Accusation against Alejandro Ramirez

[Matt Bridgeman]

Perhaps relevant to the general discussion, if not the chess, is a top secret 90 minute Dispatches program on Channel 4 tonight. It’s rumoured to be a years researched, career-ending takedown of Russell Brand, but I’d imagine it may well touch on themes of sexual assault and social media as well as the man himself. Brand is all over the media today calling it a co-ordinated attack and a media conspiracy …but then it appears to be on Channel 4, not in The Sun! Lol

I think Sabrina is planning to put some sort of voice to the 33+ accounts of abuse from other people in the chess world, so we might start to get these other English chess horror stories start to come out soon.

[Roger Lancaster]

Incidently I came across this old article recently.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-best- ... ess-player
Acceptable?

I had noticed this earlier. Although I personally thought it was quite tastefully written and wasn't in the slightest offended, I did pause to think through the consequences if I had written the equivalent piece about women chess players. I don't think I need elaborate here.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Incidently I came across this old article recently.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-best- ... ess-player
Acceptable?

I had noticed this earlier. Although I personally thought it was quite tastefully written and wasn't in the slightest offended, I did pause to think through the consequences if I had written the equivalent piece about women chess players. I don't think I need elaborate here.

Well it’s all up for debate I suppose, but often this notion of ‘reverse sexism’ is debunked because there is an imbalance. There is an argument woman are oppressed, and have less economic, cultural and political power in society. So the context of Sabrina writing this is very different to say if it was Danny Gormally. Anyway, there’s plenty of interesting essays online on reverse sexism.

[Paul Cooksey]

I'm not a huge fan of chessbase news. I think that article was partly in response to criticism they received for other articles being sexist. But two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm not sure whether Sabrina now regrets that piece, she has said she regrets some things she did in a period when she now feels she was manipulated. There are a few other things she has said and done in the past I could criticise her for. But as Jon said upthread, I consider them a distraction from the big picture of what she is doing now.

As I already commented I have mixed feelings. Good if Sabrina is helping others deal with their trauma. But I worry she might he doing some harm if she undermines the safeguarding processes other people have worked hard to build.

[Matt Bridgeman]

I'm not a huge fan of chessbase news. I think that article was partly in response to criticism they received for other articles being sexist. But two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm not sure whether Sabrina now regrets that piece, she has said she regrets some things she did in a period when she now feels she was manipulated. There are a few other things she has said and done in the past I could criticise her for. But as Jon said upthread, I consider them a distraction from the big picture of what she is doing now.

As I already commented I have mixed feelings. Good if Sabrina is helping others deal with their trauma. But I worry she might he doing some harm if she undermines the safeguarding processes other people have worked hard to build.

You should watch the Russell Brand documentary tonight on Channel. As more information comes out, it appears to be 5 woman accusing him of rape, sexual assault and emotionally abusive behaviour …all the same ones as Sabrina! See if at 10.30pm you have any ‘mixed feelings’ about Russell Brand too?

[Paul Cooksey]

Why would anyone have mixed feelings about the perpetrator of such things?

[Matt Bridgeman]

Why would anyone have mixed feelings about the perpetrator of such things?

Would these woman potentially be undermining some meek and mild entertainment industry safeguarding? Are they not vocal on Twitter too? You seem to be suggesting that Sabrina might be undermining something, but I don’t see how this is any different from people speaking out in The Times and a Channel 4 documentary. Similarly Brand has no more been arrested yet than any of Sabrina’s offenders.

[Paul Cooksey]

I thought that might be what you meant Matt. I hoped I had explained already.

If Brand was a chess coach who had abused a student, and you reported him to Channel 4, or named him on twitter, instead of reporting him to ECF safeguarding I would argue it would have been better for you to report the incident to ECF safeguarding. "As well as" I have no problem with, but "instead of" I do.

I'd want to involve the police too ideally. But lots of good reasons why that is not always possible.

[Matt Bridgeman]

I thought that might be what you meant Matt. I hoped I had explained already.

If Brand was a chess coach who had abused a student, and you reported him to Channel 4, or named him on twitter, instead of reporting him to ECF safeguarding I would argue it would have been better for you to report the incident to ECF safeguarding. "As well as" I have no problem with, but "instead of" I do.

I'd want to involve the police too ideally. But lots of good reasons why that is not always possible.

Well I’m sure some of those questions will be answered tonight. I’d be surprised if some of these woman hadn’t reported their accounts to various organisations before Channel 4 and been let down. But we’ll see! There might be a swift 180 by the police if they’ve gone ‘no further action’ on some of this stuff, especially if it’s The Met.

Interesting that GM Nigel Davies has come out as anti-Shahade on Twitter, but they seem to have had dust-ups before over racism allegations. He’s not anti-Sabrina, but annoyed that the media have painted chess as being a bit of a toxic culture, rather than singling out the few bad apples. And then questions if chess is really any worse for woman than any other sport?

https://twitter.com/GMNigelDavies/statu ... 7282097359

…I wonder if perhaps it is? Very few sports have that direct integration of both sexes competing against each other. The strong player demographic does skew very young sometimes. There’s quite a bit of covert rather than overt suggestions men are stronger than woman at chess, funding of teams is rarely equal, media coverage is more steered towards the Open side of things? Not forgetting woman are massively outnumbered.

Isn’t it a landscape where because the players of both sexes are mixing that there can be more covert sexism and misogyny getting in the way? I know these last two paragraphs are going to get shot down, but I don’t think you can say for sure chess is not any worse than other sports, when the level of mixed competition is very high. You’d think that might have some impact on the social behaviour.

GM Davies does later concede that if he had a daughter he would be very concerned about her going to chess events on her own. Yeah, no s**t Sherlock! https://twitter.com/GMNigelDavies/with_replies

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I'm not a huge fan of chessbase news"

There was a really bad example some years ago (maybe 15 years ago, so not the dark ages) - they were reporting a girls' junior event. Most of the report was photos of the players relaxing by the pool, in swimwear naturally, with captions like, "Miss X is only 14 but isn't she lovely?" I don't think the chess got a mention. The report was awful.

Edit - and on "stretching" at the board; it's a distraction. I have a bad back, so I go for a walk and if I need to stretch, I do it away from the players. If you start writhing about, it's clearly a ploy.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Nigel D also points to a link between Asperger’s and sex offending, which is a can of worms I’m not running with. Although a lot of chess players do seem to be on the spectrum.

Russell Brand: In Plain Sight is about to begin. I wonder if we’ve got our own version of ‘In Plain Sight’ in the English chess world going on?

[Roger Lancaster]

I'm not a huge fan of chessbase news. I think that article was partly in response to criticism they received for other articles being sexist. But two wrongs don't make a right.

Actually I wasn't criticising the piece but, instead, the culture whereby it was generally acceptable but a comparable article written by a male chess player wouldn't have been. Incidentally, or perhaps not, it's somewhat at odds with the culture in the wider world (which, incidentally, I don't consider more acceptable) where newspapers, particularly the tabloids, go into far greater detail describing the appearance of female 'celebrities' than of their male counterparts.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Nigel D also points to a link between Asperger’s and sex offending"

Yes - that's rather tenuous - if you have Asperger's, you probably don't behave entirely "normally", but it doesn't make you evil.

And a scientific point, based on discussions with friends of mine who work in forensic analysis of controlled drugs, the most common "date-r*pe" drug is alcohol, maybe someone puts vodka in your drink, or you don't control what you drink. The newspapers go on about "rohypnol", but it is really difficult to get hold of in the UK. The nail varnish detection thing is a bit of a sideshow. But always protect your drink of course.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Russell Brand seems worse than Harvey Weinstein, and he’s serving 39 years. Looks like the list of organisational failure was massive, and the BBC, ironically Channel 4, various production companies, managers, not to mention film studios have gone into damage control. Probably the only organisation that didn’t let the woman down was the police, who hopefully will round him up now. It probably goes to show that the bigger Sabrina can make the issue, the more chance it will be she may get some justice.

[Chris Goodall]

"Nigel D also points to a link between Asperger’s and sex offending"

Yes - that's rather tenuous - if you have Asperger's, you probably don't behave entirely "normally", but it doesn't make you evil.

To increase your risk of being a sex offender, it doesn't need to make you evil. The man with ASD who was convicted of stalking, for waiting outside a woman's house to protect her from the sexual predators he'd heard about in the news, wasn't evil.

But always protect your drink of course.

See, even by saying "always protect your drink", you have stepped on the same victim-blaming landmine that Richard Madeley did a couple of years ago, and if this was Twitter you would be going directly to jail without passing Go. That it's literally a safety tip that women share with other women all the time, makes no difference.