Nigel Short: Women's brains not chess brains

Well if culture is just a choice, and it has no constraints from biology, then I want to know why there are no cultures with women dominating chess?

Writing from left to right or right to left and from up and down and so on is random, its a choice the culture can make freely. Therefore we see all these things.

What you are claming is that man/woman friendly chess culture is a free choice like left/right writing in the albhabet. It just cant be lol.

Methinks that people claiming something is "cultural" simpy forget that if it is, then we would see random and wild variaton between different cultures. And they underestimate HOW MUCH variation you should expect.

Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:

Colin20G wrote:

Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:

It is yes, because if there was woman-chess-friendly cultures and woman-chess-unfriendly cultures, then we would see the whole spetrum of genderdifferences, from places where woman dominated chess to places with men dominating chess and everything in between.

We don't see that though, so culture is dead as an explanation.

This is speculative and btw I don't get what you want to prove here.

"if we could see X then Y

We can't see X.... "

At this point it is impossible to deduce anything.

EDIT: my mistake. It's "we can't see Y" and you stated it correctly. Still the chess community is not that friendly for women and there are so many other cultural factors. Not to mentionthe fact that even with differences like the ones you assumed, they wouldn't create magically that woman domination you are talking about. I still don't see your point here.

Ok to develop.

First, I do not believe that an athlete needs a "friendly community" to succeed. The black athletes competing during the still-racist times proved that to me.

If it was so that unfriendly community = impossible to succeed

Then blacks shoudnt have raked in gold medals in the 30ies, 49ies and 50ies.

Seems to me, if you are a good athete, and you have a tough psyche, which undoubtedly they had, then you can win in spite of "unfriendly community".

Secondly, I dont see any connection what so ever between a country being woman friendly and them having good chess players. You'd excpect the good women chess players coming from places like Scandinavia and USA etc. that have been hard at improving women's conditions for a long time now. Instead they come from Hungary and China. If a woman friendly culture meant better chess players, you should be able to actually SEE it, we just cant see it, so i dont believe in it.

Probably obsessiveness again. I don't know, but if I had the ability to be a very high level chess player, I'd probably also have the ability to be a high level scientist in some cutting edge field. Specifically in a country where women's plight was better and they were accepted in such endevours throughout their lives, even after they have spouses and children. Perhaps it is just more long term thinking on the part of women for whatever reason? IDK.

Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:

Masamune314 wrote:

Colin20G wrote:

@Rasperry_Yoghurt

The society doesn't treat men and women equally since early childhood and this counts as a cultural factor.

 

If there were woman chess friendly and not so woman chess friendly cultures, you would see women at different levels of chess ability, among the ranks. Do we see this? We are only talking about the very high levels. It does not necessarily follow that you would see females at the highest ranks in even the most chess friendly countries ip unless in those specific countries there were 1. Very similar participation rates and 2. All individuals were the same (not just genders but all chess players.). And 3. Very little cultural difference between how boys and girls are taught/raised in regard to their chess ability. That's a very tough nut to crack.

Well if culture is just a choice, and it has no constraints from biology, then I want to know why there are no cultures with women dominating chess?

Writing from left to right or right to left and from up and down and so on is random, its a choice the culture can make freely. Therefore we see all these things.

What you are claming is that man/woman friendly chess culture is a free choice like left/right writing in the albhabet. It just cant be lol.

Methinks that people claiming something is "cultural" simpy forget that if it is, then we would see random and wild variaton between different cultures. And they underestimate HOW MUCH variation you should expect.

I don't see women dominating the medical fields in the US even though I thinks there are more in med school now. I also know, from having a very brilliant SIL who,teaches medicine at an Ivy League school that she specifically chose teaching to have a more flexible schedule for when she had children, Same goes for surgery where you are on call all the time and are constantly working. Women take this into consideration. That could be the biology, or it could be that men could just not accept being the primary parent at home so there is less chance of them getting to lead a life like this. Some nature, but definitely culture there as well.

Yeah I think also its more about motivation than "raw" intelligence or "brain power" or whatever. Willingness to risk your future by investing everything in one thing compared to a safer strategy of investing your time in several different skills.

An illustration of what culturel difference looks like:

Dionysus01 wrote:

just reading all the thread since my last post - lmao

entertaining!

Not insightful and informative as well? Hmm??

Naaaaah. Philosophy 101.

True dat again, Kitteh. See, mental self-stimulation. Somewhat like chess? o_o.

I have found the answer! There it is!

SheridanJupp wrote: Any man saying that women are inferior to men can be seen as ignorant. Here's something worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBvF6r6DOvc A lot of folks who don't know anything about MA think this is just for old folks but by George this is the hardest MA there is. I use a thing called "Tai Chi" iaido to ingrain kata movements and my G-D if that's not the hardest thing, feeling every little movement and shifting your weight very slowly is insanely difficult. However, that's how you really get the moves into your muscle memory. You have to switch up the speed of course, but it makes you very conscious of fine detail.

Tai Chi Chuan is like chess in many ways. The woman in the video is extremely good. Many people, old and young can do it, its just that when people are this good, they started at a young age. And you're right about these small and controlled movements. It is very intense. Learning something like this involves training your concentration and stamina. And anyone can start doing it regardless of age gender fitness.

SheridanJupp wrote:

Tai Chi Chuan is like chess in many ways. The woman in the video is extremely good. Many people, old and young can do it, its just that when people are this good, they started at a young age. And you're right about these small and controlled movements. It is very intense. Learning something like this involves training your concentration and stamina. And anyone can start doing it regardless of age gender fitness.

Iaido is much the same. When you see it from the outside, it doesn't look terribly hard, especially my style which is quite streamlined in curriculum. You start swinging that sword around and you think you're fine, then seven years have passed and you are still not fine, which is the great thing about martial arts, as in chess, something always to learn. Sometimes my Sensei would point to something new that I was doing wrong and I had been doing it for years. He said if he had told me every little thing that was wrong with my kata from the beginning, I would have quit! I don't think I would have, but I would have been extremely discouraged! I like it because it really is moving meditation and helps with stress, and I plan on doing this as long as I can hold a sword.

Masume do you know qigong? It's the only thing around where I live that I like so Im thinking of giving it a try.

Just doing fitness stuff since I moved here but it makes me clumsy lol

Raspberry_Yoghurt wrote:

Masume do you know qigong? It's the only thing around where I live that I like so Im thinking of giving it a try.

Just doing fitness stuff since I moved here but it makes me clumsy lol

I'm not as familiar with the Chinese MA. SheridanJ, do you know about this style?

No. I'm not familiar with it.

Haha, that is probably something Buzzfeed would post :)

On a warm summer's evening, on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with a gambler. We were both too tired to speak. So we took turns at staring out the window at the darkness. The boredom overtook us, and he began to speak. He said son I've made a life out of reading people's faces and knowing what the cards were by the way they held their eyes. And if you don't mind me saying, I see you're out of aces. For a taste of your whiskey, I'll give you some advice... What did I come here for again? *mind blanks*. Oh yes, coffee pool boy!

The sakura are in bloom and all is well with the world!

I will say, one thing I am a bit tired of reading lately is the phony + view siding w/ the female player. It's so trollish and misleading. Be truthful here, okay ?....'cuz it's pretty ez to sense some ppl's patronizing.

****

One thing about an honest girl's comments is that some ppl think that those words were hurtful. It was inciting yes, but my feelings of frustration have not transferred into pain. And I don't expect them to at this point. 

I actually accept his pseudotruth as somewhat correct. Where I feel hurt comes from the sponsorship not promoting = opportunity more. It wins for everyone involved. Why can't they see this ? Why can't they see that it's all about having a hero ?

The only win I find from all this is it has made a kind of an opaque union. A bond that I've heard male players call an 'estrogen merge'. Whatever....call it what you like, but chess is a better place w/ both sexes thrivingly represented. Don't you feel ?

....and that's what makes an honest girl's comments "Jacka$$".   

Many years before I was dating him, my husband once punched a towel dispenser in a bathroom because he lost a potential girlfriends number. He was not, I repeat not emotional,at all. No emotion, no feeling. He was being completely logical. Logical as Spock...in Pon Farr.

The_Ghostess_Lola wrote:

I will say, one thing I am a bit tired of reading lately is the phony + view siding w/ the female player. It's so trollish and misleading. Be truthful here, okay ?....'cuz it's pretty ez to sense some ppl's patronizing.

****

One thing about an honest girl's comments is that some ppl think that those words were hurtful. It was inciteful yes, but my feelings of frustration have not transferred into pain. And I don't expect them to at this point. 

I actually accept his pseudotruth as somewhat correct. Where I feel hurt comes from the sponsorship not promoting = opportunity more. It wins for everyone involved. Why can't they see this ? Why can't they see that it's all about having a hero ?

The only win I find from all this is it has made a kind of an opaque union. A bond that I've heard male players call an 'estrogen merge'. Whatever....call it what you like, but chess is a better place w/ both sexes thrivingly represented. Don't you feel ?

....and that's what makes an honest girl's comments "Jacka$$".   

Well, as this a chess site, undoubtedly you'd find your share of "white knights," It is pretty easy to tell the difference though.

Well, if Nigel has done anything positive, it's that he's let the world see just how many sexists, genderists, generalists, and other regressives are in the chess world.

I'm GLAD we aren't a popular game. We don't deserve to be.  Nigel Short has shamed our sport, not just through his words, but by revealing how comfortable so many chess players are in publically agreeing with him.