Which made up probably 99.5% of the people engaged in miniature war gaming/medieval miniatures at the time and to whom the product was originally marketed.
Speaking as an early player of AD&D, and a purchaser of miniatures, the market was very white and very male, but I think the % of each is routinely overstated. As in so many other areas, no one saw the minorities who were there.
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Didn’t see them, and/or actively discouraged them. Gygax himself showed a pretty blatant misogyny when he started posting in online forums.
You might find something interesting on this list 21 Science Fiction And Fantasy Books With Powerful Women Protagonists
As for a personal choice. Any thing by Robin Hobb would be a good choice if she hasn’t already read it. I’d say start with the Assassins Trilogy but some find that slow and prefer the Live Ship Trilogy. The Live Ship Trilogy in particular features a female protagonist, the Assassins Trilogy does not.
+1 to the Golden Compass. Lyra is my favorite female protagonist in a fantasy world. Nothing really to do with her being female, she’s basically just a kid. Her best skill is talking and sometimes lying.
Another leading lady that comes to mind is Wicked, by Gregory McGuire. It’s kind of adult and dense-- with sex, murder, politics, philosophy, dark religion, and long descriptions. Nothing like the musical really, both more offensive and more boring. But the main character there is quite bad-ass and thoughtful.
I’m not much into anti-Christianity books
OP mentioned his kids were grown up, otherwise I’d probably have added some warning.
The books are mostly fantasy (witches, ghosts, swords, guns, airships, talking bears, etc.). The Church is a bad guy, but it’s not that shocking or exciting, unless you are really out of touch with world history. Or even recent history, considering the sex abuse conpsiracy.
I’d be a bit surprised if anyone reading it came to the conclusion that Christianity is wrong, unless they haven’t really seriously considered at all how Churches can be bad. And that would be a level of blissful naivety that’s not good for college students anyway imo.