So Aronian makes a sexist comment.... then the OP says "GM Gormally punched him and he did nothing after sprawling on the floor. What a chicken."
Is it not sexist to expect a man to respond to violence with more violence just because he's a man? Oh wait, if he doesn't that makes him a "chicken". Maybe a real man would have gotten up and beaten him over the head with a chair. I wonder how such a man would treat his woman.
"Kasparov once said only a few people in the world actually play chess, the rest just copy those who know how to play."
It's a cute metaphor and has some point to it but I don't entirely agree. The fact that one learns the same thing that another learned doesn't make it copying. A chess concept is a chess concept regardless of how many or few people know it.
Now, certainly, we could say learning something your own is more impressive than otherwise, but that's different. There's no need to reduce learning to "copying" or anything particularly close to that, honestly. I do see what he means but he's being incredibly extreme.
men can not do any laundry
men can not do any laundry
Tell it to my wife, please!
great!
lol somehow out of the tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands of women who have studied chess at a high level, only one: Judit Polgar ever was even remotely competitive with men...and somehow this one exception proves Aronian wrong?
If anything it proves him right.
No!
a guy saying a girl cant play chess is like a dog saying a cat can't hump people's legs.
men can not do any laundry
I do all of mine. I can't be the only male who does.
Tracking turned off!
men can not do any laundry
I do all of mine. I can't be the only male who does.
I think her point was that phrasing that a general group simply "can't do" something is silly. Aronian simply said women cannot play chess, and I would agree that it's quite an awful choice of words.
It's a kind of arrogant statement. I also noticed that sometimes people think everyone who is a few hundred points worse is a bad player...if I am 1400 in blitz and someone is 1200 he is still average and I am not gonna say he is a bad player or cannot play chess...
lol somehow out of the tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands of women who have studied chess at a high level, only one: Judit Polgar ever was even remotely competitive with men...and somehow this one exception proves Aronian wrong?
If anything it proves him right.
Hou Yifan is still rising in playing strength, Judit might soon not be the only one to ever have achieved this.
Also, with one woman in top 10 at Judit's peak this does not sound so unrealistic statistically.... there are probably ten men playing chess competitively for every woman.
Make that hundreds.
The same phenomenon occurs in Chinese Chess (Xiangqi). I believe there are only 2 women in the top 100 players currently and they also have a "Women's World Championship." I'm starting to believe the main reason is the warfare aspect of these games. Women must take on male characteristics it seems to excel in these type games.
http://www.quora.com/Why-are-so-few-women-interested-in-playing-Chinese-chess-in-Asia
To a lesser extent the same phenomenon occurs in Backgammon. Here is what may be the equivalent to a Judit Polgar in Backgammon. An interesting interview.
http://www.backgammoninlondon.com/news/zoe_cunningham.html
It's still seen more or less everywhere...
I look at the news and the man is in a suit, and looks professional, while the women is in a short skirt thing, hair made up, makeup, etc. To me it does not look professional. To me it communicates that the man is serious and thoughtful while the woman is something to enjoy looking at.
I think American tv portrays men as fat stupid dufuses and women as tough smart, competent; it's in keeping with feminist dogma. Trash men, exalt women
Men dominate in pool (billiards) too, even though physical strength isn't important, and in my experience, women typically enjoy playing pool. Men dominate in darts and poker as well. Checkers is another example, and in my experience, women typically seem to enjoy checkers as well (at least the older generations of them did; kids these days seem to only want to play with their glorified walkie-talkies). My aunts, sisters, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all liked checkers, though I could never interest any of them in chess. In my family, it was my grandfather who was the one to beat at checkers though.
I've never seen much of a "competitive spirit" in women I know or have known. Obviously some women have it, but they seem to be far less common than men who have it. Women also seem to be less likely to take an obsessive interest in something, and when they do, it is often in the arts and crafts category, such as knitting or quilting, rather than a competive game or sport.
Then there are the differences in capabilities between the average man and the average woman, both physical and mental, which give the average man an edge over the average woman in most, if not all, competitive games and sports. The concept of "equality" has no basis in biology; it is strictly a political concept.
In summary, women tend to be less likely to have the competitive drive necessary to motivate them to practice/work/study enough to get really good at a competitive game or sport, and among the women who do have this drive, they tend to be limited more by their biological capabilities than men are.
I'm sure that a game could be devised which catered to the advantages the typical female brain has over the typical male brain. Women tend to be better at facial recognition, language skills, and recognizing/identifying emotions, for example. In my experience, they seem to be better at "multitasking" as well.
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.ca/2008/11/aronian-women-cannot-play-chess.html
Aronian is a chauvinist pig! Read the interview linked above.
Aronian claims that chess is a bloody war, rough and a "man's" game, but he himself is barely a man. GM Gormally punched him and he did nothing after sprawling on the floor. What a chicken.
This is why I need #yesallwomen. Aronian is an uneducated idiot who has no idea of what he's saying.
so you are claiming Aronian is sexist and in the same breath you say he is barely a man for not hitting another man back?
irony just jumoped off the Empire States building.
EDIT:
As for Aronian, if he was being serious then that is just plain stupid.
Levon Aronian: "There Shouldn't Be Differences Between Women's and Men's Chess"
Sunday, 05.05.2013 17:43
Levon Aronian told what he thinks about women's chess in the interview to Chesspro.
"I would really want my son or daughter to play chess. If I have a daughter, God grant, I would really want her to try to follow Judit Polgar's path. I believe there shouldn't be differences between men's and women's chess. I talk about that quite often and I would also like if in our schools in Armenia and elsewhere girls would gradually stop playing in their own tournaments and just start to play chess.
... If you are lazy and play with the weak, you start playing weakly yourself. I think they're [women] just playing against each other and that makes them lazy. If they have worked more they would play as strong as the guys. No doubt everyone looked at Judit in astonishment first, but her parents are brave people.
Why Hou Yifan is not playing in a lot of men's tournaments? That's another case there: she has a directive from her state that she should become the World Champion again. I guess Judit is an outstanding talent, but I'm sure that Hou Yifan would also be able to play on 2650 rating level; and that's a reputable level."
http://chess-news.ru/en/node/11917
Totally agree that men and women are different, that it is politically incorrect to hint that men could be better than women at anything (though it's perfectly ok to say women are better than men). All that and more is true; the sexism I see is directed at men now, not at women.
But his statement was "women cannot play chess"; REALLY?? Maybe the best male players are better than the best female players but that's different from saying women cannot play. By that logic, they also can't play tennis, basketball, etc etc. I think there are inherent differences, but how is "cannot play" defined?? By his definition none of us can play except the top GMs. That's a bit narrow for my taste.
Yeah, to really good players, most of us don't really play, and e.g. a FM is "just good enough to be a coach for children." Stuff like that.
And in any case it's at least partially true that we don't play the same game, it just happens to have the same rules (as the saying goes)
okay, so it might be more precise to say "only the top-10" or "only the top 100" GMs can play chess. so almost everyone, male and female is excluded. But I don't agree that only this small a number "can play."
Kasparov once said only a few people in the world actually play chess, the rest just copy those who know how to play.
Well... I agree and at the same time I see the same bias in myself.
I've had this perpetual feeling in chess, ever since about a 1200 rating, that I finally know all the basics... even today I feel like I just about know all the basics... unfortunately that feeling has odd implications for players ____ points below me.
Another saying: "chess starts at 50 points below your rating" makes light of this common feeling.