I agree with the blog post. FIDE has lost an opportunity to align itself with the happiness and well-being of the wider chess community and instead it has shown itself to be invested in narrow financial interests.
@pawnartist said in #170:
> As long as they get penis pumps to sponsor the men's world champs we're good..
youtu.be/dy40xASCl00
> As long as they get penis pumps to sponsor the men's world champs we're good..
youtu.be/dy40xASCl00
I'm not sure I agree with the thrust of the blog post and find it to be the kind of preachy, moralistic feminism that denigrates other women for their life choices.
Who is the author to deem people insecure because they want cosmetic surgery on their breasts, while simultaneously dismissing the medical work that makes up 20% of the sponsor's business as irrelevant because not all breast cancer survivors opt to have it?
If the surgery makes women feel more secure about their appearance, why should they not opt to have it, provided there is not some underlying body dysmorphia that could be better treated using other methods?
And when a company caters to the demands of a subset of exclusively female clients, why should they not provide much needed sponsorship to an exceptional group of women who focus on intellectual pursuits?
Would say a women's fashion or makeup company be any better? They actively promote the kinds of insecurities the author refers to, but if Gucci were to come along as sponsors, would the author have written the same article? I think probably not.
Who is the author to deem people insecure because they want cosmetic surgery on their breasts, while simultaneously dismissing the medical work that makes up 20% of the sponsor's business as irrelevant because not all breast cancer survivors opt to have it?
If the surgery makes women feel more secure about their appearance, why should they not opt to have it, provided there is not some underlying body dysmorphia that could be better treated using other methods?
And when a company caters to the demands of a subset of exclusively female clients, why should they not provide much needed sponsorship to an exceptional group of women who focus on intellectual pursuits?
Would say a women's fashion or makeup company be any better? They actively promote the kinds of insecurities the author refers to, but if Gucci were to come along as sponsors, would the author have written the same article? I think probably not.
The irony in this whole thing about women only events is to promote females in chess and encourage young girls to continue. What message does this send to the next Carissia Yips who are 10-15 years old when they see sponsors' ads which advertise these kind of things?
I am sure there will be a 30 year wait, then all of a sudden 100 women players will complain about some notable male chess player and he will move into Cosby's cell.
I am sure there will be a 30 year wait, then all of a sudden 100 women players will complain about some notable male chess player and he will move into Cosby's cell.
@Lichess said in #1:
> Comments on lichess.org/blog/YVWlhhIAACUAp9eF/fide-picks-breast-implants-as-a-sponsor-for-womens-chess
If I didn't already love you people for creating a perfect example of how technology should be used - open source, no schnick-schnack - I'd do now, for writing such a well-researched and necessary article.
I do want to believe in honest mistakes, but it is really hard to imagine, that this isn't the result of someone within FIDE actually finding it funny to signal to women and girls, that their place isn't at the chessboard, but on the operation table and then using victims of breast cancer to get away with it.
> Comments on lichess.org/blog/YVWlhhIAACUAp9eF/fide-picks-breast-implants-as-a-sponsor-for-womens-chess
If I didn't already love you people for creating a perfect example of how technology should be used - open source, no schnick-schnack - I'd do now, for writing such a well-researched and necessary article.
I do want to believe in honest mistakes, but it is really hard to imagine, that this isn't the result of someone within FIDE actually finding it funny to signal to women and girls, that their place isn't at the chessboard, but on the operation table and then using victims of breast cancer to get away with it.
@mastermind91 said in #148:
> I dont understand why women are asking for ,,more money in women chess,, while they are fully allowed to play in men tournaments? The feminsts are saying that men and women have the same potential , still they separate the chess game of men and women. This is total nonsense. If you want to play for same money as men, just play the same tournaments as them. You are allowed to do it . Why is that so hard to get?
The idea is to counteract against conditions that are and have been detrimental to women in chess for decades of not centuries.
I'm a man and from a young age, I have been involved in several fields of competitive sport. There is not a single sport I did where I don't remember one or more trainers discouraging girls or women from becoming successful. While I enjoyed the very encouraging mixture of talking me up and pushing me to my limits, I've seen trainers doing exactly the opposite to girls: taking them down while not giving them opportunities to become better. On top of that, I remember far too many occasions in which trainers made awkwardly sexist comments towards girls; I've seen several trainers silently kicked out (probably just transferred) because of open sexual harassment. And this is just what I personally know. Of course, boys and men can also be victims of such assholes and it will be detrimental to their sportive development.
You don't become a world class player in anything over night. You do need to overcome hardship, but you also need a nourishing environment that gives you a real chance and pushes you forward. No one can do it without that - not in today's competitive world. If - on the other hand - people decide to sabotage you, be it because of our gender, the color of your skin or because they don't like your parents - this has a huge effect not only for the moment, but can set you back for years.
This is happening all the time and for decades this wasn't even considered a problem. It happens more often to girls than to boys (but of course it is unfair and disgusting either way), because for decades sexism and even sexual violence was considered not to be something that needs to be addressed as a structural problem, but a problem that the victims need to deal with.
Now, the world is changing and many people, including more and more men, do not accept their female friends to be bullied and harassed like this anymore. This means, things are slowly starting to change and with that comes the necessary, and often hurtful understanding, of what had happened and may still be happening. If you like your sport, of course it is neither pretty nor easy to accept, that people you may have looked up to, may in fact be complete assholes, for bullying and sabotaging peoples efforts.
So what do you do? Leave the sport, thinking that if so much shit happened and so many people looked the other way, that the entire thing is too rotten? Or do you choose to be open about what has been wrong and find a way forward?
If you love the sport - chess in this case - for what it is, you may feel the need to make efforts to rewind the bad effects. One way of doing that is of course to act against continued discrimination, bullying, harassment and so forth. Another way is to consider the damage that has been done and to make efforts to specifically encourage people, that have been drawn away, to come back and give it another shot. This needs trust and I think that establishing women's leagues can be part of such a strategy.
By the way: This may be even true for sports that are way more physical than chess, as it is completely unclear whether certain physical attributes like muscle density may have been influenced by a few centuries of women being treated as less than men, giving less food and so forth. You can see this for people whose ancestors had not enough to eat - this translates directly to them. To change that you need several generations.
To give you a very typical example: People thought that humans from certain areas of the world are just naturally smaller than those from other areas. Then look at what a few generations of good nutrition changes. The stereotypes may prevail for a bit, but the fact is, that height differences disappear. My suspicion is that this could be the same for other seemingly natural differences, as soon as you get rid of the detrimental circumstances. And that's just what the specific focus on women's chess is about: despite a dark past, encourage women and girls to find their love for chess without being hindered and harassed. My guess is that at the latest in ten or twenty years we will see many more women competing in the open section of chess successfully alongside men.
What FIDE did there was a typical example of a set-back and that's why the article by Lichess is so neccessary.
> I dont understand why women are asking for ,,more money in women chess,, while they are fully allowed to play in men tournaments? The feminsts are saying that men and women have the same potential , still they separate the chess game of men and women. This is total nonsense. If you want to play for same money as men, just play the same tournaments as them. You are allowed to do it . Why is that so hard to get?
The idea is to counteract against conditions that are and have been detrimental to women in chess for decades of not centuries.
I'm a man and from a young age, I have been involved in several fields of competitive sport. There is not a single sport I did where I don't remember one or more trainers discouraging girls or women from becoming successful. While I enjoyed the very encouraging mixture of talking me up and pushing me to my limits, I've seen trainers doing exactly the opposite to girls: taking them down while not giving them opportunities to become better. On top of that, I remember far too many occasions in which trainers made awkwardly sexist comments towards girls; I've seen several trainers silently kicked out (probably just transferred) because of open sexual harassment. And this is just what I personally know. Of course, boys and men can also be victims of such assholes and it will be detrimental to their sportive development.
You don't become a world class player in anything over night. You do need to overcome hardship, but you also need a nourishing environment that gives you a real chance and pushes you forward. No one can do it without that - not in today's competitive world. If - on the other hand - people decide to sabotage you, be it because of our gender, the color of your skin or because they don't like your parents - this has a huge effect not only for the moment, but can set you back for years.
This is happening all the time and for decades this wasn't even considered a problem. It happens more often to girls than to boys (but of course it is unfair and disgusting either way), because for decades sexism and even sexual violence was considered not to be something that needs to be addressed as a structural problem, but a problem that the victims need to deal with.
Now, the world is changing and many people, including more and more men, do not accept their female friends to be bullied and harassed like this anymore. This means, things are slowly starting to change and with that comes the necessary, and often hurtful understanding, of what had happened and may still be happening. If you like your sport, of course it is neither pretty nor easy to accept, that people you may have looked up to, may in fact be complete assholes, for bullying and sabotaging peoples efforts.
So what do you do? Leave the sport, thinking that if so much shit happened and so many people looked the other way, that the entire thing is too rotten? Or do you choose to be open about what has been wrong and find a way forward?
If you love the sport - chess in this case - for what it is, you may feel the need to make efforts to rewind the bad effects. One way of doing that is of course to act against continued discrimination, bullying, harassment and so forth. Another way is to consider the damage that has been done and to make efforts to specifically encourage people, that have been drawn away, to come back and give it another shot. This needs trust and I think that establishing women's leagues can be part of such a strategy.
By the way: This may be even true for sports that are way more physical than chess, as it is completely unclear whether certain physical attributes like muscle density may have been influenced by a few centuries of women being treated as less than men, giving less food and so forth. You can see this for people whose ancestors had not enough to eat - this translates directly to them. To change that you need several generations.
To give you a very typical example: People thought that humans from certain areas of the world are just naturally smaller than those from other areas. Then look at what a few generations of good nutrition changes. The stereotypes may prevail for a bit, but the fact is, that height differences disappear. My suspicion is that this could be the same for other seemingly natural differences, as soon as you get rid of the detrimental circumstances. And that's just what the specific focus on women's chess is about: despite a dark past, encourage women and girls to find their love for chess without being hindered and harassed. My guess is that at the latest in ten or twenty years we will see many more women competing in the open section of chess successfully alongside men.
What FIDE did there was a typical example of a set-back and that's why the article by Lichess is so neccessary.
Chess is asexual. There is no inherent advantage between men and women on the chessboard unlike in most other sports yet women who play chess still get their own tournaments and even titles. Why? It's because they aren't as good. Way better than I will ever be, sure absolutely, but the top 50 chess players today are all men.
If they aren't happy about the sponsors that FIDE chooses, maybe the FIDE should get rid of gender specific titles and make them Co-Ed and just celebrate and seek sponsors for chess. Not womens chess. Just chess. See if they are happy then. (They won't be)
If they aren't happy about the sponsors that FIDE chooses, maybe the FIDE should get rid of gender specific titles and make them Co-Ed and just celebrate and seek sponsors for chess. Not womens chess. Just chess. See if they are happy then. (They won't be)
Finding sponsors for chess is difficult, and I would assume even more so for women's chess.
However, this was a bad decision by FIDE.
Aside from the company selling breast implants, the fact that the company so flagrantly violates research ethics basically makes it black money.
However, this was a bad decision by FIDE.
Aside from the company selling breast implants, the fact that the company so flagrantly violates research ethics basically makes it black money.
@skoua said in #177:
> By the way: This may be even true for sports that are way more physical than chess, as it is completely unclear whether certain physical attributes like muscle density may have been influenced by a few centuries of women being treated as less than men, giving less food and so forth. You can see this for people whose ancestors had not enough to eat - this translates directly to them. To change that you need several generations.
>
> To give you a very typical example: People thought that humans from certain areas of the world are just naturally smaller than those from other areas. Then look at what a few generations of good nutrition changes. The stereotypes may prevail for a bit, but the fact is, that height differences disappear. My suspicion is that this could be the same for other seemingly natural differences, as soon as you get rid of the detrimental circumstances. And that's just what the specific focus on women's chess is about: despite a dark past, encourage women and girls to find their love for chess without being hindered and harassed. My guess is that at the latest in ten or twenty years we will see many more women competing in the open section of chess successfully alongside men.
Dude I get what you are saying but it is completely baseless to purport that women have less muscle mass because of any reason other than low androgenous hormone levels. This is not due to undernutrition but due to the fact that female and male endocrine system secrete different hormones to satisfy different reproductory roles. Same goes for height. Height is largely genetically determined, and it is true that certain communities have a gene pool that results in higher height in average.
> By the way: This may be even true for sports that are way more physical than chess, as it is completely unclear whether certain physical attributes like muscle density may have been influenced by a few centuries of women being treated as less than men, giving less food and so forth. You can see this for people whose ancestors had not enough to eat - this translates directly to them. To change that you need several generations.
>
> To give you a very typical example: People thought that humans from certain areas of the world are just naturally smaller than those from other areas. Then look at what a few generations of good nutrition changes. The stereotypes may prevail for a bit, but the fact is, that height differences disappear. My suspicion is that this could be the same for other seemingly natural differences, as soon as you get rid of the detrimental circumstances. And that's just what the specific focus on women's chess is about: despite a dark past, encourage women and girls to find their love for chess without being hindered and harassed. My guess is that at the latest in ten or twenty years we will see many more women competing in the open section of chess successfully alongside men.
Dude I get what you are saying but it is completely baseless to purport that women have less muscle mass because of any reason other than low androgenous hormone levels. This is not due to undernutrition but due to the fact that female and male endocrine system secrete different hormones to satisfy different reproductory roles. Same goes for height. Height is largely genetically determined, and it is true that certain communities have a gene pool that results in higher height in average.
This is a disgrace.
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