English Chess Forum

The concept of women's titles is a stupid one, regardless of how they were achieved. I can see no reason why women should have their own titles set hundreds of points below the unisex equivalents. The fact that so few women reach the unisex titles is not a justification.

In your view......

Well, I'm yet to hear or read anyone make an argument for them.

If the majority of women at the olympiad say, wanted rid of the titles due to the 'sexism' then it would most likely occur. The fact there in the most part happy, I know some dislike it, then thats good.

End of the day, they don't have to pay the FIDE fee and accept it.

Ben

Start a different thread, this is world junior thread btw.

I'll wait for an admin to do that, they can move the posts already here.

Alex Holowczak wrote:Well, I'm yet to hear or read anyone make an argument for them.

Here's the case made by Alexandra Kosteniuk: http://www.chessblog.com/2009/10/abolis ... ulous.html.

Ian Kingston wrote:

Alex Holowczak wrote:Well, I'm yet to hear or read anyone make an argument for them.

Here's the case made by Alexandra Kosteniuk: http://www.chessblog.com/2009/10/abolis ... ulous.html.

She doesn't seem to realise that GM, IM and FM are designed to be unisex, not men only.

"According to the IOC regulations women are not allowed to compete in men's events." - False, equestrianism is a mixed sport at the Olympic Games. So, if chess was going to be in the Olympics (sigh), then it could just be a mixed event. Furthermore, equestrianism is arguably more of a sport than chess. It takes much more physical skill to control a horse than to play chess.

"So this shows that to get more strong women playing chess, we need to have many more women STARTING to play chess" - Yes, and there probably are compared to 20 years ago. Conversely, there are fewer men starting to play chess than 20 years ago. Maybe not in Russia, but here there are.

She also mentions how there are lots of 14-16 year old girls who drop out of the game. Again, that's not exactly a situation in which women are alone.

Basically, I disagree with most of her article. I think the only reason that there are so few women in the top 1000 is that there are so few women playing the game full stop. If there were just as many women as men, I think they'd be just as good. Judit Polgar has shown that it's possible to beat the best male players.

Personally, I think women would be more encouraged to play if fellow players were just as welcome, or coaches were just as available for those who want them, rather than hand out titles that are for a much lower achievement, and have criteria for tournament entry that make it easier for women to qualify than men (e.g. British Championship).

Besides, Kosteniuk herself played in the World Blitz Championship, featuring 22 leading players. She was last by 2.5 points. This shows that tournament organisers are obviously doing their best to promote the women's game. Kosteniuk is certainly far better known than equivalently rated male players. I don't think women's titles would make her any more well-known than she is now.

Funnily enough, the regulations for the WGM, WIM, WFM and WCM titles do not specify that the holder has to be a woman.

Jack's mentioned this fact to me before but I would interested to see if any blokes would like to try it out and apply for one of the titles. After all, it would help some players get cheaper entry into norm seeking events! I bet FIDE would be happy to take the application money but would they accept the application?

That certainly sets the mind racing.

Anyone happen to know what the requirements for the WGM title are?

Evening Jonathan
I waited for someone to respond but did not want you to waste time looking up the information,so here is the link to title requirements: http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/ ... ew=article

Cheers