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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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I find it bizarre that it's 2023 and not only is chess still gender-segregated but they're doubling down on it. It makes sense for physical sports, but chess? Really?
Y'all just scared the girls are gonna wipe the board with you.
Women can earn any of the "male" titles (FM, IM, GM)
Men cannot earn the female titles (all above titles but with a "W" in front)
It's not a fear that women will win. It's actually the opposite.
There are some women who only go for the general titles, typically citing that they find the women's titles as insulting to their skill level.
FIDE rating reqs for women master titles are also lower than their male counterparts
I can't imagine you've seen the numbers. Currently the number of fide grand masters totals 1772 men and 41 women. At the rank below, international masters, the numbers are 3893 men and 134 women.
If you were to simply remove titles exclusive to women tomorrow, you would be barring many more women from ever being able to call themselves 'champion'. How do you imagine that would impact young girls' willingness to dedicate themselves to the game?
Remember that even if men are at an advantage for strictly cultural reasons (being more encouraged to play the game) that still means they have an advantage.
You may have proven that men have an advantage in the average case due to inherent misogyny but that doesn't prove that any one particular trans woman has any sort of advantage over the field of cis women. Where is this army of mtf chess players storming the women's ranks? Why do we have to solve every problem the majority can think of before we're allowed to solve problems minorities are actually living through?
I haven't, because those numbers themselves can't prove that.
What they can tell you is that any individual woman playing chess at high levels is vastly outnumbered by men. All things being equal, that also makes women much less likely to win tournament titles (or even qualify for tournaments), if no titles or tournaments do anything to compensate. The result would be that women are likely to become invisible whenever you watch any sort of 'high level' chess – and that can have consequences reinforcing the underlying issue.
The commenter I replied to theorised that the underlying motivation for having 'gender segregated' (which in reality equates to female-exclusive) titles was a fear of women winning. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. That's what my argument adresses – not the trans issue.
I suppose you never personally adopted that position but it is at the heart of the debate in this thread and deserves acknowledgement.
The argument with chess is not "trans women have an advantage at chess" the argument is still pure transphobia of "trans women are not women."
To be clear I don't agree with that, I just wanna get us back on track because it's different from the discussion around other sports.
“Being a woman is no excuse for failure.”
Even that I don't get. Why not just make a bunch of leagues to separate people by skill, and let everyone play in whatever league they fit in skill whise regardless of gender.
That completely eliminates the problem with trans womens "unfair advantage" when playing in the womens league too.
Because then there wouldn't be women competing in the top leagues of many sports. Men have a huge physical advantage. On marathons, for instance, there's a >10 minute gap. And people cannot watch each of these separate leagues, they usually want to watch the best in any sports class. It also wouldn't motivate women to play amateur sports if they get completely destroyed by most men.
The current sex-based split is imo still the fairest, though it does indeed cause some issues. The naming might not be ideal. The male class is basically the "open" class. Anyone can compete in it whenever they want. The women's class exists solely to give people who have not recently been under the influence of testosterone and other male hormones a chance to compete with other people with their body type. That's not only women, but should also allow for AFAB non-binary and trans guys as long as they haven't started T.
I'm a man and I will never be able to comoete in the top mens league either.
But I like how it works in boxing, where there's a light-weight class where I could compete fairly. That's what I was thinking of
But weight doesn't mean anything. An equal weight man and woman will still be in a totally different class. Also, it's not about what you can do now, but about your potential. Someone who is currently physically within the "male range" will have to do way less to achieve the same performance as someone within the "female range". Mixing them together would be very demotivating to anyone not in the "male range" physically since they'd have to work insanely hard to even beat the less serious men.
Note: I'm using "male/female range" rather than man/woman because gender doesn't necessarily align with physical build.
Source? I'm afab and fucking sick of being told this with a flimsy hand wave of 'biology'. Give me some stats.
You need a source to know that a man and woman at the same weight class would be advantageous to the man?
For it to be considered an empirically true statement, yes.
That is why I wrote "skill based" in my top comment, the weight classes where just an example
Or weight classes
Yeah that's exactly what I mean
Why not make leagues separated by performance only? Because when talented women work hard to excel at a sport, they deserve recognition for that beyond merely being allowed to compete with people who have testosterone increasing their physical abilities.
I compete in Taekwon-Do tournaments, and I train others to compete. I have a really badass young woman who trains really hard, and on top of it all she's extremely talented. If she keeps it up, after a few years she could be up there with the best in the world... among women. ALSO she literally won the [redacted because I realized someone could find her name lol, it's a small sport with few seriously competitive people] women's world championship for the US, just as a side project. That girl cannot compete with men at a high level. I'm still leagues below the guys who go to the world championships, never mind win them. I would blow her and her competition out of the water if you made me seriously compete with them. She deserves an environment where she can compete with people at the same weight class and born with a similar enough body, and when she wins she deserves to be called the best. Not "congratulations, you're good enough to spar with the lower end of the guys."
Isn't that exactly what I proposed? There's lots of women (and men) that aren't born extremely talented, that don't build muscle easily etc.
Don't they deserve to compete against people of similar abilities too? 'Cause seperating by gender only doesn't help them one bit
No, it's not "exactly what you proposed." Your proposal would see a system where women would never reach the top tier of any physical sport, perhaps with few exceptions. There would always be a tier out of reach, and believe it or not it means a lot to know that winning is achieveable. This idea is so detrimental to a woman who wants to seriously compete in anything.
In fact, comparing a talented, hard-working woman to a man without the same level of talent or effort is such an insult. "They both have a disadvantage, one was born short and lazy, and the other was born a woman." It's not the same.
Also people who aren't talented and who don't put in extraordinary effort have lots of spaces to compete with each other. Co-ed leagues exist and they're lots of fun. Amateur leagues exist too, at different levels of competitiveness, for those who are competitive but like you said can't hack it at a professional level. But just because those spaces exist doesn't mean that should be enough for women who are inspired to be the best.
I give up, go play a sport.
But, but... Girls!!!! What if they win?!!!?!
I've been kinda following this on and off, and the funniest thing to me is that iirc, most female chess masters are like, "we'll play against trans girls if they wanna play us. We'll even play against trans boys too!"
It's the Men who are like, "nuuuuhhhh.... muh.... muh womens"
It's really the most fair sport in terms of biological differences, like you can be a teenager or a grandpa or a grandma or disabled or poor or rich and still kick asses at chess, what the fuck can be their argument for separating genders??
If biological differences were the actual issues, phelps would not have been allowed to compete without ankle surgery, an arm reduction, and lactic acid producing drugs active to level the playing field. Biological advantage isn't the issue, prejudice is.
They're quite literally arguing that they need misogyny in chess because of all the misogyny in chess. Because women are actively discouraged from participating the solution they've come up with is a separate women's league where the dainty little dames are protected from their superiors. It's fucking garbage.
Men cannot participate in Women competitions but Women can go to Mens. No one is scared of women, and this is done to promote the game to women.
This is the same as with other sports, like Rallying.
Why was it separated in the first place? Was there any reason besides woman bad?
That's basically it afaik. Chess has been around long enough that it was originally man's game, then they started letting women compete but only against other women. The reason why I don't think there's been a significant challenge to it is that with physical competitions often being segregated, I don't think anyone really stopped and thought about the fact that the segregation is pointless. I think they were just like, "competitions are usually segregated by gender, makes sense for chess to be segregated" without stopping to think about why competitions are usually segregated.
However, I'm not a huge chess person. I liked it as a kid but it doesn't even remotely appeal to me anymore. So my info might be wrong, and if there are any chess historians who want to correct me, go for it!
I've also heard that some women prefer this system, that the chance of them being harassed is much lower in a segregated environment. I am also not a chess guy, but having been to many Magic tourneys, I can totally understand the thought process.
sigh Yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but that sounds about in line with what I've heard about male chess masters.
Definitely. I never participated in any MTG tourneys because just the harassment I faced in the shops and from local players was enough. It's much better today, though. But you still have the problem that when girls and women avoid playing with boys and men (often for good reason) you will always have less growth in that specific group.
True, the only women I ever saw at those events were there with their boyfriends, and even then, not enthusiastic about it. Might be why Magic's dying now, there's a whole half of the population they forgot about.
I think what also reinforces this cycle is external and internal(!) stereotypes.
Additionally, because you have fewer strong female players, and since they segregate the game, you therefore also have fewer strong female teachers and role models.
There is also a very strange dynamic between kids and teens starting in elementary school where the boys often drive out the girls from specific activities. It's only anecdotal but I've seen it twice here in my neighborhood. In the school and in the community center a higher ranked chess player offeres free courses to teach the kids chess.
None of the girls stay when they are offered a more friendly environment like the dance class. Because you will always have a group of boys socialised to be more aggressive (pulling hair, being ultra competitive, etc.) and girls being socialised to rather avoid conflict. I know many boys also don't like this atmosphere but they will be more like "I need to be more like the other boys since I am a boy" while the girls we be like "I don't fit in here since I am a girl".
Sorry for the rant.
You have nothing to apologize for! But I understand that feeling of feeling obligated to apologize for expressing your emotions, especially passionate ones, especially when it's a topic like this. Too many people have the weirdest, shitty reactions to stuff like this.
It was a spot-on rant and it helps me feel seen and understood and I appreciate you for it.
I'm not 100% sure but I don't think chess is segregated - women are allowed to play in the top tournaments. There are additional women-only tournaments which are an attempt to make chess more attractive to them.
Theres also a thing with it relating to age.
Preteen girls completely destroy there male same age opponents. For professional female chessplayers that is when there in their prime and it deceases in adulthood.
This became a self reinforcing cycle as women who used to be high ranked just stopped playing later on, which is one of the reasons the extra titles for women where invented. An attempt to offset this difference.
Of course by now we are also well aware that male centric spaces can be super toxic to women and this affects motivation and willingness to be involved. We have to remember that before the internet the only way to play was in person.
Women allowed to compete with the men, and they do. This thread is nuts.
There are women's competitions because the unrestricted competitions are still dominated by men, and the restricted tournaments allow us to acknowledge the best women to generate excitement for chess from other women. To show them that there are women excelling at this game.
the segregation really doesnt make sense anywhere