Why is there a Women's World Championship?

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Avatar of Smapde

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.

Avatar of tamagen

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).

Avatar of styxtwo

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!

Avatar of Bobby-Lee

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!!!

Avatar of kingforce

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. 

Avatar of Kupov
batgirl wrote:
Kupov wrote:
batgirl wrote:

Sure, if she qualifies.  There are no gender restrictions.


Yes there are, men can't play in the womens championships or tournaments :P


 What does that have to do with the original exchange?

 

 

Q. Exactly. Correct me if I am wrong, but a woman can compete in the overall World Championship, correct?

A. Sure, if she qualifies.  There are no gender restrictions.


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

Avatar of ozzie_c_cobblepot

I remember Elizabeth Vicary awhile back wrote a great piece in Chess Life about the pros and cons of girls-only tournaments (scholastic level). I _think_ that her conclusion was that the girls-only tournaments have a LOT more participation, a lot more fun, and so the real world was telling her that her instincts were incorrect.

If I recall correctly, she was trying to reconcile her belief that chess should not have womens titles, women's tournaments, women's world championship, etc. with her observation at how remarkably well it was working in practice.

Avatar of Suggo

Kupov is the joke!

Avatar of Elubas
paul211 wrote:
Kupov wrote:
batgirl wrote:

Sure, if she qualifies.  There are no gender restrictions.


Yes there are, men can't play in the womens championships or tournaments :P


I think it's time for men to use the freedom and equality and liberation format used by woman throught out their quest for independance. Women have suffered over for centuries and achieved great things, to obtain the right to vote amongst other things, they put their foot down and obtained recognition.

I believe that it is time for men to ask that the chess competition be one and all, and I could not care less about the details of the format as long as at the end women and men can finally agree on something.

Gender difference is not by any means anymore a natural selection process when it comes to playing chess.

We should all be adults and recognize that a unified, as in marriage, a unified chess association will give all the players an equal chance to succeed.

It is a fact that women can play as good chess as men, so why separate them?

Women play your part here and find a way to have a universal chess competition.

Men, be flexible and see what you can do to accomadate the women into a one and only international chess competition, so that all agree.


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.

Avatar of ozzie_c_cobblepot

Regarding the statement "the best men are hundreds of points higher than the best women",

http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=women

The average rating for the top 10 women players (my eyeball estimate) is about 2575. Here is the top men list.

http://chess.liverating.org/

I'm guessing that the average there of the top 10 is 2770.

Avatar of AWARDCHESS

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!

Avatar of AWARDCHESS

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! 

Avatar of Jenkins12
Reb wrote:
Doctorjosephthomas wrote:

Fischer called Kasparov "Weinstein the Jew".  But then, he hated all Jews and called anyone he didn't like for any reason "a part of the Jew cospiracy".  The Soviet school, during the not so good old days, most assuredly worked the female players as hard.  But their performance never equalled the men (in specific games, yes, but not over the course).  If someone has actual evidence to support the idea that women don't study as long or work as hard as men I would be interested in seeing it (not just quotes of statements saying they don't).  A very low percentage of GrandMasters are women.  That is the what, which can be shown statistically.  The why is less clear.


 I would like to know if Fischer hated all jews why would he spend time in the home of the Polgars when he was in Hungary ? Does this mean he also hated his mother ?  You should be careful what you allow yourself to believe.


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....)

Avatar of aadaam

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. 

Avatar of batgirl

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.

Avatar of tamagen
aadaam wrote:

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. 


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.

Avatar of kerver73

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.

Avatar of Doctorjosephthomas

I allow myself to believe that a man who goes on record REPEATEDLY ranting against JEWS has a hate for them.  Or do you think he really has nothing against them but just says these things for kicks?  Think before correct others Reb.

Avatar of Kupov
Doctorjosephthomas wrote:

I allow myself to believe that a man who goes on record REPEATEDLY ranting against JEWS has a hate for them.  Or do you think he really has nothing against them but just says these things for kicks?  Think before correct others Reb.


Reb never once said that Fischer did not dislike Jewsish people, he stated that Fischer obviously did not dislike ALL Jewish people.

Avatar of Kupov

Fischer probably did not really dislike Jewish people anyways, he was a little unbalanced.