Card games and Invisible Power Dynamics

🏫 Rebel Princess Stories

My daughter received her first set of school grades last week. To celebrate the occasion, we surprised her with a modular kid's sofa set that can be used for multi-purpose play. Naturally, one of the first things she wanted to build was a castle. She was feeling cheeky and decided to outsource the work to me. When I was done, I said, "Your Highness, your castle awaits."

Her answer caught me by surprise: "Why do you call me Your Highness? I'm not a man." Of course, I quickly explained that the title is gender neutral. But, that simple interaction reminded me again of why I write about this. A six-year-old had already absorbed that power, authority, and “highness” default to male. If bias is learned quietly and early, then counter-signals have to be just as quiet, just as early, and woven into everyday life. That’s why I care about small design choices: like which characters lead the story, who gets to be clever, or even which cards outrank the others.

♣️ ♦️ ♥️ ♠️ Card Games with Queens on Top

Gender bias doesn’t arrive as a lecture. It sneaks in through repetition, defaults, and invisible hierarchies. So we try to interrupt those defaults wherever we can, especially in play! Here are 2 games (believe me, I tried to find more! 😮‍💨 ) that can be played with a regular deck of playing cards and have Queens outranking Kings:

• Doppelkopf - A secret partnership trick taking game popular in Germany where Queens are the highest face card trumps in the game while the Kings are even below the Jacks! Talk about flipping power dynamics.

• Sheepshead - This is the American cousin of Doppelkopf. It actually retains more of the mechanics of its ancestral inspiration 👇

Both games descended from Schafkopf, a centuries-old Bavarian game referred to as the “mother of all trump games.” We didn’t include it as a reco because, in its original form, the highest trump (Ober) was visually male. Its Queen-dominant descendants were the first to introduce a clearly female visual as the strongest cards in the game.

 💡 Redesigning the defaults with simple card games

Call it affirmative action for gender bias if you like. I prefer to think of it as redesigning the defaults. My daughter will inevitably learn the mainstream card games. As much as I can, I want to normalize games with Queens on top. I want her to grow up seeing men enjoy games where women hold the power, without it needing explanation. The 2 games I mentioned are still beyond a six-year-old, but this practice isn’t only for her. It’s for me too: a way to unlearn cultural habits and quietly rewire what feels “normal.” If these games are already my default, she won’t need an invitation later. She’ll simply step in when she’s ready.

For younger kids, it’s super easy to redesign card games with a Rebel Princess spin. Some ideas for you:

The Queens Fish: (2-4 years old) One of the first card games toddlers learn is Go Fish. 🐠 It’s about matching cards and doesn’t have a hierarchy. But we can easily introduce one for purposes of cultural counter-programming. Make the Queens a special card that allows you to ask for 2 numbers instead of 1.

Magic Queens: (2-4 years old) Very similar in gameplay to Uno or Mau-Mau 🙈, Crazy Eights is a shedding game played with regular playing cards where Eights are wild. You can just make the Queens the wild cards instead or assign different special powers (e.g. wild card, reverse order, draw 2, skip) to the 4 Queens. 🪄

But please please please, as an act of kindness (to your daughter and yourself), level them up to Rebel Princess certified games as soon as they’re in school. 🙏 👇

⏭️ Other Rebel Princess Certified Content

If your daughter is too young for playing cards, we have other play recommendations:

• 🎲 Top 5 Board Game Recos: From an Uno-like game with math and totally suitable theme of Queens saving Kings to a resource management game played in Marie Curie’s life timeline and helping her win her double Nobel Prize!

• 🎮 Top 5 Video Game Recos: From photographing wildlife and saving dolphins to a magical Mongolian riding adventure.

Dedicated to our Trailblazers in Tiaras,

Rebel Princess Dad