Ruth Haring: 'Girls are bad at chess'

(Moderators - I am new here, so I hope I do not break any rules.  If this is in the wrong spot, or improperly formatted, please edit it.  Thanks, Jamie)

This is the link to a recent "Armchair Warrior" blog entry, entitled, "Girls are bad at chess."

http://xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/tag/ruth-haring/

Haring was one of the best of the American women players back in the 1970s and 1980s.  She married GM Peter Biyiasas, and is/was President of the USCF (2011-?).

Referring to the Armchair Warrior blog she wrote:

"I will leave it to others to judge just how good or bad girls are at chess and say only that I enjoy playing over games played by women, and in some cases, girls, because they are inferior to the games played by the best men chess players. I have also found enjoyment in watching women play golf and tennis even though they cannot compete with men."

If we look at ratings lists, tournament results, most individual encounters over-the-board, it is hard to argue with Harings conclusion.

However, Haring references a recent article from Scientific America by Prof. Daisy Grewal of Stanford University, who believes that OTB disparities between men and women in chess have more to do with a psychological phenomenon called "sterotype threat."

You can read the Scientific American article here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-girls-bad-at-chess/

Haring, I think makes a mistake when  she compares male vs female chess results to male vs female athletic results.  The human species is sexually dimorphic.  I would expect men to run faster, jump higher, hit a ball further, etc, because men are, on average, larger and stronger than women.  But does that dimorphism apply to intellect?  ... and hence, to the potential to play an intellectual game?  I think not.

Discuss.

(Edit:  I had to edit this post because I misattrubuted part of a blog the Ms Haring, that was actually written by someone else - my bad.)

I've seen in a chess documentary some time ago where the host was talking about this for a short while, comparing women and men at chess.
After a while he came to an unusual but rather humourous and perfectly understandable answer to this question.
"Chess, after all, is but a waste of time, and women tend not to engage in technically useless activities. Men, on the other hand, do nothing but that."
Maybe that's the reason all in all. That women simply aren't about to waste their time in something that has no purpose whatsoever.
The real question is why men do it willingly.

Well, we can argue men take their parts in that. Except for parthenogenesis, of course, but I guess you could say that it rarely occurs amongst humans.

Actually men do, what do you think fertilises the egg?

Profound comment, GnrfFrtzl.

It's not just fertilizing, they swim!

"Chess, after all, is but a waste of time, and women tend not to engage in technically useless activities. Men, on the other hand, do nothing but that."

LOLZ - thank you for that bit of insight!!  I see chess being fun.  And as any fan of Cyndi Lauper knows, "Girls just wanna have fun."

"So Hikaru Nakamura is actually stupid because he spent a lot of time becoming brilliant at something!"

Look, clearly people have different priorities and goals, sure, and we should respect that -- if everyone in the world became a chess player nothing could get done. But the kind of things that guys like Carlsen and Nakamura do -- they deserve to be marvelled, and yes, both their hard work and talent are pretty incredible things.

But yes, in general I think men are more obsessive, at least with game type things (video games, chess, etc), and naturally this is one major factor that will create different results.

The host, for one was clearly joking when he said that. No one denies the abilities of a professional chess player nor anyone disses them.
But if you actually look at this in a somewhat biological point of view, where you measure everything in its effectiveness to survive and to live - what is chess?
So, while everyone agrees chess (and all other abstract strategy games for that matter) is beautiful and should be admired, the fact remains a fact, it is, after all, a useless activity that has no purpose.

So are you joking or not Gnrf -- you seem to be trying to have it both ways

I already said if everyone played chess we couldn't survive -- and in caveman times mastering any game would probably put you or your group at risk due to its opportunity cost. But those facts don't necessarily correspond to the amount of skill/talent you need to do them. I have to eat to survive, but it doesn't take much talent to eat. Consequently when I successfully eat it's not very impressive :)

Yeah, women wisely use their time posting on facebook and window shopping.

I feel like the Stereotype threat can play a role in something like this but I have also seen women be very capable at this game. My chess captain in highschool was a female and she just crushed us all with such ease that most of our new club members would quite often get upset and leave our club before the meeting had come to an end.

Whether or not this psychological condition is real or not I do not think it's fair for people to suggest "Girls are bad chess".

        How many more times?

Plutonia, This is a stereotype and not really funny. That would be like someone saying that all guys just spend their time drooling over expensive cars and vegetating in front of the TV.

Above all, everyone is an individual. If a club's best player happens to be a woman, nothing else matters -- she's rightly going to be the star of the group.

Ok. But what is not a stereotype, and it's a fact, is that men contributed and still contribute to the vast, vast majority of the intellectual achievements and creativity of society. I once challenged somebody on this forum to come up with some female writers. They mentioned the woman who wrote Harry Potter, I'm not kidding.

post more pics, rdecredico. sex education aint your forte.

Also, women swimmers have been proven to do better in there 30s, and 40s, then when they were young,and it is not the same for men. Also there are stilll women that are Grandmasters, not just WomenGrandmasters.

What you say is true, but history is becoming irrelevant.  "Glass ceilings" are being increasingly broken.

History is rife with sociologial gender expectations, gender stereotypes, and oppression of women.  As society matures, and equal opportunity becomes the norm, women are flourishing.

If I am lucky enough to have another 20 or so years on this planet, I fully expect to see a female challenge for the chess championship of the world.  Today, there are only about 60+/- men who have a rating higher that the strongest woman, Judit Polgar.

I believe, with greater opportunity, we will see greater results from women chess players.

You could say I'm a naturalistic type. I think these games are beautiful and have a taste for them since ever, but they are still only to kill time.