Empowering Roles With Dice Rolls: D&D, Women & Feminism

Rat Queens fan art. Illustration courtesy of nebezial at nebezial.deviantart.com

The notion of women finding empowerment through media and entertainment isn’t new, but the way a new generation of women are finding it through D&D has been.

As Canadian author and movie critic Tina Hassannia started playing Dungeons & Dragons and was surprised to find it an extremely empowering experience. She wrote in a National Post article that “Nerd culture, of which I count myself a member, has long been dominated by men, but playing D&D left me feeling empowered in a way that watching Beyoncé videos never has. Instead of looking up to a role model, the game prompted me to discover the badass warrior within.”

Jen Luneau, writing for The Mary Sue, talks about how being in an all-women D&D group has been fun and empowering for her because she gets to decide what it means for her: "Because we’re surrounded by other women, we’re OK. Because we’re taking a traditionally male-dominated thing and making it whatever the hell we want it to be, we’re OK. And because the six of us have created a safe environment where we can be ourselves, I can’t wait until our next meeting."

One great ongoing look at women exploring D&D and other tabletop systems is She's A Geek. The latest episode goes over The Witch Is Dead and regularly covers campaigns, post-mortems and all sorts of great gaming discussion. Check it out!