i have served alongside women on the front lines…your 'opinion' is incorrect, cryhavok, grossly incorrect….sorry…….i'd be happy to introduce you to one of 'em, but they'd eat you and your family for lunch……

You however, bear a good resemblance to the torch wielding mob that is so blinded by the misoginistic rhetoric they imagine, whithout reading what I wrote correctly, that I said, that I have mentioned expecting. Now please be quite while I finish the enjoyable devils advocate discussion I was having with a rational person.

First i read it this morning but female are now accepted in the front line unit.

Second, about what you say on the vocabulary in battle situation and how men would have to take care to choose their words. In fact what iu'm going to say is also good for the everyday life.

Not all women are soft voice, gentle maiden (and i know it is not what you mean but i get to the point) and those who choose an army life instead of a civil one won't be IMO the most traumatized by the use of harsh words and bad langage. My tough are more the contrary.

I know some women (and i'm 33) who talk like no one else i know, and really when i hear them talk it isme who is shocked.

So watch your langage in the field won't be a problem.

Sexual harassment could indeed become problematic but once more women choosing army life aren't there to get flowers and soft whisper words with silk uniform. And maybe the harassment won't be from male to female. Women can also be quite rude and some of the most shoking photos of the last ten years came from woman in the guantanamo prison. So who know?

Most social studies in companies shows that a work force that is diverse works more effectively and delivers better results. And it kinda fits with evolution of species with a high degree of diversity has a better chance of survival. So I am sure that the army will benefit from this in the long run.

Currently there is a lot of culture issues with mixing men and women, and I think that Tony Porter put his finger quite right on this one:
http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_porter_a_call_to_men.html

His talk demonstrates that these are issues that we can deal with and fix, the problems are not hard wired biological problems that can only be fixed with genetic engineering. In other words another testimony on how culture beats biology. :-)

I guess we are getting a bit off topic. My opinion on space marines that its part of the game that they can only be male. People can run with whatever house rules they want, so long as the lore stays as it is in this subject!

Let's short-circuit this whole thread, shall we…?

Everyone who wants to play a Female Space Marine, fluff be damned, is operating under the assumption that the resulting character will be a Hot Babe in power armour- pouty lips, big boobs, cascading locks, etc. Point out to these players that the physiological changes that accompany the creation of a Space Marine will render 'her' a grotesque, barely-recognizable-as-female freak, and the desire to play one will evaporate toot-sweet…

-Now add a few decades' worth of built up battle scars, completely eliminate the breasts (why would a Space Marine have them?) and and you would have something close to a Female Space Marine. Still interested? I thought not…

Cryhavok said:

I think so. With insurgents, there isn't a 'line', so even if women had previously been driving convoy trucks, they have still been in battle just as much as the 'frontline' troops in recent years. They already ARE frontline troops, and they have shown an equal capacity.

ok cryhavoc, here comes the toothy end….

you seem to be of the falacious marine mentality that suzy rottencrotch can't keep herself clean, because (apparently) she's a woman…..i've read yer posts quite thoroughly and, beyond your devil's advocacy (which is perfectly cromulent and good), this is the theme that keeps recurring.  (Though, to be sure, if the meaning of yer last post - which is unclear - was to retract this belief, then i cheerfully withdraw my current invective.) This, and the theme that they shouldn't 'really' be on the line, but some dumb politico thought he'd score points by making a nice new law…..you lament that segregation is 'taboo' because, heck, that'd just solve all our problems…..

I'd love to remain "quite" (i assume yer autospeller meant 'quiet' - you should turn that sucker off) so you can continue spewing yer oh-so-carefully-worded female-hate (women *are* scary, aren't they?); but, sadly, my battlesisters have quite literally saved my life, so I know for absolute fact that they are capable and deserving of being there.  They are not wilting violets, embarrassed and perturbed by naughty language during a fire fight (really?!  come on!); and they are just as politically incorrect as a sailor on shore leave…

Sorry that women stepping up to be counted offends you.

Here is an actual pay of how one group incorporated Female Space Marines.

Okay, I didn't go through the three pages of posts. I read a few and there are some great ideas here already but you could reach to other books other than Deathwatch. I think if you took a woman, there is no reason that a female could not be used…. especially as say… a Grey Knight.

There would be no difference between the female Space Marine if one was made. (I wouldn't do that because it would bring a female into a very monastic military order that is more like a church than a military force, these are monk soldiers).

1. Adepta Sororitas (Blood of Martyrs Book for Dark Heresy) "Brides of the Emperor" consist of several types but the best two would be the Battle Sister or a Seraphim.

2. A Powerful Imperial Psycher.

3. An Assassin.

4. Bring back the Sisters of Silence from the Horus Heresy era. The sisters are witch hunters that wore power armor. Immune to psyker powers. They have nega-psyker abilities that would basically allow them to sense, smell and hunt psychers and perhaps chaos and xenos. (check out the Witchfinder in Blood of Martyrs)

5. Rogue Trader with a sense of adventure that agrees to transport and supply a Deathwatch kill-team in return for a big paycheck and she gets to go with them. 

6. (Ascension) Inquisitor

7. (Ascension) Crusader with the Hunter of Aliens Ascended Trait…. this would be a great choice.

8. (Ascension) Death Cult Assassin 

9. (Ascension) Primaris Psyker

Now there are a lot of choices out there. I would pick up Dark Heresy, Ascension and Blood of Martyrs to go with Deathwatch. I am only missing Only War and I intend on getting that soon. I would not just make a female space marine unless you created a new chapter, she would be treated with suspicion too. Remember, Space Marines are extremely suspicious and hostile when they believe that something is not right with the situation. I would have it be a problem in the game - maybe not for the PC's but I would create animosity that the character will have to deal with because she is different and different is not good to a Space Marine.