“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman”, wrote Virginia Woolf, and the truthfulness of her words is confirmed every time we ask someone to name 5 female philosophers or scientists. Fierce Women card game is our way of changing the status quo.
How did it start?
Fierce Women card game was developed in organization called Common zone founded in 2005. with the goal to promote gender equality, social justice and independent culture. Common zone’s most popular and regionally recognized project is nonprofit media VoxFeminae.net, active for 13 years, and it’s section called Fierce Women, consisting of more than 300 biographies of women who made great contributions to society, like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Marija Jurić Zagorka and Marie Curie, was always the readers favourite. Thinking about how to reach even more people with the stories of Fierce Women, Common zone’s founder, and a big fan of board and card games, Gabrijela Ivanov, came to the idea to develop a game… At the end of 2017 we had a prototype!
Author and computer programmer Želimir Periš designed an original gameplay we are very proud of, and 8 Croatian female artists created the illustrations.
Crowdfunding campaign
When we presented the game to the public reactions were very positive and that is why we decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign via Indiegogo platform on International Women’s Day in 2018. Our goal was to fund the production of 1,000 Fierce Women decks (on English language) and start a social enterprise for the development of products that promote gender equality and social justice. More than 700 people from 40 countries backed us and the campaign gathered 32 000 US dollars making it possible for us to realize what we have promised.
Awards and achievements
Support programs for Entrepreneurial Projects ‘Start Something of Your Own’ from The Act Group gave us an additional boost. We founded the social enterprise FIERCE WOMEN d.o.o. in order to develop and distribute the game and complementary products. Fierce Women card game is currently available in more than 50 bookstores and stores in Croatia and via Etsy, and another 1,000 custom copies have been made for the Italian market (in Italian language). Also, we became one of 5 recipients of the “Bold” program of IKEA and MASTERCARD and were awarded a contract with IKEA Croatia. Thanks to this, we were able to publish the game in Croatian language and since International Day of Human Rights 2019. Fierce Women card game became available in IKEA Croatia.
We believe in learning through socializing and fun and want to contribute to the development of a society that is unburdened by sex and gender categories. The SozialMarie Award for Social Innovation, which we won in 2019, tells us that we are on the right track.
Game authors
Gabrijela Ivanov
Želimir Periš
IllustratorsAna Kovačić
Branka Nikolić Hollingsworth
Nataša Rašović Bodiš
Rina Barbarić
Sanja Stojković
Tea Šokac
Ivana Štrukelj
Željka Tkalčec
DesignTajana Trupeljak
Tea Šokac
Jimbo Bernaus
Fierce Women teamDiana Bekavac
Noah Pintarić
Željka Vučković
Marino Čajdo
Emina Hermann
Tihana Bertek