Why is there a Women's World Championship?

Probably because I'm not your wife.

Well, I don't see Polgar complaining, not putting in the effort nor losing interest.  Nobody forced her to have children but, in this example, if a couple wants children and the huband is a chess player, chances are he'll be playing chess through the pregnancy and afterwards with little of no break; if the woman is the professional chess player, chances are the same won't be true.  This isn't to say anthing, except there are ssues that women must deal with which are different that those that men must deal with - maybe how she deals with it is to not have children. Sophia Polgar discussed this in depth in an interview years ago and I didn't see her as an apologist, then  nor now.

With all due respect, I disagree with batgirl on her particular point that women only tournaments, and female promotion in general doesn't hurt men.

And I think this is because you are looking at it more consequentially whereas I'm looking at this more categorically. Perhaps nothing that bad happens to men as a result, and yet I still don't like it, simply because it makes the statement that we're ok with women having more opportunities than men in chess. Does it affect, financially, a man of 2700 strength? Not really, since he makes a lot of money anyway. But doesn't it disrespect him a bit? Imagine him getting no more attention than some 2450 WGM because she looks better.

Perhaps you would be the kind of person who would steal a loaf of bread if it were to save your starving family's life -- "the ends justify the means." I wouldn't -- if I wanted to save my family, I would either save it without taking away from anyone else, or not do it at all.

Same here -- I want more women to play, but I don't want to do it if it means disrespecting anyone; if it means forcing men to work harder for the same level of attention.

But, come on, it was also utterly funny.

Then disagree with what I wrote: "Other than sharing some prize money, women events inflict no loss on male player."

I tried to address that in the post that I made -- I just don't like the statement female promotion makes; how a male master could easily be ignored yet a female master praised just as much as a male grandmaster (a made up example). Again, I'm all for women playing chess, but I'm not going to promote it by giving them more attention than men. Maybe it's not effective that way, but that's as far as I would go. I think the biggest problem with getting women to play is a combination of gender role, and perhaps just gender identity -- women just have less tendency to want to play. And that's fine -- if they don't want to play chess, then they shouldn't.

Isn't that the point you were making with that statement? I apologize if I misinterpreted that. Granted, I'm not just talking about events, but also the promotion and extra attention that can accompany it.

Honestly speaking, I don't think you have any idea what you would do in that situation unless you actually experience it; empathy can only go so far.

It's true -- in these kinds of situations, it's easy to say you would do one thing when you're just dreaming it up, and there are a lot of hypothetical questions like that one that I may well be unable to answer. I totally understand what you're saying. However, in this particular one, I am very aware of my values; I would love to save my family, but I would have to save them "the right way," and if that was impossible, guess what -- I would accept their death. I would say that I did everything I could without forcing anyone else into the situation. I believe that stealing from someone, against their will, to save someone close to you is telling them to make the decision "my family is more important than your profit." As sad as it is, I think it is up to the owner of the food to make that decision, not you; I would hope he would give it to me, but if not, I could be annoyed as hell at his decision, but I would still have to respect his right to make the decisions with what he owns.

I don't get it. Women players get the opportunity to compete for titles , prizemoney, publicity etc. that's not available to their male counterparts and people are complaining?

Wow, no kidding.  If you're stealing the bread from another starving family, I get you, but in a situation where the consequences aren't balanced; i.e., you don't steal the bread your family dies, you do steal the bread and a large multinational loses out on a couple of bucks; you'd be an idiot not to take it.

It would be interesting to see how such self righteousness survives a gnawing empty stomach and desperation on an existential level.  I bet most would even steal from the other starving family.

I've got to say, it's a pretty heartless person that accepts the deaths of others on the basis of respecting arbitrary property rights.

Yeah, that's one screwed up value system.

It's the owner who refuses to give the bread that is at fault; not me. I had to respect his values because he owned the bread. The point is that we all have different values. If you steal the bread, you are forcing someone to live by your values, and that's unfair to the owner.

I'm a little offended that you're calling me heartless. I guess my position is a bit weird, but this is an extreme scenario. Don't judge me so much by what I would do in a scenario with two moral ideals conflicting with one another.

I didn't read Sophia's opinion on the matter, but it wouldn't change my own opinion. If the given individual wishes to play competitive chess, it takes years of sacrifice and effort. To reach the upper echelons of the game, it takes even more of both. Women and men do not have the excuse of gender limiting their goals in any way. Each individual has to decide what they wish to do.

The idiocy of threads like this is how the present majority of individuals choosing to make these sacrifices to reach the level of Judit, are men, therefore, in a supreme moment of dim-wittedness, other men fantasize that they are better at the game than women--riding on the coattails of those individuals who have sacrificed, and put the extreme effort involved to reach those heighths in the rankings.

So, I will not apologize, nor give excuses for the lack of women at those rankings, because I already know that there is not a gender difference involved. The only difference between the very few individuals who are at the top of the game is their individuality.

An example from the 2011 British Championship...

Jovanka Houska scored 7.0/11 and by virtue of being a woman won the £500 for British woman's champion + $500 for English woman's champion + £27.78 for share of 8th place = £1027.78

The 8 other players who achieved the same score (Stephen Gordon, Mark Hebden, Stuart Conquest, Peter Wells, Richard Palliser, Yang-Fan Zhou, Graeme Buckley, Richard Bates) got a grand total of £ 27.78 each.

Where's the justice in that? 

What you are describing are your values -- I reckon, if you were the owner, you would give the bread, and I would too.

The problem with your argument is that by applying this to stealing, you are, in that case, forcing your values on someone else. It might be obvious to you that the family should be saved, but you know what, maybe the owner has different values than you. Why should he do what your values want him to do? He should do what his values tell him to do, not yours.

Do I think the owner should give me the bread? Yeah. But it's not for me to decide if it's not mine.

You are a bastion of moral rectitude.

I think, though, that you have a very different sense of duty than, say, TheGrobe.

I'd have to guess that TheGrobe's first duty is to his family.

Sorry, I ain't buying it.  We have laws and regulations to prevent people from asserting the absolute supremacy of their personal mores; that's why a person can't kill someone and then claim being arrested is an infringement on their values.

Put simply, respect for human life is far more important than a pithy property struggle, or at least it should be.

So I have some people calling me a monster, others that it says a lot for my morals 

Look guys, you can have whatever opinion about me that you want, but I just want to say that I think I have made clear that I have very strong moral principles; I guess I just rank them in a different sense than most people.

I think my opinion is characterized by looking at different points of view. If I was starving, then from my point of view, I think he should give me the food. But I know that his perspective is different. What I'm trying to do is avoid being so biased with my values, that I force someone to make a decision against their own values. It's not all about my values.