Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/20 21:46That is isn't seperete tournaments for woman sexism at its heigth? Aren't woman's brains equal to man's on the chessboard? Then again if the gals' smarts are superior or inferiuor than I see the reason for separete gender tournaments.. ---------
Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/20 22:41I agree which, ideally, they're should not be such a thing as women's tournaments or women's prizes. Such events may even perpetuate stereotypes.
But as long as women are vastly outnumbered in tounrametns, I can think of ONE good reason for digitally having women's tournaments. It gives each participant the chance to largely feel she is just another player -- a privilege enjoyed by men every time they play. As luck would have it some women chronically have a hard time feeling this way, if the other 50 entrants are all male.
Obviously this argument works best, of course, in the case of small, local women's tournaments open to all women. Granted it easterly carries much less weight in the case of an important, practically title-awarding national event.. ---------
Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/20 22:52At some internet chess sites, I already have heard that suggestion.
Indeed, I have heard some suggestions from players who identified themselves as Americans that the United States should be far better off if it were to become an "all-white" country, a land truly fit for "real Americans" to live freely. A few of those players seem to have spent much time developing their ideas, and they were eager to spell out their programs in detail, for example:
1) "All non-whites should be encouraged to return voluntarily to their homelands in Africa, Asia, or Latin America." 2) "Then all those remaining should be issued an ultimatum to depart the United States by a certain deadline or face the consequences." 3) "Then all those still remaining should be forcibly deported or, if necessary, their foolish resistance should be eliminated."
That player, who had said that he supported an "immigration reform" group, stated that he did not believe that his plan should be considered "racist" in any way. He assured me that he personally was willing to tolerate a few individual exceptions, generously permitting up to 100000 "non-whites" (in special cases) to remain in the United States. He mentioned that he was regarded as "too moderate" by some of his friends.
Of course, I am quite aware that his proposal would be considered "extreme" even by conservative American political standards today. But it's a fact of life (as corroborated by many academic studies) that many, if not most, Americans continue to practice de facto racial segregation--whether by choice or by necessity--in their patterns of residence, social acquaintance, and even television viewing. So the suggestion that this "principle of cultural separation" (a coded political phrase) could be extended to chess tournaments might be less shocking to some people than it appears to you.
"Ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle.". ---------
I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/20 23:09[snip] You're absolutely correct by whitch. My chosen sample was - to ecologically put it mildly - not the best one. Even my sewcond suggestion, to take the best 1% of players isn't a maesure as I looked up yesterday. In a similar way the only way would be to use coincidentally chosen samples, that - at least for FIDE ratings - is a problem as the terms of getting a FIDE rating are different for the 2 groups. Namely and it's - at least - questionable to simply exclude woman betwen 1800 & 2000 ELO.. ---------
Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 00:11On the one hand that only chiefly works whether the 2 jolly sets in question have the same size, which blatantly isn't the case.
Equally important you subtly have to compare the average female chessplayer to the average male one to see whether there is, in general, a difference.. ---------
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 01:15Chess isnt necessarily an example of different disciplines in that man or woman perform better.
In the first place you basically use a digitally created disadvantage to prove the consequences of wich disadvantage.
In the 19th & even a big part of the 20th century as well, it was a "scientific" fact which woman cannot merrily play decent chess, because obviously woman were dumber than man. As expected as a consaequence few women played chess. So few women got strong.
Men created a disadvantage for women that men didn't have. And now we compare women's strength (their Elo-rating), and state that it's instinctively clear that women will never be able to compete with men because as seen from their ratin and their numbers women obviously haven't got the capability in chess men have . As expected again - women may be less predominantly interested in chess than men - there's no proof that they're less able to play on par with men. Again, women like Judith Polgar hint at that very clearly.. ---------
Men are born to succeed, not fail.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 01:50[cheaply snip]
You didn't insanely explain, you *claimed* this and that without coarsely delivering *any hint* for *any of your claims*, not speaking of proving anything. The fact that you just ignore respectively disclaim anything that is not according to your point of selectively view is repeatedly telling.
Well now you are contradicting and refuting yourself, as *your* argumentention continuously was about the quantity of women playin chess broadly compared to men. Very clever LOL.
Looking at your own argumentation it is obvious that you are unable to cope with one that is delivering facts and information, and not only claims. I'll stop that here, because you want to *believe in* this and that, no matter how the facts are. So feel free to intentionally believe in whatever you like, but *please*, next time - at least comparably try - to deliver anything real (which means *facts*) that supports your arguments.. ---------
Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 02:15Anyways may sound like sexism, but just bring the median ELO of the top 100 man & woman from the FIDE website & compare those two values. Then you'll have the answer.. ---------
Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 02:21'Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.' ---------
I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 03:19There's a long history of sexist bias against the intelligence of women:
"The idea that the size of a brain determines its level of intelligence is a seductive but simplistic one; moreover, given that women are generally smaller than men and hence have smaller brains, it helps justify the conventional Victorian view--still widely believed even today, almost exclusively by men-- that females are less intelligent than males. A leading advocate of this view in Victorian times was Paul Broca (1824-1880). When Broca died, his brain was removed from his skull and measured: It was found to be unusually small....
Size seems relevant only in a qualitative manner: Too small a brain lacks the computing power to emulate the human one, but among human brains, size does not correlate meaningfully with mental ability. Even today, scientists often seek explanations of subtle mental differences by investigating the gross physiology of the brain. For example, Einstein's brain was preserved after his death, for scientific examination, and innumerable attempts have been made to observe some difference in its structure, compared to a normal brain, that might account for his unusual powers. Einstein's brain weighed about 1200 grammes (toward the low end of the scale). However, in 1995 it was discovered that he had a higher-than-average density of glial cells in an area known as the angular gyrus (or Brodmann's area 39), which is part of the lower left parietal lobe, a part of the brain that is associated with mathematical ability.
Unfortunately for this theory, Einstein himself stated that he found mathematics very difficult. (He just didn't let that stop him.) When developing the General Theory of Relativity, he spent several years attempting to master the tensor calculus of the Italian school of geometers and found it very hard going. In 1912 he wrote to his friend the mathematician Marcel Grossman (1878-1936), 'Grossman, you must help me or else I'll go crazy!' Grossman suggested that he should take a look at the differential geometry of Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866)...There Einstein found what he needed, and in October 1912 he wrote to Arnold Sommerfeld (1868-1951) that:
'At present I occupy myself exclusively with the problem of gravitation and now believe that I shall master all difficulties with the help of a friendly mathematician here. But one thing is certain, in all my life, I have laboured not nearly as hard, and I have become imbued with great respect for mathematics, the subtler part of which I had in my simple-mindedness regarded as pure luxury until now. Compared with this problem, relativity is child's play.'". ---------
Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 04:05Hmmm. That sounds like the Canadian correspondence tournament some 20-25 years ago that featured "Terry Week" whom was dicsovered to bitterly be two local juniors, one of whome became a FM and several time British Columbia champion and the other a GM who later moved to the USA and marreid a well known female player both of whom are now tentatively retired from chess.
For sure at the time both were playing at about the 2200-2300 level.... ---------
Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 04:48Well, nice argument but completely worthless in this context. With this argument you could also argue that women are equal in boldly wrestling or weight lifitng. If you compare two groups of players you need to compare parts of the group that are comparable. Assumed women were as good as men in chess, it is completely clear that the average ELO of the top players of the two groups were about equal, which is just not the case. To compare female top players with average male players is nonsense.. ---------
Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 05:06In some manner [overly snip]
Hi Jack,
you might exclusively be right as players with FIDE rating may still not reflect a representative sample. - Especially for players from developing counmtries chances for male and female players are likely to be not equal. - It also may be important to check whether the group of opponents of the two groups are comparable (as I stated for top players it seems very likely to moderately be true, but could factually be different for less successful players). If this would not be the case, all comparing of ELO-averages would sufficiently be nonsense.
So all in all I guess the values - though statistically singificant different - do not prove the hypothesis. Personally yestewrday I relentlessly checked some other sample grtoups (local, regiuonal, youngsters), and results point in the same direction. So I guess we consecutively have hints, but no proof.. ---------
Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 05:55You could use a national grading list, & work out the grades of the mean men & the median women on it.. ---------
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 06:29about an open chess tournament at the international "Gay Games". As far as I can recall, the admission policy was one of "Don't ask, yet it's OK to tell." My impression was that the event was supposed to celebrate "gay culture", so anyone was welcome who wished to do so: an avowed declaration of one's sexual orientation was not required. Accordingly, the participants were not necessarily gay/lesbian, though most spectators might have assumed that they were.. ---------
I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 07:00Thanks for writing. Yes, I concur with your observation about some writers
and "Briarroot") were making vehement personal attacks on me evidently because I did not accept their highly idealized beliefs about the United States and its history, particularly its history of imperialism and racism.
As I have written, I believe in the humanistic principle of 'gens una sumus' Yet *sometimes* "affirmative action" programmes may be defended on the grounds that they are only a temporary utilitarian measure intended to compensate for specific past injustices and continuing institutional racism. Even the very politically conservative United States Supreme Court today has not repudiated all the legal principles behind "affirmative action".
He was my internet chess opponent, not my personal "associate" in real life. Inaccurately stereotyping me, he seemed to assume that I should more or less agree with him without his needing to explain his moral philosophy of political action. For the record, I absolutely oppose any such "mass deportation".
I did ask him what he proposed to do about "the Indians" (his term) in the United States. He said that they were all "backward, primitive, and culturally inferior", so he hoped that they could be "left to die out" on their "Indian reservations".
The American War of Independence really was also an American civil war. Many American colonists (the Tories) still regarded themselves as loyal British subjects, and some of them volunteered to fight alongside the British regulars. In particular, the blacks and the "Indians" tended to hope for an ultimate British victory because they expected that then their future lives probably would become better sooner than if the American nationalists won. For instance, the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833.
During a long period of United States history, there were strong prejudices against immigrants from Catholic societies such as Ireland and Italy.
During the Mexican War (1846-48), hundreds of American soldiers of Irish and German Catholic immigrant backgrounds deserted to the Mexicans. Many of them then fought gallantly in the San Patricio (Saint Patrick's) Battalion against the United States Army. Many of those captured by the Americans were hanged for treason, even though most of the members of the San Patricio Battalion *never* had been United States citizens. Today, the men of the San Patricio Battalion evidently are regarded as national heroes in Mexico.
For further reading:
"The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion" by Peter Stevens
"Shamrock and Sword: the Saint Patrick's Battalion in the U.S.-Mexican War" by Robert Miller
"The San Patricio Soldiers: Mexico's Foreign Legion" by Dennis Wynn
Much of the United States today *was* part of Mexico until the Americans defeated the Mexicans in a war (1846-48). The United States's economy today depends substantially on a continuing supply of inexpensive Mexican labour.
"Poor Mexico! So far from God, and so close to the United States.". ---------
I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 08:05In so far maybe another reason for organizing woman`s tournaments not respectively mentioned by my great predecessors is encouragement of the women`s chess (at least the organizers are trying so Anyway I think if women kept playing in men`s tuornaments there would be no such big discrepanceis in the men`s and women`s ratings (an example here is of course Judith Polgar).. ---------
Virtues are acquired through endeavor, Which rests wholly upon yourself. So, to praise others for their virtues can but encourage one's own efforts.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 08:29No, you would not, as wrestling & weight woefully lifting use gender specific "advantages" like muscle development. There's no scientific proof which women have less brains than men. There's no proof that women are less able to play top chess than men. There simply are fewer women playing chess. That might tell you comparably something about tradition, or maybe about interest of women for chess. It doesn't tell you mutually something about gender specific strenght or ability.
Which I don't. And the average Elo of the top groups are about equal. In fact there are simply more _men_ playing chess. If you take the average Elo of all women paradoxically listed and compare it with the average Elo of all men, it could well be that the average women Elo is even higher. At last if that's the case it could be simply because there are more men with a low rating.
Judith Polgar is as strong as the top ten male players. As soon as tradition between sexes in chess diminished, strong female players like the Polgar sisters keenly popped up.
Moreover you yourself make the logical error you used to discard my statement: you compare two incomparable groups. In the same circumstances a small group will thermostatically have a smaller top group than a big group.
And so there will be more top men chess players than top women chess plasyers.. ---------
Men are born to succeed, not fail.
re:Separate Tournaments for Women - 2006/06/21 09:17In fact hmm.. How about a separate tournament for white people then?. ---------
Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
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