One good thing I can say About my Ex-..
When I was married I taught my wife to play,over the years she began to beat me more often. One day my buddy came oveer while we were playing getting on her about her game. I told him he didnt want any of her. after we finished, I turned the board over to them 20+ moves later he was crying, and whining. A very proud moment for me!!!
You know, there's a lot of really stupid answers in this thread. But I think the best post was by noonoodabamf on the third page. Just read the first few sentences. Prior being to invited to join the school chess club, she'd had this perception of chess players as a bunch of male nerds. At tournaments, some of her male opponents were rude to her. And other than her school's club, which seems to have several female players, there were almost no other girls at the tournament.
I think those observations really go to the core of the problem. There's a certain social perception of the game. People who don't play think it's a geeky guy thing, so most girls would never even think about getting involved. Among guys who do play, many think that female players are automatically inferior, so they don't take them seriously. These perceptions end up causing uncomfortable situations for some of the women who do start playing, so some don't stick with the game. And some girls are uncomfortable being the only female at the local club when they do show up, so again, they're less likely to stick around for social reasons. So the problem of less female participation feeds on itself.
I noticed something very odd the tournament I played in this past weekend. It was a large tournament, divided into sections by ratings - Open, Under 2000, U1800, U1600, U1400, and U1200. In the top 5 sections, I think there was only one female player out of about 100 people. In the U1200 section, where 80% of the players were under 10 years old, probably about a third of the players were female. This doesn't mean that female players are lousy and can only play in the bottom section. It means that young kids mostly only play in the bottom section until they improve as they get older and move up to higher sections, and more young girls play chess, but don't stick with it as they get older.
I've actually heard of that before. Apparently, the social stigma of chess being a geeky activity begins in middle school, so elementary school girls are more likely to play, but most of them drop the game once they reach middle school at 11 years old. Thus, far fewer girls than boys go on to become really good players eventually.
--Fromper
"Among guys who do play, many think that female players are automatically inferior, so they don't take them seriously."
Among guys who play chess, many of them think that everyone else on the planet is inferior to them. I've met a lot of great personalities in chess, but it only takes a few of these goobers to make chess clubs/tournaments an unappealing social setting. So maybe the real question is why do men put up with it and women don't? I'm sure one aspect is the self perpetuating fact that there are few other women present to identify with.
I'm a 60 year old female. My father taught me to play when I was a child. I only play now and again, but I don't think that is why I don't seem to win playing against a man (which is the only sex I prefer to play with). I think it is because I can't plan more than one move ahead. But, I must say with a spur of the moment strategy, it does tend to keep one's opponent making moves unplayed before by them and activate fully their thought process.
10 moves
?! That’s highly unlikely, unless your statistics were solely based on games with novices. I don’t think you’ll see much of that in local/amateur tournaments (especially at club ranks).
In a chessbase.com interview with GM Kateryna O. Lahno, she placed emphasis on the emotional factor or nerves…but her assumptions weren’t based on the openings.
(I’ve a blog & the site on that interview – that’s if you want the full details.)
guys, listen up carefully, maybe you'll get a clue:
i tried to play on as a young working woman, but it just got too hard, no free time
25 years later i'm retired and alone and i have time on my hands
and i seem to be doing ok ... any of you loudmouths want a game? i'm only a woman, and therefore not very good, maybe i will flatter your egos?
... or maybe not 
Oh Peter, you old wind up merchant, still it made me laugh.
I feel that Judit Polgar is so good, I feel she can
become world champion.
It will be a while before this happens. There are no female players who give us reason to think otherwise.
What a conundrum, I cannot deny that all males have a fragile ego and are only stronger than women physically, because defending my ego implies that there is a weak spot I need to defend, thereby making my ego fragile.
I just cannot win today.
That's EXACTLY what I said in my post, that women find chess boring, but some posters seem mad at me for saying it.
Nobody seems mad at you. They just disagree with your contention.