As someone passionate about female chess, and one eager to find ways
for more females to participate in chess, I thought this article hit several
topics squarely on the head. The GM asking WIM Alexey Root whose
mother she was is only the tip of the iceberg of the problem. Alexey,
in her grace mentioned that she has heard this nonsense so many times,
that it bothers her much less.
As a chess coach and educator, this attitude towards female players is
irritating at best. At a school I teach, in the final game for the semester
championship, a little girl was taunted the little lad who was her opponent that “girls can’t play chess”. She embarrassed him, quickly
trouncing such ridiculous thoughts. Her winning did far more to prove
a point to the class than any lecture i could have given.
As emerging chess players, and even after they became accomplished
my daughters faced such harassment. I hear at quite a few scholastic
tournaments every year “I can’t believe I lost to a girl”. I start off when I hear such nonsense spewed to tell the youngster he better
get used to it.
So, I am curious here–how prevalent are these stereotypes, and to
what effect do they have in the relatively small numbers of girls who
continue to play chess beyond the primary years??
In November 2012 the Richards HS all-girls line-up finished with one more match point than the Richards HS all-boys line-up.
The Richards girls were actively recruiting other girls and ended up with almost half the club being girls. At the state event on February 2013 they had the second best showing for class 3A schools (a half-match-point behind first 3A).
I wonder just how many schools would field significantly stronger teams if they weren’t essentially ignoring about half their student population.
I coached my girls HS chess team as a volunteer during the years they
attended. I really did not set out to recruit anyone, other than get the
message out. Our teacher/sponsor did most of the recruiting, as he
really believed in the game. But I am sure he did not distinguish his
approach due the sex of the potential recruit.
So are you suggesting that an answer might be a different approach, one aimed at the female population??
Seeing as you used “an answer” instead of “the answer”, sure. In the article it said that there were girls at the school who knew of the club but were ignoring it as a boy’s activity right up until the president of the club was the girl who also happened to be the strongest player in the school. Only then did some of the girls realize that they really could participate.
Other schools and organizations will need yet another approach, but different approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive.