Reverse gender courts?

[Masa]

I've seen a lot of people on these forums express confusion about the court cards, including the genders of those cards. For a lot of people, it seems very confusing to be reading for a man and draw a Queen, and in choosing significators, I think a lot of people just go straight to a Queen for a woman when maybe a King would suit her better. (My husband and I are generally the Queen and King of Wands, but the gender assignments are backwards.)

The thing is, the differences between queens and kings are important, and they're not biologically determined; it's a cop-out to say that all women are always better represented by queens. Some people (in some situations) are directly nurturing, and others inspire and lead more generally and less personally. And tarot /does/ hand us kings representing our mothers and knights representing our sisters, so it's something everyone has to deal with.

So, what if there were imagery for it to help guide people's thoughts. For me, it's so much clearer to look at something than to just ponder it abstractly. I mean, that's pretty much the mission statement of tarot in the first place.

I'm imagining a deck where all the Kings are women, and the Queens are men. In other decks, Knights are some somewhat more (and Pages are very much more) equally represented, so I'm less concerned about those--but still, it could be fun to play with. This concept could even just be limited to a mini-deck of 16 cards, not for readings so much as for study and clarification.

Last night, I sketched up a female clone of the RWS Knight of Cups, just as an experiment. I think the throned royalty would be more interesting, but I was fixating on this card anyway for unrelated reasons, so she's what happened. (Please don't mind the screwy chin guard, which I'll fix later. And I didn't bother with the horse yet, because they're both hard and not obviously gendered in tarot. )

Doing the cards as RWS imitations was my first thought, because I think the sex change might be more striking if there are no other changes to distract. On the other hand, it would probably be more fun to come up with original art. So I'm torn!

Anyway, what do you guys think about all this?

[Alta]

Originally Posted by Masa

Doing the cards as RWS imitations was my first thought, because I think the sex change might be more striking if there are no other changes to distract.

I see what you mean, but without any other changes, making the Knight simply clearly a woman is only puzzling. I would want some indication of why she is both a woman and a knight. A knight is an historical role, not played by women at the time they were active. To simply make it a woman without any aspect to suggest why or how, makes it look like a role in a movie rather than truly inhabiting the concept. It might be possible to stick fairly close to the original art and express this, though I am not sure how.

I do understand your lead-in ideas and am aware that a woman can be much more kingly in energy and will than a man. But with tarot it has to be symbolically clear as well. Just my thoughts.

Alta

[rwcarter]

I know the Manga Tarot by Lo Scarabeo did that with all of the cards.

Haven't run across any other decks with the gender switch.

[Masa]

Originally Posted by rwcarter

I know the Manga Tarot by Lo Scarabeo did that with all of the cards.

Haven't run across any other decks with the gender switch.

Yes, I love the gender swap in the pips of the Manga Tarot! A lot of cool stuff in there. Their kings and queens are still traditionally gendered, though.

[rwcarter]

Originally Posted by Masa

Yes, I love the gender swap in the pips of the Manga Tarot! A lot of cool stuff in there. Their kings and queens are still traditionally gendered, though.

Well, according to the LWB,

The names of the Court cards were therefore modified.
The Queen changes places with the King, whereas the Knight becomes the Princess and the Knave becomes the Prince.

I read that as the Queen taking on the King's role (although the card is still labeled Queen) and vice versa instead of just having a matriarchal court structure where the Queen wields the power.

[Masa]

Oho! Interesting, I didn't know about that. Thank you!

[vee]

I would love to see a deck where all the cards are reversed genders: Male High Priestess, Female Emperor, all of it. Doooo it.

[Masa]

Originally Posted by vee

I would love to see a deck where all the cards are reversed genders: Male High Priestess, Female Emperor, all of it. Doooo it.

Thank you! I thought maybe I was the only one interested.

The Manga deck is awesome, and I'll likely end up buying it, but it's slightly different from what I'm going for. It's one (awesome) thing to say, okay, the Empress is masculine and warlike while the Emperor is meditative and thoughtful. Or, the Magician is really a Sorceress.

But it seems like a somewhat different thing to say "This is a man, and he's tapping into the energies of the High Priestess." Men don't often admit to being inspired by female heroines; it's okay for girls to want to be like their dads, but it's not okay for boys to want to be like their moms. I think it would be fun to challenge that, and show these inspirations consciously working together.

So imitating RWS is probably the wrong move; people are likely to just see it as a gimmick, as mere cross-dressing. Maybe the art should emphasize the fact that I'm using these figures are archetypes more than as actual characters.

Maybe I could show, for example, an original design for a man acting Queen-of-Cupsy, and show a simplified RWS-style QoC superimposed somewhere else on the card? But that sounds pretty gimmicky, too. Hrmrmrmrm.

[Narwhallove]

Hey! I love, love this idea, and your beautiful, clear drawing. I know that we tarotists are supposed to know that this merely represents such-and-such energy, but for me, sometimes the boundaries are hard to cross. While I sometimes think of myself as of knight, I never think of myself as a king, even though I could. It just didn't occur to me till I read your thread. Silly, but true. I would love to see your progress with this idea!! Keep up those glorious drawings. Keep us posted.

[vee]

I don't know if it's gimmicky if that's a bad thing. People might say Tarot of the New Vision is gimmicky, but it also opens up a whole new perspective. *shrugs*

Looks like I need to check out the Manga tarot!