Wise words from Judit Polgar

"During most of my playing career, the performance gap between men and women was slowly narrowing. Federations began providing more coaching and competitions for girls and women. This progress was reflected in improvements in the Elo rating numbers for the leading female players, and by the 1990s women were starting to reach grandmaster level. But by the end of the 2000s, this catching up seems to have plateaued.

When my colleague Nigel Short argued in 2015 that men’s brains were “hardwired” to be better at chess than women, and that everybody should just accept that as a fact, he caused a media storm. I also think that men and women are different – but Short’s conclusion does not stand up to scrutiny, and the burden of proof is with him. Even if women do think and compete differently, we can attain the same achievements as men: be it in science, art or chess.

The debate is still with us at the conference I’m helping to arrange this weekend in London, Chess and Female Empowerment. The much lower participation of girls and women in competitive chess is still a problem and, crucially, girls in chess are not treated the same way as boys. Coaches and officials are guided by potential successes in girls competitions, which are comparatively easier to achieve. Parents tend to follow what the experts advise. The point is that a talented girl should be inspired to compete in all competitions, just as a boy would..............
........When the world chess body, FIDE, introduced the titles of woman international master in 1950 and woman grandmaster in 1976, based on much lower performance conditions, it helped to create female role models in the chess world. Today, some women consider these titles patronising. Meanwhile, national federations use their resources, and public subsidies are creating more female-only competitions. It is high time to consider the consequences of this segregation – because in the end, our goal must be that women and men compete with one another on an equal footing."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/30/chess-grandmaster-women-only-tournament-play-men

"Separate is inherently unequal."--US Supreme Court,  Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas (1954)

if she's out of the kitchen playing chess she's not dusting. what is so hard here

It's really quite straight forward.

You either believe that Women are intellectually equal to men or you do not.

If you do not believe that Women are intellectually equal to men:

    Then Having separate women's titles based on lesser standards is a necessary reward mechanism to encourage women to play and compete in organized chess so that they do not think that they are paying that their federation membership dues for no reason.

If you do believe that Women are intellectually equal to men:

    Then Having separate women's titles based on lesser standards is a backhanded insult to every young girl and woman who is interested in playing chess.

Women who accept the female titles based on lesser standards are making a tacit admission of intellectual inequality. It blows me away why they continue to do this! With no end in sight!

As for this spurious line: "...isn't it interesting how a man wants to talk about what is and isn't good for women."   

Good has nothing to do with it. You either believe women are intellectually equal or you don't.

And if you do believe in the intellectual equality of the sexes, The fact that women's chess is being consistently held to a lesser standard should be offensive.

Indeed. Veddy interesting topic. I personally have never bothered with the gender superiority or inferiority aspect; Men in my day (back when I started out) played chess and it was rare for me to hear about phenoms like the Polgar Sisters. Kind of like a novelty. Sure, in hindsight, I can be considered chauvinistic (in an old-fashioned way I guess) because of course there are a plethora of fantastic, strong Female players these days some 20+ years later. WGMs who are equal or nearly equitable to some Men GMs currently. As it is, while I do agree that GM Short was ignorant of this trend as it was happening during his time; it was totally understandable and I believe widely acknowledged amongst the Men, that yeah, he said bluntly what we all thought (to ourselves). And plainly and honestly I do tend to still think this way despite current trends and the roads paved by outstanding Women players. I guess I am still old fashioned, and I do not apologize but, maybe offer an acknowledgement that these times demand a certain type of change in thinking as far as this made up gender gap. To me, talent is talent, whatever gender but then again, I often defer to my primal stereotype or prejudice that it is primarily in Men~our basic competitive nature vs Womens nesting nature in as far as Chess is concerned (as our obsession in Sports, Gladiator games or any type of activity what Women would deem as nonsensical, and that includes Chess, that we commit ourselves to playing despite objections from our better halves-who I know reading this can relate to, that Women in general think is "a waste of time") that We are the primary drivers of this game: and while Women players do give some meaningful validity to this "sport", "art" or Life- ultimately, whatever validation they do derive for themselves should be deserving, well earned and not capitulated by some need for social or gender equivalency which where technically there really isn't any.

forget Mr Nigel...chess woman always sexy 😘

It likely isn't a matter of belief. The neuroscience has been indicating for some time that women are more than capable of holding their own with men in chess and intellectual endeavors in general. (Whether or not chess is an intellectual endeavor is at least arguable. Rowson's new book looks at this)  That men dominate is because the size of the pools competitive chess draws from are much larger for men than women. That has been shown to be related to social conditioning factors across multiple cultures.

men are better at chess because they are just better naturally, they didn't have any special encouragement to be better than women, they just are. Now that women get special encouragement they are still not on the same level. It's just how it is, just like all other sports. Men and women are different and it's OK.

According to Chessgames.com

Classical Games: J. Polgar 8.5 - Short 5.5

Rapid  Games:    J. Polgar 6  -  Short 0

I guess that differently wired brain works pretty well!

Women's and girl's events are good ways to increase participation at the lower levels.  And at the higher levels, a FIDE Women's World's Championship and Grand Prix are necessary to motivate the very best women working at their game -- they have to make a living in order to train and hire coaching.

BUT, understand, that most of the top women chess players already play most of their chess games against men.  The percentages might not be the same across all parts of the world.  But in the US, 17 year old Annie Wang attained the IM title by winning an OPEN event, and Carissa Yip became an IM by earning all 3 IM norms in OPEN events. 

It is not completely clear to me what Judit is referring to.  Perhaps, in Eastern Europe, the national chess federations insist upon their top female chess players to go for every Women's title, or else they limit the amount of national federation, financial assistance.  For example, in the European Team Championships, they might want their top women playing 1st board on the Women's competition, rather than playing 4th board in the Open Event.  But that situation does not apply to the USA, and I suspect in India and China.