PLAY LIKE A GIRL!
I will make a bold statement: women are NOT weaker than men at chess. I know this will draw a lot of ire from all kinds of people, some well meaning, others willing to troll.
I am not a scientist; I am a chess player and musician. So do not expect from me a "proof", because I will not give one. I do not rely on rating numbers, or cold statistics.
I rely on what I have seen from a few world-class women players, including Judit Polgar and Yifan Hou.
This subject is both controversial and long-winded, and likely to incite passionate responses, and I am sure not all of them will be nice.
Still, let me say this: I am just a chess lover, and also a lover of humanity. I detest defining people by "statistics", because they can always be interpreted in a variety of ways, and also because as human beings, we tend to be short-sighted, and lazy in terms of intellectual considerations, so any "easy" approach will be taken.
What prompted me to write this?
Well, a few things:
1) Reading all 3 volumes of "Judit Polgar Teaches Chess".
2) Standing in awe of her chess level, which I consider world-class, even among men.
3) Observing how FIDE routinely treats female players as if they were less important, paying them less for the same-level tournaments (such as the World Championships).
4) on that same note, observing how Yifan Hou was NOT treated with dignity as Woman World Champion, leading her to eventually withdraw from the World Championship Cycle.
5) Observing how, in the last World Championship, FIDE did the blunder of organizing the Women's World Championship at the same time as the Men's World Championship, and also in a different location, so almost by default the women's event got much less coverage, and also they were paid less. When I pointed this out, some people responded that women had lower ratings, that therefore they did not play as well as the men, and that therefore they should be played less.
Every person brings to the board their culture, beliefs and upbringing, and I am no exception.
It is my opinion that:
1) Women play as well as men, and if they appear not to, it is because of social reasons, not because they are in any way inferior in their inherent capacity to play our royal game.
2) They should be paid equally
3) The Women's World Championship should either be held at a different time than the men's event, or held in the same location, maybe as a part of a Chess Festival which includes both World Championships, alongside maybe an Open event and a children's event, maybe in a Sport Arena, with large audiences attending!
Let me present as evidence that women can play at the same level as the best men in the world, Judit Polgar's victory over World Champion Garry Kasparov in the year 2002, in the Russia vs. Rest of the World Match.
Now, at the time this game was played, Kasparov's rating was 2838, about 150 rating points above Judit Polgar.
Before Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile in 1954, it was not considered possible. Once it was achieved by one person, others realised they could do it, too! It could be achieved. Once something is done once, it is proof undeniable that it can be done!
HOU YIFAN
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Hou Yifan (Chinese: 侯逸凡; pinyin: Hóu Yìfán 
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Loudspeaker.svg/17px-Loudspeaker.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Loudspeaker.svg/22px-Loudspeaker.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="20" data-file-height="20" width="11" height="11" />pronunciation (help·info); born 27 February 1994)[2][3] is a Chinese chess grandmaster and four-time Women's World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, she is the youngest female player ever to qualify for the title of grandmaster and the youngest ever to win the Women's World Chess Championship.
At the age of 12, Hou became the youngest player ever to participate in the Women's World Championship (Yekaterinburg 2006) and the Chess Olympiad (Torino 2006).[4] In June 2007, she became youngest Chinese Women's Champion ever. She achieved the titles of Woman FIDE Master in January 2004, Woman Grandmaster in January 2007, and Grandmaster in August 2008. In 2010, she won the 2010 Women's World Championship in Hatay, Turkey at age 16. She won the next three championships in which the title was decided by a match (in 2011, 2013 and 2016, with a total of ten wins to zero losses and 14 draws against three different opponents), but was either eliminated early or declined to participate in the championships in which the title was decided by a knockout tournament (in 2012, 2015 and 2017).
Hou is the third woman ever to be rated among the world's top 100 players, after Maia Chiburdanidze and Judit Polgár. She is widely regarded as the best active female chess player, "leaps and bounds" ahead of her competitors.[5] As of January 2019, she is the No. 1 ranked woman in the world, 87 points ahead of the No. 2 ranked Ju Wenjun.
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OK, let me highlight one or two things: she wins the Chinese Women's Championship at the age of 13, and becomes a GM at the age of 14! NOTE: a GM, not a WGM!!!!
Here is a great game against David Navara, played in 2016 at Tata Steel.....
So, I submit these two players as my "proof".
Witness the following game!
And how about Judit Polgar beating Carlsen, with the Black pieces?
or Kosteniuk beating Carlsen, also with the Black pieces?
Back to Hou Yifan.....here's how she played when she was 14!......
And Judit Polgar, at 18 years old....
I don't have the energy to show more games, though there are a few more I could post. I think I have made my point!
By the way, admiring her skills, Smyslov once called Judit Polgar "Tal with a skirt"! Now THAT is quite a compliment! I do not even qualify to be compared to Tal's poodle!
