So let me sum it up...
If a field has a lot more women than men then it's absolutely fine
If a field has a lot more men than women then it becomes a "complex situation" and must be resolved?
The Battle of the Sexes: Chess
Sort:
3 in the top 100 in 50 years seems surprising. I know Pulgar and Yifan off the top of my head and I'm not super knowledge about chess current events/history.
In my mind it is a combination of things, but mostly related to less woman playing (which might be explained by some of your notes such as personality types between the genders). This is not inherently a bad thing I don't think-- more women than men are nurses, more men than women enjoy playing hockey, etc. There are legitimate differences (of course in aggregate) between the genders in terms of their interests that isn't a result of anything nefarious in my mind.
On a personal note, one of the highest rated players in my club is a girl who can't be older than 10. Above 2000 strength.
Someone here will be taking a forced vacation ! 🙀
01bdonohue wrote:
For 1400 years humans have been engaging in the intellectual war that is chess. Chess requires great memory, the ability to calculate many possible variations, and the mental capacity to predict the opponent’s next moves. Chess has become synonymous with Intellect. Women are very underrepresented at the high level in this sport despite there being no evidence in a difference in general intelligence between the sexes. FIDE, the international chess federation, began ranking the world’s top 100 best chess players in 1971. Only three women have ever appeared on this list (DavidC2). There are three main schools of thought on this topic. Some argue that the underrepresentation is caused by gender stereotypes. These people say that women perform worse due to societal expectations of them. Others believe that the issue is as simple as women aren’t as interested in chess and thus their lower participation rates in the sport translates to less high level female chess players. Finally, the third theory is that men have some innate advantage in their biology. The same as how men have an innate advantage when it comes to powerlifting. Men may have an innate advantage in chess.
The idea that gender stereotypes are the cause of the underrepresentation of women in competitive chess is not an unfounded one. Women have been discriminated against in many different facets of life for a great portion of human history. Given this fact, the idea that women tend to do worse in high level chess because of stereotypes makes a lot of sense. Chess players are given different titles based on certain criteria. The highest of these titles is that of grandmaster. Despite this title being around for over 100 years, the first woman was awarded this title in 1978 (Winter). This theory is backed by scientific studies as well. One study by Maass et al. found women played worse against men than when they played against women. This study has two people of opposite genders play each other in online chess. The two players would play two games against each other. The women would be told that the first game was against a man and that the second game was a different opponent who was a female despite both games being played against the same person. The players were paired based on their ELO, a measure of a player's skill at chess, rating. The study found that women had a 50% decline in performance when they believed they were playing against a male opponent vs a female one (Maass et al). The study ascribed its results to the fact that women have a lower chess-specific self esteem. The Authors argue that since womens’ confidence is negatively affected when they are playing against a male opponent that explains why they are underrepresented in chess. Another study that analyzed 8,189,614 chess games found that women play similar to the way their ELO rating predicts they will play when playing against women, while playing worse than predicted by their ELO rating when playing against men (Smerdon et al). These studies provide strong evidence for the idea that women are underrepresented in high level chess due to a larger societal pressure.
The second theory that will be discussed is the most simple. It posits that women are underrepresented in chess as a sport overall so this explains their underrepresentation at the highest level. Under 5% of registered tournament entrants are women so it doesn’t seem all that unlikely that women aren’t very well represented at the top of the game(Maass et al). It could be as simple as less women participating in the sport overall correlates to less high level female players. One study performed a statistical analysis on the ratings of the german players to see if the low participation rates of women in chess explains their underrepresentation at the highest level. This study performed its calculations assuming that gender had no effect on performance. Given that assumption, the study found “Only between 41 and 71.1 percent of the actual rating differences are explained by different participation rates of men and women”(Knapp). This means that somewhere between 28.9 and 59 percent of the difference between male and female chess ratings is explained by variables other than participation rates. This shows that while participation rates explain a great portion of the underrepresentation of women in high level chess it can not explain all of the variation.
The final explanation is that there is some biological difference between men and women that accounts for the male dominance in the sport. One of the most common tools psychologists use to study personality is the Five Factor Model also known at the Big Five Personality Traits. This model scores individuals on the five axes of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. De Young, Peterson, and Quilty further split each of these five traits into two separate traits as they found it more accurate for describing personalities as people with similar big five traits were often very different (De Young et al). One study conducted an experiment to find if there was any statistically significant difference between the sexes when it came to these traits. The experiment used data from 5286 participants who were given surveys that tested for the ten traits. The surveys consisted of many statements each of which the participant could answer on a scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The study found women scored statistically significantly higher on the traits of withdrawal, compassion, politeness, orderliness, enthusiasm, and openness while men scored higher on assertiveness and intellect (Weisberg). The differences in compassion, politeness, enthusiasm and openness will be discarded as it is unlikely that any of these traits has a great effect on one's likelihood of being a high level chess player. Women scoring higher on withdrawal could affect their performance in chess as withdrawal relates to higher levels of anxiety (De Young et al). If women are more anxious they may perform more poorly in high pressure situations such as chess tournaments. Males scoring higher on assertiveness could also explain the phenomenon being examined. Assertiveness is associated with social dominance meaning that men have a greater desire to climb to dominance in any given domain. This might lead them to spend more time practicing chess as they have a greater drive to be the best. Men scoring higher on intellect could be another explanation for the underrepresentation of women in high level chess. This trait is highly correlated with ability to problem solve and completing tasks quickly (De Young et al). Both of which would help in chess especially the quality of quickness as professional chess players are only given a certain amount of time to make their moves meaning they have to act quickly. Any one of these traits or a combination of all of them could provide a reason for why women are not very prominent in high level chess. As the studies cited show there are empirical, observable differences in the personalities of men and women. Since these differences exist it is not unlikely that these differences create an advantage for one gender over the other when it comes to chess. One drawback of this idea, however, is that women scored higher on orderliness. A high score on this trait means the person is more likely to maintain order and organize or to be a perfectionist (De Young et al). This trait being higher in women could give them an advantage in the realm of chess as they will be more organized in their training and more likely to strive for perfection in the sport. Supporters of the theory that the differences between men and women give men an innate advantage in chess may argue that the female advantage in orderliness is outweighed by the male advantages in withdrawal, assertiveness, and intellect. This aspect of women having an advantage in ordliness is however a good argument against this theory.
Women make up only 1% of grand master chess players (Maass). The fact that women make up such a small percentage of high level chess players is a very complex situation. This may be explained by societal discrimination and stereotypes. It certainly must be very intimidating for a woman to be playing chess in a tournament only to look around to see that the vast majority of her competitors are men. It is not unlikely that this has some deep subconscious affect on the way these female chess players compete. The idea that this inequality in high level chess can be explained by the low female participation in the sport is highly probable as well. Women are much less interested in chess and thus there are less of them competing at a high level. Finally there are scientifically studied differences between men and women. It is not impossible that some of these differences give one gender an advantage over the other in the realm of chess. More likely however is that this disparity is caused by a combination of these ideas and not purely one of them. The study of women in chess is a complicated one and it likely has a complex solution.
This is so long
:leaderboard
For 1400 years humans have been engaging in the intellectual war that is chess. Chess requires great memory, the ability to calculate many possible variations, and the mental capacity to predict the opponent’s next moves. Chess has become synonymous with Intellect. Women are very underrepresented at the high level in this sport despite there being no evidence in a difference in general intelligence between the sexes. FIDE, the international chess federation, began ranking the world’s top 100 best chess players in 1971. Only three women have ever appeared on this list (DavidC2). There are three main schools of thought on this topic. Some argue that the underrepresentation is caused by gender stereotypes. These people say that women perform worse due to societal expectations of them. Others believe that the issue is as simple as women aren’t as interested in chess and thus their lower participation rates in the sport translates to less high level female chess players. Finally, the third theory is that men have some innate advantage in their biology. The same as how men have an innate advantage when it comes to powerlifting. Men may have an innate advantage in chess.
The idea that gender stereotypes are the cause of the underrepresentation of women in competitive chess is not an unfounded one. Women have been discriminated against in many different facets of life for a great portion of human history. Given this fact, the idea that women tend to do worse in high level chess because of stereotypes makes a lot of sense. Chess players are given different titles based on certain criteria. The highest of these titles is that of grandmaster. Despite this title being around for over 100 years, the first woman was awarded this title in 1978 (Winter). This theory is backed by scientific studies as well. One study by Maass et al. found women played worse against men than when they played against women. This study has two people of opposite genders play each other in online chess. The two players would play two games against each other. The women would be told that the first game was against a man and that the second game was a different opponent who was a female despite both games being played against the same person. The players were paired based on their ELO, a measure of a player's skill at chess, rating. The study found that women had a 50% decline in performance when they believed they were playing against a male opponent vs a female one (Maass et al). The study ascribed its results to the fact that women have a lower chess-specific self esteem. The Authors argue that since womens’ confidence is negatively affected when they are playing against a male opponent that explains why they are underrepresented in chess. Another study that analyzed 8,189,614 chess games found that women play similar to the way their ELO rating predicts they will play when playing against women, while playing worse than predicted by their ELO rating when playing against men (Smerdon et al). These studies provide strong evidence for the idea that women are underrepresented in high level chess due to a larger societal pressure.
The second theory that will be discussed is the most simple. It posits that women are underrepresented in chess as a sport overall so this explains their underrepresentation at the highest level. Under 5% of registered tournament entrants are women so it doesn’t seem all that unlikely that women aren’t very well represented at the top of the game(Maass et al). It could be as simple as less women participating in the sport overall correlates to less high level female players. One study performed a statistical analysis on the ratings of the german players to see if the low participation rates of women in chess explains their underrepresentation at the highest level. This study performed its calculations assuming that gender had no effect on performance. Given that assumption, the study found “Only between 41 and 71.1 percent of the actual rating differences are explained by different participation rates of men and women”(Knapp). This means that somewhere between 28.9 and 59 percent of the difference between male and female chess ratings is explained by variables other than participation rates. This shows that while participation rates explain a great portion of the underrepresentation of women in high level chess it can not explain all of the variation.
The final explanation is that there is some biological difference between men and women that accounts for the male dominance in the sport. One of the most common tools psychologists use to study personality is the Five Factor Model also known at the Big Five Personality Traits. This model scores individuals on the five axes of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. De Young, Peterson, and Quilty further split each of these five traits into two separate traits as they found it more accurate for describing personalities as people with similar big five traits were often very different (De Young et al). One study conducted an experiment to find if there was any statistically significant difference between the sexes when it came to these traits. The experiment used data from 5286 participants who were given surveys that tested for the ten traits. The surveys consisted of many statements each of which the participant could answer on a scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The study found women scored statistically significantly higher on the traits of withdrawal, compassion, politeness, orderliness, enthusiasm, and openness while men scored higher on assertiveness and intellect (Weisberg). The differences in compassion, politeness, enthusiasm and openness will be discarded as it is unlikely that any of these traits has a great effect on one's likelihood of being a high level chess player. Women scoring higher on withdrawal could affect their performance in chess as withdrawal relates to higher levels of anxiety (De Young et al). If women are more anxious they may perform more poorly in high pressure situations such as chess tournaments. Males scoring higher on assertiveness could also explain the phenomenon being examined. Assertiveness is associated with social dominance meaning that men have a greater desire to climb to dominance in any given domain. This might lead them to spend more time practicing chess as they have a greater drive to be the best. Men scoring higher on intellect could be another explanation for the underrepresentation of women in high level chess. This trait is highly correlated with ability to problem solve and completing tasks quickly (De Young et al). Both of which would help in chess especially the quality of quickness as professional chess players are only given a certain amount of time to make their moves meaning they have to act quickly. Any one of these traits or a combination of all of them could provide a reason for why women are not very prominent in high level chess. As the studies cited show there are empirical, observable differences in the personalities of men and women. Since these differences exist it is not unlikely that these differences create an advantage for one gender over the other when it comes to chess. One drawback of this idea, however, is that women scored higher on orderliness. A high score on this trait means the person is more likely to maintain order and organize or to be a perfectionist (De Young et al). This trait being higher in women could give them an advantage in the realm of chess as they will be more organized in their training and more likely to strive for perfection in the sport. Supporters of the theory that the differences between men and women give men an innate advantage in chess may argue that the female advantage in orderliness is outweighed by the male advantages in withdrawal, assertiveness, and intellect. This aspect of women having an advantage in ordliness is however a good argument against this theory.
Women make up only 1% of grand master chess players (Maass). The fact that women make up such a small percentage of high level chess players is a very complex situation. This may be explained by societal discrimination and stereotypes. It certainly must be very intimidating for a woman to be playing chess in a tournament only to look around to see that the vast majority of her competitors are men. It is not unlikely that this has some deep subconscious affect on the way these female chess players compete. The idea that this inequality in high level chess can be explained by the low female participation in the sport is highly probable as well. Women are much less interested in chess and thus there are less of them competing at a high level. Finally there are scientifically studied differences between men and women. It is not impossible that some of these differences give one gender an advantage over the other in the realm of chess. More likely however is that this disparity is caused by a combination of these ideas and not purely one of them. The study of women in chess is a complicated one and it likely has a complex solution.