Dictionary

play the gender card en · VERB

(derogatory, idiomatic, often) To assert that sexism is involved in a situation, especially in order to exploit sexist or antisexist attitudes.
- […] the CAS was going to lose two of its best teachers; tolerate a mediocre one who had skillfully played the gender card by hiding behind her pregnancy; and retain an ineffective one. 2010, Robert Fedorchek, The Translators: A Novel, Bloomington: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 463:
- Oh, I don't wanna play the gender card card right now. You wanna play a card? Let's play the "let's not die" card. 2003, 01:04:56 from the start, in Finding Nemo, spoken by Marlin (Albert Brooks):
- What worries me is that she is accused of "playing the gender card" when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations. 2008 January 8, Gloria Steinem, “Women Are Never Front-Runners”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- How can you tell the difference between someone playing the gender card and someone actually calling out misogyny when you so obviously have no expertise on the matter? 2013 June 19, “Did someone play their gender card at you? Poor baby.”, in We, the Intelligentsia, …, archived from the original on 29 Mar 2014:

Spelling	Features	Source
playing the gender card	Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part	lexicographic
plays the gender card	Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres	lexicographic
played the gender card	Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part	lexicographic
played the gender card	Tense=Past	lexicographic