We love you, guys
During this blog when I refer to women or females, I mean this to include women, fems and non-binary folk also. When referring to men or males, I mean male or masculine presenting.
We love you, guys!
No really, this blog is for our male and masc fans and anyone reading this who are simply interested in what we are about.
Whilst our male support has been overwhelmingly positive, there have been the few comments accusing us of gatekeeping, making it about women etc.
So I thought I would just address these, and if people want to be open to reading that, then thank you for taking the time to do that. If the rest don’t and wish to remain of this mindset, then that is fine. We can’t win them all, and we won’t be for everybody.
Women Who D&D just happened to us. Kirsty and I had discussed how we thought a one-shot with all our female friends would be funny, and if you met some of our friends you would understand why! So we posted a status on social media and asked if we had any female friends who would be interested. The response was bigger than we thought. We had FORTY people show interest within 24 hours.
That’s a lot of one-shots!
So we thought we’d put a group together to try and get through everyone who wanted to have a go. It quickly became apparent that most people wanted to try playing, but had no idea where to begin, about the game mechanics, how to fill in a character sheet, what character to play, how to play them and what to expect.
We offered a workshop...and well one thing led to another, we ended up in the local newspaper and everything has really gained momentum from there.
Inbetween all this however, and the main reason we focused on women, were the messages we received privately. The ones saying, they loved what we were doing, because they always felt a bit overwhelmed or apprehensive about joining a game.
To us D&D is accessible and safe, because we have been playing with understanding and open people. That has been my first-hand experience certainly. However, it is not everybody's experience.
The sad reality is that some people have been mansplained to, been subject to overt sexualisation, been left out, been expected to understand the game immediately or been made to feel stupid and bullied.
I think it is fair to say in most circumstances women have experienced this sort of behaviour outside of the D&D Community and that has a ripple effect through ANYTHING socially.
Indeed, if you look into the history of this game, the creator Gary Gygax even said that, “Gaming in general is a male thing...”
These comments and messages we received did not necessarily come as a surprise, but it was apparent there was a need for Women Who D&D
Our aim is to bring confidence and understanding, to be a foundation and springboard for women to jump from into the D&D Community.
Our aim is most certainly not to make Dungeons and Dragons a female only environment, not to say all males who play the game are misogynists or bullies (because that is definitively not true) or that it is even a dangerous environment to be in. That is not our message here.
Our message is that D&D is accessible to everyone. To break down any pre-existing assumptions and show that D&D is an all-inclusive community to be a part of.
To all our male followers – we so appreciate your support. All our male D&D playing friends have been beyond supportive, they are excited and some of them are our biggest cheerleaders. That means the world to us.
In addition, we have heard your voices too, the messages from the men who also feel a bit anxious, who would also like a way to access the world of D&D, who might need a confidence boost and a play to jump from. We got you and we are looking at making ourselves available to you too.
At the very least we are more than happy to hear from ANYBODY regardless of gender, whether it be to ask questions, just to say hello, or give us your ideas.
Just contact us here and keep an eye on the upcoming events page here.
