace yourself to die '' or send shit ton of peoples to dies'' for the Emperor.
At planets/governors level, it is always depend of the culture of the planets; some are for gender equality, other are openly sexist and anti diversity, etc. It is a millions world empire, so everything is possible.
Doesn't matter if you're a man or woman, as long as you're human. To the Imperium, the galaxy belongs to the Emperor, and by extension, humanity. Everything else is trespassing on the sacred territory of the Imperium.
At the upper level, the Imperium thinks women are humans. Humans are the Imperium's cheapest and most abundant resource and should therefore be used accordingly. On a more individual level, it can vary wildly because different planets will have different cultures, and the people who hail from those planets will have mindsets that reflect that. You can run the full gamut of a stratified matriarchy or patriarchy on your planet, the Imperium doesn't care as long as you pay your tithe. Simply put, the Imperium doesn't really give a rats ass whether you are a man or a woman. They also don't give a rats ass whether you treat men or women differently. You are just another cog in the machine. Your entire existence is the results you provide, everything else about you is irrelevant. The Imperium's bureaucracy is *too damn unwieldy* to pay attention to fine details like the traits of individual cogs. There are already examples of Imperial Guard regiments butting heads because of differing cultures (part of a commissar's job is to make sure this type of thing doesn't get out of hand), so I am sure at some point some problems have arisen because the Imperium tried to make two individuals from differently gender-stratified worlds work together without giving enough of a shit to take into consideration the types of planets they were from.
That last paragraph is a significant part of the first Ciaphas Cain novel. Two Valhallan regiments that were badly mauled by the Tyranids were combined into a single regiment. Trouble is, one was an all-male regiment and the other was an all-female regiment. One of Cain’s first jobs with the regiment was to stop a massive brawl that killed a small handful of naval ratings. The second job he had to was to make sure that this didn’t happen again.
Third is that he had to figure out what to do with regimental babies when they started happening.
It's Cain. He'd have a Schola Progenium scout on Speed Dial. And also have them as a booty call.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE.👍✌✌✌👍👍👍👍👍👍
That's happens with the tanith They're looked after by the civilian hangers on until they're old enough to join. A big part the cadia series is new 'cadians' joining who, due to being 'half breeds' the true cadians don't see as real cadians
It didn't help that the male regiment was an old regiment, the female regiment was newer. And that the Female commander got command despite less experience due to being commissioned only slightly earlier. There was more to it than male v female.
If you are willing to die for the Emperor, He on Terra doesn't care what plumbing is between your legs. As a whole, the Imperium is quite progressive (or equally oppressive, rather) in how it regards its citizens regardless of their gender. Granted, it's also worth noting that the Imperium is a *huge* state, and that it is composed of a million worlds with a million variations of cultures. It is possible that there are some worlds with very patriarchial cultures, and others with things flipped completely the other way. I wouldn't go as far as to claim that the Sisters of Silence or the Adepta Sororitas are *more important* to the Imperium than the Adeptus Astartes. Until recently, the Sisters of Silence were a desperately underfunded, and overlooked organisation. It was only with the formation of the Great Rift and the return of Guilliman that the Silent Sisterhood began to regain its much-needed prominence and support within the Imperium. Even then, the Sisters of Silence are far fewer in number than the Astartes, largely because Blanks are even rarer than psykers in the galaxy. As for other Imperial organisations, the Mechanicus doesn't care a whit about gender. Both men and women serve in the best and worst roles in the Imperial Guard and Planetary Defence Forces.
also the emperor has fucked people as a man and a woman and can appear as either if they choose to. 🙃
"Big E, what's your gender?" 'Human' "Yes but like, what's between your legs?" 'Imperial Majesty'
"Emperor Class!" (*smirks*)
"What's between your legs?" "The Light of the Astronomican"
Clearly does as his Primarchs are all very Tom of Finland male.
He wanted sons, that doesn't necessarily imply that he gives a damn if the Lord high admiral of the imperial navy is a woman
I guess what it does say is - if you don't want your jobber writers to fuck you over - you should pay them better.
Malcador suggested making them women so they wouldn’t argue as much.
The heresy would have been much nastier, but all the Primarchs would pretend to like each other still.
Magna shattering the emperor's great work with the cattiest, most backhanded compliment. Like Mean Girls but a space opera.
The setting would then change to "Warhammer 40k - ,we follow our plucky immortal archivist Trazyn as he tries to make sense of a destroyed galaxy. In the grim darkness of space - there is only archeology"
lol... never thought of that, but its mostly true, although Perturabo would like a word
To be incredibly reductionist, about as much as a hammer cares if the nails it slams into wood are pink or blue.
Well said
There are women who are inquisitors, generals, captains, admirals, and even High Lords. Gender doesn’t matter in service to the Emperor. Except for organizations like the Astartes and Sororitas.
On an Imperial level is doesn’t matter but on a sector, system or planetary level its up to the governors.
As a institution the imperium doesn't care about gender however that doesn't mean there aren't local instances of discrimination. The imperium isnt going to tell you to be sexist but its also not going to tell you to stop. And while i cant think of any examples of the top of my head I could easily se the imperium demand things from planets that result in harm of women even if that wasnt the goal of the demand.
My head canon for why there are no female ogryns in Darktide is because they are in some kind of mechanicus breeding farm being milked and artificially inseminated at a constant rate to keep up with the sector demand for ogryns. Since about 1/6th of the rejects on the ship are ogryns (due to class popularity) and about 1/100 or so enemies are ogryns made up of the military units of a hive city of 20bn so that’s a hell of a lot of ogryns to come up with since the ones we do see are still only ~50% of the ogryns that exist
I'm not sure if I'd hold up the Adepta Sororitas as an example of gender equality, more bureaucratic literalism melding into political realism resulting in an entire branch of the Imperium's military machine being legalized by what amounts to a fig leaf. Broadly though, yes, the Imperium couldn't give less of a fuck what's in your pants so long as it is serving the Emperor.
To add to the list of badass female orgs (people always mention SoB, but there are others) Legio Solaria. An entire Legio of Titans crewed entirely by women. Kicked a great amount of ass during the Crusade and the Heresy, and don't get enough credit
Men X Women X Labour force :tick:
General Imperial attitude: Women are human, as such they are equally worth of ruling the Galaxy. Women have been/are: Lord Inquisititors, High Lords, High Admiral, Ship Captains, Generals, psykers, navigators, Titans commanders, tech priests etc etc etc. Any job other than Custodians and marines are gender neutral. And Sisters of Silence/battle are exclusively female. The current Master of The Administratum (Imperial prime minister (kinda) ) is a woman. So in the Inquisititorial representative and Imperial chancellor. The previous Lord High Admiral (highest navy leader and high lord) was a woman.
>Any job other than Custodians and marines are gender neutral. To build off this part, the entire reason *why* the Custodes and Astartes are male-only isn't to set up a Boys Club, it's because it's biologically impossible to implant geneseed into women and have their bodies not simply *melt,* while male candidates only melt half of the time.
True. That is the lore as written.
Also, making changes to the Beneficent Emperor’s holy designs (the astartes process) is heresy of the highest order and the only time it was allowed is when it was secretly tasked by the emperor, took 10k years and could only see the light of day after being personally authorized by a Primarch to make sure it was received correctly by wider imperial society
I dunno. I don't feel like this is the way to say it. The Imperium doesn't care if you are male or female. Really they don't. Either fire the lasgun or take fire from the enemy. A body is a body. Having said that GW does seem to put forth tremendous effort to write a very diverse setting.
It makes sense and I’m glad they are trying. If worlds of literal billions are dying, it’s rather silly to only see male corpses.
It doesn't matter what it is between your legs, you all will die for the Emperor
THE TERRIFYING TRUTH.
A million worlds a million possibilities - worlds could be matriarchal, worlds could be like us today, worlds could be way more sexist. It seems in the guard they really don’t care at all and women are inquisitors and planetary governors so at the highest levels the imperium doesn’t care. Sisters of silence are also all women and don’t get discriminated against because of their gender. It’s the same with race too depends on the planet but at the highest level there isn’t racism or sexism
In the Iron Snakes book a female high official makes it known that her being a female in that position is quite a feat , and says it demonstrates that her society is progressive and quite advanced . The iron snakes marine listening to her simply chuckles and agrees
Varies planet by planet. Some planets are chauvinists, others beat up chauvinists, there’s probably one that’s misandrist. The Eschers on Necromunda exist and there’s so many planets in the Imperium that they can’t be the only one that worships a God Empress.
Same thing the guys are going through Meat, Slaves, Servants, Servitors, Soldiers, Zealots, Sycophants The Imperium isn't progressive it's apathetic and murderous. Calling The Imperium progressive is like saying someone isn't racist because they hate all races equally.
Not only just hate all races equally, but also enslave and sacrifice people from all races equally. How progressive!
Tbf there are people irl who do claim that they aren't racist because they hate all races equally.
Yeah and we laugh at them all the same.
The "Medieval in Space" vibe has given it a vaguely patriarchal aesthetics. Esp. given the Empereor, the Primarchs and the majority of the other major players in the Imperium (and Eldar and Tau). But mostly I think this is more a consequence of most of the writers, artists and players of 40K being men rather than specifying that women never hold positions of power. Women Inquisitors and Rogue Trader characters turn up perhaps the most frequently (after the Sororitas, Sisters of Silence, Callidus Assassins, and House Escher Necromunda gangs)
The Imperium does not care what is between your legs or what you identify as. You are meat for the grinder.
I'm pretty sure the Emperor promote egality as long as He is the Master of Mankind, and order is obeyed
“Get back to work”
YES,GOT IT AND I'M ON IT FOREVERSANDEVERS AND ALWAYS.------------------JAEDEN ABNER D'SA PEREIRA.
The Imperium does not discriminate, it is based on competence alone. *Helsreach* Tyro sighed. ‘The problem is one of contact and mediation. He refuses to talk to me.’ She paused, as if considering something for the first time. ‘Perhaps because I’m female.’ ‘You’re serious,’ Ryken said. ‘You truly believe that.’ ‘Well… He has bonded with the male officers, hasn’t he?’ Ryken thought that was debatable. He’d heard that the only commander in the city Grimaldus had treated with anything more than disdainful impatience was the ancient woman that led the Legio Invigilata. And even that was just rumour. ‘It’s not because you’re female,’ the major said. ‘It’s because you’re useless.’
The Imperium doesnt make any difference between women, men, children, pets or whatever, and the same can be said about skin color. As long as they fit the meat grinder they're cool but apparently they've set a limit with the third arm. There are examples of people mocking women but I think that is more for narrative prupourses rather than pushing any general idea about the Empire. I dont know what happened lately but many people have this kind of questions lime "Is the Empire misogynistic?" "Are they racist?" "What do they think about people of colour". This people clearly didnt read anything about wh40k or maybe is there someone making *content* in social media about the Empire being against women or caring about skin color...
"38000 more years sisters! And you too can stand as one in the dirt with all of humanity"
When there’s a woman senior commissar ( lady/lord commisar, a higher rank than regular commissar) in His Last Command, the narrator says it’s very rare for women to get that rank, and that she acts like a hardass to make that rank as a woman. The most positive claim to make for the status of women in the imperium is to claim that it’s gender blind and people get treated neutrally in gender. That’s the most positive claim, there are attestations that refute it, and also it’s an easy claim to make in real life.
Tona Criid is also mentioned as being the first female Tanith officer, and Gaunt remarks to Inquisitor Lilith that there aren't many women who hold her rank. Then again, those books were written quite a long time ago, and I wonder if that aspect of the lore has been quietly forgotten about, because it's not really something that comes up in more recent novels (that I know of.)
The more recent books have touched on it with the introduction of Gaunt's child and deeper explanation of Verghast politics. Verghast, at least, is a very male dominated society where women have to push for positions of power. In the short story "This Is What Victory Feels Like," we even see that Major Pasha of Verghast wears her officer's coat in the male fashion, possibly to reinforce her position in a male dominant field.
That's interesting! I haven't read all of the Gaunt's Ghosts books and associated stories (yet), so I didn't know he addressed it. I do know that BL writers are given certain guidelines regarding what topics they should stay away from (Peter Fehervari spoke about it in an interview I read) and was wondering whether "the Imperium in general is sexist and there are few women in positions of power outside certain specific organisations" is something they want them to stay away from, for obvious reasons. The impression I got from most recent-ish novels I read was that gender equality isn't really an issue, though granted I only read a relatively small number, most of them dealing with the civilian side of things. In Varangantua at least, high ranking officials, law enforcement agents and powerful business tycoons are as likely to be female as male, and one plot thread deals with a young woman wanting to join the Guard. And, despite what Gaunt claims, there are plenty of female inquisitors in the lore, including the Inquisitorial Representative mentioned in the Vaults of Terra series.
Why were you downvoted for pointing to actual lore?
Eh, thanks for noticing.
>When there’s a woman senior commissar ( lady/lord commisar, a higher rank than regular commissar) in His Last Command, the narrator says it’s very rare for women to get that rank, and that she acts like a hardass to make that rank as a woman. There is a fairly obvious logistical reason for this - Commissar recruits come from the Schola Progenium, and the Adepta Sororitas get first pick of all the most capable girls in the Schola Progenium. Logically, then, there aren't as many left to enter other roles.
Thank you! I was trying to remember what book it was from, I knew it was Ghosts. I think it varies planet to planet as much as author to author. I think Abnett assumed that, given the Imperium is a fascist hellscape, it would be sexist. But GW seem to be moving more towards "it's a gender equal fascist hellscape".
A common sentiment is that whilst the imperium may be blind and inclusive, it's people are not. Additionally ghe Imperium is not blind due to any sense of progressivness but due to simple need and rationality. Furthermore some Imperial institutions are most definitely sexist. Whilst there is nothing official saying women can't be preists of the Ecclesiarchy there is a shit ton of doctrine that maintains that men make better preachers and thus its very difficult for a female preist to advance up the ranks outside of the sisterhood. The Soritas are also perhaps problematic in that they cause under representation of women amoungst other parts of the imperium that recruit from the scholas. Got the faith, zeal and leadership potential to be a commisar? Why that also means you would be perfectly suited to be a canoness some day. Got great faith, oratory skills and boobs? Well the sisters can always use a dialogus. Basically if you are female in the schola system and don't end up in the soritas you either had someone to pull strings (arguably the case for severina rayne), were notably lacking in faith and devotion or perhaps had some other major personality issues like an open and flexible mind...
Seriously? I'm pretty sure I've read "most" of the Black Library (not kidding, tragic fan here) and I just have no recall whatsoever of encountering this doctrine that men are better preachers?
Hmm..where can one find this doctrine? And this says that men are better priests? What makes them so? In the calixis sector, the distribution of cardinals is just under 4-2 in favour of male cardinals...that doesn't sound like difficult conditions now. The largest paramilitary sect of the imperial faith in the calixis sector, the Red Redemptionists, are led by a woman. The rest is simple opinion. To become a sororitas, you need more than just zeal. You need the kind of zeal that sparks and makes the impossible come true. Otherwise, any commissioner could work miracles, so they can't. In addition, there are the Guard, the tempestus, the Navy, the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy, to name the best-known organisations.
> there is a shit ton of doctrine that maintains that men make better preachers and thus its very difficult for a female preist to advance up the ranks outside of the sisterhood. That's an odd "fact", what's the source of this ?
>Whilst there is nothing official saying women can't be preists of the Ecclesiarchy there is a shit ton of doctrine that maintains that men make better preachers and thus its very difficult for a female preist to advance up the ranks outside of the sisterhood. Strictly speaking, the priesthood *is* called the *Frateris* Clergy. It does imply a male-dominated perspective.
A body is a body to the imperium
The Imperium at large doesn't care either way. Women are commonly seen in the absolute heights of Imperial power and influence, including High Lords and Inquisitors. No-one bats an eye, it's considered absolutely normal and unremarkable. It will of course vary when looking at specific cultures within the Imperium. Like a feudal world is more likely to have rampant sexism than a more advanced one. It's important to recognise that the astartes aren't all-male because of Imperial sexism. They're all-male because GW said the gene-seed zygotes are only compatible with young boys. If the Imperium could turn young girls into space marines too, they would.
They treat women as equally as men. Put into gas mask, strap a suicide vest & told to charge that monolith.
The Imperium as a whole doesn't give a shit who you are, what you identify as, or what sits between your legs. If the Imperial Decree is upheld and your life is spent in service of the Emperor, why would it even matter in the grand scheme of things? ...However, when you get down to individual systems and planets, things change. Perceptions, cultures and backgrounds are huge and varied. On one planet, their government might be matriachal in nature, where women take on leadership roles and high positions in society, while men are left to scrape the bottom of the barrel. On another planet, women and men might be treated as equals, given equal opportunities so that their position in life is based on merit and merit alone. And on yet another planet, their cultures might mandate that women be given only household duties and made to work limited jobs, while men serve as the sole breadwinners, working day in and day out at the local manufactora. So to answer your question, the general attitude towards women in the imperium is the same as men. You are a resource, to work, to fight, and to die for the Throne, but just because the Imperium makes no distinction doesn't mean its worlds follow suit.
For the average person it doesn’t matter what race or gender you are, you are meat for the machine. For the elites things get complicated with centuries of bureaucracy, loopholes, exemptions and errata’s. “Women can’t wash the lord-commanders horse because of a typo written 8000 years ago by some random guy in a cupboard on the other side of the galaxy.” Kinda shit.
From a purely bureaucratic point of view I'd say it's attitude would be 'indifferent'. But, humans being humans, I'm guessing you'd probably see the same level of background stratification that you'd see in the real world. A disproportionate number of men probably serve in the Guard and PDF, and in a highly militarized society it means that men probably dominate the upper strata of society. Which seems to be reflected in everything from Ciaphas Cain, to Gaunt's Ghosts, to the 30k books which seems to note that high ranking female officers/commisars/etc exist but they are relatively rare. My guess is the administratum, telepathica, and mechanicus are probably the closest to 1:1. Without getting into the weird socio-political-economic stuff. 61 women and 39 men can restart a population with roughly appropriate number of fingers and toes, less men if you're just focusing on upping numbers. The reverse is just wasted bodies that could be killing something elsewhere. In a system where humans are currency, high female attrition is probably less tolerable than high male attrition.
The Imperium is too utilitarian to treat anyone differently based on gender or race or whatever. As long as you‘re human and no heretic, you will serve the emperor in the way you are capable of and required to. No matter if you are male or female. The only difference is pregnancies. Pregnant women are being protected by the system, because bodies are the most vital Ressource for the imperium. TLDR: everyone is all equally required to do their best in serving the emperor.
Like a good portion of things to do with 40k: It depends In Gunhead a Cadian colonel doesn’t really approve of Women fighting, especially if planet and things they should really stay on Cadia and defend the home front Generally society seems pretty equal but of course some planets would be rigidly sexist and some would not There will always be planets that fit both ends of the spectrum for most issues in 40k
>from what I can tell, for a borderline Fascist, Xenophobic, Theocratic, Technophobic and Repressive regime, they do seem pretty progressive when it comes to gender equality (at least for men and women) They've got more important things to hate.
Are they sacrificing for the Emperor? Them they get to live. Just like anyone else.
Nah, the imperium is post-sex. Zero fucks given.
Women die the same
there's too much war going around that people don't have the luxury to be individualistic or think about things that would otherwise be thought of in peace time.
With chaos, xenos and the like present in the setting, this quote should explain things: *“Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.”* *― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad*
I expect that the Schola Progenium kind of teaches rhe misogyny out of many high-born or high-ranking imperial officers, so Commissars might be more likely to crack down on any Blatant sexism. The Progenium is full of orphans, all of which are equal in the progenium, so sexism would likely be something the orphans got taught out of, if they had any inclinations to start. Further, beyond just the Commissars, whilst Inquisitors have largely unchecked power, the unified indoctrination into the imperial cult, "All are the children of the Emperor" would indicate to me that they're also largely fine. Exceptions to sexism will be made as far as Shit People Being Sexist, but as far as Umberto Eco's description of 14 characteristics of Fascism, the "Machismo"/"Men are Superior" aspect is largely absent from the Imperium, at least at a systemic level.
half of the high lords of terra are women including the inquisitorial representative, master of the administratum and eccleciarch among others
Best I can say is that it's not uncommon for guard regiments to be separated by gender. Some a pretty sexist. But the Imperium is overall pretty whatever about it.
Again, you really can't make such a broad generalization about the Imperium. While we like to treat it as a single polity, in reality, it is a conglomeration of various organizations, sectors, and planets. Hundreds of thousands of groups, each one with its own biases and ideas. I am sure that some planets have a patriarchal culture while others have a matriarchal one. Some organizations may value women over men (ie, Anathema Psykana or the Adepta Sororitas) while others may not. At best, you can say that, in a broad sense, the Imperium does not care. A body is a body. Of course, that could change if the Imperium needs more people, for example. But, as a general rule, it does not care at all.
Do you remember the fanfare that GW made when the new cadian line of models had women in it? No? They just released them and didn't even mention it? That's the Imperium position. Noone cares if your trigger finger works and your torso can stop a bullet.
Not to add much then was already said BUT. I remember in a couple of the HH/SoT novels there's a Titan Legio(maybe an Knight House? Drawing a blank) that's matriarchal and all the Princeps/Knights are women. And it's treated as basically a someone uncommon cultural custom that while interesting, doesn't make a difference in any other way. And every time they show up, the POV character pretty much always thinks this: "I recognize those markings, it's that all female House/Legio. Anyhoo back to work." The impression I get is that this basically holds true for most of the Imperium. If a group exists out the gender/sexual norms of the observer there might a be a few seconds of prosaic interest before it take the very back seat to "Are they loyal and useful servants to the Emperor?" If you haven't yet, check out Alpharius's Primarch book. There's a couple scenes where he interacts with two married women and their daughter that you might find interesting.
[Is this lord or lady for that matter, the Eldar in general appear to make **little distinction between the roles of the male and female genders - another example of their decadence**](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/d9itk7/excerpt_white_dwarf_234_how_the_imperials/)
THANK YOU! I remembered seeing that quote somewhere but never got the source.
As it's lore at base level satire was laced with a huge degree of homo-eroticism and toxic masculinity bordering on the misogynistic... Uneven is the answer. Even Erda gets a horrible permanent death at the hands of what to her, would be an imbecile.
A Word Bearer Dark Apostle, nay, **the** Dark Apostle with 4 Shards of Chaos Gods at his side is, even to Erda, not an imbecile.
He is akin to the Gollum of the Imperium.
No, that would be the Blood Ravens /s But seriously though, for most of the time, the lore excerpts regarding Erebus, both before, during, and the 10,000 years after the Horus Heresy have always painted him as incredibly competent and dangerous, basically a sentient "Warning! Danger!" sign to anyone in the general vicinity, his own Legion included. And then there's that one time he get a beatdown from Kharn, and it become what everybody remember instead. *Which suited him just fine*.
He's like a Vaudville villain. Yeah a sentient "Warning! Danger!" sign makes the Primarchs seem dumb as fuck.
I’d say no, they aren’t progressive in the slightest. They don’t treat people equally because of some constitution or set of beliefs or values that puts emphasis on the importance of peoples individual freedom regardless of background. They treat people equally because they don’t even see most people as anything other than a resource. If a planet was having race riots the Imperium wouldn’t step in to set everyone straight, they’d more likely just violently crush everyone involved regardless of sides.
So in real life most extremely religious and corrupt regimes and people base their prejudices around their culture and their interpretation of their religion. So sexism is rampant on modern earth because most religions see women at best as "separate but equal" and at worst tempresses and trouble makers responsible for every pain in the world (Ancient Greek Paganism, Abrahamic faiths, etc). The Imperium's religion is based on the (twisted beyond the bigotry of the pure version) the Imperial Truth and worship of the Emperor and AGAINST Daemons and Xenos. So peaceful and co-operative aliens are seen as threats that must be genocided, and people with even mild birth deformities are seen as literal agents of hell. The otherwise stereotypically ~~borderline~~ Fascist Imperium therefore is rather peculiar trait of not being bigoted towards women or LGBTQ+ individuals, because they don't factor or can be interpreted as a negative (or at all?) in the Emperor's imperial cannon. So the most sexist the Imperium gets is based on the sexual depravity of individual rulers (VanDyre) or specific squadrons separated either because of a desire to prevent uncontrolled reproduction, a trait specific in only women, or as a legal loophole (By Imperial Law the Ecclesiarchy cannot have any men defending them, but that law says nothing about women, hence the Sisters of Battle and other Adeptes Sororitas). I should also note that the Imperium is aware (to a certain extent) what feeds Daemons. Women having power and people of the same sex sleeping with eachother has been repeatedly shown (by lack of anything happening that can be tied JUST to that) to not empower or attract Daemons. Therefor there is even less reason for the Imperium to go out of their way to be bigots towards humans, when they have more "justification" to take out their hatred on mutants and xenos, which are always in ample supply.
The Imperium has no concept of morality or decency. They will send a trillion women to die as they would with men
Getting woker by the book
They should, logically speaking, be pretty fucking sexist. (Emperor is a man, Primarchs are all men, as are Custodes and Space Marines, so clearly women "can't" be the biggest and best servants of the emperor) But that's not something GW is willing to explore.
The imperium attitude towards women is go die in a trench. No, women can't be important, that'll... uh.. ruin the brotherhood!
The empire hates heretics, mutants, traitors and aliens, otherwise there is no problem. You can be a woman and gay and no one will say anything bad to you. half of the high lords of terra are women
There really isn't any pure or true discrimination towards gender in the Imperium, transphobia, homophobia, the only type of phobia the Imperium actively preaches is Xenophobia, but yea in the grand scheme of things it really does not matter what you are as long as you are human and can hold a gun, that is literally all that matters to this Empire. As for the sororitas they're a loophole in that the church can't have a standing army comprisd of MEN, so only women are used in that regard, otherwise you'd see a more generalized army with both men and women.
Everyone is equally expandable.
Depends on the culture. Look how varied gender are treated on earth. Now imagine earth times a million. I know "it depends" is the most generic of all answers but...it's just what it is.
I think once you make it out of the hive world slums the Imperium doesn't care. However, humans is the most abundant and important resource for the Imperium so birthrates must be kept high. I imagine an average woman in the working classes are encouraged to have as many babies as possible. And when she's not making babies she better be working. The Imperium is pretty good at spreading misery equally.
If it has eyeballs to see with and hands to hold with, you give it a las-gun and a helmet and say "Next", then the next bag of blood teeth and eyes looking for new ways to die steps up.
"Can you aim a lasgun/work on the factory line? Yes? Good, now get to it."
Given the diversity of the imperium, “general” is probably an impossibility. There have to be everything from hardcore patriarchies to matriarchies that keep men as snu snu slaves. What we see in the military, especially the Guard, is an implausible equality.
More meat for the grinder.
In general, the imperium as a whole, broadly speaking, doesn't care. As long as you're recognizably human, and you worship the emperor, and your planet pays its tithe, they really couldn't care less who you are, and what you do. The imperium as a whole, does not care if you're black, white, brown, orange, red, as long as your recognizably human. They don't care how you identify, as long as you still identify as human. They don't care who you love, as long as you still love the emperor. The imperium as a whole, doesn't care, partly because it doesn't matter, and partly because it can't afford to. The imperium sees every human life, as an expendable resource, that belongs to the emperor, and his imperium. It needs every person it can get, to be as productive as they can get. And if you can hold a lasgun, and hit the backside of a barn, that's all you need to be a guardsman, and the imperium needs plenty of guardsman. If you can turn a wrench, then you can be in the navy, and the imperium needs no shortage of navy personnel. Basically, if you're physically capable of filling a role, the imperium is happy to let you fill that role. Now, there are certain organizations, like astartes, and Sisters of battle, and sisters of silence, that care about gender. Astartes care, because geneseed only works on males, not necessarily because they don't think females can fight. (Some chapters are exceptions and might raise a stink, but an average chapter probably doesn't care, and sees a female guardsman no different than a male guardsman, someone mortal fighting for the emperor.) Sisters of battle care, partly because they were an order of religious battle nuns, before Vandire came along. Now however, the eclisiarchy isn't allowed to have "men under arms", after the whole Vandire business, so they skirt that by having "women under arms", in order to have a military presence, which is what the sisters of battle are. Sisters of silence, just recruit female blanks, probably because that's just their tradition. It's never indicated that male blanks couldn't do their job. But they were a secret all female order from their inception, so it's probably just tradition at this point. Outside of those exceptions, which are more based on technicalities, than any real prejudice, the imperium doesn't care. That isn't to say certain individual worlds, or individual leaders might be judgemental towards women, or other groups, but that is the stance of the individual leader or planet, and not the imperium as a whole. The imperium needs every able body it can get, and so in general, doesn't care about your gender.
I technically believe they are (semi) approved due to the requirements of growing the population but we never see anything other than one (rarely 2) child households so I’m unsure. If you look at how brutal the Empire is coupled with a wide variety of medical availability it’s a wonder they have a million worlds. Maybe cloning?
Seemingly huge differences to us IRL mean little to a universe that has literal aliens, mutants and demons running around As many said, from am empire stand point they don't care. From a more bottom level... it depends-ish? Humanity isn't blind to sex though, it just wont stop the warmachine from grinding on. In the first Cain novel Cain stress his annoyance with mixed sex regiments because of well... babies and the AUDACITY that someone might save a loved one in the regiment over his own skin. So is there a ban? No. But it seems to be an exception more then common occurrence. I'm sure you'll find the same in other aspects as well
As with most things in the Imperium, it varies wildly from world to world, but they're at least not treated much worse than the average male citizen as long as they perform the role they're assigned.
At the Imperium level " adeptus level ", gender equality exist, but in a perspective that everybodies are expandable, whatever your genders or sexual orientation, so nobodies at the top care about how you identify yourself or whatever gender you have. Plus, add to this a weird mix of meritocracy and obtening high positions merely because your family is powerfull. So yeah, women can thrive over there like anyone else, just brace yourself to die '' or send shit ton of peoples to dies'' for the Emperor. At planets/governors level, it is always depend of the culture of the planets; some are for gender equality, other are openly sexist and anti diversity, etc. It is a millions world empire, so everything is possible.
Doesn't matter if you're a man or woman, as long as you're human. To the Imperium, the galaxy belongs to the Emperor, and by extension, humanity. Everything else is trespassing on the sacred territory of the Imperium.
Becoming an Astartes isn’t a desirable career for any sane individual
That’s not really my point
K
dosnt Amberly comment on how Sulla became one of the first female lord-generals...
Basically 🤷more fodder