Finally got through the registration process to dig up this thread! I've been following it since the start, and frustratingly couldn't reply as I was having signup issues!
Alas! Hello! I'm Annie/The Dice Bag Lady, my page has been mentioned
http://thedicebaglady.net/female-miniatures/
Right. There are a lack of properly dressed women in miniatureland. That is fact. Someone said 95%, someone else said "pffft exaggerator", but you know what, I reckon it's closer to 99%!
How do I know this? I've been into this hobby since about 2000, a few breaks, and then properly from around 2011. Yes probably far less than you, as I am probably younger than you (a tender 25) The hours I have spent trawling the internet, trade shows and shops, specifically looking for them are.. a lot.
I've complained a lot about this, started similar threads of my own, and mostly just got frustrated. So I thought, you know what, I am in a position where I can do something about this. So instead of focussing on what I don't like in wargaming, I am going to celebrate and aim to create more of what I do think is a positive thing.
So what is my project? Well firstly I'm stocking as many "decent" female miniatures as I can get my hands on. Believable, appropriately dressed for whatever they're doing. Not existing purely as sex objects, they are going to war, not to bed.
There are many examples of women fighting in combat (as Shandy who posted earlier has been helping me learn about, cheers Shandy!) and it's actually pretty disrespectful to have them represented so incorrectly. But as I said, I don't want to delve too far into the negative.
So let's get more women onto the gaming table! With the proper kit!
Before I get jumped on for being the skirt length police or whatever, I have no issue with sexy models, heck I own a lot of them. i just find it bizarre that "non overtly sexualised" models of women are almost a weird niche, when it should be normal.
I have found there to be more of them out there than I first thought, which has been really encouraging. I only found them because the companies themselves emailed me. Sometimes manufacturers just have a few hidden in larger collections, so hard to find if that's specifically what you are looking for. I'm hoping with my shop (well not hoping, knowing, it has been happening) that people can buy the odd models from different ranges without getting stung for multiple postage, especially when I start getting more from various countries. One click, boom. And it'll give a good bit of promotion to those companies doing what I believe to be, the right thing.
Despite posting a bit defensively (as the nature of how the thread has gone has led me to be!), I have had so much positive feedback from this. My inbox is full of messages from men and women, saying how much they agree and support it. I've even had messages from little girls, which is super great. Blogs and websites have been covering the crap out of it, including Beasts of War -
http://www.beastsofwar.com/the-dice-bag-lady/qa-time-dice-bag-lady/ so refreshingly, there is more of a demand for these sorts of models than I was initially let to believe!
ALSO! I am launching my miniatures range at Salute of shieldmaidens, normal...shieldmaidens.. that you can slot into dark age warbands. no Valkyrie helmets, chainmail bikinis, random boobage, arses high etc. Just fightin'. This will be the start of much more to come. I'm so enthused by this project I've put a lot of time, money, and soul into it, as it really needs to happen. Definitely more women would be into this hobby if they weren't portrayed purely as sex objects or hags (no way, there's another way?!), I run an online group of purely female wargamers, we have over 100 and are expanding all the time, so have access to still a tiny percent (but still larger than anyone here has) of the opinions and thoughts of such people, and they are very much agreeing with all this!
If you read all that, cheers!
Annie
The Dice Bag Lady
Bad Squiddo Games
Long Time Rambler, First Time Poster.
06 October 2008, 02:00:07 PM
