Why are there so less female chess-players?

Logan's Run here we come

over 30 see you run

That would be quite a blood letting as the average would move higher and higher. I wouldn't propose this idea too loudly (even though I understand that you were being sarcastic) as there may be more takers than you think. Some (very well known) companies actually use this method to let go of the bottom 10% of their employees every year.

Well, then i think that sexual selection has the biggest role in this. If a man wants to reproduce (as much as possible), then he better sticks out as good as possible.

This can be done in two forms:
1) A "stronger" genotype, gives a higher chance for stronger phenotype (eventual come out of the genes), and thus bigger chance to produce

2) Will alive, a single individual better work as hard as possible to impress the females 

From 2) it seems logical that males want to work harder in showing how good they are in what they do. Male artists produce more art on average for example. Now I have to say that Id like to see research like that done again, with all the fraudulent social psychology that has been going on. But the basic premise: men can get 1000s of children per year, and woman only 1 or 2 does seem solid. Combined with the premise: each individual wants to have as much and as strong as possible offspring. Then that does seem to result in men competing as hard as possible.

Thank God we dont do that :) I do think overpopulation will be human's biggest challenge in the next couple centuries. But shooting people obviously is not the solution. I have no clue how to stop it since everyone want children so badly.. how to give up that wish (peacefully)?

I have beaten the dead horse with the topic, but an observation I would like to note is that a lot of these obsessive, abstractly goal-seeking activities, not just chess, tend to have more males playing. For example, poker, darts, racing, video games, shred guitarists, ping pong -- something about all these things just seem to have some abstract nature to them, where you can keep practicing your technique forever and still not perfect them, making them into a sort of "endless journey"; additionally, they are satisfying only within themselves.

Personally, I find there to be a lot of things in common that the stuff I listed has, as if there is some typical mindset that makes you want to play these things that men have a higher tendency to have. And of course, gender roles could be a strong factor as well.

Sort of off to the side, does anyone else notice that everyone who plays chess seems to like tennis? (myself included) That's all I hear from chess players -- "I like to play tennis too." It's getting kind of annoying :)

Yeah, pretty much. Now we want to get the feeling without performing the original function of it.

In earlier times, I wonder if women used to be extremely similar to men (like, almost exactly the same), but then became different as history went on, with them developing different roles.

lol, I just recalled that, when I think about it, I can't really tell a male animal and a female animal apart most of the time, without knowing something special about them. For instance, I can't know if a dog is male or female unless someone put pink clothing on her (because that's what we do with girls ). I'm sure a vet could tell, or anyone who knows the first thing about dogs, but to me it's all the same!

grammar police here. 

title should be "fewer", not "less". 

I think the op's english is a lot better than my german would be.

Grammar is arbitrary anyway. It only "should" be something because some dictionary maker liked it that way.

By the way, if you're talking about grammar, you're supposed to put commas and periods inside the quotes, even if that punctuation pertains to something outside of the quotes.

Again, an arbitrary rule that doesn't necessarily make logical sense -- certainly it makes sense to think that you would want to put the period outside of the quotes, because you're ending the general sentence, not the stuff inside of the quote, but, again, that's not what grammarians tell us

We have got lizardbrains! Deep inside under the neocortex which does the more advanced stuff like reasoning, is the reptillianbrain where our deepest and oldest habits are 'seated', like fear. Not sure if it has alot to do with partnerselection, but there is no need for too. Also the whole evolutionary thing isn't that mumbo jumboish! 

I admit straight away that social construct also has to do alot with it. Therefore more men play, and more men = bigger chance of champions being men.

But think of this example:
60 cave(wo)men: 30 male + 30 female

10 males are strong and fit 
10 males are not so strong, but they are very kind
10 males are weak
15 beautiful women 
15 not so good looking women

Natural selection: (for the example only males will get selected)

Flu strikes when these men are kids: 
4 strong get infected, 2 die
5 not so strong get infected, 3 die
6 weak get infected, 4 die
 

When they are middle aged they have fights to establish their position in the group:
2 strong guys die
3 not so strong kind guys die, they are friendly and dont get fighted that much
4 weak guy dies

And not to forget the factor (bad) luck:
1 strong man is struck by lightning and dies.

So by the time they are ready to mate we are left with:

5 strong guys
4 nice guys
2 weak guys

Sexual selection

30 women can now choose from 11 left guys. Chance are that they will choose for either the strongest or for the kind guy. The kind guy will probably stick with them = higher chance that offspring grows up.

The strong males (who push the weak aside) will probably choose the beautiful women which probably results in strong offspring. 
The strong males also have more casual sex, which results in extra offspring.
The kind and weak guys can reach a step higher by putting in their best effort. Who will do extra good? They are not very strong, but perhaps they have other qualities: good talking, being kind, being smart. So from those groups the people with other good qualities will also have a bigger chance to reproduce with a more beautiful woman (=stronger kids in theory) or with more women (=more offspring)

And then it starts all over, but from the first generation the weak guys have hardly reproduced. The strong or the "hard working" guys did reproduce.

And if you do that experiment a million times over time the males get stronger and smarter.

And all this also apply to women, but since they get much much much fewer children the effect is much less strong. 

See, this guy knows his fewer from his less -- trust him.

Actually , it should be " few " .  

I'd make it even more economical: "Why are there chessplayers?".

@NM Reb, very true!! :)

Especially young females, they don't really have the patience to sit there and think for hours on end, it depends how much effort they're willing to put in. But it's not an aggressive game unless you play it that way :)

:) plenty of typos when I read it back. Ah well..

Ok, so there must be either something different between boys and girls that favors the boys' thinking. Or they are more motivated to go further.

Personally, I think there is *something* in the brain that is different that makes boys better at this.

Not sure, I do know that my dad taught me chess and my mom doesn't know how to play.  Could be due to lack of interest.  After all, it's a dumb game where you have to think and can't even dress up the pieces...