Sunday 8 September 2013


Feminist Cards Against Humanity

The humourless feminist is a pretty persistent myth. She's a dumb bitch who can't take a joke, always making a fuss when really we have equality now amirite ladies. It's a myth made up to silence women. Can't you take a joke? And it's just that - a myth. I don't know what feminists you're hanging out with, but the feminists I know are some of the funniest people I've ever met.

Still not sure if these Feminist Cards Against Humanity cards have too many in-jokes.

The humourless feminist myth is a part of the culture we live in. The thing about culture is we don't just absorb it - we shape it, either through actions or silence.

Mixing feminist cards against humanity with the original funny CAH.a

I've written about Cards Against Humanity before. (If you've never heard of the game, go read that post.) It's a good example of bro-culture. In the original version of CAH, everyone has a penis and rape jokes are funny.

This is a screenshot from Questionable Content which is a rad webcomic and you should read it. It's not about bros.
via Questionable Content

But the game doesn't have to be played like that. It's released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license. "That means you can use and remix the game for free, but you can’t sell it."

I made a sanitised deck, removing all the rape jokes and Americanisms, and about half the boners. (You can download the PDF here.) To replace the cards I removed, I made my own deck, which has a lot of stuff specific to the female experience, like "period clots" and "skorts" to balance the bro-ness inherent in CAH. (You can download that PDF here. Remixes of CAH like this one are also under Creative Commons licensing, so you can correct that typo if you want, but I'm not going to bother.)

Feminist Cards Against Humanity kicks that up a notch. The jokes are about feminism, and being feminist, the struggle and how far we have to go still and damn if you don't laugh you'll cry.

Feminist Cards Agains Humanity uses the word "Mooncup" twice.

"Non-feminists" (by which I mean "people who didn't take any Women's Studies papers" not "raging bigots") will probably won't find this deck funny. That's because it relies on jargon. Every group has jargon. My pals have a joke which about the difference between Python and JavaScript or Pearl and Ruby - or anyway, there's these two programming languages and they're different and just because I don't understand why that's funny it doesn't mean it isn't. It just means I didn't take any CompSci papers. The onus is on me to repair this gaping hole in my knowledge, rather than demand that jokes only be told on my level. It's the same with this deck - if you don't think it's funny, it's probably not the joke's fault and when you're Card Czar you can always make the winning card about boners, every time.

FemCAH will answer all your questions about feminism.

There's not enough feminist Cards Against Humanity cards to make up a full deck, so mix them in with the deck you already have - and when you're playing with people who don't speak feminist, either take each card as a teachable moment, or institute a house rule which allows for the setting aside of confusing cards. I play by the latter as I can barely explain "intersectionalty" sober, and CAH is a party game which is enhanced by a certain level of intoxication.

Some Feminist Cards Against Humanity Cards refer to me personally.
Speaking of sobrioty - if you're going to hashtag, may I suggest #FemCAH rather than #FeministCAH to reduce typos. If you're feeling mischievous, you might also tag #CAH so it shows up in searches for the original game.

Finally, if you've played and enjoyed the game, please leave me a nice comment saying so. If you have a wicked idea for a card, leave that in the comments too.

15 comments:

  1. OMG!!! There has to be a part 3!!! I laughed my ass off! "Taking out IUD without medical supervision" I can so relate to most of these cards wither from my life or my friends. They are hilarious, absurd, yet- more realistic than the original set.

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    1. Glad you enjoy them! Play it, pass it around (a deck makes an excellent Christmas gift for your feminist friends, trust me on this!).

      I don't have any ideas for a part three at the moment, but I certainly haven't ruled it out - if you make one and link to it, I'll tell everyone!

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  2. As a self-described "male feminist" who has taken and thoroughly enjoyed several Women's Studies college classes, I am proud to say I am a heterosexual man who definitely speaks the jargon, and I absolutely LOVE this!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it! And as a "real" feminist, I give you permission to take away the quote marks around male feminist. Welcome to the club!

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  3. Definitely looking forward to including these in my game. I came across a more recent blog called Ladies Against Humanity and I started google-ing who else had made more female oriented cards. Great work!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed them, Shanna! They've really improved my experience of the game :D

      The link should lead you to a PDF you can download. I'm not the best at keeping copies of working files, sorry - the PDF's probably the best I can do.

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  4. PS - do you have a text version of the cards available? I'm planning to print some new cards on custom playing cards rather than on paper or card stock.

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  5. FECK YEAAAAH!!

    this makes my day!

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  6. I love these but the original deck definitely touches on suffrage and I believe a couple of other feminist issues. I know the creators are "straight white guys" but even then I feel like the cards could fall into anyone's humor. You should print them out as a whole actual card-sized deck!

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    1. Definitely, I love the original game too!

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  7. Played this with my amazing feminist friends and we had a BALL

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  8. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! CAH can be such a triggering game and your version helps to make it fun for a more broad range of people! I love it!

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  9. These aren't the same size as the actual game. I would like to just include them with the game I already have. Do you have a printable version that matches the original game? That's kind of annoying...

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  10. I love you right now! I am so glad you did this and it is funny too xoxoxo

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