Tuesday, December 30, 2008

As I Said Before - It's a Numbers Game

This isn't news - just further confirmation of earlier studies that I wrote about at Goddesschess some time ago. Women are NOT inferior to men when it comes to playing chess, it's just that the relative sample of women who do play is so much smaller than that for men, the statistics get skewed. Women players distribute across a classic "Bell curve" the same way that male players do, it's just that theirs is a LOT smaller. Chess isn't necessarily about testosterone or spatial perception, or even "superior" intelligence. Women do and can play as well as men, and will achieve equal levels of GMs and IMs with the guys - if we can somehow as a world manage to get to that "critical mass" of female chessplayers where the players that possess the skills required for chess reach equal levels. There is still a long way to go. So, darlings, don't be fooled by the folks who say that women can't play chess, or that women don't play chess as well as men, or whatever blah blah blah about the supposed "inferiority" of women when it comes to playing chess. It's a lot of baloney and fear on the part of the folks spewing forth these misleading statements (at best) or downright lies (at worst) about female chessplayers.

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