Invisible Pieces: Women in Chess

"Anyone saying women just need to work harder: you're right. They need to work harder to get to the same place as men. It doesn't mean that you didn't work hard to get your FM title (a couple upset FMs in this thread...), and it doesn't mean that you personally are a bad person and should be punished. It means that women face pressures that men don't have to deal with (whether you think those pressures are a big issue or not is irrelevant, you don't have to deal with them)."

Same place

#211

WFM ≠ FM

Just because women can get titled at a lower rating doesn't mean they can get the same title as men as easily... As Hyzer said, there are many barriers as mentioned in the article that try to stop them.

@ruzgar9543 yeah, I understanded that, but if 15 in 100 players are women, and they are as good as male players, there should be not only in the top 100 in that ratio, but across the world in the elite of every country. If you take the "patriarchy" as the reason because women aren't at the top, just pick the sample from a country that doesn't have, by definition, a patriarchy.

@notnotnotCarlsen you're the one saying patriarchy, as far as I recall the article blamed the misogynstic attitude of the chess community at large. Attitudes like yours.

It's really a shame that this is even a question in the year 2020.

Here is an excellent article on the topic that explains how an apparent gender gap in chess ability is really just a participation gap with an erroneous focus on the Top 100 players in the world: https://en.chessbase.com/post/what-gender-gap-in-chess

Basically, if you just correct for this participation gap, there is no gap in ability: for example, adjusted for participation, a greater proportion of female players are FIDE rated over 2,000. The average rating for females is...higher by 32 rating points. Is anyone really surprised by this?

Things will change. The #1 rated player in the USCF in the Age 7 and Under is a girl. Unless the system remains sufficiently toxic and sexist that talented women and girls don't want to play and instead pursue success in some other arena.

The problem of Women only titles has been debated among women players too and there are supporters as well as detractors.
The question that matters why was there a need to create those titles, and as per FIDE history it was necessary to draw in more number of participants to compete professionally and provide better chances.

But here lies the problem.
There has been ample evidence to suggest that cultural, religious, nationalistic situations across the world since ever majorly had men in power who made decisions for women and poor representation of women in policy and decision making resulting in their choices being discarded.

Another factor that FIDE had in mind was that most of the chess clubs were male dominated and the conditions were hostile enough to discourage women players from getting expert advice or from taking chess seriously.
To mitigate these already existing pathetic conditions, the titles were introduced in 1950.

These titles help women play professionally and earn well, which is better than what previously existed, bullying and autonomy by the majority, whatever the reason might be for men to behave that way during that time.
I agree most of it was in the past.
So the validity of these titles isn't the problem here but more about how the conditions present to women at this stage.

Is it just and conducive, do women feel safe enough to visit clubs, travel to tournaments just as men do? No, reality says otherwise(real life tournaments in India, from what I've seen)
And we men never need to worry about safety issues or playing or hygiene conditions because the world has been built that way to cater to the whims of men!

So how is it wrong for anyone to ask for better conditions in the name of equality in basic safety?
Note that this is the basic criterion before any other straw arguments are made about intelligence, attitude and what not.

When their life itself is subject to a considerably higher degree of risk, again, in comparison to men's, just to play the game, why would anyone work hard if immediate survival is a matter of grave concern?

@biscuitderg I do not have a hair of misogynistic. You are trying to prove my point false by attacking myself, and that is a fallacy. When I say patriarchy what I try to adress is the social obstacles that woman have to face than man don't, so more or less the same definition, with the exeption that mine is wider, because I include everything that the society might do to privilege the man or opress women. I am open to admit that I am wrong, because I am just giving my opinion, and I know that I don't know everything.
And a little thing, I would like you to tell me where I said something out of place, so I can improve my mistakes.

Excellent article! Finally someone said it. @notnotnotCarlsen, I challenge you to find a country that doesn't have social obstacles that women face and men don't. So far there are very few countries even remotely approaching this ideal and none at all that have reached it at this point in time.

Anonymous - I hear you.

Chess is for everyone. I'll try my best to act in a way that supports that view.

I don't have the answers to wider problems of toxic culture, narrow essentialist viewpoints, modern complications of historical imbalances between the sexes.

But I don't have to let that stop me. I can do something. I can direct my own behaviour towards inclusion, which is - if I understand the article - most of what you were asking for.

Nice!

Just a few critical points I think are worth making regarding the science in this article.

Writing “[…] now that it’s been firmly established that there are no neurological differences that can account for the lack of female world champions [...]” after citing a book and one study on navigation skills is... bold.
So is the authors dismissal of Short's point on the basis of him having “zero qualifications in the field of neuroscience” and “no authority on the subject” while making (highly contentious) scientific claims of her own without showing credentials.

I'm confident it is possible to write a thought-provoking essay on the topic from the very same perspective without resorting to hypocritical credentials fallacies or what I believe are dishonest misrepresentations of (what the author brands) "biological essentialism".
After all, the main societal critique points made in the article, whether one agrees with them or not, can be argued regardless of whether science says that male and female brains have some neurological differences.

Cheers.