The Status of Female Players in Chess

Have you ever actually shed blood at a chess match? That would be interesting.

Women don't play chess because they find it boring.

Perhaps one of the female posters can ask their female friends why they find chess boring, and they can report back with a more detailed answer.

I read the earlier posts, and none were very illuminating on the issue of why women find chess boring.

There were one or two posts on how women feel uncomfortable going to a chess club and being the only female, and I understand why that would make someone uncomfortable (I also don't feel comfortable being where I'm different than everyone else), but it doesn't explain why there aren't chess clubs for women the way there are knitting clubs, etc. 

Could be due to lack of interest? I doubt there are knitting clubs for men either.

Don't worry:

1. Moves may not be taken back here, by anyone (female or not).

2. You would have to possess a particularly acute sense of smell to get anything over the internet!

As to the feminist issues involved, in your post, I leave that to those who understand them! (however, a set of ear defenders may be required)

 An opponent is an opponent.  We are talking about the general female population as a whole, not the annoying neighbour/girlfriend/co-worker.  Not all of them are idiots....

I don't mean to suggest anything radical or risqué, but perhaps male posters could ask their female friends as well.

I would ask a different question, and of a different audience. Everything that bores me, from professional golf to celebrity gossip, bores me simply because it doesn't interest me. One does need a reason to find something boring; one needs a reason to find something interesting. Ask people who enjoy chess why they enjoy it, and ask those who don't enjoy it (or aren't interested in trying) why they feel the way they do. If a pattern emerges along gender lines, we may have the beginnings of a partial explanation.

I can’t argument so deep about how male and female brains work, but it’s generally known that the brain’s dynamics for male and female are quite different. It’s known that, for example, the male brain makes a focused image of the surrounding world and female brain makes a general o global one. It not means which one is better or worse... it means that males and females have a different way for their external world representation.

Maybe there is an historical o evolutionary explanation about that difference. Perhaps, to survive, males had been forced to make a hunting team. And to make a successful operational hunting horde, the team members must to accept quickly a leader... and follow instructions from him. It’s usually most hard for females to accept instructions from a leader... at least, from another female. Eventually, that is why I’m not expecting women avalanche voting for Hilary.

The hunting process is a focused, calculated, patient one. It looks like a battle... or chess game. I’m not telling that women are not qualified or able to play chess or to fight in a battle, but in a cultural male world, in which males have reserved the most bored, heavy, and unskilled tasks for women... it’s not a surprise to find more males than women playing chess. And the historical brain dynamics doesn’t help them.

Well then why is it that you are most likely to find way more girls than boys taking classical dance lessons?? Same as chess I reckon, but just the other way around. There is no reason boys are more skiled at chess than women, and I'd say it is about the same for dance. Even if women tend to have a greater agility, men tend to have greater strength. The reason for chess players beeing mainly boys is that chess is amongst the activities that have to deal with deep stereotypes that state in people's mind that chess is for nerds. Also it is not so easy for any girl to go on a regular basis to a chess club where she cannot make anygirlfiends, +some extra per pressure against chess (some will think you are a dork), but I doubt it can apply to young children so much, whereas many kids start going to chess club at a young age.

So really I think these differences are due to in a great deal to stereotypes, like dance lesson which I think is a good exemple of the opposite, but you may find many others I am sure. Also, I do agree thats it's lame to have chess being rated this way by some and lacking so many girls when it may be the only one "sport" or activity of competion where boys and girls have the same chances of winning and could be set as an exemple against sexual discrimination in sports, activities, schools, or soceity on a wider scale.

All of this discussion can really be broken up into two separate questions:

1) Why are fewer women drawn to the game?

2) If environment were not a factor and a male and female player were given the same training and opportunity, would one or the other have a natural advantage?

In answer to the first, I have to say it's pretty obvious; chess-playing environments aside, the game is really about war, conquest, and forcing your enemy to submit.  There are no health benefits, there is no self-defense application, there is only the opportunity to control your opponent and to endeaver to prove one's superiority.  Is it any wonder why these values don't attract as many female players?  It's not that there aren't controlling females in the world; they just don't care to spend hours doing it methodically.  In general, (don't kill me for stereotyping; this is real) women are nurturers.  They build, they cultivate, they bridge.  War is about destruction and superiority.  In a women's Utopia, everyone wins.  In a man's Utopia, everyone wins unless they're playing against him, in which case they are destroyed utterly.  Chess is by nature a hard game for a woman to love.

In answer to the second question, does a male player have a natural advantage over a female one with environment and culural values aside?  Perhaps a very small one.  Women are physiologically more emotional than men.  This is strictly by virtue of the different chemical cocktails flowing in their veins.  They require different hormones to create life, and this in turn has the side-effect of added emotional involvement with life.  Chess is not an emotional game.  It takes thousands of hours of patient, logical analysis to become great.  An emotional male, in turn, is much less likely to become a great player (or even interested in the game) than an unemotional male.  Emotion makes one impatient and requires an element of satisfaction from chess that it is not designed to give.  Sure, it may feel great to win and really make one angry or despondent over a loss, but the truly great players don't play for the rush of the win.  They play for the security and surety of being able to calculate every move.  The true satisfaction for the chess guru is the mastery of the game, not the individual win.  So does this answer the question?  Do males have an advantage?  I'd answer this way; if the above simulation were carried out and two children trained in a controlled environment and the only diffence through their whole lives was that one was a boy and one a girl, then I'd have to say that intellectually they should both be able to perform at the same level. I'd also bet, though, that if there were any way to measure it, statistically the boy would be more likely to love the game, especially if any cultural values were allowed to taint the experiment.

That's EXACTLY what I said in my post, that women find chess boring, but some posters seem mad at me for saying it.