Why only chess? The truth is all there in Virginia Woolf's 'a room of one's own' and 'three guineas', and Simone de Beauvoir's 'the second sex'[1]

how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?

                - Bob Dylan, in his better days 

[1] usual title of the english tr. of Le Deuxième Sexe 

 

I was sure this was a joke and that there would be a punchline at the end, something along the lines of, "...they noticed that 7 pairs of boys and girls had mysteriously dropped from the tournament, only to be found making-out in the broom closet."

I am also curious if the participation difference between boys and girls is in part caused by differences in mothers and fathers and differences in the way parents treat boys and girls. Although I've sometimes referred to the groups as "self-selecting," with young kids the parents probably bear much more responsibility for the choices about the kids' activities than for older kids or, obviously, adults. If boys as a group are subject to more pressure -- subtle or overt -- to please a father (or mother) by working hard at chess than girls as a group, this would suggest that some of the selection "pressure" is external.

It seems to me that there are at least three potential pressures here: internal motivation -- what the boy or girl likes to do; peer pressure -- what the boy's or girl's friends think is "cool"; and parental pressure. I'm not a child development expert, but I am very dubious that for boys and girls all three of those pressures would be identical as regards chess playing.

dec_Ian wrote: "I would say it has something to do with the social stigma of chess. Women obviously aren't less capable of excelling at the game, I assume the vast majority of them just choose not to."

 

That's how I see it.  Women, in my mind, are every bit as capable at playing high level chess as men (or just chess in general like the men).  Social traditions from the past have certainly had their effects on what both genders do and consider important.  Look at Judith Polgar, an exception, a female among men, once one of the top ten world class players!  I've never known a women who couldn't achieve once her mind was set in a direction.

 

Being good at chess takes determination (the will to keep pushing forward even after heavy losses and when it seems one will never improve) and lots of hard work.  Master level players do their home work.  In school some kids liked doing home work but most (the masses) hated it.  Those of us who are not very good at chess, myself included, are from the latter group. 

I would say it has something to do with the social stigma of chess. Women obviously aren't less capable of excelling at the game, I assume the vast majority of them just choose not to.

It is interesting that you mention there being no Japanese chess grand masters. If you were Japanese, you might have been blogging about there being only one American 9-dan professional Go player (Michael Redmon). If you think the world of intellectual power is shown only in Go, then you'd be unimpressed with Americans. Redmon is unique in that he started playing Go at age 11 in the US and had become a professional in Japan by age 18. Who knows what he could have accomplished if he'd been playing chess instead.

Historically few women played Go, but now more and more do, and some have attained the highest levels, including Chinese-born Nui Raiwei, who has won open tournaments against men.

Go is no less mentally challenging than chess. Actually, many Go players would argue that it's actually more mentally demanding. (I personally think Go is more difficult, but I stink at both Go and chess. To get a better assessment, you'd have to ask someone who was both good at Go and good at chess.)

The vast majority of people in the US don't play chess. Of those that do, boys overwhelmingly outnumber girls. Drawing conclusions about the general population of girls based on this small minority within a small minority may or may not be valid. But I think if you want to show those conclusions are valid, at a minimum, you'd have to do something to show that these girls in fact are representative of the general population.

Personally, I think the most interesting fodder for study is why boys and girls decide to participate in chess or decide to quit participating. I would guess that the reasons for boys and girls would be different, but maybe not.

I'm assuming batgirl meant a women has not won what was considered the mens' (open-gender now) world championship at chess, where men and women can compete as equals.

 

Sure, there have been several Women World Champions, but ONLY women can compete. 

 

 

     I have just heard that: There has never been a Hungarian World Champion. I hope Susan Polgár didn't heard it. Zsuzsa Polgár was the world champion in 1996. In the final in Spain (Jaen): Zs. Polgár - Hsie Tschün 8,5:4,5. And she was one of world champions who played with me tournament game, and won the woman, remain at boy-girl puzzle.

I made up this tongue-in-cheek "study" with no plans to elaborate on it, hoping its intent was obvious. Most, if not all, analogies fail at some point, but even so, often the basic ideas are true.  Women and girls have always been inferior to men and boys in chess in general.  That's a simple and undeniable fact. What this fact portends is another thing altogether. Men (and many women), historically, have been quick to look at the differences between the male and female of our species as the source of the discrepancy. There's really been no particular reason why this should be the source other than for some but ego gratification.  Looking at the situation holisically, one might observe the relative inferior involvement of women in the chess culture. If you were to look up how many Japanese hold a GM title, you would find the answer is zero. Is this because the Japanese are inferior in math skills or spatial ability?  If you look back to 1936, you would see Adele Raettig, one of the less talented women players from the Manhattan Chess Club, beating Raphael Cintron, the Puerto Rican Champion, in the US championship tournament. Does that mean there is something innately inferior about Puerto Rican players?  Does the idea that 5%-10% of all women chess players are probably better than 80%-90% of all men players mean anything at all?

I'm not a statician. In fact, I stink at math (though I smell pretty good otherwise). But it's quite apparent to me that when people look for reasons to explain a phenomenon, they tend to put the phenomenon up ahead as the reason for their assumptions. Ergo, since men generally play better than women, then women must be lacking in something.  It never seems to occur to them that such a jump is totally unwarranted and quite self-limiting.

The purpose of the above fantasy-study was nothing more than to highlight the kind of position or situation that confronts women in chess. There has never been a Hungarian World Champion, but I would dare anyone to espouse the idea that Hungarians can't play chess. There may never be a woman World Champion, but that, in and of itself, is meaningless.

Remember, chess is an ocean. . .

 

Wouldn't the most interesting question be why only 9% of high school chess players are girls? Asking why the boys are better than the girls in a self-selected activity where boys make up 91% of the group and girls only 9% seems to be much less likely to offer some some sort of insight than asking why do boys choose to participate at a rate about 10 to 1 compared to girls.

"here is the reason.  I couldn't find a picture online but there is a section in my psychology book.  Assuming that IQ and ability at chess are somehow related:

The graph that shows the distribution of boys looks like a parabola.

The graph that show the distribution of girls is an upside down parabola.

Girls have more of a tendency to have an average IQ while boys tend to have a more polarized score.  For that reason, boys make up a large percentage of the geniuses and also a large percentage of the extremely stupid.

Since chess tends to be a sport/game/activity.hobby for those with above-average intelligence; it tends to attract more boys.  (not to say girls can't be very good at chess as well.  just because there aren't as many, doesn't mean they couldn't cream me in a game.) :)"

That's something i've noticed too. If you look at driving, guys get into the most crashes and yet the best drivers are guys. Just like top chefs are mostly guys yet most guy can't boil an egg. There is that, but also its the fact that there are girls out there who could be great at chess but it's not a "girly" game so they won't play or they won't be able to play it with their friends so they can't improve and perhaps they don't want to join the school chess club because its full of guys that will go into shock that there is a girl in their club lol

never faced a girl in chess....offered a game once to my mom..

If the Queen were the King, and the King were the Queen, then girls would play better.

This kinda makes sense why a bunch of girls I know complain about math.  I've always loved the subject.  I'm not a prodige or anything, but I did 8th grade arithmatic in 7th grade and took a high school course in 8th.  When I first got into chess, I was sorta puzzled to see there weren't as many girls.  It seemed like in every school I'd been in while the boys did well in school, the girls seemed to care more.  But now I understand that there's a difference between "hard core" subjects that guys tend to be better at and "pensive" subjects which girls are better at.  I'm also a lot like my dad and although he isn't good at chess, he's really good at math.  To keep the humor or whatever going, I have this theory: There are numbers ingraved into the lines in my brain.  Heehee.

There are always explanations. But most of us just cant see them.

"Is this humour ?"

Possibly a Cosmic joke. 

Cannot use this "survey" on 2 high schools as statistic data feed.

Being French gives you a break. There were 100 high schools invoved - 2 from each of the 50 states -  200 boys + the 18 girls.

"no more surprising when compared to other scores based on such an arbitrary classification."

Life is arbitrary, more so than we'd like to believe.

"Perhaps 90% of players who had spaghetti for dinner ended with a plus score."

Perhaps that's part of the point. Perhaps not. I understand that parmegian chesse increases neural activity.

"All of you guys who're trying to come up with explanations are playing right into the joke."

I prefer to think of it as a trap rather than a joke.

All of you guys who're trying to come up with explanations are playing right into the joke.

Once stereotypes are broken about what girls/women can do - and we are in that time - girls/women can be as competitive as boys/men. 

 

More and more girls are playing chess in the United States, but this has been the case in Europe for years, which is how we got the Polgar sisters.  Judith Polgar, formerly one of the top ten chess players in the world, could beat any one of us easily.  She made it clear that there is no question whether a women can be competitive enough to reach the top in chess. 

 

About the ONLY thing boys/men have over women in general is a tendency to be highly focused in a single task.  Girls/women are much better at multi-tasking.  However, as social and competitive trends change, which they are, so may the general abilities between the genders.  Men may maintain a strong hold on physical strength competitions, but that's a difference in genetics not mental capabilities.

here is the reason.  I couldn't find a picture online but there is a section in my psychology book.  Assuming that IQ and ability at chess are somehow related:

The graph that shows the distribution of boys looks like a parabola.

The graph that show the distribution of girls is an upside down parabola.

Girls have more of a tendency to have an average IQ while boys tend to have a more polarized score.  For that reason, boys make up a large percentage of the geniuses and also a large percentage of the extremely stupid.

Since chess tends to be a sport/game/activity.hobby for those with above-average intelligence; it tends to attract more boys.  (not to say girls can't be very good at chess as well.  just because there aren't as many, doesn't mean they couldn't cream me in a game.) :)

Cannot use this "survey" on 2 high schools as statistic data feed. It just isn't liable: picks were not faked randoms. hard to know if their players were representative of all the high schools if america, even less for the entire chess world population.