What it's really like being a female chess player.

There was a bird in the photo.  Some folks find birds offensive.

If you want to feel like a female chess player, just stop practicing. If you dont play chess for enough time, you'll get as bad as a woman.

Oh no, not the bird! 

It was definitely the bird thing that did it. As a duck I get taken down all the time.I wish I could say something meaningful about this topic but all that red was so painful I couldn't read a single word. Then I realized that not having read the first post has never stopped me from commenting before.

Reading antoniavivaldi's thing was enough. Dude...seriously that was one of the clumsiest attempts in the history of forever at getting this chick , if she even is a chick, to think you are awesome. Also never mention the online dating thing man, that is just creepy.

I'm making a list right now of things your head and a leg of ham left on the kitchen counter overnight have in common.

What is this ' Pick up an Italian ' night? The biggest stalker on cc is talking about hobbies and beautiful minds now.

He's trying to provoke certain reaction.

My immediate reaction is to assume he has a split-personality. 

OK, after 30 minutes of pure hell and no attempt at clarification from your side I am going to ask if you are talking about me or stalkercadenti trysts?

Trysts you know I am all shallow and artificial, but I am pretty.

Playing versus a yound girl/woman over the board, specially when i am single and she is pretty.. man.. i would ask myself why we play chess and not doing other stuff, you know what i mean... and in this case i can't play normal i would be distracted.

I'm sorry about the delay, duck, was chit-chatting with Pulpofeira:) Yes, I was talking about the infamous Chess.com stalker Mr. Stuzz;)

Deeply disturbed, no doubt

Whenever I say that a duck can be world chess champion, I mean a pretty duck

DD/Aim, how did they put it in the Harry potter series,

"Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon ...."  kudos to the ladies for being able to play chess without making it a dating game.

First of all, I apologize for the red. I have personal settings on chess.com so that my backgroud is red. Sorry about that. I wanted to make my chess.com background slenderman themed and things got out of hand. I promise henceforth to avoid that. 

For clarification purposes: I was specifically talking about my own OTB experiences when I was talking about the dude that thought he lost due to cleavage, and naturally the fellow chessplayer who sexually harassed me was someone I knew irl. But sexism against female chess players isn't just OTB and Online cases of sexual harassment and bullying. In many senses, chess sexism is institutional. But I'd have to make a whole other post about that (and trust me, I will.) 

To those of you that noticed that this post had a tone of lament, you're right. I'm frustrated with the way that female experiences are washed clean of the frustrating discrimination that we face, and instead focus is put on our looks rather than our lives. 

To those of you that claim that I shouldn't use a profile picture of my face. Some of you claim that everyone opens themselves up to criticism by posting there actual information here on chess.com. To some extent, I think this is true. Yet men who post their face don't typically get all the creepy and sexist comments that women do. This is not to minimize the experiences of men who are tormented on chess.com, it is just to say that the female experience for me is quite different. The tone and comments that I typically recieve are generally directly or implicity related to my gender. When I first started my account here on chess.com, I did not use my face and picked a gender ambiguous username for all the reasons that some of you mentioned. But then I had a change of heart. I guess it all came down to the world I wanted to live in.

I understand that the internet is a place where rampant sexism is often tolerated. However, I don't think it should be. Women should be able to have a picture and simple description of themselves. Merely existing as a woman on a chess site should not be a magnet for sexist comments. I personally felt that being true to myself and my ideals was more important than protecting myself from abuse. I don't expect all women to make this choice, but maybe instead of telling women to take down their pictures we should continue to strive for a community that rejects people who make sexist comments? The fact that women have to hide their identities only propagates the ridiculous myth that women aren't competitive and don't like chess. 

I want to also thank everyone for their insightful rather than incendiary comments on this thread. I was honestly expecting to be completely butchered alive for saying all this. As a chess player I have felt intense pressure to conform, and to take what I can get rather than question the status quo. I look forward to continue to contribute to the chess community in this new, less filtered and more honest way.

Oh to everyone who thinks I'm not actually who I claim to be. You're very funny and I can understand why you might think that, but nah, I actually do have lady parts. 

But I think that is not specifical of the chess environment. In many fields, many of us still struggle with the idea of being surpassed by any woman.