Are there any female Stormtroopers?

It might be a rarity, as Stormtroopers were supposedly the elites of the Imp army, but it seems plausible that there would be some women that underwent and passed the training. Of course, if Daala's experiences with the Imp Navy before becoming Tarkin's mistress are typical, then it would be very difficult, if nigh impossible for any female stormtrooper to be promoted, and would get drudge assignments.

 

The idea of a female stormtrooper is laughable for many reasons

One: In general females are not as able as males for military service, at least the kind that stormtroopers would be involved in. Anyone who try to claim otherwise is simply ignoring basic facts

Two: The Empire was not an advocacy of equal rights in any way

And if you think i'm being sexist **** you. I have nothing against women and support equal pay and all that stuff, I simply recognize the facts. My own sister who went through basic training would hear the girls there claiming "we can do anything the men can" and she would simply tell them "no, no you can't" and my sister rightfully earned the nick-name G.I. Jane for being so strong and tough so she knows full well what women are capable of

Just one example she gave me was that if she was face down in the mud and was filthy for several weeks in battle, her body would physically become sick, a guy's body would just be dirty, it would keep going as long as his mind was strong enough

 

kinda on a tangent related to this thread about women in combat roles... right now in iraq, women who serve as MPs (and not infantry) are increasingly coming into combat situations and proving themselves as capable as the men they serve with.

Female U.S. Soldiers Under Fire in Iraq

some use the argument that most women would wash out of basic training... then again, so would most men. people should be judged on their individual merits and not simply classed out due to sex.

the psychological factor is also weak.. some people might not feel the same level of comfort if they knew they had women in their unit covering them in combat or seeing women casualties. a few generations ago, the military believed that having people of different races working together would likewise lower unit morale and efficiency.. and yet the military eventually adjusted to integration, and now prides itself on its diversity. if seeing someone who reminds you of your sister or mom or girlfriend get killed is sickening, then why is seeing someone who reminds you of your dad or brother or boyfriend get killed more palatable? it's only more palatable because it is what you've been taught to accept, and what is acceptible can change.

in the past, soldiering has been primarily driven by physical strength and endurance, but modern warfare with its reliance on technology has shifted the physical constraints somewhat.

as for are there any female stormtroopers.. i would that there would not be any females stormies in any recognizable numbers.. perhaps a few would sneak in or be pushed into service on backwater outposts, but for the most part none would be recruited or cloned, due to the emperor's biases. further, if female humans in the SW galaxy are mostly slightly-differently sized and shaped compared to males as they are here, stormtrooper uniforms might have to come in different sizes, and that would screw up the entire imperial procurement process, where one size fits all -- remember how leia recognizes luke... he's too short to be a stormtrooper, indicating that stormies have some sense of physical uniformity of body specs.. too short or too tall, and you can't be a stormtrooper.

 

Well, we did see Gamorrean stormtroopers and all in CotJ (yes, I know it was a computer malfunction, not a change in policy by the Imperial Recuirting Agency)

I agree Jawa James, though there are variations in stormtrooper armor (how much armor do TIE pilots wear, because Mara fit into one perfectly in DFC) and there's also the possibility that the women stormtroopers were sent off to the Deep Core or UR where no one would see them.

 

"Hey, look, no offense to you women out there, but us guys are just better. I'm not against women, or anything--heck, I even have a couple of sisters."

The fact is that an army works best when its soldiers are de-individualized, and it's hard to de-individualize a group of mixed males and females. People can dance around this fact all they like, but it's a major factor. Yes, it's arbitrary. Males are *not* inherently more capable than females in the "art" of combat; it depends on the individual. And individualism has no place in the army.

That said, there have been female stormtroopers. Splinter of the Mind's Eye mentioned a few, and there was that Carida Planet Hopper article, which was from the POV of a female recruit.

TC

 

Then any estimates how large the percentage of stormtroopers are women?

 

I don't believe there would be, mainly because Stormtroopers are mostly clones but Splinter does seem to maintain it

Anyone have a page reference...

The Recruit at the planet hopper guide wasn't training to be a Stormie though (She was a walker operator)

and the Gammoreans were taken by a mad AI

 

This can often be seen nowadays - a woman can look at something out of the corner of her eye, whereas a man generally has to look at something to get a good picture of it. Both of these specialisations are dashed useful in warfare. Male for sniping, female for patrolling and perimeter defence. Now I'm not saying that men and women all have these differences, just that they do generally apply to big sections of the population. So both genders have valid war applications, even if one only considers each gender in this most stereotypical way, without allowing for differences between individuals and the standard.

Is that from an author named Pease?

The book, however, also says that a male could be trained to expand peripheral vision. While absence in the book doesn't necessarily mean it won't happen, it says nothing about woman being able to get that long distance narrow FOV ability.

Besides, the stormtrooper helmet is already somewhat restrictive of vision, and it is probably optimized for male vision, so that kills off a lot of any advantage in peripheral women may have.

Although if they're conditioned to respond to orders without question...who knows?

You can get a droid to obey orders without question. That doesn't mean they would execute it with ferocity. The stormtrooper corps is supposed to be ferocious.

As to the crew of a ship he is not likely referring to Stormies.

The quote is too inspecific. 36998 men and 2 women are "men and women." But it won't salve the pro-equality group.

Besides, advancing up to naval Captain is not that hard for women. Varrscha did it, and all indications suggest she's AT BEST average, both in absolute and relative quality terms. Maybe it is different when you want to advance to admiral.

Stormtroopers tend to be encased in armor, which has weight. It may not be heavy, but they have to keep wearing it. That may be a bit tough on the average women.

 

Borleias, I meant "conditioning" in the broadest sense-including brainwashing somebody into a mindless killing machine. Waffen SS training could be considerdd an example of this, perhaps?

Anyway, I'm back home, back to the library. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, p.249-50: "The soldiers caught in the maelstrom were Imperial troops. But they were not the Emperor's palace guard. They were men and women stationed too long on a backward, desolate world where discipline and training relaxed concurrently with morale." These soldiers had already been previously identified as Stormtroopers, with the usual E-11 blaster rifles and "energy-armor".

So the problem is solved; there are female Stormtroopers, or there were on Mimban post-Yavin, pre-Hoth. How many is questionable; shall we move on to debating that?

 

"Demand for pilot-less craft was low during the height of the Empire, when the Imperial war machine had an endless supply of clone and Academy-trained personnel from which to draw."-starwars.com"-Starwars.com

 

It's not necessarily the case that a man would simply be filthy, ForceHeretic. Two words: Trench Foot

 

FH: well stated. agrees wholeheartedly.

 

"Stormtroopers tend to be encased in armor, which has weight. It may not be heavy, but they have to keep wearing it. That may be a bit tough on the average women. "

given the Emperor's policies on women, i would guess that most female stormtroopers are not 'average women' but ones who can take it, just like the male stormtroopers who can take it, who also are not 'average men'.

 

>Stormtroopers tend to be encased in armor, which has weight. It may not be heavy, but they have to keep wearing it. That may be a bit tough on the average women. <

That's nonsense. If properly trained and motivated, a woman could wear the same blast armor for the required amount of time.

I think we need to define stormtroopers here. There are stromtroopers, clones and recruits who are specially trained to *be* stromtroopers, and then there are regular Imperials who just wear the armor. I think that for the purposes of this discussion, the definition could be extended to anyone wearing the armor, or we could stick with the regular definition. If it's the former, the answer to the question is yes, and we can cite SOTME as a source. If it's the latter, then we really don't know

TC

 

I take that line from TG to be entirely sarcastic. How could a Jawa be a stormie? I think it implies there were no offical women stormtroopers though a few might have snuck in.

 

I'm pretty whoever wore the armor in a regular Imperial faction was a *real* (gone through training)stormtrooper. Unless the commander was very desperate.

Aren't AT-AT pilots part of the stormtrooper corps?

 

I'm pretty sure that the false stormtroopers (essentially regular troops, mercenaries, and security guards wearing surplus stormtrooper armor) didn't show up until after ROTJ according to the sourcebooks, there is something about it Cracken's Threat Dossier.

"After the fall of the Empire, Imperial commanders found themselves faced with a problem previoulsy unheard of--a lack of stormtroopers. Silent, Deadly and once seemingly infinite in number, stormtroopers were rapidly disappearing from the Empire's ranks. The only area that still seemed to be churning out dedicated troops with any success was the Imperial Academy on Carida. But even under the competent Ambassador Furgan, only a small number could be produced at one time--not enough to compensate losses inflicted by the New Republic.

To compensate for the lack of stormtroopers, many leaders began supplying their regular troops with the familiar black-and-white armor. While this severely reduced the quality and loyality of stormtroopers, Imperial Command saw this as a necessary sacrifice. Because stormtroopers had become the most visible of symbol of Palpatine's New Order, it became necessary to fabricate. It was proven whenever stormtrooper numbers began to dwindle, so too did the people's confidence in Imperial rule. It was in the Empire's best interest to maintain the illusion of stormtrooper occupation."

-CTD, pg 36.

 

I don't like the idea of creating soldiers without any testosterone. One really wants an army that's going to rip the other chaps some nice, shiny new orifices. Low levels of testosterone might inhibit this. Although if they're conditioned to respond to orders without question...who knows?

Sterile does not mean without testosterone. Just because a guy is shooting blanks does not mean that he is void of testosterone.

There could be major problems if the clones were not created sterile because if a million guys with the same genetics have kids, and if any of their kids intermingled, there could be a lot of serious genetic diseases amongst the grandkids of the clones.

Women have testosterone too. Body building women have high levels and sometimes develop facial hair and so forth.

 

Considering Val's info in light of the SOTME passage, the answer posed by the thread title is: "yes".

TC

 

That quote from Valiento leaves one wondering what happened to all those other academies and cloning facilities? (Did Pellaeon every stabilize the stormtrooper supply)

Furgan, competent. That doesn't really add up.

 

while it's hard to imagine Furgan as competent.. he did manage to keep hold of Carida and not lose it to some other warlord, and also managed to poison mon mothma on her turf.

while he seems like an arrogant bumbler, he must have done some things right.

 

Maybe it was his staff that was doing the job right?