from nalchik2008.fide.com/news/?lang=eng&id=26 :
I think I agree with the idea. Some titles should be for women only. And the rest should be for men only. In other words, Judit Polgar would be ineligible for the Men’s World Championship, just like Vladimir Kramnik is ineligible for the Women’s. That’s fair, and it’s the way it is done in all the Olympic sports we just saw in Beijing.
Isn’t the Olympic separation because of the physical differences between the sexes? Having men and women compete together in weightlifting would obviously be silly. Extending this to chess involves some implicit assumptions which the advocates of separate tournaments might not be too comfortable with if they thought them through.
There are a couple of Olympic sports (where physical strength or size is not a competitive asset) where men and women compete together. Equestrian and Shooting come to mind.
On the other hand, men and women compete separately in Curling.
So when men and women compete together in Equestrian and Shooting, are there also separate Women’s medals in the same events in those sports?
No, in Equestrian and Shooting, men and women compete together for the same medals. I think Yachting is another Olympic sport where crews can consist of men and/or women.
On the other hand, separate men’s and women’s teams compete in Curling, for separate Men’s medals and Women’s medals.
Men and women also compete separately for separate medals in the Biathalon, because men have a physical advantage in the cross-country skiing part. And if Chess Boxing ever becomes an Olympic sport, there will certainly be separate men’s and women’s events.
Are there any other sports where the categories of medals typically are: women-only, and mixed-gender?
Let me give kudos here to Susan Polgar who runs Boys’ tournaments and Girls’ tournaments.
If BMX can be an Olympic sport anything is possible. How about co-ed chess boxing where the woman gets knight odds?
Professional golf and Pro Bowling come to mind.
LPGA events are limited to strictly women. PGA events are open to both sexes, and Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie have been past recipients of the sponsors’ special invites to compete. Some male PGA players objected to their invitations, whereas no one objected a few years ago when a female club pro from Connecticut won a PGA qualifier to earn a spot in one event. While the PGA qualifier rules permitted her to tee off from the women’s tees, in the PGA event itself she had to tee off from the men’s tees (meaning she had to play more than one club longer than the other players, whereas Sorenstam and Wie are as long as the non-elite men).
When the LPBA tour folded a few years ago, Liz Johnson competed in a few PBA tour events, and in one event made history by being not only the first female to make the televised finals, but winning thru to the Stepladder final match before losing to player-of-the-year Tommy Jones.
Are we not different from many other countries because we do NOT segregate women from men? Women could not even vote when this country was founded. Have they not fought gigantic battles to be considered “equal?” In having separate tournaments for men and women, are we not saying they are “inferior?”
There’s a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.-P.J. O’Rourke
I don’t think Ms. Kosteniuk thinks that women are inferior, and she is advocating this.
I think we would not be saying women are inferior if we had separate tournaments. Women’s gymnastics is not inferior to men’s gymnastics or better, but it is different. Women’s swimming is generally inferior to men’s – the record times are slower – and otherwise it is not different, but still they are separate. If the women were faster than the men, they would still be ineligible for men’s races. The format itself is not making a discriminatory statement.
If we have coed tournaments, and women’s tournaments, but no men’s tournaments, it means to me that we want to be coed but really the women are usually going to lose, so we give them something extra. I don’t want to make that statement.
In fact next year it will be only English-speaking women! 
You do not think this would be saying women are inferior? What, then would it be saying? You base part of your argument above on the fact that men and women don’t compete in gymnastics because their competition is just different, not inferior. Then you justify separating women and men when there are definite strength issues, such as in the swimming competition. As far as I can tell, women have no trouble moving chess pieces around the board. So are you saying that women play the game of chess differently, and they need to compete separately because of this? What specfic reasons can be given to support the need to separate women and men at chess competitions? I would like specifics, not just that some women from other countries prefer it, or that it has been done that way in other countries for years. I agree with NOCAB. Women in the USA want to compete equally when possible. Do you really want to tell women they cannot compete in the men’s chess events and that they must compete only with women?
You want specifics and as GM Kosteniuk points out, there are none that would prevent fair coed competition in chess. Yet she advocates single sex competition. I think there’s nothing wrong with it, and it doesn’t mean that women are inferior, or that men are inferior!
Apparently you tend to prefer coed sports competitions which in general is also reasonable. You say that women in the USA want to compete equally when possible, and to you that seems to mean coed competition. (Another way that’s equal would be to have a women’s champion and a men’s champion, and if desired they could play off for an overall championship.) We should also check on what the men in the USA want, then design an equal system that fits people’s desires as closely as possible.
And whatever your preference, can you think of a reason for the “hybrid” system we have, where there are women-only chess competitions but not (with few exceptions) men-only ones? To me, that is unequal in a way that does suggest that women are inferior at the game and need extra help.
Or it could simply be a reaction to the reality of the situation that fewer woman play chess and having women only tournaments is an attempt to encourage women.
Wzim, would excluding women be an attempt to encourage men?
baconlog.blogspot.com/
chess.com/nocab
There’s a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.-P.J. O’Rourke
If my interpretation of chessgeek’s comment is correct, she means that women in the USA prefer coed competition when possible. And in chess, it’s always possible! So how successful would this attempt be?
If the roles were reversed and 99 woman played to every 1 man ( made up stats for the sake of argument) then yes.
It is similiar to how Scholastics exclude adults to encourage their play.
Let’s look at how successful it would be to separate women from men, from a woman’s perspective. If you would please look back at your last tournament, how many women opponents did you face? By allowing women to play in the event, did it really change anything for you? In contrast, my section of the last tournament I attended had 49 players, and out of that field, I was one of approximately 3 women. All of my opponents were men. You can see how this would affect the women players…all three of us. The reality is, that there are fewer women who are interested in chess. Do you still want to tell me it would be equally fair to exclude me from men’s chess events and tell me I must find a women’s only event?
Yes, because as it presently is you have reverse discrimination.
To be totally fair and equal, you really should allow men into the competitions you presently have as women only. But seriously, sex should not even come into significance or consideration when dealing with the competition called chess.
Chess is chess and there really is no reason to even consider to sex of a player. Otherwise you are saying that women are inferior at the game.
True, in theory. But as long as there are far fewer women than men in chess, I can think of one legitimate reason for having women’s tournaments.
A women’s tournament gives each participant the opportunity to feel she is just another competitor in the tournament – an opportunity enjoyed by men every time they play. If, on the other hand, a woman is outnumbered 99-1, she may feel special (not always in a good way) and she may be the object of a lot of unwanted attention.
If women’s tournaments encourage more women to play, more power to them. If it works, the concept of women’s tournaments will eventually become obsolete. The goal of women’s tournaments should be to eliminate the need for women’s tournaments.
Bill Smythe
Ron,
You really think it would be fair to exclude women and have men’s only events because of reverse discrimination? If so, there would be very few opportunities for women to play at all. When was the last time you played in a tournament where any women played? Do you really feel discriminated against because of these few women’s only tournaments?