Nigel Short: Women's brains not chess brains

Cool, I didnt know that about the whales. And yeah sexual competition for harems makes make body size skyrocket.

It's related not to the board game as such, but to explain gender difference in preference for the game. I don't even see why it is a controversial issue that biology influences how many of each gender that want to do activity X and how many get good at it.

To me it's like denying that especially tall people have an advantage in basket ball and therefore there are very few short baslet ball players at the highest level allthought there probably is a few of them. It's just weird.

When people claim that the disprortionate interest of males in chess has nothing to do the biochemical differences between men and women, I suspect ideological bias.  Some thinkers seem to have trouble seeing past the misconception that if we notice innate (inborn) differences between groups of people, then the groups will necesarilly end up with unequal legal rights.  While it is obviously true that being labelled "different" has in the past often resulted in unequal rights, this does not have to be the case.

I can understand why many progressives still cling to that misconception -- they mean well and think they are protecting the noble goal of equal justice for all.  But there is no need to fear the findings of science.  Finding physiological/neuronal/hormonal differences between humans should not threaten equal rights that apply to all humans.

So, you're arguing that male brains are less efficient than female brains? Now that's sexist.

Then again, if we were "non-sexist" and assumed that the male and female brains were homogenous and equally efficient, then the proven higher average mass of male brains would mean that males have more powerful brains on average. And pointing that out would, again, be sexist.

Unless, of course, there are structural differences at play here (different amounts of white/grey matter, for instance) that may actually result in different average perfomance of male and female brains. But that argument has already been dismissed as sexist.

We seem to be doomed to be sexist no matter what...

Anyone making any claims at all that doesn't present evidence that can stand examination may be guilty of ideological bias... or just faulty thinking processes, preconceptions etc.

I have a really whole big philosophical thing going on that I am not even gonna get n2 right now....so....checking outta this co-ed dorm.

So, enjoy your fun w/ your old skool RCA Victrola (stereotypes) and will someone unplug it when the party's over ? 

Bye....

Or it might be that they play in those competitions because there's where their chances lie? In recent years, both Hou Yifan and Judit Polgar played in tournament together with men - and both scored according to their rating or below.

Only championships are usually played separately - they are missing in supertournaments simply because they aren't strong enough. In recent years, both Hou Yifan and Judit Polgar played in tournament together with men - and both usually scored according to their rating.

Both women and men play in open tournaments - and I believe that's where most of the play happens for those rated below 2600 or so. 

I think FIDE did a great job with proiding separate championships, though. It would definitely feel much more sexist to have almost exclusively male champions.

Segregation by race is definitely not equal legal treatment.  So the example you gave does nothing to challenge the idea of "different, but equal (under the law)".

If we all (despite any differences of gender/age/race/politics/religion/sexual orientation) had truly equal protection under the law, then we should not feel threatened by any real or percieved differences.

There may be something to what he is saying. However, the main obstacle to women's success in chess is the lack of interest they have in the game, and there are plenty of women (Hou Yifan, Polgar sisters) who have proven that women in chess can be very successful. This generation of young chess players, especially in America, features a lot of really strong girl prodigies (Akshita Gorti, Carissa Yip, Annie Wang, Jennifer Yu, Rachel Ulrich to name a few) and I'm very interested to see how they fare over their careers.

I think women are more grounded and have other priorities generally, other than mere conquest for the conquest of it, for something as intangible in some ways as chess. I'm sure there's some competitiveness there, but women can generally stand back. Men are more driven by their compulsions. At some point women probably just get bored or fail to see the merits or intrigue of putting all that energy into a purely cerebral pissing match.

Kind of like one doesn't want to get into a physical fight with a crazy person, because one doesn't don't know how far they're willing to go to win, and escalating to that level just isn't worth it.

Bobby Fischer was a real jerk about it:

They're all weak, all women. They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know. They're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn't a woman player in the world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat.

They're all weak, all women. They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know. They're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn't a woman player in the world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat.

Ok, now this is sexist.

Yeah, kind of makes ol' Nigel seem like a feminist...

Wow really man? REALLY? This is just rude and ignorant. Shame on the person who is being rude to women on here.

Don't worry about it. That was Fischer, and he's already dead.

At age 13 (puberty), he sacrificed his queen in

The Game of the Century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_the_Century_(chess)

How dare Short!!!

Only Bobby Fischer is allowed to say such illogical things, and get away with it!!

Well said.  But this reminds me of the nagging thought in the back of my mind that chess is contrived, artificial, and a waste of time and energy.  To balance this doubt, I remember that chess can be worthwhile mental excercise, and to some degree a "yoga" or test of character (giving insight into my own personality traits and those of others).  Self-observation "under fire".

I think there are disproportionately low numbers of females (all ages) in chess mainly because they are not as thrilled about chess as the average male.  It seems reasonable that men's typical evolutionary role as hunter/protector would favor both physical and mental agressiveness.  Hence the enthusiasm for cerebral war-games.

Arithmetically, maybe but I'm not sure statisitics necessary work in such a straight line fashion.