Which decks do you feel are anti-male ??

This thread is being created as an extension of the thread, which tarot deck was the most disappointing buy? And as thought-provoking and soul-searching as that was, the subject came up about decks that are anti-male, and/or excluding of men in their art or in their accompanying literature, the first one mentioned was MotherPeace, by Prudence, and since I don't own that deck I will move to the next example, Daughters Of The Moon. This is another round shaped deck, that was originally in black and white pen drawings and then later colored to stunning effect.

I spent the day looking at my DOM deck in between tasks, and it is definitely male exclusionary, although I did not get any strong anti-male vibe from it. It depicts the world of women, by women, and for women, as its main focus. The only males I see are, as a first example, in the alternate, non lesbian, lovers card....he's pretty androgynous and not overtly male looking. And why are the man and lady both underwater? Who is rescuing whom? Is the experience of hetero lovers akin to drowning in this card? I wonder what they are trying to convey here.

The next card to show a male is Pan, one of the 3 supposed Devil cards in this deck, I use this card as my Heirophant.....witty am I. The male here is obviously Michael Jackson, dancing with a small child of uncertain gender and three white goats. It's a very cute card and non-threatening but it seems to make a point of depicting Pan as a playful figure and not having an evil influence.....or does he? It's all in how you interperet the card, which is why I use it as the Heirophant. The Major Arcana of this deck is not numbered and some of them are ambiguous as to position, so I read the list for the deck description on this site and decided that Wise One is 4, Pan is 5, Coyotewomon is 9, and Oppression is 15, but that's my subjective choices only and not the actual intended positions.

As for other males, I looked at all the cards very carefully and saw many females of all ages and cultures, and many lesbian types including one with actual chin whiskers on the 10 of pentacles.....which is perfectly okay with me, but please correct me if that's actually a dude there because I am not 100 percent sure. (And as I mentioned before, my deck is missing its 6 of flames so can somebody scan that one for me so I can look at it too? Thanks in advance) And please don't jump on me for saying Lesbian Types even though it may not be PC, that's what's joyously depicted in the deck and I'm pretty sure they knew that when they drew it.

I know a lot of older decks have sexist, mysogynistic imagery, and we should open up this discussion to include opinions from both sides of the gender experience, but MotherPeace is where we started and that seems to be the biggest example so far of what is seen as anti-male or male excluding. How many tarot, oracle, divination decks have examples of this? DISCUSS.

Interesting topic! (as if I hadn't already weighed in with my opinion in that other place!)

There is, as I think I already said, a qualitive difference between a deck that celebrates womanhood, and an anti-male deck. To be pro-woman is not to be anti-man - the two things are completely different.

An anti-male deck, to me, would show male figures in negative roles victimising women: perhaps a man in the Tower card pushing a woman out the window while another man goes splashing petrol everywhere. A male Devil-card (from memory, the Motherpeace has a female Devil, but it's been a while since I pulled it out). The Ten Swords would, perhaps show a prostrate woman, with men pushing the Swords in. The Men would be shown as savage and vindictive, or perhaps as useless.

In a deck where there are few or no men, and what men exist are not seen in a particularly bad light, it is hard to sustain the belief that it is anti-male. It's just female-themed. You might as well say that a cat-themed deck or a herb-themed deck is anti-human, and the allegation would be as grounded in reality, what with the noticeable absence of humans.

And we have the Gay Tarot and the Everyman Tarot, both of them exploring the Masculine Mysteries - are we to suppose that their creators were anti-women, or were designing them for a perceived market of men who are anti-women? No. So why do we suppose this of feminine decks?

I am a woman. I am a woman who likes women. I don't have as problem with men - two of my very best friends are men. I enjoy female-centred decks. I enjoy traditional-style decks. And I enjoy male-centred decks.

I haven't yet found any Tarot deck pushing a hate-agenda against any demographic.

I don't think any deck is anti-male. None at all.

The nearest we get is excluding men to a greater or lesser extent. Or perhaps different values for depiction of women to those of men. Then the possibilities really open up.

I honestly think that LoS are the most brazen in this category. Erotic/sensual decks are basically women and a few buttoned up token men ("O-dear-I'd-make-the-Emperor-a-naked-supine-woman-if-I-could.")

This week sees the release of the"Nymph Tarot".I think we get the idea. I do wish LoS would be a bit more democratic with their depictions. They're not anti-Male by any stretch - no decks are I think, none that I've seen.

But many, many decks are mostly female in their depictions.

I've read with Daughters of the Moon and Motherpeace for years, and I never found anything anti-male in them. They do focus on women, but I don't see hate toward men (rather the message that it's great to be a woman). I can't imagine someone looking through an animal deck and saying it promotes hate toward humans just because its agenda may be the protection and appreciation of animals.

I've shuffled through both Motherpeace and Daughters of the Moon, but I studied their guide books to understand their perspectives. I'm a man.

Artistically, a key difference between them is that in Motherpeace, men are deliberately depicted as both sexually male and masculine gendered. Their shirts are off, their penises are suggested, they hold positions traditionally attributed to men in history, unarguable XY. In Daughters, the men represented are very androgynous. The male on the Pan card is fully clothed in clothes unsuggestive of a specific gender, his hair is long, and his facial features unsuggestive of man or woman. There are two Lovers cards, a hetero and a homo couple. The hetero couple is swimming underwater (see pic). Both of them, like Pan, are long-haired, indeterminate facial features, and both their bare chests and genitals are obscured by seaweed. Why was there a need to obscure the man's bare chest? The homo Lovers unarguably depicts two women, their breasts visible, embracing in a cave shaped like a vulva. It feels that Daughters wanted to visibly minimize the masculine features of the men, while Motherpeace did not.

http://www.asradel.com/aphrodite.jpg

From their texts, both decks imply that men have a responsibility to recognize the uniqueness and power of women, and to correct themselves by aligning their perspectives with "feminine" principles. Both claim that the proper man "is learning." The Pan card in Daughters says that the man depicted is a fulfilled one for attuning himself with womem and "recognizing magic, lunar consciousness, and the Goddess." Both books imply that technology is a product of oppressive male culture, and that the advancement of it led men to both dominate women and distance themselves from the natural and the magical, the domain of women. I heavily disagree with this arrangement of the world's spheres.

Motherpeace feels more antagonistic and places more blame on the male sex than support, and where men are mentioned, focuses on the roles they've played in subjugation of women. It feels angrier at men than Daughters does. However, Daughters includes some highly unsubstantiated historical claims, such as that Alexander "the Great" (quotations theirs) destroyed 6000 years of womyn's herstory when he burned the Library of Alexandria.

The Daughters deck also includes more goddesses in its cards than the Motherpeace, and the book's statements about the mythologies of some of these goddesses are questionable, both for excluding the roles male gods played alongside them, and what feels like reworking many legends to downplay men's involvement, when we know from many records that such wasn't the case. I don't particularly agree with falsifying or whitewashing legends to spiritually uplift women, but that was the point of this kind of perspective. It's no different from the Mists of Avalon that deliberately reworks the Arthurian narrative to increase the womens' involvement and influence. However, while Mists is marketed as purely creative, the Daughters myths are presented as the actual account with no claims to the contrary.

Both of these decks were created at a time when second-wave feminism was hitting its stride. They were intended as save havens where women could explore their spiritual identities in a space unobstructed by male influence. Neither feel like they are openly advocating the need to attack men in retaliation, but there is a sense of women being wounded by men and having a target of blame, which is both understandable and rational, for its intent. They don't call for the subjugation of men in return, but for their enlightenment and reconcilation with what women have to offer the world. These decks help give women that courage and power to positively influence the women and men in their lives.

Mother and Daughters weren't created for use by male Tarot readers, and neither of them give advice of what to do if a man were to use them. Indeed, Daughters recommends that a querent consult a "Tarotwoman" if she wants a reading from another person. Other female-oriented decks, such as Medicine Woman, openly encourage men to use them in the hopes that they'll recognize and focus on their perspectives to positively influence and be influenced by the women in their lives. Because of this, you might call some women-focused decks more exclusionary than others, but certainly not misandrist.

In contrast there are male-centered decks such as Sol Invictus that encourage men to focus on the divine masculine and how gods can positively influence us to be better human beings, and I believe it's exclusionary in that women aren't a focus, but they're certainly not enforcing a position of women as property or objects.

Part of the idea as to if a deck is anti-male or even anti-female would me what is the subject of the deck. If something like The Gay tarot didn't have women in it I can understand that the subject of the deck is going to be more one gendered. If the deck was say... The Cosmic Tribe and it featured 3/4 one gender over the other I would say that deck gets a big fail in trying to depict it's intent. For me, the Book of Shadows: So Below is a HUGE fail because Wicca as a religion strives for a balance between things and I think there are less then 12 men in the whole of the deck so based on the idea, or world, of the deck that is an epic fail. Is it anti-male? No, but is it really male friendly? not really. The first As Above was so interesting and well thought out that the So Below made me actually angry because it was such a stinker.

While we are on the subject what decks are pro-male? We can all point to the Sol or the Gay but are they REALLY it? With all the Goddess and pro-womyn decks out there us dudes get 2?

starlightexp said:

While we are on the subject what decks are pro-male? We can all point to the Sol or the Gay but are they REALLY it? With all the Goddess and pro-womyn decks out there us dudes get 2?

Click to expand...

There's also the Brotherhood and Son Tarots, but such decks have a Pagan slant and are exclusively geared toward gay men's spirituality, such as the Radical Faeries. This may be because Neopaganism and contemporary Wicca, religions that positively embrace Tarot, were also embraced by gay men as a welcoming spiritual space when other religions did not, so several decks exist for them.

But I'm of the mind that the Gay Tarot can also be used by bi, trans, and hetero men. There are spiritual elements not of any particular religious tradition. Except for five or six cards that are explicitly romantic or erotic, there's no indication that the men depicted are gay, since it just shows them in everyday life. There are cards of Pride parades, where straight men often march as our allies, but otherwise it's men in a variety of hobbies and occupations with no emphasis on sexuality. The point of the deck was to show how gay men are just like any other men, period, so I think any man comfortable with himself could use the deck well.

Since Tarot has been consumed by a largely female population since it boomed in the 1970s, the interest in creating decks around the male sex, or from a man's perspective, is comparatively low.

I agree that I've haven't seen, or can't recall, any deck that is knowingly anti some gender or the other. The concentration on one gender or lifestyle is a feature of some decks, but that's their point. One could accuse a bunny deck of excluding cats, but that's just because the creator decided to concentrate on bunnies. Cats can make their own decks. Not every deck can tell the whole story and be completely universal (except maybe the International Icon).

In the name of being politically correct, a deck I would rename would be the Housewives Tarot, to "kitchen" or something similar. I get it is a novelty or joke deck, and works well as such, but I still find the name a bit off-putting.

I think there is a big difference between being anti either sex and just promoting another. As Starlightexp mentioned, if a deck is geared to men or women, that doesn't make it necessarily ANTI the other gender. I have no problems with decks being geared to either sex, but I wouldn't like to see a deck BASH the opposite gender.

The question is whether there's a reason to drive home the point that the opposite sex must be hurt. It would then be up to the Tarot to reinforce that belief. Such a deck would surely have interpretations and imagery that are harsh, nasty, vindictive.

None of these decks do that. Their negative message is that one sex has been hurt by the other, and this imbalance needs to be corrected, whether it's by the female empowering herself by setting good examples, or the male having worthy examples to inspire him to be a better person.

The caveat is whether a deck unfairly sensationalizes that all members of the sex are hurtful and untrustworthy.

One reversed card for Daughters, I think it's Pan reversed, suggests that there is a man in your life who may taking advantage of you, and you should stop getting ripped off. But assuming the person is a man because you drew the single male card in the deck is little different from assuming that drawing a Queen card in a RWS deck always implies a woman.