I don't have the data on hand, but I suspect that if you compared the ratio of women to men in the top 1000 players you'd see an extremely strong correlation to the ratio of women to men in the top 10000 players.

Comparing the top few seats simply isn't a large enough sample to be representative, so using the fact that there has never been a female world champion as evidence of some fundamental difference between men and women that manifests itself in their chess ability is misleading at best, and downright deceptive at worst.

Thats like asking why there are scholastic championships, blind chess championships, or each country having there own championship. 

We should also keep in mind that computer engines are about to completely surpass human skill, so in the future there will need to be a seperate robot championship. Then when the powers of technology and biology are combined, a cyborg championship.

We should have a chess.com tournament with 100 randomly-selected female players and 100 randomly-selected male players, then look at the final rankings.

That should eliminate the male-skewed population sample bias while producing a vaguely statistically significant result.

It's quite an unusual to be in a position to be able to organise something like this (no educational psychologists have access to thousands of players at the drop of a hat to perform such an experiment - I can sense them squirming in jealous paroxysms already).

there are more men playing chess, therefore the number of high rated men will be higher(you have more to chose from). if you would match these men up with the women, who are severely outnumbered. it wouldn't be fair.

I'm not saying some women can't(ofcourse they can, intelligence is not gender related). but there will be a lot less then there are men. 

It's just statistics!

I don't care if they can or can't make a living, there is no physical barrior separating men and women so they should compete in the same tournaments. Why should women who don't play as well still get huge prizes that men can't get. Plus the women can compete in both women's and men's tournaments, while the men are limited to men's only. I think that it might even discourage women from playing because they might think that they are being treated as inferior at chess, which we all know is not true. I know plenty of girls who could own at chess if anyone would teach them, or if they had half a mind to learn. It's all about exposure, not gender based tallent. So what none of the girls can at school can beat me? The fact is that almost every guy knows how to play, and only a handfull of girls know how, and those that do know were taught by some imbecile guy who doesn't know a backward pawn from a weak square.

NO GENDER BASED SEGRAGATION!!!

bobby due to less female players it;s a little unfair for them to fully compete against men. think about it, imagine 100 women to 5 men playing of equal strength, clearly the men would hardly win. It's true women play as well as men can, but all the games I have played OTB, for the club or other I have never played a woman, and I have played ALOT of games, now what makes you think one woman will enter into this male area?? not online but in the actual club in person, I'm not sure what would be available for women and I think it is good that they have woman tourneys. 

Well it was a joke, so...nothing.

Kupov is the joke!

It would discourage women from playing chess because they would always lose. Once again, the best men are hundreds of points higher than the best women. Women probably like this since it's easier for them. To do this though you have to admit that the women would lose to the men in the championship. People call that sexist, but that's the only way it can be fair to the women.

Santino Won last Wrestling Competition from www.wwe.com and got a Title as a Miss Santina! And on next week he Won again and holding a Title!

It is unfair, actually! Men got more Muscle Mass and Wrestling Skills!

playing in a room fogged with rancid male BO?

eew.

On Chess there is No Reasons to Separate men and women!

It is just a Nothing for Health and Law to Appeal to Segregation!

It looks like an old Segregation at School Education, that was proven to fall!

Vera Menchik, Nona Gaprindashvilly broke a Common Laws about it!

It is a rigth Time to elininate an artificial Women Chess Titles, that is not work for Chess players improvements at all! 

It's not Doctorjosephthomas's fault if Fischer - despite being Jewish, despite having a Jewish mother, despite (possibly) having a Jewish biological father, despite hanging with the Polgars - was also a hysterical ranting Jew-hater. His hatred wasn't strictly rational, but it was no less real for that. Fischer was a genius at Chess, but at Life the man was a noob.

(He did hate his mum, by the way....)

If (in a far distant future) the chess-playing population finally becomes 50% women, 50% men; Would the world champion tend to be male half the time and female half the time ? ( no, not the same individual! you know what I mean). Presumably, the majority of people would say yes, I'll stick my neck out and say I think the world champion would still nearly always be male. I'm interested to know what experts, scientists and extremely intelligent people think on this issue. 

The only rational argument I can see against women-specific tournaments is that prize money that might otherwise go to the open or  general tournament (not men's tournaments as several folks referred to them) may be spent on women who may not be as strong or play as well as the men who would have benefited from the extra available prize money. But even this argument is specious at best since prize money is no one's to claim, but the tournament organizers right to assign and everyone generally enters tournaments with the prize money already allocated so the surprises are usually minimum.

Whether women should be able to play together and have their own titles really has little need for anyone's approval or consent other than FIDE's acceptance of the titles and results - both of which are in FIDE's best interest.

Folks, chess isn't only about who is the best and it's not only about the top 10 players in the world. Believe it or not, it's not only about perfect play nor only winning.  Chess is about playing. The things that motivate people to play in tournaments while facilitating and encouraging further pariticpation, should never be denigrated nor maligned, especially simply because it affronts someone's misconception of fairness.

It isn't so important for women to play against men as it is for women to play.

I used to feel that women-specific tournaments somehow lessened chess and held women back. I've done a 180. Chess is about playing and for whatever reasons, although women can compete against men (successfully or unsucessfully) many prefer to play only other women and live within that minor environment (i.e. knowing their titles, etc. are comparatively less significant - WGM vs. GM, eg.). Without this system, many of these women would just not play.

As I pointed out in point #47, this site offers the perfect opportunity to find out the answer to this question. I can't start tournaments, but someone at chess.com could easily invite 100 random females and 100 random males into a tournament. Job done.

Guys,it's like you ask why in basketball or in football there are seperate competitions...

Of course there,there is the factor of physical features,but women just haven't reached yet the level of men,in most sectors due to their late "recovery",since women didn't have the rights that men did until the last (approximately)30 years.

That is the reason even today nearly in all sectors,either it is scientific,athletic or anything,men are more strong than women and that's getting even less from year to year.Of course there are exceptions,but the percentage is that bigger because of the factors i analysed...

I am sure in 20-30 years from now,there won't be quite any difference between the two genders and there will be no reason to have seperate competitions(not only in chess) for men and women in any event.

It just required a period for the beautifull gender to reach it's true profile and achieve exactly the same goals with the opposite sex.