The Status of Female Players in Chess

I think it has to do with social stereotype of an average chess player. He is considered to be an unsocial nerd.

Same analogy can be put in computer science. I'm in that field, and in college my generation had nearly two hundred students, of which only five were women. This seemed odd to me, even with the males having a greater percentage of going to college here (Nothing gender related, they are just more motivated because of the draft issue ).

This was explained some years later by a particulary rude girl who told me: "You computer tech guys spend all your time jerking around with computers so you don't have a clue when it comes to women." Needless to say, she was never incovenieced with my company after she paid the tab.

So one possible solution may be to brake the stereotype that chess player are mostly unattractive men. 

And how many rated games do you play with people more than 500 points lower than you Tony?  Maybe you should practice what you preach? The word hypocrite definitely comes to minf here. Also if you bother to look in my game archive I have probably played some rated games with players a lot lower than me than you have done. Try getting your facts straight BEFORE running your trap.

hey, chill out guys ... it's ok, Reb is being a perfect gentleman, and i'm having fun, even though i'll likely be crushed soon

i think testosterone damages the brain

I just don't understand having men's and women's rankings... like the women can't beat the men?  It's chess.  If you have enough strength to pick up the piece and move it then why is there categories based on sex?

I also believe this true for practically every non-contact sport.  Please don't assume about contact sports, if they want to compete and can stand up to the men then let 'em. 

reb, I would like to point out that I regularly play rated games against opponents with three digit ratings purely because I enjoy their virtual company. I have even been known to lose on the odd accasion, (how sad is that). My point is, that it doesn't really matter. If you checked my archive you would see this. My rating goes up and down like a bride's nightie and my graph looks like a cardiogram. So what, I'm enjoying my games.

Thank you very much reb for giving me the chance to use one of my favourite words in the english language. Its been a long time since i have had the chance to use it and it describes you perfectly.

                                                  TAWDRY! 

 I don't understand where you got the impression that there are separate rankings for each gender. Men and Women compete against each other and for the same ratings. 

After just checking my own games archive here I see that I have several games with opponents 1200 points lower rated than me, and yes rated games ! I dont even think there are players here 1200 points lower than you, are there Tony? Just shows how your attack against me was in ignorance as you obviously didnt check to see what level of players I have played. I have since that time decided to not play with players too low rated though for various reasons. One of them being that they dont know when to resign and waste my time. There are other reasons and rating change is only one of them.

Two other stupidities I've picked up in this thread:

1.Women don't have time to work on their chess because they are too busy cleaning up after men.

Well somebody better tell all the single men who were WC (quite a few I believe) that they cannot possibly be good at chess because they are too busy cleaning up after themselves! Plus, I don't think all women are married either.

2.The tournaments are held in some dodgy places so women feel unsafe there.

Oh, and men are somehow magically protected from danger? And don't pull out the physical stregth argument here. I don't know many chess players that are able to defend themselves in a street fight against a 100 kilo thug.

I believe he means that women have their own titles and own tournaments, in that he is right. Yes, women can , and do also compete for titles like GM, IM and FM as well as fide ratings. In addition they have their own separate competitions that men cannot play in and separate titles that men are not eligible for. I dont believe there are chess competitions for males only, are there? This is done to encourage more females to play but is it really fair? There are also competitions for "juniors" when juniors are some of the worlds top players, Karjakin, Radjabov, Carlsen, for example.

Reb, I can't believe we read it that differently. I believe the original poster was concerned for the opportunities that women have, not how unfair it is to men that women don't compete with them.

Is it fair that there are women only tournaments? I think so. There are lots of restricted (or "closed") tournaments. In the US, states often hold a closed and/or invitational tournament that has eligibility requirements, same goes for US Champion or Champion of any other country. Colleges/Universities and other chess clubs also sometimes hold tournaments open only to their members. Women only tournaments is just another example of a common practice -- closed or invitational tournaments.