Nigel Short is a sexist buffoon

From the same guy who once swore to the world he was playing online speed chess with Bobby Fischer, now comes the declaration that "men and women have different brains," therefore women can't be as good as men in chess.

While it's evident that Nigel Short's own brain is in serious need of a scrubbing, you would think that someone who has memorized thousands of chess variations would not assert that 3.5 billion people are irrevocably wired differently than 3.5 billion other people, and that never the twain shall meet. It's an extremely simplistic generalization at best, and soul-deadening sexism at worst. 

It's 2015, and chess is still suffering its fools heavily. 

Yeah, imagine how the world would be if he was right.

Why is there a WGM title anyway? I don't really get it. GM is not gender restricted so what's the need for a woman to be titled as WGM when she reaches 2300 which, after all, is less than the required rating to be an IM? It looks patronising to me but I'm sure there's a good reason for it that I haven't thought of?

Soundly in the knowledge that there is no discernible link between gender and intellectual limitation, I don't see the need for a women only, and lesser, title. Is it just because fewer women play and therefore the non-gendered titles look awkwardly male dominated (a PR exercise)?

I tend to agree, but - there's already a huge thread on this one

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/nigel-short-womens-brains-not-chess-brains

Perhaps it's more accurate to assert that society is wired differently for women and men and therefore women will never be as good as men at chess?

I'm not sure if Nigel is right or wrong, but I wouldn't call him a sexist buffoon. Being sexist isn't the only reason a person might claim what he claims.

Pathetic thread, pathetic OP, pathetic logic.

>Being sexist isn't the only reason a person might claim what he claims.<

No, but the claim is so patently sexist that Nigel has to accept the implications of his logic. It's also patently idiotic. Thus the buffoon piece.

>Yeah, imagine how the world would be if he was right.<

I don't know, Tapani - tell us! Maybe filled with more people with your positive take on things?

>I don't see the need for a women only, and lesser, title. Is it just because fewer women play.<

I agree on both counts. Ultimately it's unnecessary, but I believe it exists to give the much smaller percentage of female players a chance at recognition, and encourage more participation from girls.

Which is something that Nigel Short did the exact opposite of, by denigrating them and telling them that biology made top-level chess a men-only club. What a creep. Not so much for believing it (we all believe stupid sh*t), but using his fame to promote the idea. Thanks, jerkweed. 

>Your first mistake was to take Nigel Short seriously.<

Oh, I see...Nigel was just being ironic? Or silly?  Just testing us? I think a bigger mistake is being made by you, stutz bearcat, by denying what has occurred here. 

I'm not sure we define sexist in the same way. You could absolutely love a woman, but, for example, you might think she happens to be really bad at singing. Now, sure, you could lie and say she's good, but you are unable to actually believe she is a good singer despite how much you love her.

This is why what one rationally believes just does not, and should not, tie in with having good/bad wishes for that person.

But sure, go ahead, judge people really quickly. Call people buffoons based on one claim, rather than on their whole life (I'm sure it was so easy for him to get to the level of chess he is at). Turn absolutely everything into a flame war because life is just too boring when you don't.

>Call people buffoons based on one claim,<

When you say something idiotic, damaging, insulting, and totally unsubstantiated by anything other than your own prejudice, you are a buffoon. 

>You could absolutely love a woman, but, for example, you might think she happens to be really bad at singing. Now, sure, you could lie and say she's good, <

This has nothing to do with criticizing a single person. It's all about telling half the world's population (roughly 3.5 billion people) that their poor little brains can't handle the chess board as well as the other half...because Nigel Short, self-proclaimed amateur neurologist, says so. 

It's looking to be a great year for chess. Cheaters and idiots dominate the headlines. 

Nigel also has suggested that men are better drivers:

>“I don’t have the slightest problem in acknowledging that my wife possesses a much higher degree of emotional intelligence than I do,” he told New in Chess magazine. “Likewise, she doesn’t feel embarrassed in asking me to maneuver the car out of our narrow garage. One is not better than the other, we just have different skills<

Apparently Nigel's wife, and her own personal skills, weaknesses, and psychological make-up, is the UNIVERSAL TEMPLATE for all women. The colossal stupidity of his logic, which is the kind of generalization a four-year old might make ("all women are like my Mommy"), is truly staggering. 

 >(Short's) words echo the controversial statement from Kasparov that "women, by their nature, are not exceptional chess players; they are not great fighters".<

Gazza is a fine chess player, but he's also prey to his own lunatic perceptions on things other than chess. My favorite is his belief that we are actually living in the 1200s and Britain was once part of the Russian empire.

It's not an easy pill to swallow that our chess heroes can be so abysmally foolish in other areas besides opening theory. We should have learned our hard lesson from Bobby Fischer, whose own abhorrent views about Jews and world history brought a level of shame to our game from which we are still recovering - to say nothing of producing a whole generation of Fischer apologists, many of whom still haunt these boards.

Now we have a new raft of yahoos who are defending Nigel Short. One step forward, two steps back...the saga of chess in society continues. 

 

The bit you are quoting doesnt remotely say anything about universal templates.

Wait a minute, didn't Nigel Short talk about averages? So why are you saying he's talking about every girl when he is not? Is it more fun to make strawman arguments?

I honestly don't think women as a whole are as competitive.

I imagine even biological differences in endurance would allow a man to focus longer than a woman.

In your opinion, themaskedbishop, what are the reasons for women not competing on a level similar to men in chess?

>Is it more fun to make strawman arguments?<

Elubas, the fun is getting you to trundle out metaphors like strawman, rather than actually debate the topic at hand - which is that Nigel Short made a stupid and senseless remark.

I haven't yet seen you provide reasons why it should be considered otherwise. 

>In your opinion, themaskedbishop, what are the reasons for women not competing on a level similar to men in chess?<

I don't agree with the premise, so I can't provide you reasons to support it. 

For those thinking Nigel might be right about the science:-

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/nigel-shorts-world-of-science.html

It's not always silly to appeal to intuition. Science, while in theory it can isolate variables and such, can have rather abstract experiments, and there is no guarantee they will prove what they claim they will prove. When science is telling you something different from what intuition tells you, either the science is wrong or the intuition is wrong. But it's not like it's so crazy that intuition might turn out to be partially right -- maybe it isn't, but it's not ludicrous to think it might be, especially if it's strong intuition.

We use intuition in our everyday lives. We make guesses. Nigel has to make assumptions, but so do the scientists. In theory, scientific experiments can be altered and altered until they essentially prove something. But it can take a while before the right experiment(s) really settles things.

It's with topics like these that superficial interpretations of another's article just don't cut it. It cripples our ability to discuss and learn so, so badly. If we just dismiss something as sexist, or see that something is unproven and therefore don't consider it at all. This kind of early dismissal is not functional. It's really not. You can't learn anything at all with that attitude. But I don't expect it to change.