At the height of the pandemic, Indy Mellink decided to use her newfound free time in an attempt to “dismantle the patriarchy” with playing cards. The 23 year old Dutch women created a deck of cards that eliminated the use of the King, Queen and Jack imagery.
A New Hierarchy
Mellink took issue with the stereotypical, hierarchical depiction of men over women in standard playing card decks. As a result, she replaced Kings, Queens and Jacks with gold, silver and bronze and named it GSB Cards.“The reason I did this is because traditional card packs portray the stereotypical gender roles of the man, which is the King, above the Queen, which is a woman,” Mellink said in a promotional video. “And all of them are usually white people.”According to Mellink, she had a discussion with her parents after thinking about the issue. It was her parents that ultimately told her to create a new, more inclusive deck.
“We experienced another hard lockdown in the Netherlands so I had extra time on my hands,” Mellink said in an interview. “I always enjoy playing card games with my friends and family every summer so I was brainstorming a card game myself and as I was going through the standard explanation in my head I suddenly said, ‘Yeah, okay standard hierarchy, King above Queen above Jack.’ And then suddenly something clicked in my head like, woah, wait a minute why is the King worth more and the Queen worth more than the Jack?”
Women and Poker
Since Mellink claims that using playing cards which promote the patriarchy has “subtle inequalities” that “do affect people,” it seems pertinent to examine women, the subjects of that inequality, in the poker world.Last year, 2,000 women participated in an 888 Poker online survey to document their experiences playing poker. It was found that 56% of women have never played poker before, only 16% play once per week and 32% agreed that they felt less inclined to play because of their gender.
More recently, a WSOP dealer expressed sexist remarks while dealing at a ladies event.
Dealer just told our whole table “I dealt a ladies event at the golden nugget once and swore I would never do it again”…here at the @wsop ladies event. Well sir let’s get you TF out of here then.
— Kyna England (@Kyna_CooL) October 11, 2021
Backlash
The cards launched in October of last year, and, as of this April, Mellink has sold more than 5,000 packs of GSB cards to over 45 countries. Despite the success, it hasn’t been all smooth-sailing for the young entrepreneur.The popular British conservative news anchor Piers Morgan took issue with the problem during a segment on Good Morning Britain.
“Why don’t you get a life, and focus on things that matter,” Morgan said. “Go work on a vaccine that can be faster rolled out.”Twitter users also took issue with the project.
In other #Snowflake news, I have recently discovered that they now make gender neutral playing cards, since the king card holding a higher value than the queen has a direct influence in real life, causing women to feel less important. Yep, almost spat out the morning coffee, 🤣
— Jack Campbell (@_JackCampbell__) January 20, 2021
Will It Work?
It’s clear that there are inequalities between men and women which should be remedied, but will using a different hierarchy on playing cards really alter the way a society thinks?Playing cards date back to fourteenth century Europe, an era where, you guessed it, men ran nations and empires. Yes, the imagery and ranking of the cards could be argued as a “relic of the past,” but applying modern ideas like sexism and racism to a centuries-old invention is nothing short of rewriting history.
Perhaps changing the imagery makes Mellink and her customers believe they are making a change in the world, but the reality is changing some images on 52 small pieces of cardboard is hardly impactful.