The Poker Junkie Blog

We talked to a couple of colleague feminist bloggers about poker and gender. Here’s what they have to say.

Julie Zeilinger – The FBomb

Julie Zeilinger calls herself “one of the proudest teenage feminists of all”, which isn’t saying a little. She describes how the constant bad weather and non existing city life of her home town have made her comfortable with expressing her points of view loudly. Certainly not a bad upbringing, I’d say.

A poker home game, name three women-rights activist (famous or unknown) you would invite, and why?
-I’d go old school and invite Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Simone de Beauvoir, just because these women were really some of the first to verbalize women’s issues and actually do something about them. To do that in such a restrictive time, so entrenched in sexism, you’d have to be not only ridiculously confident, but brilliant to so eloquently speak about something nobody was even really thinking about at the time. I feel like those would be some good qualities in a poker player!

Which US politician do you think would be best at bluffing?
- Most of them. John Edwards did some pretty good bluffing lately…

Do men hold an advantage against women in games such as poker?
- Maybe this is just because I’m in high school right now, but from my daily experiences I think girls are much better at “strategizing” than guys. Girls are always planning ahead, always anticipating and noticing other people’s actions and reactions. I think that’s a definite advantage.

Would you mind dropping a line of encouragement to all our poker sisters out there?
- I think it’s so cool that you all are permeating the “men’s” world of poker. It’s so important that we prove to men what we’ve always known: women are capable of doing anything men can do.

Amy Rubinson – Appetite For Equal Rights

Amy Rubinson created the feminist blog Appetite For Equal Rights in 2008 to “counter the lack of coverage of women’s issues provided by mainstream media”, obviously a task just as enormous as necessary. As a fellow feminist blogger, Lady Junkie fully subscribes to Amy’s view that “feminist blogging is a way of challenging the patriarchy by giving women the voices they need but are often deprived of”.

A poker home game, name three women-rights activist (famous or unknown) you would invite, and why?
-  I would invite Angela Davis because she’s an extremely intelligent and interesting woman who I’m sure would have great stories to tell while we’re playing. I would also invite one of the gals at feministing.com (any one of them) because I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting them and I would love to hang out with one of them and discuss blogging! Lastly, even though she’s no longer with us, I would invite the suffragette Alice Paul because she’s tough as nails and probably wouldn’t complain if we took all her money in poker.

Which US politician do you think would be best at bluffing?
-  Supreme Court Justice Scalia. Because he’s so intimidating that any opponent would lack the cojones to challenge his bluff.

Do men hold an advantage against women in games such as poker?
I don’t think men are at all “naturally” better at poker than women are. Any advantage that men may hold, in my opinion, comes strictly from socialization, since our society tends to believe poker is more of a “man’s game” and thus men are more encouraged to play it. But I think any woman has the ability to kick ass in poker!

Would you mind dropping a line of encouragement to all our poker sisters out there?
- Keep playing, ladies! You’re awesome.

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— The World’s First Feminist Poker Blog —

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