Sexism in chess

[David Sedgwick]

At the start of the FIE Laws of Chess it states
In these Laws the words 'he', 'him', and 'his' shall be considered to include 'she' and 'her'. Nobody has ever challenged this.

Until now, maybe.

The World Bridge Federation recently completed a project to rewrite the Laws of Bridge in gender neutral language. Perhaps FIDE should consider doing the same.

Admittedly it is not easy, as discussed on this thread.

Here is an alternative suggestion. Change the wording which you quote to:

In these Laws the words 'she' and 'her' shall be considered to include 'he', 'him', and 'his'.

Somehow, I think that, if that change were to be made, it would be challenged quite quickly.

[E Michael White]

At the start of the FIE Laws of Chess it states
In these Laws the word 'he', 'him', and 'his' shall be considered to include 'she' and 'her'. Nobody has ever challenged this.

Implied inclusion in this way would not always work, as it is necessary sometimes to use the word 'hers' instead of 'she' or 'her'.

[AndrewBanks]

If females choose to play chess that's fine. If not then there won't be much sexism around.

Perhaps the (not even always unintended) sexism is the reason why females choose not to play chess?

There should be nothing intrinsically discriminatory in chess... it is, after all, a cerebral activity.

But as a father of two girls, experience shows that participation boils down to scheduling and priorities/preferences:


Most chess events are held over a weekend, or at least on a Saturday (stand fast the few that are on Sundays, including Richmond where we do attend). Saturday is dancing day... and my two (like many of their peers) would rather do their dancing than playing chess. A dilemma not exclusively ours, from conversations with other parents and children.

Were more events to be held on a Sunday, we'd take part in more. Of course, that would impact others who have other plans for Sundays......


Of course, this is all moot at the moment...

[Kevin Thurlow]

Things have improved in the Laws though. Idly glancing at the 1924 version, published by BCF, Article 4 says,
"The Men consist of eight "Pieces" - a King, a Queen, two Rooks (sometimes called Castles), two Bishops and two Knights - and eight "Pawns" for each Player"

The use of "men" sounds odd now. However, they did largely avoid the his/her problem. e.g. in article 9, "No man must be moved to a square occupied by a man of its own colour."

Article 16, "One person shall take the White men and the other person the Black men."

The rules of "Magic the Gathering" state quite happily how a player's move progresses, by saying "She draws a card..." I haven't heard anyone be offended by that and I suspect the ratio of female players to male players of Magic is smaller than the ratio in chess.

The 1924 Laws do keep referring to "The Player" and "The Opponent" - perhaps using that repeatedly can avoid using "his" and "her".

[Paul Habershon]

I'm more pedantic than most, but this pronoun stuff is so unnecessary. If 'she' and 'her' were universally adopted for documents, would I be up in arms? No!
.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I had another thought - is it only in English we have the problem? If we wrote the Laws in Latin, genders would be all over the place. What do they do in French and German etc.?

[Tim Spanton]

I had another thought - is it only in English we have the problem? If we wrote the Laws in Latin, genders would be all over the place. What do they do in French and German etc.?

Get a life?

[JustinHorton]

I had another thought - is it only in English we have the problem?

I don't know specifically about the Laws of Chess, but I do know that generally in Spanish there are, for instance, some nouns of masculine gender have been used such that they cover both male and female instances, and that the degree to which this should be accepted or resisted is a matter of debate. (One that I often find myself using is "el profesorado", the teaching staff of a school or other institution, which given I work - or did work - in primary schools isa little odd.) I have an interesting book about it somewhere.

The point always to bear in mind is that the majot reason the language matters is the reality it reflects. "His move" makes a difference because women and girls are hideously under-represented in our game, often find difficulty in being accepted, and if they are always seeing chess moves as being described in a way that doesn't acknowledge their existence, that adds to the problem and the feeling of exclusion. Sun journalists may have difficulty seeing that this matters, but the rest of us should be able to do a little better.

[Brendan O'Gorman]

"Latinx"

[Tim Spanton]

From the "Protection Concept" at Biel:

For reasons of readability, the masculine form is chosen for personal names, but the feminine form is
always included.

[Geoff Chandler]

I have been following the 'his', 'hers' debate in chess notes with interest. I have a solution.

When females start playing chess we give them a rating and a chess man name.

Susan 'Sidney' Polgar, Hou 'Howard' Yifan etc.. thus making every chess player for the sake of annotating a game a male.

As an alternative (I always try to please both sides in any debate) we could give all the male players females names:
Geoff 'Georgina' Chandler, Nigel 'Nigella' Short etc...thus making players in chess notes female.

Players with unisex names. Mickey, Justin, Jordan, Blair, Casey... need not be given an opposite sex name.

Stewart, (Stephanie) you keep reminding me that you no longer have any clout with FIDE but surely
you still have friends and contacts there. (maybe even a dark secret you blackmail one of them with.)
Get this idea put on the agenda at the next FIDE AGM.

[Kevin Thurlow]

""His move" makes a difference because women and girls are hideously under-represented in our game, often find difficulty in being accepted, and if they are always seeing chess moves as being described in a way that doesn't acknowledge their existence, that adds to the problem and the feeling of exclusion."

I think the "(s)he" issue is minor - documents, laws, rules everywhere have the same style. Anyway, how many players have ever read the Laws?
There are many reasons that fewer women and girls play chess.

1) They don't want to, either because it's "boring" or not to their taste, or they prefer other activities, or they feel lonely and outnumbered. A work colleague told me her daughter was playing chess at school and enjoyed it, and even asked about coaching. A few months down the line, the daughter decided ballet was much more interesting. (That could apply to boys as well...)

2) Many venues are, to be diplomatic, horrible. Clubs meet in dingy pubs, with awful toilets, people are getting drunk, then you leave when it's dark outside and there may be no street lamps. Anyone might find that challenging.

3) Some chess players are weird. I don't need to elaborate on that.

4) Many male players (usually the weaker ones) assume that all women are worse players than all men. Those of us are reasonably good (like me) have found ourselves playing talented women players. so when Jovanka Houska buried me online a few days ago, I was just sorry I hadn't made it more difficult for her. But years ago, a club colleague graded 100 berated me for "only" drawing with Sheila Jackson. "Huh, couldn't you even beat that girl." "Er, she's graded 20 points higher than me." Stunned silence. Obviously, I thought he was an idiot. You can imagine women getting fed up with his attitude.

5) There must be more examples...

I think the wording of the Laws is a minor problem. And I as I said before, are you going to include all the other pronouns used by various individuals?

It would be great and maybe have a civilizing effect if more women played chess, but there are no quick and easy answers.

[Matt Mackenzie]

No its not a major thing and nobody is claiming otherwise I think.

That doesn't mean that "get a life" is the appropriate response either.

[Jon Tait]

"His" is normal usage as it is a bit clumsy to say "his or her" all the time, and in these modern times, the other associated words. "Their" doesn't sound right as it's plural.

Time for this quote again...

I still dislike invented pronouns, but now dislike them less than the so-called generic pronoun he/him/his, which does in fact exclude women from discourse; and which was an invention of male grammarians, for until the sixteenth century the English generic singular pronoun was they/them/their, as it still is in English and American colloquial speech. It should be restored to the written language and let the pedants and pundits squeak and gibber in the streets.

[Kevin Thurlow]

As the blessed Susie Dent has preached to us on many occasions, dictionaries reflect common usage. So maybe go for "their". Just don't use "infer" when you mean "imply".