Read the post "The Status of Female Players in Chess" before you say another word.  

Snookslayer, it is actually integrated. Anyone can earn the full GM, IM, FM titles, regardless of your gender. If you meet the requirements, you get the title, no questions asked. They don't care whether you are male or female.

However, woman just have the extra option of earning the WGM, WIM, WFM titles, which have lower requirements and are restricted to women only.

So really women have no disadvantage in this system. They are equally eligible as men for the GM title, but for those who can't get the GM title, there's always the WGM title.

But Sucker, back to my original question; why is there a separate category for women at all?  I think that chess is a mental game and therefore men and women should be on equal footing. 

There have been numerous studies done on the psychology and differences between the male and female brain.  Studies have shown that women are much better at picking up languages, and can actually distinguish different, multiple tones in either ear, while men can "hear" only 1, even though multiple tones are played.  Men they have found through research are better at visual tasks, and are more aware of the 3-D positions of objects around them.  There was an excellent NOVA program on PBS about this.  Pretty interesting.  Men and women DO have different brains.

And there are some men and women who have none at all...

It's "supposed" to be encouraging to women, since not many women like chess to begin with. Imagine if we erased the NM, CM, FM, IM titles and kept only the GM title: it'll be discouraging because you are either a GM or you are nothing. Having those "stepping-stone" titles acknowledges your improvement and encourages you to aim higher.

what is a CM?, I saw someone named CM Howard Chiu

not so... please read fischer's comments above

WGM,WIM are easier titles because in those categories women don't have to compete against men. GM,IM are not exclusively for men - women can compete.

WGM,WIM are exclusively for women - men cannot compete.

i Love women and chess, arn't out mamas the same?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidate_Master#Candidate_Master_.28CM.29

very good inforamation, thx all

Judit Polgár, read about her, she is a Grandmaster. not a WGM, but  a GM with a current rating of 2696, higher than most of the national USA chess team members. 

What is a national master, what is better national master or fide-master?

FIDE-master.

How can i get NM?

la la la la la la la la la 

The reason FIDE award special master title for some strong female players is just to make it a little easier for strong female players to gain the master title, but not that female aren't mentally as strong as male (as science statistics prove, male's average IQ is not higher than female). For instance WFM is weaker than FM, but most WFM's FIDE rating is at least 2100, which means they at least worth NM level or little stronger. So as the same for WIM and WGM, they are each weaker than IM and GM but definitely stronger than NM or perhaps FM. 

Also the women master titles are only awarded to strong female players but there are lots of even stronger female players have gained the normal master title (FM, IM and GM). For specific list of female players who hold IM/GM title, you can check FIDE top player list Top 100 female or highest rating female players in strong chess countries such as China, Russia, India, America.

In a word, FIDE award special master tiltle for women just to encourage and praise the oustanding strong female players and make it a little easier for female players to gain the FIDE awarded master title. Because there are much less female chess players than male chess players, so respectively FIDE award female master title to appeal more female players join in competitive chess. Thus, there are much less female players hold IM and GM titles, but consider the ratio of FDIE titled players and the total number of female/male players registered with FIDE, enough number of strong female players are there.

the strength of your rating (the number) is determined by the size of the player pool..there are less women playing tournament chess so the ratings dont mean equivalent things. Think of how much easier it is to win a tournment with 10 players as opposed to a 100.

but why they were separated to begin with is probably old sexism...

How will we achieve an NM in chess.com