Women's Lib? or The Times They Are a-Changin'

Believe me, the last thing I want to accomplish is to reopen the festering idiocy that seems to accompany any discussion about women and chess like an infectuous disease. 

I came across this article during one of my many forays into the past.  It was published a year before I was born so my compass may not be propery calibrated, but the fact that several "names" were quoted in the article gave me pause.  Was condensation so much the attitude-du-jour and so ingrained that even the superlative women chess players of the day weren't immune to it? 

Because this article is part of the evolving culture of chess, I thought I'd share it. Hopefully all pseudo-wits and half-wits will check their proclivities at the door.

           Batgirl;  I think the calibration on your compass if fine but;  the early 70's to society is like the late 60's. A decade doesn't just change at the strook of midnight. We know more than we did 40 yrs ago. BTW; I want a receipt for my proclivaties at the door.

I don't believe you.  And condensation is universal, especially in Missouri, regardless of gender. 

Are you a pseudo-wit or a half-wit... I'll need that for my records.

It was a syndicated article.  I found it in 3 newspapers in three different states.

Well, just like today, people look at the statistics and debate whether they are caused by genetics, the environment, or both. Of course, I hope (and think) that these strong women players above wouldn't take anything they thought about the "average woman" and apply it to themselves. If you are a great player, you don't need to look at other people in your group and see if they are good at chess to "confirm" it. You just need to look at your own play.

        Oh I'm a long standing card holding member of the DUMB wit society!

The times are changing! That article just shows how as recently as 42 years ago, women themselves in the U.S. had such a different opinion on women in general. I don't know if men are even capable of understanding being born into a world so predominately controlled by one gender which is not their own? Having a history of a world where their own gender makes rare appearances? Where they are "the second sex"?

That's precisely what I meant.  I didn't see anything liberating about the article but found it rather sad, even mystifying to a degree. My mother was 15 then, and though I only knew her a short time, I remember her as totally liberated sans the rhetoric.  My view of the early 70s was more liberal than this article suggests - and not because of men's views of women, but because of women's views of themselves.

Men and women are different, I like it that way.

Then I get to keep your proclivities in a jar, en passant.

         The pill, from the 60's, gave women, the idea that they could become anything if they went to school for it. So in the early 70's, colleges had a lot more females applying for entry. 

Separate but equal?

Batgirl, thank you for sharing that article.

Trysts, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was very little "women's" history. But since the mid 1980s, the field has exploded. There are tons of great historians who are rushing in to fill in the voids. Some of those great historians include Christine Stansell, Lynn Hunt, Patty Limerick, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Elaine Pagels, and many, many more. 

Today's high school history books have integrated "women's history" into national histories. If women today have little appreciation for the culture that produced Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Freidan, Germane Greer and slightly later, Judith Butler (one of my favorites), it is in large measure because those authors and other women succeeded in changing the culture!

Having said that, Batgirl's article could almost have been written this week. Well, except that top female players such as Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan would disagree with Marilyn Braun's assertion that "women just don't want to spend that much time" on the game compared to men. There are quite a few women who play chess online as much as the men.

           Women views of themselves. That what I meant to say about the 70's. Those views were changing. Women were going to night school, taking 2 part-time jobs, etc.              Ouch! What are you doing to my proclivities?

Post#11: The way I see it, these are just people who thought that part of the reason for fewer female players is genetics. You would probably find other people, both men and women, even at that time, who would disagree with such a notion. Not as many perhaps, but it's not like the attitude of women objecting to being put down was a foreign concept until 50 years ago -- in the US they were lagging in rights for hundreds of years, but during those hundreds of years there were always women and men who thought it to be unjust and didn't buy into its implications about gender differences; unfortunately that in itself does not make it easy to change the law, and so it took forever.

        Elbus;  your timing is right on the money!  50 yrs ago the military would never think of putting a woman into combat.  Today;  ehhh.

I live in the bible-belt, where there is still much more than a residue of the prejudices both genders have of women's individuality and potential. But from living here you meet other women who are truly sensitive to the prejudices of both genders concerning women. Things have changed and are changing even more;)

Not in the US perhaps....

Of course, any woman can play anything she wants as long as she can kick ass against all competition, the same as any man would have to.