Why are there so less female chess-players?

yes

Yes, and the rising popularity of chess boxing.

Good point!

it's a turn-off, yes. solving puzzles is where it's at!

Um, no. Have you ever heard about Vera Menchik?

It exists. Here is a clip from the Chess Boxing World Championship (there may some advertisement before the clip starts)

vera m. is grouped w/ thousands....polgar is a better chess player, and a level ahead of vera.....but two hundred points behind the really good G.M.s

Interesting point @widderstein.  My husband and I met over a casual chess game.  But over time, we became more and more competitive.  We have to use a chess clock when we play or the games get way to long.  We mostly don't play against each other any more because of the competitive nature.  Maybe women aren't as interested in the competition.

I don't accept arguments based on dubious systems like Elo or Chessmetrics as valid.

Vera Menchik had plus score vs champion Max Euwe in his best years.

OTOH, from true active champions (not counting retired ones Smyslov and Spassky), Judit Polgar has plus score only vs FIDE champion Kasimdzhanov and with rapid games included, the score is equal.

Vera Menchik was undisputed women champion with no opposition from 1927 until her death. Her total score in women's competitions was way more convicting than Lasker's, Capablanca's, Fischer's or Kasparov's among the men. Judit Polgar never acheived woman-WCC title - I know, she didn't try and maybe she would, but who knows? Judit has been perhaps the best woman chess player in the world these days, but her dominance above other women has never come close to Vera's.

See Judit's failure vs Nona Gaprindashvili:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1047562

This is something I wonder about too. And it might have to do with an evolutional concept, that men always want to struggle more to get more offspring.

If females always choose more talented men, then they will reproduce more often (one man could reproduce with multiple females in one day, and thus reproducing ALOT if he is very talented).

So evolutionairy-wise men will be more talented and also got a bigger need to be talented. 

This is just theory, but I think it can be true.

They also found out that men who paint produce more art than females.

In many species the male animals have bright colours to look cool for the female. We want to show how good we are, so please mate with us! :D

Recently, there have been more female players. No female player is listed in the Top 10 in the world (I don't think) perhaps there will be a female in the top 10 one day and inspire more females

Mmmh. Not sure why my previous link disappeared so here is a different one from Chessbase: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6156.

Scroll down to see video and documentary and further links about chessboxing ..

Chess doesn't have to be violent and aggressive. Some players prefer a more positional style.

ElKitch, remember that humans are not that much like other animals. Although they evolved from them, humans are very different in crucial ways. In a game like chess, I think any difference in the minds between men and women is negligible in terms of actual games.

I dont know why but its a shame....chess is amazing....I dont think its aggressive though

Chess being aggressive is all in the mind.  

Chess is in essence a pass-time for friends. The idea was to spend time together and enjoying each other while venturing in some kind of measure of intellectual strength and creativity. It was played a lot in thr salons of people with culture. A lot of men were able to spend time with the lady of their dreams over the chess board. They tried to mate each other :-) Also in a club, the social aspect is more valuable than the technical proficiency. The drink, the laughter, the meeting of old friends. Is playing cards not as agressive?? The internet risks destroying the essence.

yes

Especially if its competitive chess. And in some cases it can be quite anoying. I know with myself I tend to avoid playing with my father.For some reason he always beats me. I remember for some time I hated it purely because my family always won. But I guess playing with friends actually made me fond of chess and eventually try to improve.

It could be anyone even men but I do think It is agressive because of the fact you know it can be a competitive game(not all the time though).   

Well, I think we are still very animal like. Nowadays I think there's not much evolution: close to every person reproduces. Very few get "selected" for having "bad genes" because we dont get hunted down. So at this time there is (close to) no natural selection.

However this situation is pretty new. For how long are we actually helping people to survive and reproduce that normally couldnt? I think even during the dark ages disabled and people with downsyndrome, etc. died very early.

So untill then, there was a whole lot more natural and sexual selection. There was alot more polygamy before religions started -most religions forbid polygamy. So those where the days when the strongest male could reproduce (much) more than the weaker males. This does not apply to women, because they can only get ~1 or 2 kids/year.

In history we have been subject to natural & sexual selection for millions of years. And only the last couple 1000yrs we changed that.

Probably more important, or evenly important, is that men went out to hunt and therefore a good spatial memory helped them survive (and reproduce).

This has now proven to be utter nonsense. The female-male divide started mainly with the introduction of the plough. Men worked on the field, women had difficulty with the strength required to plough.

The cavepeople seemed to have hunted together, male and female. They travelled also very much.

These popular books seem to have been wrong. Women can play chess as good as men, but prefer less to waste their time on it. They waste their time on other things.

Meh, doesn't seem you can use ability to explain it.  I'm not half as good as professional players but I still love to play.  I also loved to play when I first began and was getting losing positions in

And this is even assuming evidence has been given that men are better in general (which I don't see how you can without a bigger sample size of women players heh).  So this argument seems dead even given ideal conditions.

So IMO it has to be some other psychological explanation.  i.e. it either doesn't interest women in general as much as men, and/or society tells them they aren't interested.