I'd heard a conversation similar to this with regards to tennis. The "battle of the sexes" was on. Bobby Riggs vs. Billy Jean King, S100,000 to the winner. Billy Jean King took the match rather easily.
Calling women stupid, has never made men smarter. How smart is it, you've run your mouth, won the argument, now you get to go home alone and what.. fall in love with your hand?
I think there is a discrimination issue in chess. Why is it that all the major games I have been following feature a predominent male bias? I understand the reasoning behind this in contact sports and athletics where the physical differences between male and female become quite clear but chess is a game of the mind, on the grounds of which both sex's are equal.
Here's my point, can anybody explain/argue to me, in a dignified manner, as to why the majority of top end tournaments are featuring only men? Could this be changed so that we could see more unisex participation? Do you think we might see Unisex World Chess Championship/Candidates Tournament participants in the next five years? Could there be more be more of an active engagement in education for lasses to take up chess?
Thank you for your time and consideration. I am merely provoking debate and am not taking sides or forming opinions here. Keep Civil.
It's simple, there isn't a woman player good enough to be in the top 40 in the world currently. Why is this so? Culturally parents are taught to raise children differently based on gender, and such things are further reinforced when a girl joins school and meets a majority of girls who were raised to fit the current feminine culture. Those girls have a certain set of beliefs that a girl who was raised to be competitive, goal oriented, and have a high belief in her personal abilites would not have. She would most likely end up conforming to some degree to get along with her peers.
Most of the top 50 in the world have been receiving constant high level training from top trainers since they were 10 or younger, have had parents push them to keep improving or at the very least encourage them and provide opportunities to achieve highly, have had goals like become the youngest GM put infront of them since they were very young, and most haven't gone to college but have focused their careers solely on chess.
The way to get a woman to that level would be to give her the same training and motivation as the other guys have gotten. Big focus since she was young on becoming the #1 chess player, top level IM/GM training from a young age. Lots of positive encouragement from parents and praise when she achieves chess goals. Probably being homeschooled so they can better control the culture shes exposed to and instilling a competitive drive in her by bringing her to competition and putting her in other competitive atmospheres besides chess like sports.Think of school as not so important and focus on college after she becomes say top5 in the world.
Even then theres no guarantee because she might hate the game, she might not be motivated because shes being pushed too hard, she might not put in the necessary work, her coaches might not actually be so good as everyone thought, she might have other dreams besides being a chess player. Most of the boys who are put in these sort of programs don't fully commit to them, only some follow through with it all and become top players. Even then theres no guarantee you'll wind up as a top 10 player rather than a top 50 or top 100. Ultimately any one person doesn't have great chances of being the best player, thats why you need a large pool of parents doing this for their daughters for their to be a decent shot at having women making up 50% of the top 10.
Even after discussing all these factors of what it takes to be a generationally strong chess player, and why the current culture works heavily against a girl achieving such a thing, you will have people saying idiotic things like women biologically aren't capable. I've only heard of 1 girl who received training similar to this who had the motivation to stick with it and she ended up 8th best in the world. That could indicate girls are biologically better at chess if anything, since the only girl who was motivated to complete such a training course became such a strong player (which if the genders were completely equal would seem unlikely considering all the male players who put in similar efforts).
Women are not competitive by nature.
Nah, they aren't competitive by upbringing. Life itself is competitive. And there are many competitive girls out there, refuting your point. Female sports wouldn't be a thing if women didnt care about competition.
Women are very competitive by nature, watch 2 women around 1 bloke, it's pure competition.
Mersaphe DON'T GO DOWN THIS ROAD PLEASE! Didn't the last 100 years of philosophic thoughts and social science reach the world out there??? Referring to "by nature" is simply no argument at all. Not only that its totally vague and unclear -because de-constructed- what the term nature means, additionally its a terrible and dangerous tool. By introducing the authority of “nature” one completely ignores the impact of society and the fact that humanity is constantly evolving. In the 18th century in was a common dictum to say “woman by nature are unable to think rational” “woman by nature are made for reproduction” “woman don't need education because by nature they are not made for school”. So please be aware to don't slipper down to biologism/essentialism. From this point on we can have a meaningful conversation whether woman are less competitive or not and if so, what reason could lead to it. And finally: if competition in itself is a valuable thing or not.
“woman by nature are made for reproduction”
Aren't they? 
Knottele: The existence of social factors is not incompatible with the existence of biological factors. So while proving the existence of social factors will do just that, that does not prove the nonexistence of biological factors.
"whether there actually are some physical differences that make men better at chess... i don't really care and just keep working on my own game."
Indeed, it's irrelevant to an individual. Even if the average male was 8 million times better than the average female, if I am playing a woman higher rated than me, she is better than me. I can't use statistics to argue against that -- as far as I'm concerned I am sitting across from a better player who I ought to learn from.
Historically women wearn't competitive because they wearn't taught to be. But in THIS country, in the last century, that's all changing. Look at the way the Muslim world still treats women.
Shall we use simple logic?
1. Chess tournaments are not discriminatory in the matters of participation regarding gender, or any other factor.
2. Few women participate.
Conclusion: Women aren't as interested in playing chess as men are.
I know few men who knit. Does this mean women discriminate against men when it comes to knitting? That's preposterous.
Maybe we should just let people be people and stop looking for differences to divide us? I hereby declare myself as a member of the Human Race - with no other senseless or useless modifiers.
Equality for ALL!
Yeah! Men are better bricklayers than women too !
Women don't like bricklaying.
"Women aren't as interested in playing chess as men are."
This may be true, but this doesn't disprove biological factors having an effect on chess playing. In other words the statement above could still be true even if biological factors did have an effect on chess playing.
"I know few men who knit. Does this mean women discriminate against men when it comes to knitting? That's preposterous."
It's possible there are certain biological things that make men on average worse at knitting than women. To have a better idea I would want to do research, but just on the surface I don't think it's an insane thing to wonder about. We have differences; this could be one of them.
I think it's determination...one day a woman will be as aggressive and determined as needed to be the best.
Will take the crown and then lose it ,just like everyone else.
Knitting? Yeah, that's encoded deep in our DNA.
I know a few guys in prison that knit, and they have NO trouble kicking my ass
I can tie my shoe laces...in a doubler as we'll !
Knitting? Yeah, that's encoded deep in our DNA.
If someone says you are genetically predispositioned to wear glasses it doesn't mean that you are born with a pair of glasses on; but something about you may make it so that you will indeed need glasses.
The best chess players are male.
Therefore, and due to their gender, men are better at chess than women.
Is not a logical conclusion... I feel like that shouldn't even have to be said, but reading some of these... wow.
Obviously gender must play a role, but honestly, nothing huge like hundreds of points. E.g. due to personality, I think the majority of players will always be male, but for example a female WCC, or female players in the top 10 shouldn't be a problem.
Men and women play chess with their brains... not with genitals, breasts, and beards. Just like Carlsen doesn't use his national heritage to find a proper plan in a difficult position.
That is not grammatical English. Even if it were, it is still terrible.
Leave it only to a chessnerd to correct and mock her intellect, instead of swiping the pieces off the board and having his way with her until dark.
I like post 31: "Judit Polgar is where the real chess genius in both womans chess and the Polgar family is, never mind Susan Polgars constant media-hugging self-promoting antics..."
Anyone see SP tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet trying to take Sopiko Guramshivili's commentating job during the world championship? Funnier than this stage hogging, funniest one yet was when Sopiko completely ignored the tweet by her jealous little manfriend Amish Girl, I mean Anish Giri, I mean Millhouse on The Simpsons, I mean, no duh, he'd beat me, lol, but then I'd pimp-slap him Jobava style.