Why women use the rider waite smith tarot deck, made by a man
I’ve recently gotten interested in tarot. I know the rider Waite smith deck is something that everyone uses. I looked into the history a bit and this deck was made by a man in the early 1900’s. A woman painted the images according to his instructions. Eventually this deck became mainstream and everyone uses it today.
The RWS seems to have been intended mainly for bigger spiritual life questions, which you can understand when you look at the cards as they are quite “big” and spiritual cards.
I respect the deck, it’s quite versatile and I understand why many like it.
But some things about it makes me think.
You can tell this deck was made by a man as it depicts mostly men. Approximately 72 men to about 30 women. There are kings and queens equally, then there are knights but no respective maidens or princesses. The authority like the hierophant depicts a man. The fool is a man, the magician is a man, the men fighting in the images are all men.
Many spiritual people seem to think this deck is complete and practically perfect, which I don’t agree with.
I believe that had this deck been made from scratch by a woman, it would look very different. Maybe it would be empowering for women, instead of reinforcing or reflecting the patriarchy, which it absolutely does. It was made in the early 1900’s, so it makes sense it was made that way. Again, by the mind of a man at that time. One can imagine that his own biases and internal stories are intertwined with the deck.
Today, it’s mostly used for love readings.
I know many resent that, many tarot readers are like here we go again, another woman wanting to know about her love life and not career. And some tarot readers take advantage of that and make YouTube channels feeding people’s delusions and calling every avoidant man their twin flame or soulmate.
However, I think it makes perfect sense why women go to tarot for love questions:
Men hold the power in society. Women are generally open, giving and nurturing. We want communication, openness, mutually, and shared love. Men weren’t raised like that. They all struggle with feeling, expressing or knowing their emotions more or less. By the time women reach adulthood, most are quite ready for a loving, committed relationship. While men aren’t, because they weren’t raised with the relational responsibility, accountability, emotional landscape, relational respect and empathy women were raised with. There’s a mismatch here. That’s why men’s emotional and verbal silence in relationships hold power over women. Especially when these relationships turn emotionally manipulative from the man’s side, which isn’t too surprising if you think of men not being emotionally mature due to how they were raised. Children do what they can to get what they want, they are sneaky and they lie and they manipulate in order to get candy or dessert, or other things out of their parents. That’s normal in childhood, but that behavior shouldn’t be from adult men.
With that said, this silence holds power over women, and naturally puts them in anxiety spirals. It’s not that women are anxious, it’s that their attachment system is activated when someone withholds love, communication and openness. This leads women to turn to answers elsewhere. Where else is she going to find out if he truly loves her or not? He won’t tell her. He won’t communicate. He’ll act one way and say something else and still call it love. It is confusing, especially for young women who are new to life, adulthood and the experience of relational manipulation.
I’m trying to say, I understand why women turn to tarot for love questions. Especially considering many women know what they want out of their career and their lives. Many women are confident and powerful and they don’t need tarot for other things. Love is where women often “fail”, not because it’s their fault, but because men are incredibly difficult to share a healthy love relationship with.
With that said, I often wonder why tarot readers keep turning to the RWS deck considering all of these things.
I know there are many other types of cards like oracle decks, and I’m personally using other decks for love readings. But it just makes me wonder if any other feminist has pondered about this (if you are into spirituality and tarot): that maybe RWS isn’t the best deck to be a mainstream deck, not for the type of questions women often turn to tarot for. If you want to know about bigger life questions, the deck is probably excellent, minus it being kind of patriarchal…
I know many tarot readers find the RWS deck complete and I personally really like the idea of those archetype cards. But if it was made out of the point of view of a woman, I think we’d see even better/improved or more suitable archetypes and storylines for the way *we* as women experience life. Not from the mind of a man.
There are many typical and common archetypes in society and states people operate out of. More than those we see in tarot. I made my own deck, and I was fun to think of what kind of archetypes actually exist, what’s lacking in the RWS deck, and even how to make it gender neutral with some of them.
Just wanted to share my thoughts on that. Would love to know if there’s other feminists out there who are spiritual and have been thinking the same thing. I think we need far more things made by women for women. Including in spirituality (and religion).
I’d LOVE to see a standardized tarot deck for women but completely new and reimagined. An entirely new system. Maybe based on nature, connection, the sky, the stars, animals and our own cycles and the moon cycles. Something that applies on our own point of view, or life cycles, being a young girl, a young woman, a mature woman and a wise woman. A woman who reaches menopause and all the life chapters and developments of a woman. And how to navigate love and come out of harmful relationships and how to not fall for tricksters and how to heal oneself. Things that actually applies to our lives, every day, every life chapter.
Not a patriarchal society of ranks (kings and queens and homeless etc as in the RWS deck).
Disclaimers:
I don’t want to hate on the RWS deck, so I hope no one gets defensive if you love that deck. I totally understand why!
And yes before anyone says it, I know you can turn to oracle decks many which are more suitable for love, which again I personally do, but I’m doing a bigger commentary on why we as a culture, we women, use the RWS deck when I deeply believe a tarot deck like that could be completely reimagined and improved upon by feminist women!💗