An introduction...

[Michele Clack]

Before you can attract more women to congresses you need more women playing. In my club there are 2 of us but most of the clubs around here don't have any women members at all. We had a new woman come to us at the beginning of the season and despite us all trying to help her get started she gave up after a few weeks. She would have been fine but she lacked confidence and found it all a bit too much. Perhaps some women only coaching might be a good idea.

[Alex Holowczak]

Michele has hit the nail on the head.

Having women's prizes only attracts the same one or two women to play more often. This is less desirable than attracting more women to play a sensible amount.

[Louise Sinclair]

You will never have equality at chess until women are left to manage for themselves. At present we get a mixture of politically correct liberal men who think women should be offered or compelled to accept positive discrimination. Then you have the guys who believe that women should not be allowed near competitive chess - period. These are usually the match captains who will only ask a woman for bottom board at the last minute from desperation.
I have acted as a match captain, club secretary and at county and league level management.
In all of my years I have never seen the blatant mysogyny I have encountered at chess.
Eventually I stopped playing and took up poker. It is lucrative and the other players aren't interested in gender or discrimination. We just shuffle up and deal.
Louise

[Alex Holowczak]

You will never have equality at chess until women are left to manage for themselves. At present we get a mixture of politically correct liberal men who think women should be offered or compelled to accept positive discrimination.

That's interesting.

What are your thoughts on the "one player of each gender" rule at the 4NCL?

[Louise Sinclair]

I think it is awful. The best players should be selected - not on basis of gender. What next - special places for the disabled?
Louise

[IM Jack Rudd]

I think it is awful. The best players should be selected - not on basis of gender. What next - special places for the disabled?

Oooh, great idea. I must convince the 4NCL they'd be best off implementing that rule.

[Michele Clack]

I'm not a great fan of positive discrimination either. I do think though that women often find it harder to get going at chess due to lack of confidence.

Louise, which part of the country are you from? I can't say I've ever noticed any discrimination in chess in the midlands. The only incident I can remember was a few years ago when a youngish chap sat down to play me and said he had lost to me the previous year. He looked a bit upset about it then proceeded to play so badly that I beat him again rather quickly. He went off muttering under his breath about being beaten by a woman.

At my club Penny and I are just chessplayers. So any women out there thinking about taking up chess don't be put off. Certainly around here you will be welcomed and picked for teams on your merits. If you don't mind driving then you'll sometimes even be picked over non-drivers who are a bit stronger.

[HLang]

At my club, we've gradually gathered a 'critical mass' over the last few years. This is partly through having 3 women league players when I joined (which then became 4 and now 5 this year), partly through the willingness of all club members to play / look through games with juniors and new/returning adult players alike, partly through having a bottom division team that exists to give all members competitive games, and partly through two of the women players organising chess in schools / county teams and inviting the keener/stronger juniors along, many of whom are girls.

This is probably best illustrated by the composition of the club's 3rd and 4th teams this season, where 12 girls/women have played significant numbers of games (links don't include the results of the stronger 3 girl/women players in the 1st and 2nd teams):

http://www.oxfordfusion.com/oca/GetLeag ... TeamID=373
http://www.oxfordfusion.com/oca/GetLeag ... TeamID=384

As Michele says, we're all chessplayers.

[David Shepherd]

I favour some positive discrimination for example some girls only tournaments for younger girls with coaching at them to encourage girls to play more and to give more of them a chance to finish high up in those tournaments and in other mixed tournaments. Once they have got off to a good start hopefully their results will be good in the mixed tournaments and they will be more likely to continue in the game.

I also favour an elite group of girls in the younger age groups where say the top ten to fifteen girls are given coaching to allow them to improve to a standard where they are all capable of wining mixed tournaments. (Coaching also equally applicable to the top boys). Coaching weekends could be organised where older girls are also there receiving coaching to give them role models, with the coaches being the top female players if available.

I favour the mixed team rule in the 4NCL not least because it encourages the best women to play and produces a nicer playing environment.

[David Shepherd]

As per Heather my club (Ashtead Surrey) has 4 or 5 females plaing in its teams including 2 in the first team. Again I believe the active junior club and the playing environment and the attitude of the club players encourages this.

[Alex Holowczak]

There are quite a few female juniors in the Midlands, I can think of at least 5 who are easily club standard. One plays in Division One of the Birmingham League, one wants to play League chess but is too busy with other things to commit the time, one only seems to play in the UKCC and occasionally, one is hopefully going to be a member of the junior team I put in (if only infrequently due to having to travel a fairly long way), and the other has no desire to play club chess at all, but is a budding administrator instead, and is going to have arbiter training at some point over the next few months.

As far as I'm aware, these five players never come together very often to build a rapport, because they're all in different teams, live some way away from each other, don't go to the same school (two do), and tend not to play in congresses much, where they'd meet each other. Boy chess players tend to be able to socialise much more readily because they are more numerous, and see each other at schools, and junior clubs. Conversely, girls tend not to have the same sort of company. It's rather a pity that they can't come together for chess-related activities more often.

The point is though, they would make good club players, and getting them involved in league chess would be an important step to encourage more to follow in their footsteps, and change the image of the game from an old man's game (which is a perfectly accurate image around here).

[Neill Cooper]

Ljubica.

Congratulations on your appointment. It would be great to encourage girl's chess as well as women's chess. Claire Summerscale ran individual and team events when she was Director of Women's and Girls chess (see www.chessuk.com/allengland.html). Before her Neil Clifton ran such events in Surrey for many years. Now there seem to be no girls-only events.

[Michele Clack]

Ljubica

It is indeed excellent that you have accepted this post.

It is interesting that Alex agrees that more opportunities for girls and women to meet up would be good and doesn't see this as in any way discriminatory, so perhaps this would be a good way forward.

Besides women only events perhaps tournament organisers could flag up events that might be particularly women/girls/junior friendly with their reasons. To give an example, the Worcestershire Tournament at the beginning of the school summer holidays is at Worcester University. This is very family friendly with plenty of room for non-playing family members to sit in the refectory if the weather is bad. The UK Chess Challenge Worcestershire Megafinal is held every year and there is plenty of playing space so it won't be a crush. Meals and snacks can be bought at very reasonable prices but nobody minds if you bring your own. Last years event at a different venue was so successful this bigger venue has been arranged. There were quite a few juniors and several women players. So this would be an ideal event to introduce boys and girls to chess congresses.

At club and league level I imagine it would be rather daunting for a young girl to join unless she was part of a chessplaying family. So yes I can see that if you can get to a critical mass of female players then more might be encouraged to have a go at league chess. If any girls would like to know which clubs have female players in Worcestersire and the Birmingham League area I would be happy to pass this iinformation on. Perhaps a database of contacts for this information nationally might be a good idea.

Best of luck.

[Alex Holowczak]

At club and league level I imagine it would be rather daunting for a young girl to join unless she was part of a chessplaying family.

Of those five I mentioned, four have chess-playing brothers who are stronger than them. The personality of the fifth is not exactly shy-and-retiring...

[Gary Cook]

To my mind the only thing that segregated tournaments/matches acheive is to teach the young that this is the way to play. Girls will start to feel comfortable only playing other girls.

If segregation is so good why hasn't it been more successful?

Gary