Why Is It Mostly Men That Play Chess?

bro

You are right, it is a mere board game . . .

ikr

😫

Why would this be locked? It is a reasonable question and I have wondered that myself. If I had to guess I would say the game simply does not appeal to most women. I will add an addendum to the question - why do so many chess-playing girls stop playing when they become women? I have seen this happen over and over in my club, lots of girl kids play but very few stick with it past puberty.

I don't think we have particularly good science to answer this question. There may be natural propensities which form part of the answer or they may not, but societal expectations certainly play a role.

Most men are not good at shopping.

In after the mod

Historically, women have been shunned from participating in certain activities and chess is no exception. It is good that the last generation or two have tried to encourage women in playing chess. 

Although less discussed, I believe we must look at this at various levels of chess ability. I'd say the casual player (hobbyists, club players, or basically anyone under "expert" level or an official chess "title") has seen more women recently than in years prior. The Netflix series The Queen's Gambit might play a small role in this, but online streamers and chess personalities should also get some deserved credit for women representation in chess. 

At the highest levels of play (experts, titled players and basically those "chess pros"), women haven't reached the quantity of players at the top as men, but I suspect this has more to do with more men choosing to play than women. Maybe it will balance out a little more in the next few decades?

I have lost plenty of games to females, they can be just as good as men at chess.

I will say that young women (typically until teenage to early-mid 20s) can be more easily intimidated by body language or psychological tricks. (I think it might have something to do with women's brains being hardwired to better picking up social cues). But those who are very confident in their abilities (or experienced) will not be influenced much by these external factors.

True, but I think the part about body language is true for all teenagers or mid-20s if they lack playing experience. 

I don't think Judit Polgar or Hou Yifan would be as easily intimidated...in fact, I'm pretty sure they would be the "boss battle" of most chess games xD

Like you said though, it comes down to the experience thing though.

Human beings have two main purposes; survival & reproduction. While men have more suitable physiology for survival tasks, like fighting or hunting. Women undertake reproductional tasks after choosing their best possible candidate who can protect them. In order to accomplish these duties men genetically are more interested in fighting and making strategies on threats. Women have different interests and abilities on different complemetary fields of life.

there are probably some girls that get harrased

Sometimes I think that's a lame excuse... but every time this topic comes up what do we see...

So to help balance out the kids who think they're being funny, I've played many women and girls over the board, and overall I have a negative score against that gender, which is fine, because I'm never upset about losing to good players.

In fact my most annoying loss was to a Harvard mathematics PhD student, because he played poorly, and beat me anyway (I got revenge later )

That's the beauty of chess. Things like age and gender and education don't matter. I believe it was Lasker who said:

"On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of lies; the merciless fact, culmination in checkmate, contradicts the hypocrites.".

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Anyway, yes, it does seem females have to endure the male turds who look down on them, both in jest and in seriousness. That's really too bad.

I think it’s because women have less free time than men. We work as men, but homework is still our responsability. In addition we have more social life with parents and friends, we read etc.. Moreover, chess is known to be a very violent game. ^^

Yeah, I think as far as personality, women are probably not as interested...

... but I think the split should be more like 60/40, not 90/10. Men and women aren't that different.

You lack imagination.

When the context is human gender, then yes, males and females are very different.
When the context is differences in general, then humans are extremely similar. Sometimes you can't even tell by looking and listening whether a person is a male or female.

Not that I should expect to have a serious discussion with you...