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

Nobody can post a picture of themselves without fear of inciting unwanted and inappropriate attention. 

Stop trolling and stop forcing attention on yourself. This stuff is all in your head.  

If anyone's offensive, it's you. Demanding that you and your gender be given special attention. Go fuck yourself, nasty idiot waste of time. 

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It's actually not. You said it yourself, it's for fear of attention, not for reason of gender bias. As I said before, imperfect world, imperfect solutions. Either deal with immoral people, or remove yourself from their presence. Gender has nothing to do with it.

Of course they're the ones in the wrong, and you can be upset about it, but you do have options.

Again, walking in a bad neighborhood late at night will get you mugged. Not because you deserve it, but because the world isn't always a nice place.

 

Actually it's differnet for multiple reasons. Mostly because there is no "deserve" at all. As I said before, they're in the wrong.

Pretty much this.

Either they're acting like an idiot... or it's not an act.

Either way it's only entertaining for so long.

So many generalizations in this thread, with stupid profiling and villification of both genders. I'm just gonna steer clear.

Well, you'd think so. But the final ruling on that is up to the feminists.

I dunno, I generally hold the door for men and women. If it ruins their day whatever... at least I know the door won't slam in their face.

I actually kind of view them as very patient, going out of their way to make things convenient for me. Really, a few extra seconds isn't a whole lot in the long run, and it's often not a bad use of the time. I don't know for me it's more of the random act of kindness kind of category -- you need a certain presence of mind to look behind you, think about what might help them, and quickly react to that -- in that little way I do feel connected to that person.

If on the other hand you have a thirty second walk and you see this person all the way down appearing to be holding a door for nobody, then it gets rather silly. But just holding it for much longer than usual, is unusual in a very good way, in my book.

"But yeah, men who only hold the door for exclusively women are assuming that women need to be particularly coddled or protected."

Well, no, there are other reasons why this might happen. For example, it might be that, men are actually, heaven forbid, appreciating who a woman is, and might have more of a positive association with you than with a male stranger, for better or worse. Sort of the opposite of when an interviewer has a negative association about you having the job just because you're a woman.

So this is what kind of annoys me. The logic that, because there are times where a woman is treated worse because of her gender, therefore, women can only be treated worse because of their gender, and not better. No, people make all sorts of associations with men and women, positive and negative. But some people will make it so that it is logically impossible for a woman to be treated better than a man, because anytime the woman is treated better, it's regarded as being treated worse. I can't say "ladies first" (I actually don't like that phrase myself) without actually putting ladies last. Even if I put them first, it's just my way of putting them last.

Well, I think that thinking says more about you being cynical than what's really going on. Come to think of it, any effing time in which anyone is helped by anybody, you could say there is some assumption that they can't do it themselves, if you want to be cynical. Oddly enough, no one points it out, until they want to use it as a proof of their political view. Seems a bit too convenient.

"Nigel Short's undeniably sexist comments"

Although I tend to be very open minded, particularly with competing points of view, one of the things that does make it hard for me to take the other side seriously is when they think they can be undeniably sure about something without even thinking about the other side of the issue. There are few things I'm undeniably sure about, and the same should be the case for more people, in my book. Most of the time, when you're undeniably sure about something, it's because you haven't considered things in a perspective different from yours.

"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."

Pretty sure there is a recent thread that says men aren't smart enough to play chess. If you're going to use thread titles to summarize a website so can I.

You might be missing my point though. My point is that anyone will post a topic for any reason. You're going to get controversial, normal, weird, satirical, any kind of post, because all sorts of different people post/make topics. It says nothing about the chess.com staff what stuff people are going to decide to make. If you don't like satirical topics, don't be in them. If you don't like provocative, click-bait types of posts, don't be in them. Perhaps some do though, because everyone is different and has different reasons for being on the forums.

Also, troll topics are a poor characterization of a community.

Not this one.  "Community", that is.

There is no denying what you write. But if you are trying to reach that inner moral compass inside some of them, well... you know the rest.

The majority of the guys you write about, are bold behind keyboards, but weak minded cowards in the real world. Its obvious they lack real depth. They escape into fantasy on the web, lashing out in an attempt to show they are strong, or masculine, or whatever--desparately trying to hide their own self-perceived inadequacies.

I understand your frustration, but think of it in Darwinian terms. Having them act out in such base manners, allows you to dodge another bullet of befriending a creep.

Sorry, but get over yourself. First, I've joked with my husband about showing major cleavage at tournaments to distract my opponent. Men are visual. How do you not know this? "Never once was I overcome with sexual attraction". Yeah, you're not a man. Men and women think differently, *shocker*. I've played in tournaments with nothing but very respectful men. Guys on here have been creepy at times but never crossing into harrassment territory.

"We are seen as a beautiful and tragic anomoly", gag me. Men don't act any different on here than they do on the rest of the internet. And they don't act any different in live chess tournaments than they do in the rest of the real world. A good number of men are pigs, or rude, or whiny, but so are women. Stop crying about it and just play the game. You want to talk about sex-based harrassment? Go beat some grown men at Call of Duty and then come talk to me. If I had a nickel for every guy who's called me a c*nt or a slut in CoD because he lost then I'd have enough money to buy Chess.com and ban you from it.

 

EDIT: Sorry, I know this is very frank, and maybe rude. But literally nothing has happened to you. You're making yourself a victim over nothing. Wish you the best. Feel free to let me scroll through your messages and tell every guy to go eff themselves.

ouch

I am sorry of what you been through

TRextastic - GREAT POST!!  you nailed it. Thank you 

Straight talk by Trex...yea guys are jerks. Go ahead and cry if it makes you feel better Neverfear. btw the red makes me think ur a guy looking for negative attention.

Neverfearthedark wrote: Females that play chess are surrounded by an allure and mystery in the chess world. We are seen as a beautiful and tragic anomaly for the pleasure of the male gaze. A nice novelty that people can read about and think "That's nice. Feminism has come so far." The reality of being an actual woman who plays chess is far less poetic. As a woman, I deal with sexism almost every time I play chess. I have experienced sexism from relatively minor offenses that in some twisted way could be seen as a compliment, to serious sexual harassment. The day to day life of a female chess player is fraught with micro and macro agressions from male chess players. Naturally, I'm sure a few of my sweet readers will be skeptical of my claims. But one would only need to spend a few weeks checking my direct messages to see some of the ridiculous and lude things dudes feel like they can send to me, and they would clearly see the stuff I have to put up with. Or perhaps instead I should describe how a guy I played in a tournament once suggested that the only reason I won was because of my cleavage. Like for real? I've played hundreds of guys, and never once was I so overcome with sexual attraction that I wasn't able to focus on my game. Or maybe that's not serious enough. Maybe I need to talk about how a fellow chess player consistently would seek me out and make uncomfortable and unwanted sexual advances on me. Whatever the case may be, whatever evidence that the world needs to understand the prominence of sexism in the chess world, is beyond my understanding. Instead, I'd rather just call it like it is, and hope that talking about will in some way lead to change.