Why are there so few women GMs?
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batgirl
Dec 15, 2007
0
#21
No, he was intentionally inciting reactions by making an offensively stupid comment. That fits well within my definition of Troll and nowhere within my definition of Irony.
It worries me that some people need to be told (or have it proven to them scientifically) that there ARE differences in male and female. I dont know what to think of such people myself. I am very thankful for the differences myself and I am not referring to our "plumbing" alone. Imagine how boring life would be if we were all the same in everything.
hallo
i agree with batbiggirl
but we dont have more
bla' bla'
'couse some do not have the
bools ...
love
with some fun if you wana ...
Hmmm... as I think about this, I believe a few good points have been made here, but the main point has not been unearthed. Women are much more social and communicative people than men. As such a solitary game like chess will most likely not attract women in great numbers. In addition, though I have seen chess described as a game of logic, strategy and spatial positioning, the fact is it is a game of aggression. We attack, counterattack, defend and sacrifice. The aggressive part of the game also favors males, as the more aggressive part of the human species.
Women tend to be less aggressive. All one has to do is look at the rates of violent crime to see the huge disparity between the aggressiveness of men and women - although the gap is decreasing as modern society begins equalizing the playing field, the gap is still significant.
The game of chess appeals more to men because of its aggression and solitude. As a result more men play it, and therefore more men accomplish the GM title. It is certainly not a lack of intellect on the part of women - it is merely their choice not to (on average).
Women lack the urge to win:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/opinion/31tierney.html?pagewanted=print
"For a quarter-century, women have outnumbered men at Scrabble clubs and tournaments in America, but a woman has won the national championship only once, and all the world champions have been men. Among the top-ranked 50 players, typically about 45 are men."
I also learned from that article that top male Scrabble players have groupies. Do grandmasters have any groupies?
grainpsilo wrote
I just thought this whole thread was moronic so I figured Id have a laugh...
The reason why there are not as many female grandmasters is little girls are less likely to be pushed into chess as a recreational activity by their parents even if they show a aptitude for the game. Less little girls competing means less opportunities for a grandmaster to develop by a simple matter of statistics.
But then again who cares..... what does it matter and why are we wasting precious time discussing it?
You seem to think the thread is worthy enough to write a post, along with a politically correct explanation for male/female differences that doesn't make any sense at all.
There's no reason to think that parents encourage their boy children to play chess but not their girl children. Chess is NOT manly. Football, baseball, basketball is what parents want their sons to play. Chess, which involves quiet indoor play, is inherently more feminine than it is masculine.
Futhermore, even when girls DO play, they are behind boys, and while 10% of chess players are female, only 1% of grandmasters are female. If it was simply about the "statistics" you write about above, grandmasters ould be 10% female not 1%.
In Scrabble, the majority of players are female, but somehow men are able to dominate the top ranks of the game. It's not about parents or society, it's about the different biologically inherent natures of men and women. The desire to win and make it to the very top is an inherently masculine trait.
nothing like a good political debate to bring everyone together
I didn't really think much about this until I looked up the acronym for WGM...women's grandmaster? Is this for real? There aren't really seperate men's and women's leagues when it comes to chess is there? And if not...why place an emphasis on being a woman grandmaster? I hope that someone is just going to tell me that there's no such thing as woman's grandmaster. Then I'll just have suffer a little embaressement for having looked up the wrong meaning.
There is indeed a WGM title. There is an informative thread somewhere here that explains the difference. At the top levels, there are indeed chess tournaments and Women's chess tournaments. Olympiads have regular and women's sections.
The regular (or men's if you prefer) generally allow women to play in them. Women's tournaments are obviously just for women.
There may indeed come a day when we won't need a separate set of tournaments for the women, but until there are more women in the uppermost ranks of chess (which day very well may come), it helps to promote women in chess.
I want to make an observation from personal experience. Although I can't say I understand the reasons I think there is something to the women lacking the will to win thing. I'm not saying that women can't have the will to win. I'm female and i'm incredibly competitive, its just that at least among the people i know, the girls mostly will not compete, so I mostly play with boys. In the last year i've gotten two female friends to play one game each with me but i've played most of the guys i know at least a handful of times or much more. It kind of makes me sad. And its not just chess. I become obsessed and competitive about every thing i really get into and I used to play tons of pool and i still play a lot of other games. Back when i played pool I had one female friend I played a lot with. I was quite good and she was almost as good but if we went out in a group she would almost never play and if she did she didn't play nearly as well as when it was just the two of us. I have a hard time getting girls to do anything competitive with me and i know its not because they are incapable of excelling. I'm just not sure why it is. When I ask girls to play chess most of the say they don't know/ don't remember how. When I offer to teach them most of them say they are just not interested.
On the other hand if I play a guy at something and I beat them they usually want to play again to prove that they are better and then it becomes an ongoing (usually friendly) rivalry. I don't know what the difference is or why I seem to be so different from most girls i know.
cheater_1 wrote: Answer: Because men are smarter.
Wow, nice sexist comment cheater_1. I'm sure that will win you the favor of many ladies.
batgirl wrote:
It's been stated here, there and everywhere that theoretically, there is no difference bewteen men and women when it comes to chess ability. Theoretically, there is no different between Japanese and a Russians when it comes to chess ability. Why are there fewer Japanese GMs? Answering the second question will provide insight into the first question... and possibly indicate that it's entirely the wrong question.
Is there actually a sound indication that men and women are inherently equal when it comes to chess aptitude?
Why are there so very many sexist comments on here? It is discusting and repulsive. I mean, women really do have more to do than men. Personally, I may stink at chess, but there are many women out there who don't. There is nothing that says "men are good at _________" and "women are good at _________." Both genders in my opinion have equal abilities when it comes to most anything.
And all the comments about "men being more aggressive" are totally ridiculous. I'm the most aggressive person I know, which is not always a good thing. I think women in general are far more aggressive than their male counterparts. Girls have a way of being REALLY nasty.
Dec 15, 2007
0
#36
"Is there actually a sound indication that men and women are inherently equal when it comes to chess aptitude?"
I said there is theoretcally no difference between men and women in chess ability. The question shouldn't be if there are any sound indications that they are inherently equal, but rather any that indicate they aren't. By saying there are far more male GMs or anything like that doesn't get it because between raw material and end product are a billion variables.
savy_swede wrote: nothing like a good political debate to bring everyone together
Hahaha, nice one 
batgirl wrote:
"Is there actually a sound indication that men and women are inherently equal when it comes to chess aptitude?"
I said there is theoretcally no difference between men and women in chess ability. The question shouldn't be if there are any sound indications that they are inherently equal, but rather any that indicate they aren't. By saying there are far more male GMs or anything like that doesn't get it because between raw material and end product are a billion variables.
I disagree with your methodology. There is nothing wrong with the question "why are there fewer female than male GMs?" It's simply a response to a valid observation: that there really are more male GMs. Naturally, there are a million and a half ways to go wrong in answering the question.
I suspect you may be anticipating some idiotic response about men being smarter than women and therefore better at chess. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) Show me a man who believes this and I'll show you a mean who either (1) speaks in jest, (2) doesn't know many women or (3) isn't too bright himself. But there are other potential answers that incorporate the possibility of a neurological difference resulting in differing levels of chess achievement, at least at the top levels.
Is there are source for ACitizenofCamberia's statement that men and women are on average equal at chess, but that men have a greater standard deviation? Or that men are inherently more driven to win, or more prone to obsession over a single abstract concept? What about the issue of multiple intelligences, and the possibility raised by Harvard's president a few years ago that got him in so much trouble?
It may be that the difference has everything to do with socialization and nothing to do with biology, but I'm uncomfortable saying that this is "theoretically" the case unless I actually see a solid theory saying so. Political correctness shouldn't masquerade as science.
Dec 15, 2007
0
#39
I'm not sure where your picking up the idea that I see something wrong with the question in this topic's title, because I most emphatically think it's not only a valid issue but an important issue. Let me be more clear than I seem to have been. It's obvious that chess is almost totally male dominated and the higher up the ladder you go, the proportionally fewer girls and women you see. Is this a question of differences in natural abilities between men and women? Maybe, maybe not. But unless one can demonstrate that there's some merit to the suggestion, there is absolutely no reason to assume it is true. So, in theory, men and women are of equal ability (although in reality, this may or may not be true). I've seen studies on comparative brain sizes, the difference in the distribution of IQ scores, the difference in which parts of the brain are accessed for certain tasks. All these things indicate some differences, but not necessarily qualitative ones. To my way of thinking the basic assumption must be that baby boys and baby girls are blessed, on the average, with equal raw material for chess ability, until it can be shown otherwise - which means, in the meantime, the difference should be searched for elsewhere.
batgirl wrote: I'm not sure where your picking up the idea that I see something wrong with the question in this topic's title, because I most emphatically think it's not only a valid issue but an important issue. Let me be more clear than I seem to have been. It's obvious that chess is almost totally male dominated and the higher up the ladder you go, the proportionally fewer girls and women you see. Is this a question of differences in natural abilities between men and women? Maybe, maybe not. But unless one can demonstrate that there's some merit to the suggestion, there is absolutely no reason to assume it is true. So, in theory, men and women are of equal ability (although in reality, this may or may not be true). I've seen studies on comparative brain sizes, the difference in the distribution of IQ scores, the difference in which parts of the brain are accessed for certain tasks. All these things indicate some differences, but not necessarily qualitative ones. To my way of thinking the basic assumption must be that baby boys and baby girls are blessed, on the average, with equal raw material for chess ability, until it can be shown otherwise - which means, in the meantime, the difference should be searched for elsewhere.
I'm sorry if I misinterpreted some of what you said.
I honestly hadn't realized that people still considered brain size to be a reliable measure of intelligence within a species. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that upon autopsy, Paul Broca (the father of cranial anthropometry) turned out to have a smaller than average brain. It might have been in Stephen Jay Gould's book, but I'm not sure.
Still, the original question comes up: why should we assume that on average male and female brains process chess identically? Any preschool teacher will tell you that little girls are more verbally astute than boys of the same age, and a few years later they tend to show surperior aptitude for cooperative activities. (They also tend to toilet train earlier, but due to the variations in equipment we can't necessarily assume that that difference is purely neurological.) The clear implication is that male and female brains are different from early childhood, and possibly from birth.
Presented with two populations that we know to experience different patterns of cognitive development, and that happen to show differing levels of aptitude for a particular skill set later in life, it seems reasonable that we investigate a possible connection between the two phenomena. We can't assume that the reason is neurological, but neither can we honestly assume that it's not. We should admit that we don't know, and set out to find the answer.