Ladies v Women

[Alex Holowczak]

Ladies is old-fashioned and outmoded, and for a reason: it's the equivalent, not of Men but of Gentlemen, a term which nobody would think of using

It's worth pointing out, there isn't a trophy for males. The two major titles are British Champion and British Ladies'/Women's Champion. If the title was called British Gentlemen's Champion, I wouldn't start championing a name change to British Men's Champion. Although, others may disagree.

Except, that is, for the idiot who thought it would be an appropriate response to quote Pastor Niemöller. Really. Somebody actually did that. Some cretinous individual actually did that. Some cretinous individual actually thought it was appropriate to compare a change in wording of a sporting title to people being sent in their millions to Nazi death camps.

That poem has nothing to do with Nazi concentration camps. It's all about political apathy. You said something along the lines of "What business is it of ours?" Even the Eagles are entitled to their opinion, but that text implies that it was them who spearheaded the change. While I agree that Stewart's comments may have been "throwaway", as was mentioned, they implied something that was far from what he may have actually meant. I had no intention for this to go down the politics route, I was just a bit disgruntled at the need to change such a trivial thing.

Still, with the exception of the idiot Alex Holowczak

Oh, thanks.

As for male chauvinism in chess generally, I do think it exists. If you look at the British Championship 2008 website, all of the photographs (at least, on the main page) were of female chess players. At least, that shows that most people are more than happy to be part of the game. Look at the effort people go to to make them involved.

I've taught a friend to play the game for much of the last 18 months who is female. Indeed, at the Warwickshire Junior Championship, when there was no Under 21 Girls prize (there was for every other age boundary), I spoke to the organiser about it, and he then offered one of the surplus medals as a prize. So, I do hope your criticisms about chauvinism don't extend to me. If they do, then I think you are misguided.

The biggest problem with chess "prejudice" (for want of a better word) is not men v women, but non-players v players. The stereotypical view of people who play chess to a decent standard is that they watch chess programmes on TV 24 hours a day and can see mate-in-36 from about 4 moves into the game. This is particularly prevalent among juniors, maybe not older people. As I've said elsewhere, it's virtually impossible to write reports for assemblies because people don't want their name mentioned, worried about what other people might think.

[JustinHorton]

There's not much point replying there as he's the webmaster.

As you know very well indeed, Roger, having commented on there many times, it is perfectly possible to disagree on that site, many people do indeed do so and you should not imply otherwise.

If I did reply, I might comment that as he lives in Spain, he may not be aware of the general level of hatred that has built up in the UK against politicians in general and female Labour ministers in particular.

Of course, Roger, I'm very well aware of the political situation in the UK and the unpopularity of the government, of which I am not a supporter: I am however very far from considering that every aspect of that unpopularity is either justified or healthy. This being so I can't see the relevance.

I think the term "female Labour ministers in particular" is exceedingly iffy to use in conjunction with the term "hatred". That's really going into territory I don't like at all, and that's the problem with this thread in general.

As another guess, the original poster may not have realised the Eagles had a chess connection and thought it was female government ministers being bossy

No doubt. He was quite happy to jump to conclusions (as well as to deploy Niemöller, a genuinely disgraceful comparison) and so were other people. Including some who knew damned well who they were.

Personally I would have preferred the Streatham blog to concentrate on gossip about the Benasque tournament.

Well, Roger, we write what we like: blogs are like that. Today I dropped an already-written Benasque piece (about last-round defaults, since you ask, very gossipy indeed) to write this instead, because I felt that some of the comments in this thread were so inappropriate in tone and content as to merit a lengthy thrashing-out. I was angry and embarassed about what I read on here yesterday: if people don't like me saying so well I'm sorry, but they chose to write what they wrote. I've chosen to reply.

[JustinHorton]

That poem has nothing to do with Nazi concentration camps.

Awesome

[Alex Holowczak]

As another guess, the original poster may not have realised the Eagles had a chess connection and thought it was female government ministers being bossy

No doubt. He was quite happy to jump to conclusions (as well as to deploy Niemöller, a genuinely disgraceful comparison) and so were other people. Including some who knew damned well who they were.

I was aware they had some chess connections (if not what they were). I just thought they were only mentioning it because they were politicians. Particularly since I haven't read about any complaints from any leading female players, who you would think would the more of the ECF's concern.

All the poem does is stress the theme of political apathy, and why not speaking up is a bad thing (which you criticised). The fact that Germany was in some way involved with it has absolutely nothing to do with it, whatsoever. The content was not important, the theme was the point I was trying to get across.

[Jonathan Rogers]

oh, Justin's a regular blogger then ...

Ok, I've got it now

(although, I have agreed with many of his posts on other threads of this forum). But he has just gone completely off the deep end here. Perhaps people (including myself) jumped to conclusions from reading the ECF announcement, but if so, then as I say, the ECF/Stewart had phrased things rather unfortunately. I think you have to work a bit to make a whole blog out of a thread which started like that.

[Carl Hibbard]

Is it perhaps time to draw a line under this one and move on to something new?

[Rob Thompson]

Alex is right - the poem isn't about concentration camps directly, just like this is not directly about dictatorship, but agian about apathy. But still, it's rather sad that people can get so angry about such an inconsequential change.

[Alex Holowczak]

Is it perhaps time to draw a line under this one and move on to something new?

Sounds good to me.

[Paul McKeown]

There's not much point replying there as he's the webmaster.

Stronger still, elsewhere on the ecforum you might read of Professor David Robertson's despair at finding his right to reply curtailed when Justin, as all good lefties do, left the party on the ecforum and founded his own splinter thread on the Streatham blog. And, of course, one remembers that Grandmaster Nigel Davies only recourse when confronted with inaccurate and damaging allegations on that organ was to threaten legal action. The comments were removed, but the sniding by indirect reference continued for a long period thereafter.

I notice that the epithet, "gobshite" has been called into action there by one of the acolytes.

As for the politics, yes, I, in a large majority of people in this (sometimes) United Kingdom will breath a sigh of relief when our current crew of governing cant pedlars are tossed out. I'm sure that I will have the same feelings, when a few years later that happens to Lord Snooty and the Bald Barmpot, too. Amazingly, Cameron has already insulted the nation by associating his MEP's with a fringe bunch of nutters, thereby splitting his European parliamentary party.

I agree that it is time to put an end to this rancorous thread.

[Simon Spivack]

I had hoped to calm matters down. I appear to have made matters worse.

Jonathan has been active as an organiser over a number of years, as well as being a FIDE master

I have to say I don't see how either of these is relevant to the subject: why would you think otherwise?

Justin has been somewhat economical with his quotation. The germane part of what I wrote is the following:

"Your first post in this thread effectively called the highly respected Jonathan Rogers a child. Jonathan has been active as an organiser over a number of years, as well as being a FIDE master; furthermore, he is, in my view, an excellent poster."

The subject is Justin's unwarranted name calling. I wished to show that Jonathan is rather more than what Justin insinuated. Justin, of course, is neither a FIDE Master (I, too, am not); nor do I recall that he has ever been particularly active, if at all, as an organiser. This latter perhaps going a long way to explaining why he is so keen to dole out "thoughts" on how things should be run.

You are perfectly entitled to your bizarre views of individuals such as Mrs Dromey and Mrs Hodge. I don't believe Mrs Hodge's behaviour as leader of Islington Council when it came to children's care homes is at all defensible, but you may beg to differ

I also have to say that I've expressed no opinion about Ms Hodge's conduct, nor Ms Harman's and indeed I don't recall exprssing any view of them at all (other than satirising Paul McKeown's bizarre decision to cite them in his postings. I'm quite sure you're well aware of this. I am less sure that the invitation to differ that you offer is in admirable taste.

I presume you mean Mrs Hodge. Some women do get upset at being call "Ms". Even if they do lie outside your purview.

If you look at Jonathan's first post in this thread you will notice that he expressed some frustration at government policy on the law of murder. A natural point of departure for further mutterings about this unpopular government. There is the concept of collective responsibility, which I don't propose to explain here. Mrs Hodge, despite her record in Islington, was made children's minister at one time. If the Eagle sisters had been on the backbenches throughout, then I should have accepted that they be excluded from any complaint, but that is not the case.

As is normal with discussions with chess players, there are several themes under discussion here. One theme was the governance of this country. Justin appeared to be on one side: that of the Eagle sisters, Mrs Dromey and Mrs Hodge. Is Justin now saying this is not so?

I intentionally use Mrs Dromey's married name, she has appeared in public with her husband under her maiden name, without troubling to inform her audience of this detail, possibly leading them to infer that there is no community of interest in what she and her husband have to say. I also consider it important to recall whose niece she is when she tries to start unnecessary class wars.

Tomorrow's S&B, Simon will be pleased to hear, has been run through a spellchecker.

What I wrote was "Justin, one can see that you are a trifle agitated because of the uncharacteristic for you spelling errors."

We all make spelling mistakes, I certainly do: my eyesight makes such errors inevitable. However, as the reader can see, I was suggesting that Justin's loss of temper, something I hold to be obvious, had caused an increase. This is rather different to the picture that Justin is trying to paint.

[JustinHorton]

There's not much point replying there as he's the webmaster.

Stronger still, elsewhere on the ecforum you might read of Professor David Robertson's despair at finding his right to reply curtailed when Justin, as all good lefties do, left the party on the ecforum and founded his own splinter thread on the Streatham blog.

Professor Robertson's account was, however, misleading and false. He has left comments on our blog any number of times, as indeed he did on the occasion involved.

It's true nobody has an absolute right of reply on our blog: or indeed or any other, or in any publication. I trust you would not claim otherwise.

And, of course, one remembers that Grandmaster Nigel Davies only recourse when confronted with inaccurate and damaging allegations on that organ was to threaten legal action.

This is also a misleading account.

if you're suggesting, Paul, that people who disagree with blog pieces are prevented from saying so, I can produce dozens of examples to prove it a lie.

[JustinHorton]

This latter perhaps going a long way to explaining why he is so keen to dole out "thoughts" on how things should be run

This is a silly point, Simon. The relevance of being a tournament organiser to this topic is as close to nil as makes no difference. If I were you I would not build your argument on that foundation.

. One theme was the governance of this country. Justin appeared to be on one side: that of the Eagle sisters, Mrs Dromey and Mrs Hodge.

This is simply false. There's not a shread of evidence to back it up. Not a single word. You have simply made it up.

However, as the reader can see, I was suggesting that Justin's loss of temper, something I hold to be obvious, had caused an increase.

A lot of things are obvious to you, Simon, on the basis of nothing at all. Can you think of any other reasons why somebody might have posted hurriedly at any given point in the day?

[Ian Kingston]

Sigh.

Can we not go over this territory again? Please?

[Ben Purton]

I REALLY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CHESS TRAINING WITH SARAH!!!....O and beating some Bunny team whilst drunk in the Thames Valley KO final (Only joking Paul).

I've missed quite a cool forum! I actually enjoyed reading it.

The biggest problem with chess "prejudice" (for want of a better word) is not men v women, but non-players v players. The stereotypical view of people who play chess to a decent standard is that they watch chess programmes on TV 24 hours a day and can see mate-in-36 from about 4 moves into the game. This is particularly prevalent among juniors, maybe not older people. As I've said elsewhere, it's virtually impossible to write reports for assemblies because people don't want their name mentioned, worried about what other people might think.

Can I just say, I got my class lists through for the primary schools I'm working at next term and in fact there is around 55% girls and 45% boys on these lists. The problem I truly believe is that girls lose interest because

a) Chess men are hardly splendid in general in respects to numerous things such as there hygiene and how they look at females.
b) Women are much more diverse than men, yes its cliche but they like to do more than one thing, most of us well happily do one/two things well than several things to a good standard.
c) Image, just read cosmo.

Ben

[Ben Purton]

Also surely being an FM , so knowing the higher levels of chess and also running Barb Chess in 4NCL means something Horton. Of course its relevant. Saying its not is pathetic. Its like saying someone on Jeremy Kyle's view on Taxation should be just as respected as a Academics. Whilst it would be Utopia if this hyper-liberal worked and took place. There are such things as experts on criteria and as such I think Rogers falls in to that in respects to Chess organisation.

Kind regards

Ben