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Is there an add-on for the "Go make me a sandwich" deck? Ok ok just kidding of course i do not want to wake up the mighty Ursula hehehe. Art looks OK but back is horrendous.. Pass

We want woman to be powerful so we will declare that the women in this deck are all men! I don’t think they thought this one through... Thus is the problem with turning everything even a deck of cards into a battlefield for social justice. Just take a normal deck and declare the queen more valuable than the king in your games of poker. But it’s more profitable to appeal to people’s sense that they have been wronged in a way they didn’t even know about yet!

This deck would only make sense if all values of all the cards were queen. A never-ending game of war! Hahahaha

The sentiment appeals to me, but I have so many questions.

• How does a limited run, custom deck of cards actually do anything to effect social change?
• It's run by two people in New York, but listed in Australian dollars. Why?
• How was the assertion of "this is the first deck to gender swap kings and queens" validated? This claim seems spurious from the outset.
• So, we know it's "310 gsm casino paper". Printed by who? With what coating?
• What's going on with these tiers?

All that aside, that back really is atrocious. It's the lazy first idea, first iteration of what could be a decent concept. The back of that tuck is super tedious as well.

Obviously these two don't know the history of playing cards.

I don't dare say what I first thought I read on the tuck in the mini KS link for the deck title.

For an all women deck I prefer Oleanna's work! Check out The Sensual Goddess Playing Cards in the Introduce yourself section.

http://www.sensual-goddess.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I can think of a few all queen decks, Giovanni's Eva is amazing, and The sisterhood of blood deck are the two that jump to mind. As for decks that gender swap king with the queen I actually cant think of any, but maybe thats because its a silly idea.

I like the idea. And, the artwork on the cards isn't a bad start.

As has been noted elsewhere above, the backs and the tuck need a complete overhaul.

There are, however, a couple of red flags here that go beyond the theme.

1) a first-time project creator who clearly demonstrates that they know very little about their art/topic of choice. Their project is littered with claims about the history of playing cards that are demonstrably false.

Let's just address the most obvious one: their tuck claims to be "The first playing cards in history where women are not outranked by men." Kirk Slater's Coven and Sisterhood of the Blood leap immediately to mind, as does Giovanni Meroni's Eva. For that matter, any number of "pin-up" playing card decks, including a couple of different quasi-recent Betty Page decks and the recent "Pin-up" deck from CPC, but this tradition stretches back decades, feature women depicted on all of the court cards. Granted, the pin-up decks are hardly feminist in nature. But Kirk's? Oh, yeah. The Kingdom of the Fourteen Ladies, currently seeking funding on KS? Arguably. But, this isn't even close to being the first deck with a feminist bent to it, let alone the first deck where "women are not outranked by men."

Don't get me wrong, I do like the premise of this deck: make the men Q's and the women K's. Even if it's not the first time this exact approach has been taken (and I'm not feeling like doing the research at the moment, but the project creators are clearly an unreliable source of information), it's still arguably a *novel* approach, and I'd like to see it done well.

2) The two project creators are said to be living in New York City, so why is the funding in Australian dollars? Are these going to be printed in Australia? I tend to avoid any project from first-time creators who are running the project in a currency different from their own, but those usually offer a compelling explanation. This one does not.

3) The very low project goal suggests that they may not be taking into account all of the costs associated with such a project. It also suggests that the cards are being printed on the cheap.

4) No mention of who the card manufacturer will be. I have only very rarely given a first-time project creator the benefit of the doubt here.

5) What of the Jacks? Are they depicted as women? Men? A mix thereof (Lorenzo Gaggiotti had fun with this in the Heretic deck, among others.) If they are all men, then men still outnumber the women in this deck. If they are women, why not proclaim that proudly?

6) What of the number cards? Is this a functional deck for playing? How attractive is it?

7) The back design is simply no good. I don't get the sense that the project creators are interested in re-working anything, however. They present themselves as people who already have it all figured out. (And, if they do stumble upon this page, I hope they read my comments here in the spirit of constructive criticism. Friends: the back design needs to be rethought from scratch. It needs to be two-way or have a good reason for not being two-way. It should contain more art than just one common symbol repeated over and over again. The design should in some way complement the design of the courts. It should be symmetrical and pleasing to the eye. Etc.)


I tend to get far more worked up by the stuff I *wish* I could sing the praises of than the stuff I flat out don't like. If there was nothing worthwhile here, I wouldn't even bother with a simple post that says nothing but, "Pass." These kids have touched a nerve with me. They have, at its core, a neat idea... but that's not enough. I'd like to see this become a fully realized deck of cards, rather than just a half-baked novelty.

PS: I see a bunch of you have already hit upon many of the same themes I have here. I tip my proverbial hat to you all.

A few of the many reasons I hate the concept and campaign:

1. Every feminist I have ever met claimed they were for equal rights/perception, but their actions spoke of women being superior to men. Many "feminists" give the actual activist group a very bad name.

2. "The fight against sexism which continues to plague the gaming community." The only time I've ever experienced sexists environments are with 70+year old men in Design/Engineering. My #1 defenseman in hockey is a woman. The campaign doesn't specify "the playing card gaming community" (if that's allegedly implied).

3. The deck isn't unique. Giovanni probably had his concept before these people graduated school.

4. The design is terrible.

5. Isn't it promoting inequality by having all "Kings" as females..? Wouldn't an equality deck have the highest ranks split 2/2? Don't answer that, it isn't worth my or your time...

I find this just entirely pretentious.

Based on everyone's analysis, I think we can conclude with:

There are many ways to effectively fight for social justice and equal rights. This is not one of them.


PS.Though, it should be noted that (I think) no female members have expressed their opinion yet. Previous posters, please forgive me for "assuming your gender"

I like those courts, but the back is poor design and so is the tuck. Also no pictures on the Jokers nor the Aces or pips. I don't mind the idea or the gender swaped courts, but be brave and just make an all female court deck.

When you browse the Internet, you can still see a lot of negativity towards women, which is really sad. There is a still of lot to be done to improve the position of women in western society, small portion of extreme feminists just ruin the repuation of the majority doing good things and fighting the good fight for women. A big part of the negativity and sometimes even outright hate on women on the internet has been caused by often idiotic ideas and comments by the extreme feminists, doing more harm than good for an important cause. Or maybe that seed of negativity has been there and they just fuled it, I don't know, point being here that feminism is a good and a valid cause, often tarnished by a small proportion of people.

Back to the cards, there are problems with this project, but they have designed nice courts. If these problems in the design were fixed and the rest would be as good as the courts, I might get this.

I think the Virginia Slims deck has a claim as an earlier deck with women as all of the court cards.

I remember my dad used to have an all women deck of playing cards. I used to love looking at it but I am not sure why he kept it so hidden in the bottom drawer of the dresser [BACON] [BACON]

Well, in looking at Kickstarter the campaign is already 63% funded. It does help having a reasonable funding goal. This deck doesn't excite me, but I am probably not the main target audience. I wish the campaign well though, so am glad it looks like it will meet it's funding goal.

I don't like the back design, I find it too simple plus it is a one way design.

Räpylätassu wrote:There is a still of lot to be done to improve the position of women in western society, small portion of extreme feminists just ruin the repuation of the majority doing good things and fighting the good fight for women.

That's kind of the problem, they're fighting just for their own gender but calling it 'equality' which last I checked meant everybody, not just females. So it's a little easy to see how many of them take it too far when it seems to all start with an us vs them perspective. To be honest they've kinda poisoned the water hole and the women who do actually fight for equality are jumping ship, I've never met a female that wants to be associated with feminism here in Aus. Fight for women by all means, just don't call feminism a fight for equality. I believe in true equality and that means levelling all sides of the multifaceted field (which of course doesn't include silly things like fat rights as that is a choice, you'd be surprised at the small amount of traction they're gaining, projections that by 2030 a full half of americans will be overweight don't bode well), now that won't happen in my lifetime unless I live to a few hundred but it's something we'll have to overcome if we as a race want to continue to move forward.

As for the deck itself? I actually don't half mind the courts, a bit boring sure but not unpleasing to the eye, lazy back design, lazy tuck design complete with nonsense about fighting for 'equality'. Hell could've called them Gender Swap playing cards for all they do, and maybe have a few more backers for it too.