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The 23-year-old forensic psychology graduate, encouraged by her father, decided it was time to break with the centuries-old tradition of sexual inequality in playing card decks that rank men above women.
“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,” she said in an interview. “Even subtle inequalities like this do play a big role.”
After a lot of trial and error, she designed a genderless deck in which the images of a king, queen and jack were replaced with gold, silver and bronze.
Friends and family snapped up the first 50 decks of GSB (Gold, Silver, Bronze) cards, which have images of gold bars, silver coins and a bronze shield. Mellink had more made and began selling them online.