Why is this game so male-dominated?

By percentage, most women would generally rather spend their time looking good or trying to, or shopping, or gossiping about everyone else. If not, vying for the attention of a guy, or making sure they keep his attention. All of these things get in the way of taking chess serriously enough for most wemon to get good at it. There are exceptions, but....

Then why aren't ya?

Women may tend, for whatever reason, to value something ultimately more important than chess and some kinds of abstract self-involvement, and therefore don't generally have the pure dedication to such an ungrounded pursuit.  There are some extremely smart women around. Way smarter and more accomplished than I am in many ways. There's no question about that. It's clearly not a matter of ability, as it is one interest, habit, or orientation, I believe.

Someone once put it like this, which I think is a concise explanation:

Boys like to play against their friends.

Girls like to play with thier friends.

I think the trend continues past adolescence, although most really good chess players started as children anyway.

I'm pretty sure what he meant was that if a woman can reach the highest levels of chess, it proves that there are women with the capacity to do so. He just didn't word it right.

preteen and teenage girls could care less about board games...many of them prefer mind games, though....just not chess...i guess it isnt personal enough....

Maybe, but it's a lot of speculation. It's hard to imagine having that as a singular dream/exclusive goal, but certainly I look forward to your last quoted statement in the future.

I don't know how this all fits into chess, but it's probably a little bit of both environment and biology. It just seems a little strong to say that upbringing/ social realm accounts for every single personality of a man or woman out there (after all, it's not uncommon for two same sex siblings to end up with very different interests -- are the parents really treating them so differently from each other?), so I think there is a little bit of both that forms certain tendencies, such as how long a person sticks with chess.

But what's important to me is to judge a person on their essential characteristic. So if an "essential characteristic" of chess is having a rational brain, I am not going to assess a person on whether they are male or female, but whether that male or female has that essential characteristic. If we find a male with an irrational brain, we're not going to say "it looks like you are irrational, but your male-ness must prove otherwise" -- no, you are irrational, and that's that. Over a large sample maybe males are more rational, or maybe it's upbringing, or maybe it's an illusion; in any case, you only have a very limited amount of information about a person if you only know their gender, and you should know them better before making a confident judgment.

It probably would be so male dominated if it wasn't so male dominated.

And these essential characteristics can apply to age, too. Sure, having a certain age can be a possible sign of certain characteristics. And yet if a 10 year old kid found an absolute cure for cancer, validated the same way as other medicines would be, we wouldn't just not use it, surprised as we may be that it came from him or her. It's more fair to, whatever your suspicions, judge the person on the characteristics that you actually observe (i.e., objectively) -- it's basically being respectful for possible exceptions, rare as they may be. It would take the meaning out of trying to have good characteristics if people didn't even try to recognize them when they are there.

Ok, I know my post may not seem to make much sense, but just realize that it would make more sense if it made more sense.

"Why is this place so male-dominatrix?" is the more salient question, based on some of my random opponents and their behavior.

Sure, it's just a thought (even if it's very old).

I don't know about you, but I don't feel like I'm using much rational thought during a game.  Just some calculation and referencing patterns / experience.  Rationality may help get more out of deliberate practice though.

and you have? just because you insult me doesnt mean you are right and just because he is a kid doesnt mean he cant make more sense...

1. Your brain consumes about 20% of our daily intake of calories. That’s about 400-500 calories for a man and 350-400 for a woman

    

   And no i dont know what it takes to be a man because i dont live in a cliche world and im not afraid to say the truth. Yes ofc we all have to be nice to women, but the truth must still be spoken.

    

   have you feed your family when you were 14 because your parents died?? have you become millionaire just by hard work, have you created jobs for many people, are you a respected person that everyone greets when you go somewere??Does everyone come to you when they want advise because you are the smartest person around??

   Do mother bring their children to you and say to their kids i want you to become like that person??

    

   Tell me what makes you man???? Maybe im not a man, but neither are you i would suspect.

    

    

    

like a famous jewish speculator ones said, the truth is not a rare good, its there in abundance it just has no buyers.

If you are trying to suggest that because a woman's brain uses less calories shes less intelligent...then wow.

I know a man who intakes ~2000 calories, and a woman who intakes ~4000 calories. So by your logic, that woman is twice a smart as the man?

Also, apparently your intelligence is directly proportional to your calorie intake, so those who are fatter are smarter?

I think you meant it uses ~20% of what the body uses per day, which is an average and generality that doesn't mean much because it varies quite a bit between every human being. The reason men generally need more calories is because they tend to have more muscle mass and higher amounts of certain hormones, not because their brain uses more.

you really needed 38 minutes to find that out???

The other day, I had to threaten to bounce an ars hole out of the gym cause he got extremely hostile simply because some woman came in, and started lifting weights! She wasn't bothering anybody, wasn't in anybody's way, but this fool just couldn't stand the thought of a female doing something that apparently didn't fit into his idea of what women should be allowed to do. I've seen in my lifetime, that this phenomenon is more common than many on here would admit. "Men" getting hostile as hell, whenever some woman steps out of the "norm" and does something these insecure turd heads find threatening. Judging by some of the attitudes on here, I'm sure many would be sympathetic to that gym rat, fool. Personally, I'm not that insecure, and have no respect for the a-holes who are.

there is a definitive and simple answer availiable. Google "mind gender"...

anyway i was just quoting some random guy from a forum. No but seriously its in many endeavours like that, not only chess. just look at the list of richest people, the top spot is a man and the second is a man also, im not sure i think the third is also a man. That only accounts for people whos net worth we know, the list of women in the top spots is probably even smaller percentage wise. 

What about the best shogi players or go players... Or best chinese chess players???

Who were the greatest oil Tycoons?? who were the best consctruction moguls?? who where the best loan sharks?? who were the best poker players????