Why a women chess championship?

Since I started playing chess (I was 10) I appreciated its "universality" and the fact that whatever is the physical appearence or force of the player you only need to look at the board and understand the reasoning behind the move. Players with heavy physical handycaps can enjoy playing and (why not) beating other players without being addressed to a kind of "para"chess. This is why I do not understand a women chess championship and I find it as pointing out a kind of intrinsical weakness of female gender, which (at least in chess) is not there. I would appreciate any comment on this. By the way Imappreciate a lot Judit Polgar for having always plaied in "normal" chess tounnaments.

I wasn't here for the last topic so I'll just post in this one.

The reason has nothing to do with any perceived weakness in gender.  It's sole purpose is to encourage more women to play chess.

As it stands now, Chess is perceived to be a Male dominated endeavor.  That perception alone is enough to keep it as such.   People are less likely to take up any endeavor they feel is socially unacceptable for their station.  Providing a Women's league states unequivically "Hey, this isn't just a guy thing".  It provides women a socially supportive entry into the chess world.  Thereby encouraging more women to take it up.. Something nearly everyone agree's is good for Chess.

Someone might just as well create a Men's league, but what would be the point?

Not again.

I just wish I knew why there is high CPU usage by IE on my computer.

"Mickx". I agree with you on this

I'm British and have witnessed Women take control, sometimes complete control,( MaggieThatcher).Not my vote, but did an amazing job. The Queen Elizabeth... What can i say. And you're " Angela Mirkel" Very strong.

     I think it's a mistake to call any challenge a man or a womans, it should simply be called a challenge.

Please don't think of me as sexist for this.

Men and Womans reason for being here are obvious.

It is not comparible to the size of our brains.

Why do people so often confuse brain size with intelligence? Homo sapiens sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species. Therefore it is highly likely that any randomly selected male specimen will have a larger brain than any randomly selected female specimen. Does that give us information regarding intelligence differences between the male and female? No, it doesn't. Modern humans' brains aren't even as large as some extinct species of humans.

Why can't you all just read the tons of other forum threads on this topic instead of starting another one?

Corri, while I agree with your premise.. Brain size has no real correlation to intelligence.  I'm not sure the previous poster was actually insinuating it does.. It's a pretty common expression to say size of one's brain rather than capability of one's intelligence..  Just like I ask for a kleenex even if it's Puffs. 

What's wrong with starting a new topic.. Who does it hurt?  If people want to talk, why not let them.. 

If they brought back an old post, half the people would complain of necroing the post.. If they start a new post the other half complain of redundancy.  There's no real way to win there.

At least it's a somewhat controversial and therefor interesting subject, but regardless so long as anyone still wants to talk about it, it's worthy of discussion.  I personally don't see as it matters much what thread people choose to discuss it in.. Certainly not enough to get riled up over.

At least a person or two got banned after the last topic on the subject was locked.

If you don't think people will get riled up over this, you are wrong. Just wait until it attracts that ab guy's attention.

Indeed, and the site managers erased the offendng thread, to protect the innocent, of which there were damn few.  

Rumor has it that at least two folks were forced into Summer Vacations.  At least one of them we miss badly.  But, like the Terminator, "She'll Be Back."

If I were a woman, I'd think twice before joining the Sacred Pawn Legion, of which the OP is a member.  Sounds a bit scary.  But what do I know?

Sorry! not brain....Intellect.

I wasn't involved in that specific thread, but I did watch it unfold.

In my opinion, gender should be treated by the site as a branch of politics. It causes too much controversy to discuss it in the public forums.

Politics in general don't relate to chess.  However, I don't think any political discussion that involved chess would be dissallowed. 

It tends to be a fairly common practice that threads get closed when they devolve into name calling regardless of the topic.  Personally I feel no thread should be locked so long as it relates to the forum.

I have no problem with those people who are unable to act in civilized manner being banned and their posts deleted but that's no reason to stop a discussion.

In my opinion those topics which bring about the most controversy are the most worthy of discussion.. The very fact that such emotionally charged differing opinions exist is reason enough to explore the issue. 

I saw a couple of primordial dwarfs on the tube. A brother, and sister who were eighteen, and nineteen years old. Their intelligence was the same as ordinary sized people's. In fact they were in their first, and second year of college, and doing fine. They were very teeny tiny people with brains one fourth the size of the average human. Yet no difference in IQ.

Hi all,

We are different in many ways. Don't forget that Judit Polgar has beaten Garry Kasparov, Anand and lot others during their peak time. Though the game is perfect, the people are not. Just look at the comments before.In this biased world, it does not hurt any1 to have a separate tournament for women.

Maria

What's the answer? That women are too dumb to play at the men's level?

Batgirl gave the best answers/arguments I've ever seen on the topic here:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/why-are-there-so-few-women-gms?page=1

and here:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-buzz/why-is-there-a-womens-world-championship

I absolutely agree with that..  The $$$ from prizes solely from the smaller women only playing pool encourages more women to play.  I ran across some statistics somewhere a while back that showed the increase in women players since the 80's when the prizes started becoming more substantial...

Additionally regardless of any humanitarian effort to spread chess to a wider audience, more members means more $$$ for sponsors and chess organizations.  Money drives the world, it is essentially bottled energy to be spent on whatever endeavor one wishes.. Everything is driven by it.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/15-chess-news/3664-the-science-of-chess-gender-explained briefs an article written in scientific american where they showed statistically based on the number of participants women are basically equivalent to men in chess.

I personally agree, it is hypocritical..

I have no problem with race based championship, just like I have no problem with country based championships, or any other sort of league. Not because I believe in seperate but equal or anything like that.. But rather because it would encourage minorities which are underrepresented.

When more people play, the prize pools get bigger, and the knowledge of the game is advanced faster.  Professional women don't just play in women only tournaments, and I imagine minorities wouldn't only play in minority only tournaments.  It's actually good for everyone so long as it attracts people to the game.

You're also right though, the womens championship has been going for a while, it's basically grandfathered in, even still it draws ire.. Race based tournaments would not fly at all.  It is hypocritical, but in my opinion the problem lies with many peoples view of morality.  Which I personally feel tends to be somewhat inflexible.

To many it's a black and white issue.. Seperation is bad.  It certainly can be, the history of segregation is full of suffering.  But that's like saying lying is bad.  It certainly can be.. But is it immoral to lie in order to save a life?  It's not so black and white.. If it hurts no one, and helps anyone, especially if it helps everyone, in my opinion it's good.  Such is the case I believe with the Women's championship, and would be I believe with any sort of league that garnered support for chess.

I would think that if somebody is really into a game, loves to play it, and all, they wouldn't have be encouraged to play by money.