Why do we have woman categories?

If chess is a battle of the mind--why have separate titles for woman?  I understand why we have men's basketball and woman's basketball because they simply can't compete with each other on a physical level.  In chess, all those physical differences wouldn't seem to matter.

I appologize in advance if this has been posted before.

Of course it's been talked about before--10 push ups!

But I don't think it's had its own thread--so I'll give you 5.

do you see any women in the top ten on the list ?

how many pushup do I get for that ?

5, but not those girlie pushups.

ok I'll do the thumb push up then.

I think it's a good question. Personally, it can sometimes seem slightly patronising to me, as do the WIM, WGM titles.  Obviously a huge percentage of the people interested in chess are men and correspondingly there are far more strong male players. It is perhaps interesting to consider why more men are keen on chess...my guess would be that this is connected to men being more likely have a dominance of systemizing thinking over empathetic... a reasonably common hypothesis in psychological literature.  However, I certainly don't think that there is any evidence that, given equal levels of interest and determination, men should be advantaged in any way.

The only argument for having woman categories which I think is a valid one is if they are designed to raise interest in chess amongst women and to get more involved in the game.

The " more men play so ofcourse more men are better " defense just doesnt work. The same % of females should still reach the upper levels as men ( if they are equal ) but they don't. Also...... Bridge has far more female players than male and yet males dominate the top positions....... so that theory is shot..... 

It looked like your dinner will be in the fridge tonight and your bed in the dog house.

Yeah well... but, but, but... women are just as good as men if not better... but MEN keep them down, prolly 'cos they feel threatened by them... and, and, and.... (waffles on for a thousand words)

It looked like your dinner along with the microwave are in the bin.

It's an old sistem of titles which will survive for some other years.

It was once believed that women are not strong enough to reach GM level, and thet there was a need for a different title indicating a woman excelling in the female playing scene.

Then several female players started reaching a clear "real" GM strenght. Finally Judith Polgar came and proved that a woman can be a super GM, enter the top ten and beat all the strongest players of the day. The women playing level is growing up every year and the gap in strenght is becoming smaller and smaller.

Currently the top 3 female players are:

1-J.Polgar around elo 2680 (she is past her best but still able to crush Topalov in a rapid match last november)

2-H.Koneru, around 2610 (still young and improving)

3-H.Yifan, current woman WC, around 2610

Followed by at least other 8 2500+ woman players.

All this players clearly do not need a separate WGM title, and the number is constantly growing. You just have to wait, W titles will become surpassed and disappear.

At the Lower Levels though, Men are Thorough-going Retards! As indicated by their Random Capitalisation & Sentence Fragments!

Using current FIDE rating information, it can be shown that the average registered male player is rated over 100 points higher than the average registered female player. It would be interesting to use data from previous years to see if this number has been higher in the past, and whether the gap is indeed closing. But for now, the gap exists, and therefore, it's best to have separate titles for men and women. With no chance to compete for top titles, women would otherwise not have anything worthwhile to strive for. And if that were the case, we'd see a decrease in the number of woman players, which is not what we want.

Addendum: there is a down side, though. It has been suggested that the reason for women's inferior rating performance is because of these women-only tournaments. If women only play amidst themselves, the ratings for the top players cannot increase as much as within a pool of male players with a higher average rating. However, I don't see an easy way to determine the exact effect of a lower average opponent rating on one's own rating progress (i.e. too much work for me personally to do on a whim).

One of the main reasons why there are sub-categories in matches (for women, seniors, teens etc) is to encourage the playing of chess period...this is a good thing...no matter colour, creed, or race. It is not only about "who will stand alone on top of the hill"...that is hollywood crap...it is about encouraging the playing of the game. Why is this a good thing? Well, for one, if we do not encourage a wider viewership/following/interest in chess, then pretty soon the total population interested in chess will fall, reflected in loss of revenue/profits etc...yes, it's all about the money (what else)...and even the patrons of chess will soon take away their generosities...chess without revenue will not survive.

If you have categories , more people have a chance to be the best in their category, which is nice for everyone. I for example would never become world champion, but I could be champion of my local town I guess.

But: Why do we have so many threads about women? That's the real question to me.

What are you basing these supposed statistics on? Anyway, The brief hypothesis I stated was based on interest levels/motivation and not just numbers playing. I still see no evidence for why women given an equal level of interest and motivation can't reach the same levels as men.  Collecting statistics is easy (although I'm not at all convinced that you have), correctly interpreting them is a totally different thing.

 You are deluded: women are not actually at the same level as men and in the near future they will never reach the same level. Let's take your example of Judit Polgar: she was ranked #8 in the world at her best month. Compare that to the best man of all-time, who was ranked #1 for 25 years, and I think it should be very clear that women are not on the same level as men. Just because there are 3 women who can compete with GM men does not mean that women in general should be forced to compete in the same field: these 3 people are simply exceptions and do not change the fact that most women's talents would be unrecognizable if they were forced to compete with men as well. Take the example of computers: if one human player came along capable of beating all but the 7 best computers in the world, and the next best human was also capable of reaching the World Top 100 including computers, does that mean that all humans should just immediately start competing in all of their tournaments with computers (without having any special "human-only" titles)?

What would this world be if not for the Brits demonstrating their intelligentness.