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

"Men can be considered animals.

Any human can be considered an animal."

Yes but colloquially the term is often used somewhat differently.

I think many of those are good points.

I tried to use terms in the way I believed the OP to define them.

It's true there are two sides to a story. What one side sees as harassment, the other side may think of as love. Hopefully in those cases the people can communicate honestly, and consider the other person to come to a resolution.

In the case of my post, if the OP doesn't like my word choice, we can hopefully post some more and clarify our points of view to each other.

As for my use of "animal" I meant it as "a contemptible creature."

Je ne comprends pas ce sexisme exacerbé des homme vis-vis des femmes en général. Homme et Femme sont des catégories biologiques et non sociales et le jeu d'échec est un jeu culturel et socialNeverfear the dark,  feel not insulted by the lack of culture of some you beat at chess. Play on. I am 78 years old and with gladly play you  IF YOU HAVE TIME Au revoir 

I've met some crackpots here, but you sure deserve the 1st prize.

The trolling is consistently subtly deliberate, giving the impression of a sly intelligence.

But it's still trolling, so there's that element of "maybe he really means it?"

Interesting to read.

Like ending with: "lets first establish . . ." 

I think my comment sums it up efficiently. I'd be afraid of going any further.

It may all be in my head :p

Good point!

Is it considered sexist these days to hold a door open for a woman ? 

Not in my experience.

Some people do consider it sexist, yes.

Some people are crazy though, so don't be too disheartened :)

I hold a door open for anyone if I'm the one opening the door and someone else is about to go through... isn't that just being polite?  

Same for me , just being polite but some seem now to find such things " sexist " or offensive in some way . 

actually I said it was ok to have a picture up in another.  this was only a friendly suggestion.

.... this thread (or at least several parts of it) has become unexplicably angry.  why is that?

I thought the idea was that people were going to adknowledge that woman aren't treated right.  for a while (perhaps the first several pages) it was positive.

then chess.com chaos happened.

at any rate, if you read me closely I didn't insult anybody.

What do you think, when you're fifteen steps from the door, and somebody is holding the door for you?

I, too, tend to hold the door open for folks, but for some reason, it bugs hell out of me when somebody is waiting on me, holding the door.  It's, usually, all I can do to avoid breaking into a run.

LOL !  If someone is that far from the door I won't usually hold it open and wait on them . So many automatic doors these days that I find myself holding doors open less and less anyway . If someone does hold a door open for me though I always say thanks and think its only proper/polite to do so . 

The "not all men" argument misses the intent of the message. The message is, as a female chess player, I am harassed consistently on the basis of my gender both online and OTB, by men. Did I say all men? No, I didn't. The perpetuators of sexism come from both sides, men and women. However, the majority of them are men who feel that merely my existence as a woman guarantees them access to my mind and body. The idea that just because I am a woman, I can't post a picture of myself in fear of inciting unwanted and inappropriate attention, is sexist. It just is. Whether or not I put on makeup, look nice, or whatever, is entirely relevant to this conversation. That's the same as the argument that women who are scantily clad deserve to get raped. 

And btw, isn't it a bit telling about chess.com that one of the trending topics is about Nigel Short's undeniably sexist comments about the intellectual capabilities to women who play chess? If saying that women aren't smart enough to play chess is a tolerated topic on chess.com, that doesn't make it sound like the greatest place for women. People would lose their shit if someone said all men suck at chess. 

Holding the door for anyone is just decent human behavior. It should not just be extended to women. Women can hold the door for men, men can hold the door for women, women can hold the door for women, men can hold the door for men. Gender is irrelvant. Be a nice human. Hold the damn door. But yeah, men who only hold the door for exclusively women are assuming that women need to be particularly coddled or protected. It perpetuates the myth that women need to be saved by men. Chivalry is a silly argument. If that person is such a nice person, they'll hold the door for everyone.