Why do women get different medals? WGM or simply GM?

There isn't enough time in the day to reevaluate incredibly trivial things was my point.  I've never thought about a profession in wood working, but even less in being a secretary (having trouble thinking of what profession I might feel is un-manly).  It's going to take more than curiosity to make me consider seriously something that 1). I could care less about currently and 2). I don't feel like I'm cut out for.

And it takes experience to understand these things too.  You can't just philosophise alone in your room... "am I cut out for ______ even though I don't think I am?"  But if a group of people as a whole are brought into contact with an activity, then you're affecting those who would have otherwise never had an opportunity to discover their enjoyment and potential for the game.

If a girl is interested in chess, I would expect her to play chess regardless of special tournaments and titles... and of course that's exactly what happened.  Female chess players go back further than 40 years.  What was missing wasn't an individual ability to decide, but a sociological phenomenon where females as a group were grossly underrepresented.

I realize this is largely anecdotal, but in my experience boys are taught chess much more than girls. Most men I've asked at least know the rules, even if they don't play often; women, not so much. Again, it is possible it's just my particular sample, and if anybody has any actual data I'd welcome it. If indeed this is the case, it would largely negate Elubas point: you can't consider whether you want to do something you're never exposed to.

This bias in who is taught chess seems likely to me, because chess is largely consider a male activity, in the same way I'd wager a much larger proportion of girls than boys got dolls (or toy kitchens!) as children. And a girl's only tournament seems like a good way to combat this. A parent may have never considered teaching their daughter chess, subsconsiously dismissing it as a boy-activity: the existence of a chess tournament for girls automatically challenges this preconception.

If a man says something in the woods, and there's no woman there to correct him, is he still wrong?

What opposition?

A woman playing chess is not exactly discouraged or frowned upon. I myself have helped some female beginners in my chess club, trying to get them to like the game, and I'm sure every other guy there does the same.

The only thing is that in a chess club she won't find many other women to chat with.But where's the discouragement?

Same thing, why are so few women getting a degree in math, science, economics and engineering? In spite of women getting even more degrees than men overall. The fact that the above are male dominated fields is surely a consequences of women not wanting to go there. We cannot believe that in a family nowadays, even in a conservative one, the girl says that she wants to study economics at uni and she has good marks in secondary school to prove that she's capable and willing, and the parents are like "naah, you should just go clean the kitchen instead" or "nope, go get some joke degree like women studies or something". You would think the prospect of getting a high-paying job at the end would be a stronger motivation than not having enough fellow women in class.

Fulliautomatix, I studied both quantitative and qualitative research methods and analysed some cases. You wouldn't believe the extent to which some radical feminists are willing to go to prove their point. Twisting data or influencing answers in interviews is common practice to satisfy their misandry.

As a result, I don't believe in ANY study that compares women with men (whatever their result). My argument for women less intelligent than men is simply their failing hard in any "intelligence-related" field such as the ones listed above. Sure it might be that women do have the same potential intelligence but are simply less willing to work hard on a serious degree, the point still stands.

Again, I hope you don't feel that the load of money they would be making as an engineer is not a strong enough incentive to overcome the lack of many female classmates. Actually last time I checked women are into men, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem to be a girl in a class full of men. Unless you're scared of competing with them of course, and you prefer to just whine and blame the sexist society that didn't allow you to have a higher paying job.

Yeah, why would we bother ourselves with evidence, when we can just choose to believe whatever we want? Much easier and more satisfying.

I'm pretty sure that if radical feminists (who make up a very small part of this world) had the ability to systematically warp every single scientific study so that it biases women:

1) it would prove the superiority of women

2) there would be more women chess players

Plutonia: which one of these website is your favourite (http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/misogyny-the-sites)?

It's believing what actually happens in the real world, rather than what two random people pulled out of SPSS.

I don't like your poor attempt at a personal insult.

I love women. I despise feminists. Try to make some research on the disparity of funding for breast and prostate cancer, or on fatalities in the workplace, and you'll see how intellectually dishonest they are in their campaign for "racial" superiority.

So, all of those sites then?

I agree, it seems less women on average are interested.  That's fine.  But if the ratio is 100:1 wonder if that's a fair representation.

Anyway, again, I don't think these female only titles were such a great idea.  If they got rid of them all tomorrow I would probably applaud it.

PS women are not a race

Why does wafflemaster feel the need to constantly point out the fact that he opposes women titles? Is he running for mayor in the next election?

You think that will be a big issue in the campaign?

Yeah, why can't anybody understand plutonia loves women but hates feminists? It's like loving black people but hating civil rights activists. The problem is not minorities per se, just when they expect to be equal to "normal" people. They just need to know their place...

Just nonsense. It's clear from his posts that he's happy with equality, just not equality in select areas.

I don't think he expresses himself very well, but your post is well off base.

where "select areas" include: access to justice, freedom of speech, freedom of mobility, ability to walk down street without being called an evil dirty feminist slut.

(importance of this topic in election will come down to how many 1.d4 players there are at the polls at the day)

Seriously though, he literaly thinks that we can't use comparative data on men/women because radical feminists are systematically corrupting  that scientific data. You are interpreting him too kindly.

The point is: equality is fine. Equality where you want it, and preferential treatment elsewhere is not.

Here's what plutonia said, "Women are less intelligent than men (on average), thus they don't like "intelligent activities"."

That's such beautiful expression of respect for women.