Gender-neutral playing cards replace king, queen and jack with gold, silver and bronze (so is it an ace idea?)
- Indy Mellik, 23, from the Netherlands, produced a gender-neutral pack of cards
- The forensic psychology graduate wants to challenge gender inequality
- She has already shipped 1,500 packs as far as Belgium, France and America
A forensic psychology graduate from the Netherlands has created a genderless set of playing cards in an attempt to combat gender inequality.
Card fan Indy Mellink, 23, initially came up with the idea while explaining the rules of a game to her cousins.
After some encouragement from her father, Indy decided to break the centuries-old tradition of a gender hierarchy in a deck of cards that ranked men higher than women.
She said: ‘If we have this hierarchy that the king is worth more than the queen then this subtle inequality influences people in their daily life because it’s just another way of saying ‘hey, you’re less important’.
Forensic psychology graduate Indy Mellink, 23, (pictured) from the Netherlands, has created a gender-neutral pack of cards to try and combat gender inequality
Indy’s unique take n the traditional pack of cards sees Kings, Queens and Jacks replaced by gold silver and bronze cards (pictured)
‘Even subtle inequalities like this do play a big role.’
After tinkering with a traditional deck of cards, Indy eventually produced a system that replaced the traditional King, Queen and Jack with gold, silver and bronze.
The first 50 of her new decks were quickly snapped up by friends and family members.
After the success of her initial packs of cards, Indy then had more of her GSB (Gold, Silver, Bronze) decks created and has been selling them online.
Within a month she had dispatched around 1,500 of the gender-neutral decks as far as Belgium, Germany, France and the United States.
Since seeing her decks take off in popularity, Indy has been testing them out on card players who had never been conscious of sexual inequality in cards before.
Berit van Dobbenburgh, head of the Dutch Bridge Association, said that it is important for people to reflect on gender inequality, but that it would be difficult to make a formal switch because the new crads would require official rule changes.
She said: ‘I wonder if it’s worth it. But gender neutrality, I am all for it! It’s great that someone of this age has noticed this. It’s the new generation.’
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