Empowerment, From Tabletop to Boardroom

                                             

It's nothing new to be told all about female empowerment. It's branded across every women's magazine in every shop across the country, usually right next to the magazines about how to look good naked or apply makeup correctly. Yeah, I know right? In my short life (30 years-ish) though, I have found the single most empowering thing to be tabletop RPGs and this is why!

I have always worked in high pressured environments, where you're treated with the respect you earn no matter what your sex, ethnicity or background. Because of this I have always found it hard to then switch from being 'one of the lads' to an empowered female who's totally in control of her life and never makes mistakes, and gets enough sleep,water and exercise. 

I swapped jobs a few years ago and found suddenly that I was now at the bottom of a ladder, one that was harder to climb than I was expecting. It seemed that the harder I worked the more I hit the proverbial ceiling. While my male counterparts were assertive, I was apparently bossy. I would need to cover up my... assets and they could rock about the place in shorts. Honestly, after a few months it was soul crushing. 

In contrast,  let's skip to friday evenings and my RPG games. Here I was an unquestioned leader where my points were considered amongst the group and never laughed off. Glory would be shared fairly including any items or gold and respect was once again based on work and strategy rather than what was (or wasn't) between your legs. It also helped that I was able to shake off some work tension by smashing skulls and bathing in my enemy's blood. (I was playing a warlock called Lyra who had some issues it seemed!) 

After a few months I found work life me calling on my inner Lyra in desperate times thinking what would she do in this situation. Ok maybe fireballing the meeting room full of people wasn't an option but she would stick up for herself and so I did too. Moving forward I found my new attitude towards my work was paying off, I was being put forward for better projects and eventually my new outlook pushed me towards different avenues. It seemed to me that, as she levelled up, so did I. 

Inner Lyra also led me to be more comfortable around other strong characters and played a large part in landing the job I do now. Now alongside me I have an uncompromising paladin of a manager and a barbarian team leader both no bullshit, assertive bad asses... and both female!  

There are countless women to look up to when thinking about strong female archetypes, but how many people can look inwards to someone they have created to give them strength.  

Jerrie x