In chess for example, there has never been a single female world champion and just 1% of Grand Masters are women. And as long as that’s the case, there will always be people who claim that this disparity is caused by some form of inferiority on the part of the underrepresented sex.
Because chess is often considered to be the ultimate intellectual activity, male dominance at chess is often cited as an example of innate male intellectual superiority. But rather than resort to biological or cultural explanations, a recent study proposes a different explanation.
As of 2020 there are only 458 active WGMs—an incredibly small fraction of the millions of chess players worldwide. WGM Jennifer Shahade is a well-known commentator and chess personality. Photo: David Llada.
They can attain it by achieving a FIDE classical rating of at least 2300 with at least 30 rated games as well as three norms. The title was created in 1976, and it is worth noting that woman players may attain any FIDE title—not woman titles solely.
Three years ago, Lawrence Summers , former president of Harvard University, claimed that genetic differences between the sexes led to a “different availability of aptitude at the high end”. His widely derided led to his dismissal, but is views are by no means uncommon.
Far more men play chess than women and based on that simple fact, you could actually predict the differences we see in chess ability at the highest level. It’s a simple statistical fact that the best performers from a large group are probably going to be better than the best performers from a small one.
Three years ago, Lawrence Summers , former president of Harvard University, claimed that genetic differences between the sexes led to a "different availability of aptitude at the high end".
Thankfully, there will also always be others keen to find out if those who hold such views are full of it. Among them is Merim Bilalic from Oxford University. Himself a keen chess player, Bilalic smelled a rat in Irwing's contention that men dominate the higher echelons of chess because of their innate ability.
It's a simple statistical fact that the best performers from a large group are probably going to be better than the best performers from a small one. Even if two groups have the same average skill and, importantly, the same range in skill, the most capable individuals will probably come from the larger group.
From the 80th pair onwards, the advantage shifts back to the fairer sex. Bilalic describes the world's top female player, Judit Polgar, as "a phenomenon, by far the strongest female player the world has ever known [and] the only female player in the top 100".
Three years ago, Lawrence Summers , former president of Harvard University, claimed that genetic differences between the sexes led to a "different availability of aptitude at the high end". His widely derided led to his dismissal, but is views are by no means uncommon.
As for the "evidence" that there is no sex difference in the chess aptitude, it makes a horribly flawed assumption. The chess players aren't a random sample. Chess players are self-selected. Therefore, they aren't a representative sample of the population at large.
Far more men play chess than women and based on that simple fact, you could actually predict the differences we see in chess ability at the highest level. It's a simple statistical fact that the best performers from a large group are probably going to be better than the best performers from a small one.
Unlike the wildly popular Netflix chess-themed series The Queen’s Gambit, female players have struggled to climb to the top of the real-life chess world. Just 37 of the more than 1,600 international chess grandmasters are women. The current top-rated female, Hou Yifan, is ranked 89th in the world, while the reigning women’s world champion Ju Wenjun is 404th.
Hungary’s Judit Polgár is generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. Stefan64, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY. On the other side are those who argue the gender gap in chess is mainly due to societal and cultural pressures that put women off the game. A commonly cited example is Hungary’s Judit Polgár, ...
By 2020 this had risen to more than 15%. Part of this may be due to “affirmative action” policies, such as chess league mandates that clubs include at least one female player in their (typically eight-player) teams. This not only increases female earnings but also has a trickle-down effect for female participation.
Attitudes are starting to change, too. After his famous loss to Judit Polgár in 2002 — the first time a female player had beaten a reigning world champion in a rated game — Kasparov was asked about his past opinions about women’s chess. His reply: “I don’t believe that now.”.
Her psychologist father believed geniuses are created, not born. His three daughters, home-schooled in chess from the age of three, each achieved groundbreaking success in the game. Judit Polgár reached a peak ranking of eighth in the world and shared the same view as her father when she retired in 2015, saying:
The American Bobby Fischer, on whom The Queen’s Gambit’s lead character is largely based, once said women are “terrible chess players”, later opining that “I don’t think they should mess into intellectual affairs; they should keep strictly to the home”.
It’s true women have been shown to exhibit higher risk aversion and lower competitiveness across many domains, including chess, possibly driven by differences in testosterone. However, evidence is mixed on whether or how these traits affect performance over the chess board.
You can identify WGMs specifically by a red tag with the initials WGM next to their names. It is easy to identify WGMs on Chess.com.
The woman grandmaster (abbreviated as WGM) is one of the official titles awarded by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) exclusively to women chess players. It is the highest-ranking title that is exclusive to women, above the woman international master, woman FIDE master, and woman candidate master titles.
As of 2020 there are only 458 active WGMs—an incredibly small fraction of the millions of chess players worldwide. WGM Jennifer Shahade is a well-known commentator and chess personality. Photo: David Llada.