“Are There Any Girls There?” Empowering Excursions and Gender Role Subversion in Dungeons and Dragons

Author

Rachel M. Just, University of MontanaFollow

Graduation Year

2016

Graduation Month

December

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

School or Department

Sociology

Major

Sociology – Inequality and Social Justice

Faculty Mentor Department

Sociology

Faculty Mentor

Daisy Rooks

Keywords

Tabletop gaming, gender, empowering, gender rolls, Dungeons and Dragons

Subject Categories

Sociology of Culture

Abstract

In this article, the author examines the gendered experiences of twelve women who play Dungeons and Dragons, a popular roleplaying tabletop game. The author utilizes Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s concept of the excursion to analyze how participants use roleplay in Dungeons and Dragons to achieve empowerment. Many of the women interviewed described being subjected to gendered behavioral expectations both in their everyday life and during gameplay. With an empowering gaming group, however, roleplay allowed the participants to challenge, and subvert, those gendered expectations. The author concludes that roleplay provides an empowering excursion from everyday life that allows women participants to deal with frustration about gendered treatment and challenge institutional gender roles.

Honors College Research Project

1

Recommended Citation

Just, Rachel M., "“Are There Any Girls There?” Empowering Excursions and Gender Role Subversion in Dungeons and Dragons" (2016). Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts. 126.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/utpp/126