First female Grandmaster attacks idea that women aren’t “hardwired” for chess
Monday April 20, 2015
Listen to the full interview HERE.
It takes brains to play chess… and even more brains to play the game well.
British Grandmaster Nigel Short feels that men are “hardwired” to play the game better than women. .
Asked about his thoughts on the lack of women competing in chess, Short, 49, told New In Chess magazine: “Why should they function in the same way? I don’t have the slightest problem in acknowledging that my wife possesses a much higher degree of emotional intelligence than I do.
“Likewise, she doesn’t feel embarrassed in asking me to manoeuvre the car out of our narrow garage. One is not better than the other, we just have different skills.
“It would be wonderful to see more girls playing chess, and at a higher level, but rather than fretting about inequality, perhaps we should just gracefully accept it as a fact.”
His comments have been derided by female chess players, including the world’s first female Grandmaster, Susan Polgar.
“It doesn’t surprise me. He has been known to be making sexist and outrageous comments about women in chess for decades,” Polgar tells As It Happens host Carol Off. “What has been disappointing over all these years is his colleagues just ignore him. I’m just disappointed there isn’t more outrage form the chess community.”
Just imagine if Nigel Short would say blacks don’t have the brains to play chess; how crazy would that sound.– Grandmaster Susan Polgar
Polgar says she tries to ignore Nigel Short as well, but it’s becoming more and more difficult with all the media attention his comments generate.
Full article and audio interview here.
We’ll! It,s the usual male/female antagonisms/prejudices coming to the surface. Of course Susan,Judith,HouYifan are capable of playing superlative chess. I was witness to Judith,s demolition job on Nigel Short over a series of rapid/blitz games on chess.com. That said,it is obvious that if we pit the top ten male players in each country against the top ten female players of that country,the males will always come out on top. More so in the Classical format. I guess Nigel meant something like that. I am a chess buff and there are thousands of women out there who can swat me. Doesn’t’t matter! I just want to enjoy the game! .-)
Ms. Polgar. You seem to be deflecting here. Women in fact do not play chess as well as men. Look at he top 100 in the world and only 1 active player is listed. You then go on to say (deflect) what if someone said blacks were not as capable of thinking than others. We were not speaking of blacks and how or how much they as a group can think. We were speaking of why male chess players as a whole are better then women. I watched this clip of Nigel and found him to be pretty correct about chess and who plays better.
I think Susan is doing a fantastic job with today’s youth, promoting chess in general and being involved with the Webster University. My hats off to her. She has few equals in these areas of endeavor. But I do agree with Nigel Short’s opinions. I don’t feel his comments are sexist at all. Men not only do play chess better, they also drive cars faster and they box harder. So what’s wrong with that? Women are called the “weaker sex” for a good reason. I don’t think too many men would be attracted to women if they were the “stronger sex”. I don’t really think I’d want a woman who can beat up on Michael Tyson. Although if it did happen then all the power to her.
Well said Susan.. ha he cant beat you either 😉
I have to agree with Susan Polgar. What she says in the interview is correct. It is not because women are biologically deficient in any way that they don’t play chess as well; it is because of social reasons.
Dr. Max Euwe (World Champion from 1935-1937- he beat Alekhine!) perhaps said it best when he said that women don’t play chess as well as men because they have better things to do.
I am a man, and a chessplayer. I am self-taught in chess, and in 5 years, from 1972 to 1977, I studied 6 hours per day as best I could (did not have a clue how to study chess properly, of course). In 1977 I won the Chess Championship of my country, Puerto Rico.
But I sacrificed a lot to achieve this. I had no social life to speak of. Chess was my obsession!
As Susuan Polgar points out, women can perform as well as men, if they are encouraged along the way and given the right support.
Susan an Judit’s father had a theory, that geniuses are made, not born, and he proved it with his own daughters! With love, discipline, encouragement, training and coaching, they achieved their maximum potential.
Please see Susan Polgar’s documentary, “My Brilliant Brain”…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wzs33wvr9E it is very illustrative of this point.
One problem with us chessplayers, and I guess with us men in general, is that we tend to approach everything with our ego. “I am better than you”, “Men are better than women”, etc. are all ego-centered statements.
I prefer the approach of players like Bronstein and Tal, who were artists of the chessboard. May I include Keres and Petrosian in that group, and even Spassky? These were men with a noble character real gentlemen.
For all his “greatness”, Fischer had real problems when he talked about women. As GM Yermolinsky was saying recently, he doubted that Fischer (as Fischer claimed) could have given Nona Gaprindashvilli odds of a knight and won the game.
Susan, Sophia and Judit, and now Hou Yifan, show the potential that women have.
Not biological determinism, but social circumstances, are the limiting factor when it comes to women’s development in chess, in my opinion.