To be fair, I think you have to be interested in chess to become that good at it; otherwise, there is little motivation to push yourself to learn. Starting them out young probably makes it become a part of their lifestyle. The Polgar sisters were raised to be problem solvers; not pretty girls, so by the time they could realize what they were doing, they probably had much more appreciation for problem solving than most girls would. But if you try to teach a 21 year-old girl who has for her whole life been conditioned to care about looking good, it'll be hard to break those habits and get her to enjoy the game.
Granted, this is all theory, and it is not more proven than yours, but I think you are nitpicking the smallest holes in my argument. For a lot of people, it's hard to ask for a better kind of parent than Lazlo. Maybe their situation wasn't picture perfect, but few things are.
) of the Polgar sisters, in talking about their childhood, saying something like "We know our father pushed the game on us, but to us it wasn't work; we enjoyed the game." They realized what their father was doing, but they didn't view it as pushing.
Except perhaps for the attitude they got when they beat men at the chess club. Probably any dominant junior would get some, but I remember a quip about how how sister said she'd never beaten a man who wasn't sick (i.e. they always had an excuse).
Anyway, just because their father pushed chess on them doesn't mean they didn't experience any stereotyping out in the world whenever they played.
I apologize, but, assuming there was some discrimination by society (iffy), if you have your parent backing you up like that, are a couple of random comments really going to stop your passion?
To be honest, I think I am in a much worse position than the Polgar sisters chess-wise. Sure, I'm a boy, and there is no stereotype that males can't play chess, but that doesn't make a chess-playing guy popular either.
The problem is that I have nowhere near the same amount of emotional support from my parents as the Polgar sisters must have had. They have no problem with me playing chess, but they don't want me to be a professional chess player, and I do. I have an uphill battle with myself and my parents in the long-shot that I actually accomplish my goal.
... He used them as part of an experiment to prove an idea of his in his profession and forced them to practice all the time. Sure you like chess, that doesn't mean they did. What if your father decided you were going to be a professional pianist and toured you around starting as early as you could remember? I wonder what the chances are all three sisters were actually that interested in chess ;)
Not that they weren't loved or satisfied, I have no idea, I just think you're jumping to conclusions.