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As society progresses (and thus the nature of role playing) men are getting less and less enthralled by the idea of a woman joining the group of RPers. It's starting to become almost commonplace to find women in the RP community, whether it be console, online, or real life.

I myself am a woman and a tabletop and live action RPer. I've been a gamer for many years now, and while being a female gamer in the 90's was nothing like it was in the 80's ("Holy cow, it's a GIRL!" *faint*), it still wasn't exactly commonplace. Groups were still surprised to encounter a girl who wanted to join, or encountering other groups who already had female members.

Today even that's changed. As geekdom and nerddom become more acceptable, even 'cool', more and more women are discovering the ability to 'let loose', so to speak, in the world of role playing. They're figuring out that not only will they not be harrassed in the groups they game with simply for having breasts (as was so common years ago), but they also won't be labeled by their non-gaming peers as a dork, geek, nerd, or even just plain weird.

Also, let's look at something that's made women in gaming more acceptable in recent years - men playing female characters. Yep, it's a phenomenon that's gained popularity among our more masculine counterparts. Games like Everquest, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Soul Caliber and other fighting games all have female characters readily available to play, and are played regularly by men. Some men will even play exclusively female characters, and in the online gaming community it's becoming more and more difficult to discern what gender the person behind the character is. Now obviously that's not exactly feasible in real life games (tabletop and live action role playing, aka LARP), but thanks to console games offering both genders as options, women are finding that they're not having such a difficult time integrating themselves into the gaming community.

What's more, there are some individual gaming groups (mostly online) that are exclusively women! Imagine that, where there were exclusively men, women have managed to not only integrate themselves, but take control! There is no ideal of femininity in the gaming world anymore (excepting, of course, the PC/console characters who are all curves), so the women that were all made up and accessorized are realizing that it's ok to be female and still be part of the gaming community - they don't have to do anything special, just show up and play!

In all, there's nothing wrong with being a woman in today's gaming community. It's not hard to get started, and chances are nobody's going to think twice about seeing a woman gamer anymore. So get out there and have fun!

Learn more about this author, Luna Kay.
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