在纸牌游戏中，国王应该比王后更重要吗？

A woman in the Netherlands was unhappy that a king is more valuable than a queen in a deck of playing cards.

Indy Mellink, 23, went to school to study psychology¹. She wondered if that situation could be changed. She said rating² a male higher than a female was just another part of life that makes people think men are more important than women. Some people call this gender³ inequality. Instead, treating women and men the same, they say, is an example of gender neutrality.

Some people might say "it's just a card game." But Mellink does not agree. She said: "even subtle⁴ inequalities like this do play a big role" in influencing the way the world sees women.

So what did she do? Mellink thought for a while about how to change the pictures on the cards. After some time, she came up with an idea that most people know because of the Olympics.

The most important card would no longer be the king, it would be gold. The next card would be silver and the third, bronze. For that reason, Mellink's cards are now called GSB, which stands for Gold, Silver, Bronze.

She sold the first 50 decks to friends and family. The cards are now being sold online. About 1,500 decks have been sent to buyers around the world.

Card players involved in product testing said they had never thought about gender inequality in their games before. Changes to the rules of card games that rank the king above the queen may take some time. But, some serious players are trying out Mellink's cards.

Berit van Dobbenburgh is head of the Dutch Bridge Association. She gave it a try, and said she thought it was a good idea to think about gender neutrality.

"It's great that someone of this age has noticed this. It's the new generation," she said.

Words in This Story

deck- n. a complete set of playing cards; a group of 52 playing cards

gender- n. the state of being male or female

subtle- adj. hard to notice or see

role –n. the part someone or something plays in an activity or situation; the part an actor plays in a play or movie

association- n. an organized group of people who have the same interest, job, etc.

1 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

2 rating   

n.级别，等级，额定值，责骂，收视率

参考例句：

• It is a ship with a rating of 500,000 tons.这是一艘五十万吨级的船。
• The opinion polls gave the president a high rating.民意测验显示人民对总统的支持率很高。

3 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

4 subtle   

adj.难于觉察或描述的，精巧的

参考例句：

• Her whole attitude had undergone a subtle change.她的整个态度发生了微妙的变化。
• There's a subtle hint of garlic in the sauce.调味汁里稍微有一点蒜味。