lol electricpawn.

Pogonina's arguments are better than Kosteniuks, but Kosteniuk's are vastly superior to yours. You ask me to refute your arguments. You have none, for aside from highlighting some rather self-evident statements with which you disagree (without presenting any more reason that your maleness finds it insulting to women), you have presented no arguments.Kosteniuk's comments that youy highlight offer far more than your cries of disagreement.

Of course, you can believe what you will, but it's funny that you persist in believing something that cannot logically address quotes that you have brought forth.

If you put forth an argument that is wrong, I might take the time to refute it. When you put forth unsubstantiated opinion, no refutation is possible. You have no argument, only opinions.

Look, I understand that it can be a burden to prove someone wrong when their magnitude of ignorance is such that it will require a great amount of energy.  If you just don't have the time or energy to tell me how I'm wrong, that's fine and I can understand.

But as we both know your quote side steps my point.  Specifically my point is that if they ever institute international titles that are available only to those born in the United States, and are as much as 300 points below the standard titles, and deviate in name only to include "United States" e.g. "United States Grandmaster" then this would be an insult.

On the other hand, if there were a women's chess federation that ran women's only tournaments, then I would not find it insulting if their title requirements were below FIDE's requirements.

This discussion would be entirely different if you had to beat a WGM before you could coment on wether or not the title should exist.

I haven't read all of the posts made in this forum, so hopefully someone hasn't written this already.

The fundamental aim in giving titles in chess is basically to recognize those players as being in a category, or as having achieved a certain level of success or strength. From that respect, women's titles are just another form of recognition and accomplishment given out. This was done I think to encourage women of lower titles to feel proud of what they have accomplished and strive to get better. In this manner it makes sense, but I could see how some women might be offended by it.

In terms of the popularity of chess amongst women? I think women in general are simply not as intrigued by chess as men; it is basically a game of war, where two sides fight and die, and a truce is called or else after the bloodshed emerges a winner. I think this sort of game definitely appeals more to males than females, and this I can say is not open to speculation. Males, having in history clearly been more involved in warfare, are obviously going to like chess more than women, in general. This isn't sexist; history is what it is, and the interests of males and females do not have to coincide. People shouldn't worry so much about comparing the accomplishments of males and females in chess so much; we're comparing chairs and tables here. Both have different qualities, and both have different interests and different talents. Why don't you see an outcry over the lack of males enrolled in yoga classes?! People tend to conentrate on areas where females tend to be inferior in general, instead of vice versa, because in history their rights have often been thrown under the bus. So to be politically correct, people want to see women "equalize" everywhere, but in reality women and men are in many ways partitoned, separate beings. Of course many qualities are shared, but men and women will never be the same, and we shouldn't try to make them so.

Ok, this makes sense to me.  I didn't realize that I was just throwing out my opinion.

In my defense my problem with Kosteniuk is that a lot of her arguments are moot points (such as the promotional BS) but she does make good points under her physical and physiological headings.  If women are in fact disadvantaged, then I don't have a solid reason to support abolishing women's titles other than the fact that I would find it insulting if I were a women.  My "manliness" as you put it really has nothing to do with it.  Regardless of the group, discrimination is a sore spot for me.

I also read Pogonina's but I don't see what makes her arguments better.  Like Kosteniuk I think a lot of them miss the point entirely when they start talking about encouragement and the history of the game.

To defend women's titles I want to be shown definitively that women are at a disadvantage.  Not due to their upbringing, but due to their gender.  I also don't like that the titles were instituted before such "proof" was gotten through research. 

But I see your point, I'm not making any arguments really, I see that now.

And actually, I DO understand that the titles can be good for purely promotional reasons.  However even among professional chess playing women the titles are in dispute.  My reasoning is that if chess playing women find the titles insulting then the promotional and encouragement arguments fall flat.

It looks like electricpawn's relentless onslaught of 20th century classics has finally killed the thread.  Congratulations electricpawn! 

I was laughing the whole time by the way.

Why do you use a " k " in the spelling of America ?  I also want to point out that the USA is not the only country that has the NM title. I know this first hand since I am also an NM in Portugal , which requires a 2200 FIDE rating which is a bit harder to get than 2200 USCF.  I feel certain other countries also have NM as well.  So, maybe I am now an NMx2 or NMNM ? 

If FIDE is gonna give affirmative action titles and womens titles I think it only fair that they give redneck titles too ...... then maybe I could get the GM title though it would only be the RGM ..... Ofcourse the requirements would be different as well : the RGM is for ratings over 2000 FIDE and instead of norms in chess they must have won a minimum of 55% of all bar fights they have been in and be able to skin a buck and drive a pick up with manual transmission...... 

"....and drive a pick up with manual transmission...... " with a hot chick.

No it isn't ... relying on the same authoritative source as my pal NM Reb (namely myself)

As far as I can tell, there are separate women's tnmts because that's what most(?) women want...if they did not play in them eventually there wouldn't be any separate tnmts/titles for women. And then there would be more world-class women GMs?IMs/FMs etc...maybe...possibly...prehaps...probably I think.

Woman categories is WRONG !

nuff said