Why are women not as successful as men in chess?

Do you think being rated in the top 1000 happens over night?

As I said, the participation to success (IM,GM) is non-linear but the TREND of participation to success is pretty clear. GOT IT? This, I think is a function of the rating algorithm where there will need to be a level of saturation in participation that will result in more of any group entering the top 1000 (If being in the top 1000, is the minimum criteria for success.)

If I am wrong, and I very well may be.  What again is your hypothesis?

You wrote this:

mdinnerspace

My view, belief, is simple. There are a greater amount of men playing chess than woman, they enjoy it more. Therefor, woman will not be as successful for several reasons. The obvious is numbers.But the main reason is men continue to study and play at the next level, because they are predisposed (right word?) or wired to play chess more so than are woman. There are differences, in general, in some areas of our brains.

Of course, many woman will be as successful as men, they are equally capable, but the numbers will always be less

You still have shown exactly zero data indicating predisposition.  If predisposition exists could you reliably attribute it to 1.8M years of evolutionary biology or is it more likely a socialization of 975 years out of the last 1000? 

Aside from spear throwing and making fire without matches, there are a number of skills that are needed to be successful in chess.  Can you can identify even one that is innate to hunters vice gatherers and cannot be otherwise learned?

Most American girls are simply not interested in the game. I've tried teaching my wife how to play and she doesn't care and has little interest. In fact, had I told my past girlfriends I was a good chess player they would probably have looked at me sideways because it's nerdy and women are highly influenced upon the opinions of others moreso than men. I think women would be awesome at chess if they cared and were interested because they wouldn't take unnecessary risks like men do and blunder as much. I have a baby girl coming in the next month and I'm going to make her the next Judit Polgar because I'm going to train her at a young age and she will wipe all the boys off the board with the tenaciousness of her Dad. AND she will not make stupid blunders as much because women are wired to be more safe!

-TacticalTrav

Congrats! But don't suppose too much, could be she doesn't like the game.

I can't speak for women in other countries because I'm American is all. Perhaps women are generally wired the same everywhere but that's a whole other discussion. I hear in Russia it's 'cool' to be a chess player so my bet is that that attributes to why more women are apart of the game there as opposed to other countries. For example, I know there is a Russian supermodel if I'm not mistaken that's a WGM. In America, we get confused when hot girls are smart because Hollywood depicts it that way unfortunately. Generally, if women are smart here they are not hot and vice-versa. You gotta hate the stereotype which I believe is the real underlying problem in regards to chess. There is probably a woman somewhere out there with the aptitude to crush top GMs if she was properly trained since age 5 like they were. She just didn't know it and may not have been exposed to chess. Maybe Miss Universe could have whooped up on Magnus Carlssen had she been given the opportunity, exposure, and the strength of mind to ignore the 'nerd' stereotype.

Tactical.. your point gas been previously pointed out. Is a good indicator. Just look at the top 50 females. 3 China and a few from India. The rest Russia, Georgia, Ukraine etc plus many from the Region who have relocated to the West. Chess is "cool" there as you say. Yet, these top Woman are a very small percentage of the 1000's of Men GM's. For whatever reason will be debated forever. However, my point is that even though Woman make up let's say 15% of the players, if there were no difference between the genders when it comes to playing chess, why are not the rating percentages closer to 15% instead of well under 1%?

MDinnerspace,

The rating percentages are likely that way due to there not being a large enough sample size of women chess players. If you have 1 million chess players, 850K/men chess players and the best player is say 2,800 rating and (using your 15% example) only 150K women chess players comparatively and the best woman player is 2,400 it is not fair to compare the two pools of men vs. women and say men are simply better chess players. I bet there is some woman in this world right now had she been given the same opportunity, exposure, and will to play (all 3 are environmentally controlled factors) could decimate top male GMs. If you flip a quarter 100 times it may not come out 50 times heads, 50 times tails. If you flip a quarter 1,000,000 times though it will likely be very close to 500K times heads, 500K times tails. This is due to large sample size.

There are simply not enough women chess players to make it a fair and just comparison but they could be just as good if not better if they just played.

So ... you are using the fact that there are very few really good female chessplayers to argue that men/women have the same chess potentiality?

This seems a weird way of going about it for me :)

POINT! We are not just talking today, but the last 200 years! And things are no different. Someone please, name a top 200 female player in the last 200 years besides the current 2. I am going to look up the "stats" on child prodigies, Dominated by men. 3 types of prodigies or savants, as all know, math, music and chess. Statistically I'm guessing greater than 10 to 1.

...

 

As for the "hunting genes", you can check out any article you want on evolution. It's standard textbook stuff that evolution runs so slowly we still have the same genes we did as hunter gatherers. And it's also standard that men have more of the stuff than women do.

For the contention that "chess is traditionally a male game" - is this even true? Your thesis is that if in pre1960 times a woman started playing chess, someone would come and remove her chess set and forbid her from playing.

Is this true? Have you read someone researching women's access to chess in historic times?

I never read anything for or against it. I would mostly think it's a myth that women were banned from playing chess. I think they were allowed, but just weren't interested in it.

Off the bat of my head

1: Competetiveness, "killer instinct".

2: Better pattern recognition, better spatial cognition

3: Higher psychological tolerance towards spending long streches of time being alone with chess for company.

Yeah it's logic upside down :)

"Look, there's almost no women who are very strong in chess. This prooves they are super good".

I just thought of something.  Aren't women generally more academically sharp than men?  After doing a little Google search, it seems to be the case.
If this is so, doesn't that 'sorta' prove that chess is a game that has 'an element' in it(outside of book smart style thinking) that men are more prone to dominate?  I wonder what that element is?

No Raspberry .. alot of you seem to miss my arguements. I believe there is a difference in the "mind set" of men and woman. This maybe the wrong description, but I say we are generally different when it comes to how we interact.

I do think many argue woman can play as well as men, because they say woman are as smart as men, a given truth. BUT chess is not about being smart (by what standards)? To make that comparison is false.

Woman deal with and better interact with many of life's choices than do men; and vice versa. Some areas we are basically the same.

Chess is an area that generally speaking, is played by a greater percentage of men and excell at it more so than woman. I have posted many a comment about areas where woman excell in a field over men.

Chess is not about intelligence, once people get that out of their heads, there is no prejudice in saying men and woman "think" differently which leads men to greater success in ratings.

the game of chess is analytical thinking, not emotional thinking (which is often far superior)

I argue against the arguement of participant percentages of woman as being the reason not as many are successful.(at the highest levels). Sure the percentages are quite low . Those that do, play for the love and spirit of the game just like everybody else.

Well power, that debate will last for eternity.

It is what you want to "believe" and no counter arguement will change anybodys mind.

Few woman participate in this debate. I do not presume to know the workings of their thoughts (just that we are different in many ways), BUT I am willing to wager quite a few more woman would say that "men and woman think differently" than men. Men will say we think the same, woman will say no, no we think differently.

Men and women percieve life differently.  Mainly, It comes down to reproduction.  Men can reproduce once, to MANY times a day.  Women can only reproduce about once a year.  This alone creates in the woman more of a need for their mate to 'stick around'. 
When you apply this to our chess perception, you will see that women are by nature more likely to not 'run off' their 'partner'.
There are many more variables, but it is a basic reality. 

You'd lead the clan back in the stone age Big

I think we ran all the women off.  Typical of chess players.  That's probably why so few women play chess ha