@w7voa to encourage girls to play. This should be obvious, but everyone is so worried about finding justification for their bias they can't admit the obvious.
@w7voa Wow. Never really thought about Chess in terms of sexual equality. I came across this though, after seeing your post. https://new.uschess.org/womens Even though we think of the game as an elevated, cerebral activity, it still bumps up against #sexism & #misogyny.
I can see why women & girls might want to have their own spaces.
Even so, last place I'd anticipated trans debate raising its head.
@w7voa implying that one of the genders is mentally more powerful that other, which is some throwback misogynistic shit (but then that's transphobia always leads to)
As far as I understand, it doesn't really. There's an open category, in which everyone can compete, including trans people and women. Then there's a women's category, which is more like a "no men" category, which, as I understand, is intended to give women their own space to compete.
But women can do well in the open tournaments, Judit Polgár being the women's GOAT who never competed in the women's category and peaked at top 8 in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r).
None of which is to say that there isn't sexism, which of course there has been and surely still is. The main value of the women's category, if there is any, is, I'd bet, to allow female chess players to play without the sexist bullshit of male players.
Other than that, the relative weakness of female chess players is obviously cultural. Polgar and her upbringing was basically an experiment to prove this.
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