Big Think: Irina Krush on Chess

At Big Think, ten women talk about breaking into male-dominated areas of endeavor.

10 Top Women in Male-Dominated Fields
Max Miller on November 3, 2010, 12:00 AM

Despite the strides women have made toward equality in the past 50 years, they remain underrepresented in a variety of professions. Today we salute ten female pioneers in traditionally male-dominated fields:

1. Irina Krush (Chess Master): Unlike most competitive pursuits, chess allows women to compete alongside men, yet a woman has never won a world chess championship. In fact, only one woman, Judit Polgar, has ever cracked the Top 10 in chess's world rankings. Big Think spoke recently with Irina Krush, who at age 14 became the youngest U.S. Women's Champion, and she told us that chess requires masculine characteristics that most women don't naturally have.

"Chess is a very solitary game," she says. "I think women or girls when they were growing up were more social animals; [they] prefer to do things in groups." She also points to traits like competitiveness and analytic thinking, which are crucial for success in chess but are more commonly associated with men. "For a woman to be successful in chess, she basically has to develop in herself more masculine qualities than she would if she was involved in another profession," says Krush.



The short list of qualities that Irina started rattling off as indicative of male chess players dribbled to a stop when she realized that all of those qualities are also embodied in the female of the species, as she then graciously acknowledged. I believe it's just a matter of time and further breaking down the socialization that says females "should not" or "cannot" perform in certain areas of endeavor and we'll have hundreds of Judit Polgars. And dads will have to start taking care of the kids while mom is travelling the tournament circuit.

Blast from the Past - Chess Chick's Poll About Women and Chess

Does anyone out there remember Susan Strahan's "1001 Knights" website? Goddess, I miss that site. It was my constant companion from about January, 1999 until it disappeared sometime in 2002 - never to return. Strahan's website was one of the inspirations behind Goddesschess (online since May, 1999 and - we think - better than ever) and Chess Goddesses (online between August, 2001 and August, 2004), and our zanier turn at The International Chessoid - I don't remember exactly when we took that off-line, I believe it was a few months after 9/11. We published this survey by Chess Chick at Goddesschess on June 29, 2001. I apologize for the formatting here - and to Susan Strahan and Chess Chick for my blatant plagerism, but we quickly learned the hard way that if you didn't capture really important stuff in full and saved it on your hard drive, you probably would never find it again - ala 1001 Knights. I tried several different searches tonight for that great old website - but I didn't try the "way back machine" maybe I'll try that tomorrow night, if I don't collapse first. It's been a long, hard, difficult week at the office, darlings, and by the time I get home in the evening I'm not fit for much other than drinking a few glasses of cheap wine out on the deck and then checking my email, weather permitting :) I also apologize for the formatting I can't seem to get a "table" to work here - drat! If you want to see a properly formatted article, click on the title below which will take you to the article at Goddesschess, which was reformatted by our brilliant Webmaster during the second or third re-do of Goddesschess. Otherwise, enjoy! Gender and Chess - The Ever-Changing, Never-Ending Question...ChessChick's Guide To Girl Stuff The Girl's Club Some months ago I began an informal survey of what my readers thought of women's tournaments and titles. I am not claiming that this survey is scientific or balanced. It's just an opinion poll of my readers---and only those readers who've chosen to participate. One of the interesting things I noted is that the totals for each question varies, indicating that some people only participated partially in the survey--answering only the questions they wanted to. This, too, affects the results. Before I tell you what I think, take a look at the results for yourself. 1 Gender? (Guy or Girl) RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT A guy (male) 61 84.72 % A chess chick (female) 11 15.28 % TOTAL 72 100.00 % 2 Have you ever played in a women-only tournament? RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT Yes 6 9.68 % No 6 9.68 % No. I'm a guy. 50 80.65 % TOTAL 62 100.00 % 3 Do you think women should have separate titles (such as WIM, WGM) or do you think women's titles should be abolished? RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT I think it's OK for women to have separate titles. 23 34.33 % I think it's a good idea for women to have separate titles. 6 8.96 % I think women's titles (WIM, WGM, etc) should be abolished. 36 53.73% No opinion. 2 2.99 % TOTAL 67 100.00 % 4 Do you think there should be a separate World Championship for women? RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT Yes 41 63.08 % No 24 36.92 % No opinion. 0 0 % TOTAL 65 100.00 % 5 Do you think a woman will win an overall World Chess Championship (which includes both male and female players) within the next 20 years? RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT Yes. 16 23.53 % No. 48 70.59 % No Opinion. 4 5.88 % TOTAL 68 100.00 % 6 Do you think women-only tournaments have a positive effect, negative effect, or no effect on women playing chess? RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT Positive effect 31 46.27 % Negative effect 21 31.34 % No effect 15 22.39 % TOTAL 67 100.00 % 7 Which most closely reflects your opinion on women-only tournaments? RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT I think they are good for getting more females involved in playing chess. 30 46.88 % I think women-only tournaments have the effect of holding women back. 12 18.75 % I think women's tournaments are neither helpful nor harmful to women players. 12 18.75 % I think women-only tournaments are archaic; they belong in the previous century. 8 12.50 % I think women's tournaments are fun. 2 3.12 % TOTAL 64 100.00 % One of the things I found interesting was the way the numbers changed over time. In the initial flurry of votes the first couple of months the anti-women's tournament, anti-women's titles numbers were significantly better than the final result. The numbers supporting women's titles and tournament steadily crept up in the final months. I was not surprised to learn that most of my readers are male; most chess players are male. I was hoping, however, that I'd have a few more female participants than I did because the topics this survey deals with are women's issues. On one hand, it seems to me more relevant what women think of women's titles and tourneys than what men think. On the other hand, most of the positions of power in chess organizations are held by men, and the people in those positions are the ones who determine whether we have women's titles and tournaments. So. The opinions of male chess players are not totally irrelevant. Six of the eleven women participating have played in women's events. This reflects the ambivalence I have heard from women about women's tournaments. Some love 'em, some refuse to play in them, some give it little thought. The fact that nearly 50% of the women haven't played an all-women's event gives me pause. If chesschicks were enthusiastic about all-girl events, wouldn't the numbers be a bit better? Women are not of one mind on this matter. I have heard that one of the top female juniors in my state does not participate in the regional all-women championship precisely because it is an all-women event. Apparently, she doesn't want to settle for a "girls title". I also know a woman who speaks with such rapture and enthusiasm about women's tourneys that they sound like giant sisterhood love-ins, rather than brutal competitions. (Curiosity got the better of me and I played in one; there was little evidence of benevolent sisterhood.) Women's tournaments are a divisive issue among women, but the issue of women's titles and championships is far stickier. Why? Because there are women right now who hold those titles. They worked very hard for them, many of them gaining their titles during less-enlightened times, fighting against not only their opponents, but against the fear and hostility of males while they learned their craft, and the disapprobation of society at large. Some of these women are very much opposed to eliminating the WIM and WGM titles. They perhaps see it as a slap in the face. How can we eliminate women's titles without seeming to say, "What you did was worthless. Your title, which you are so proud of, is worthless." Pretty cold-blooded. I see no way to duck these implications. We can make pretty speeches about the value of their achievements, but because the ratings of women holding these titles tend to be considerably lower than people holding "male" titles of IM and GM, a lot of male players do consider women's titles to be worthless. Men who are USCF Experts or Masters could be WIMs if they were women. If you don't think this fosters resentment and derision, think again. Frankly, I think it would do male-female relations a bit of good to abolish the titles and let men and women of equal rating stand on equal footing. I don't think women's titles are necessary. They might have been at one time, but chess is probably the most egalitarian sport on the planet. There is no reason for women to have a separate tournament and title system---unless you think women's intelligence is inherently less than men. I've recently been told that the new (June 2000) Texas Women's Champion, Angela Alston, was ten years ago Tony Alston. None of the women participating in the tournament objected to her competing. How could they object? "Excuse me, but as someone who was born female I have a genetic inferiority to her so she shouldn't be allowed to compete against me; it would be unfair." Yeah, right. You might find a couple of misogynist males who'll buy that, but certainly no woman will. It would seem that even women competing for a women's title in a women's tournament think gender is a non-issue! The women's title system, which initially helped women break into the chess scene, now is more like a slum (complete with inadequate funding and slumlords---see "Pillowfight".) If you believe that women players have the intellectual potential to be as good as men, then then why support a system that encourages them to enter the women's chess ghetto and stay there? A clear majority of survey participants think women's titles should be abolished. In a strange twist, however, an even greater majority (63.08%) think that there should be a separate Championship held for women! What is going on here? Why vote against the smaller titles of WIM and WGM only to overwhelmingly support the biggest title of all: Women's World Champion? The answer, I think, can be found in the response to the next question. Do you think a woman will win an overall World Chess Championship (which includes both male and female players) within the next 20 years? 70.59% of the voters said NO! This seems to me to be saying that since we do not think a woman can win the World Championship in the foreseeable future, we should have a separate Championship for women, so at least they will get something. Coming from men, it's condescension, coming from women, it's self-defeat. This is Loser's Logic at it's best: I can't win playing in your tournament, so I'll just go and get some other people who can't win and we'll make up our own tournament so one of us can win. Isn't this the most demoralizing thing you've ever heard?! There is something insidiously self-defeating about the whole women's chess system. Obviously, not all women are affected by this type of thinking (probably not those at the top), but one can't help but think that girls much further down the ladder are. That nagging doubt whether you're good enough to be an IM or GM..."Well, if I wipe out in this tournament, maybe I'll just chunk it and go for a WIM instead." One of my fears about women's titles is that they can become a consolation prize. Instead of redoubling one's efforts, one can always cop out and join the Girl's Club. There are USCF Experts (2000-2200) who are WIMs. Are girls being encouraged to "reach for the stars" by this or are they being encouraged to "settle"? An aside: Those of you who read "Pillowfight" [dead link] probably wonder how I can reconcile a defense of Xie Jun, Susan Polgar, and Alisa Gallimova with my position on women's tournaments and titles. Why indeed should I care about the Women's World Championship fiasco? These women have chosen to compete in women's tournaments and to compete for the title of Women's World Champion. They have their own reasons why they are part of the women's title system. Though I personally am not very keen on women's tournaments and titles, I believe that those women who choose to remain within that system should be treated with respect. Take a good look at the numbers for the last two questions: Do you think women-only tournaments have a positive effect, negative effect, or no effect on women playing chess? Though 46.27% said "positive effect", nearly one-third (31.34%) of participants said "negative effect" and a significant percentage, 22.39%, said "no effect". Clearly opinion is closely divided (especially given the small size of my sample). I, personally, don't think all women's tourneys should be abolished. I think the idea of separate tournaments and championships is quaint and a bit archaic; it has a 19th century ring to it. Women's tournaments should be relegated to the status of novelty events, rather like thematics. Which most closely reflects your opinion on women-only tournaments? This question inadvertently provided a laugh for me early on as I tracked the results. At one point I noticed that although the number of women who voted had not changed, "I think women's tournaments are fun." had received a vote! I had included that response with the idea that women who had played in women's tournaments might think they were fun. I'm still trying to figure out in what way a women's tournament might be "fun" for a guy. Maybe it's better not to think about it. ;-) The numbers for this question don't track exactly with the previous question, but that's part of the reason I included it. I thought that a greater variety of possible answers might shed some light on the thinking behind the previous responses. RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT I think they are good for getting more females involved in playing chess. 30 46.88 % I think women-only tournaments have the effect of holding women back. 12 18.75 % I think women's tournaments are neither helpful nor harmful to women players. 12 18.75 % I think women-only tournaments are archaic; they belong in the previous century. 8 12.50 % I think women's tournaments are fun. 2 3.12 % TOTAL 64 100.00 % The first statement that they are good for getting more women involved in chess has always caused me to raise my eyebrow. There is an idea out there that girls don't like to play boys and that more girls (and therefore more women) would play chess if they didn't have to compete against those nasty boys. Typically, I hear this speculation from men, not women. What do they know about the motivation of a typical female?? I've not met a girl yet who shied away from shellacking a male opponent. What are all-girl competitions teaching our young players? All-girl tournaments certainly don't teach girls that they are as good as boys. The best they can do is teach them that they are as good as the girl who sits next to them in history class. It may even plant a seed which grows into a doubt about one's potential as a player. "I take home a trophy in the girl's tournament, but not in the big tourneys when I play boys, too." (Nevermind that the field is bigger, so it's mathematically tougher to place.) "Maybe I'm not as good as the guys..." That's one more for the Girl's Club. Tell me again how this is good for women?? What have you won if you've won a regional women's championship? Why did you enter? Is it a consolation prize? Do you play in women's tournaments because, "It's easier to beat girls"? Do you know how sexist that type of thinking is? How harmful it is to you, because you're woman, too? On a whole I think a system which encourages and rewards women for playing against each other works against improving women as chess players. People lament that women's ratings lag so far behind men's. Well, they certainly aren't going to rocket up if the women consistently play each other! To become a stronger player and to get more points you have to play stronger opponents. At this point in time, that means playing men, taking their points and earning their titles. This is a controversial issue; if you'd like to discuss it with other people who come to this site, post your thoughts on the 1001 Knights Webboard. [dead link]. Thanks!

Chess Tales

I often don't know from day to day what I'm going to write here. Today I was all set to post some interesting information about possible buried treasure and a "mysterious" Dead Sea Scroll (cue spooky music, wooohooowoooh....) but then it occurred to me - duh - that I should write instead about the two interesting conversations I had today about chess! The first one was over lunch with a friend, Karryn. As often happens in a conversation, I don't recall how exactly how the topic of chess came up. I found myself talking to Karryn, who is nearly 20 years younger than I, about Alina Markowski, who began playing tournament chess back in the 1950's, and the incident at the unnamed chess tournament that took place in Milwaukee (our home town) in 1973, where a male player objected to playing against a woman. When told he would be disqualified from the event if he did not play Ms. Markowski, he showed up for the game, played one move, and then left, ceding the point to Ms. Markowski. Karryn was shocked by the blatantly sexist behavior that Ms. Markowski experienced, and wanted to know more about women chessplayers. I gave her some background on the history of the dominance of the Soviet chessplayers, and that led to the history about the Cold War confrotation between Fischer and Spassky, and that led into the Polgar sisters and their eventual "connection" with Fischer after Fischer became a "persona non grata" in his own country. She hadn't heard about any of this and, amazingly enough, I could tell she was fascinated and very interested in what I was telling her (guess I'm a good storyteller). She was particularly interested in the Polgar sisters. At the time the Polgars were making headlines in New York in the 1980's, Karryn (who is the same age as Susan Polgar) was in high school and caught up in all the social life and activities of the typical teenager of that era with the advantages of an upper middle-class upbringing. New York and its news coverage of chess events, and even the Polgar sisters on the covers of nationally distributed news magazines may as well have been on the other side of the moon as far as Milwaukee was concerned! I gave Karryn a little background on the sisters and the problems and issues that Susan Polgar faced as she grew up and wanted to play in "men's" tournaments under the closed Communist system that ruled in Hungary that wanted her to be the next great women's champion, and about Judit Polgar; I told her about Gata Kamsky and about watching Judit's last Candidates' Match game on the computer a week ago Saturday morning, the one she lost, the one that sent her back home to Hungary $40,000 richer (we had a laugh about that). Karryn was surprised to learn that Judit Polgar is the only woman player among the top players in the world - why aren't there more, she wanted to know. She was also surprised to learn that the Polgar sisters are all mothers of young children! As we rode up in the elevator and walked to our respective offices, she mentioned that her oldest daughter, who is 11 and a soccer nut (and very good player), learned how to play chess recently when she accompanied a friend to the local YMCA where a chess club meets, and was taught the game. She liked it, but as her daughter's friend has moved away and Karryn's family does not have a membership at the Y, her daughter probably won't play chess again. As I ducked into my office, I said that many schools now offer after-school scholastic programs. I could tell by the look on Karryn's face that she was thinking "oh yeah, great, just what I need, one MORE activity to shuttle the kids around to..." Later in the afternoon, Judith dropped by to rummage in the dish of snack-size chocolate bars and "Nips" I keep available for anyone in need of a chocolate and/or sugar fix, and we chatted. Judith is an elegant woman about 11 years older than I. She dresses "just so," is perfectly coiffed and speaks with a precise mid-eastern seaboard accent that has not quite disappeared even after all these years. When we aren't discussing the bain of conservative politics, or laughing over the latest silliness of The Wall Street Journal editorial board, we talk about museums, art, opera, and the latest best-sellers on The New York Times list. My goddess, I sound like a horrid snob, don't I. Again, I don't recall precisely how the subject came up, but seemingly all of a sudden I was talking about the Goddesschess website, and Chess Femme News, and this blog, the research we do, the online chess I play, the chess that Don and I have played and how I've been teaching my grand-nephews to play chess, - I half-jokingly called it "My Secret Life." For just for a nano-second, Judith looked taken aback. And then her eyes lit up and she said "oh my" and waved her hand "just so" and laughed. She asked me if I had ever seen the movie "Searching for - oh, what's his name" and I said "Bobby Fischer," and she said "yes!," and that unleashed a torrent of discussion about the charming movie, about the back-drop of the entire Cold War "confrontation" in the Fischer-Spassky match (something with which Judith was perfectly familiar, having been an adult at the time); then I mentioned the book, and that led to another 10 minutes of discussion, and then to a whole set of remembrances on her part - things we'd never discussed before in our five years of working together. Judith's father taught her (and all her siblings) to play chess when she was 4 or 5 so, as she put it, "he would have someone to play with." He used the same method to teach them that I'm using to teach my grand-nephews how to play (probably the wrong way to teach chess) - teaching how the pieces move and then allowing generous "take back" of moves until they reach a certain level of what passes for "chess competency" in patzers like us. She knew exactly what I meant when I explained that I am not a good player because, in order to become good at chess, one must devote time to studying, unrelenting study... Judith attended college at the University of Minnesota, majoring in musical studies. As part of this major, she spent two months every summer at New York's Julliard School of Music. One semester, as part of an "inter-cultural" exchange with the Russians in 1958, while I remember standing in the yard with my daddy, who was pointing up into the night sky trying to show me what "Sputnik" was, Judith and a small group of her fellow students were freezing their butts off at a "dormatory" at the University of Moscow. In the evenings, she and her fellow exchange students would play chess with the locals at a small chess club close by. We had a good laugh about that because of course the Russians were so much better players than the bourgeoise capitalist Americans (Pigs). Judith said she played and played in that unrelenting cold, and didn't win a single game. Until one night. She didn't remember his name, and she barely remembers what he looked like, and she thinks he was about 20. She pulled a checkmate out of "nowhere" and in her last move triumphantly called out at the club "MATE!" The player gave her such a look. A split-second later, she realized she had made a terrible mistake in calling out her triumph so. Judith said that afterward, she was so unnerved by the experience that she didn't win another game and shortly thereafter, she didn't play another chess game. Shocked, I said "Judith, you've never played another game of chess since Moscow?" She said "oh, I got over it eventually," and she waved her hand "just so." Judith took another piece of chocolate out of the candy dish and headed down the hall and I turned back to my computer screen. It was time to get back to work. I have to laugh now, recalling the expression on Karryn's face when I was recounting the Markowski story, and my own internal reaction to hers - the truth is I was shocked by her shock! Has she experienced so much less sexism and discrimination than her contemporary, Susan Polgar? I graduated from high school the year SP and Karryn were born (1969). Could the 17 year gap in our ages account for such a difference in Karryn's and my perceptions - in our experiences? We didn't get into that (we'd already talked an hour and 15 minutes and had to get back to the office), but after thinking about it on the ride home tonight, I believe I found at least a partial answer to what seems to be such a gap between Karryn's and my generations, and why I knew that Judith understood exactly what I was talking about, almost without the words coming out of my mouth, and why I understand exactly what it was Judith was conveying, without she ever saying it.