Dudes & Tarot

Reading about an interesting mission

I’ve never really thought much about Tarot and gender. I’ve always known, as I’m sure most do, that the Waite-Smith Tarot was directed by a man and painted by a woman, and the Thoth was likewise. Lots of really old Tarot books were written by men, most nowadays seem to be written by women. But certainly Tarot speaks to people of every gender, I’ve learned a lot in a workshop taught by someone who is non-binary. Tarot is for all, and that is a truly wonderful thing.

Ain’t they pretty?

But it is impossible to not notice that when buying a deck of Tarot cards in a local brick and mortar shop, the person helping make your selection will most likely be a woman. When going to a Tarot group or event, most of the participants will be women. In today’s world it just doesn’t seem that men in general have nearly the interest in Tarot that women do.

I’ve seen that through the years, but never really paid much attention to it.

Recently though, I saw the following line in a Tarot post here on Substack:

And it got me thinking.

Why don’t more men engage with Tarot?

Specifically in 2025, since the written record certainly shows that plenty of men practiced Tarot long ago.

Can it be the rather frilly looking velvet Tarot bags? I’ll admit that I keep most of my decks in them, but alas, I could never be seen in public carrying one. Maybe we need some made out of Kydex or thick leather.

Honestly, I have no idea. But, one does have to wonder, at least a little bit, if the typical Tarot accessories don’t send the occasional man fleeing.

I don’t know, and this is all in good fun, but on reading the line above, I certainly started thinking a bit about it.

But we can’t just think.

We must act.

So, I had some Keystone Tarot hats made! Hats a man would wear. Hopefully!

That also meant that I had to change the purple colored buttons here on my Substack in order to match the hats. I hope you like the blue.

I’ve given you a lot of rambling words here, I guess what it comes down to is this:

It has never bothered me that men seem to be a small minority in today’s Tarot community. But, it would be nice to have a few more guys around. Maybe seeing the occasional Tarot themed baseball hat will convince some fellow who’s on the fence about Tarot that he won’t lose his ‘Official Man Card’ if he engages with Tarot.

Or, maybe, I just like hats.

Of course this does open up a new problem. Just what am I going to do with all these hats?