Is chess sexist?

[tiggy114]

My 9yo just surprised me. He was deliberatly trying to wind me up. But he said along the lines of: in chess, the king is themost important piece. If you lose it you die. The queens a girl and it don't matter if you lose her. Therefore boys are more important than girls! I am slowly realising that sexism is so ingrained in society, that even my son is picking it up in a simple game. My eyes are becoming more and more open every day.

Going off topic I remember DS telling dd that she couldn't be the doctor when playing hospitals as she is a girl. Cue ten minute discussion lecture from me. Transpired "james at nursery" had told him girls only be nurses!

But on a serious note- why do you think chess players are dominantly male?

It's just names for pieces.They could easily be the horse and the donkey, or the jellyfish and the candlestick.

Are the pawns female too? What would the other pieces say when a male pawn sets off and returns as a queen?

They'd ban it from female-only spaces.

Not many female chess players. The Polgar sisters. They had to get over a few barriers. In fact they are an interesting family. Heard a fascinating radio play about them once.

Of course chess is sexist. Just look at all the pawn in it.

I always call the pawns 'she' as well, because they can turn into Queens. Never considered the sex change angle!

Very interesting re the King. I suppose the thing is, if the King is lost then so is the game, so there is an element of the King being most important, even if he is a weak piece. Weak, but important.

Sinistersal - I suspect that your daughter stresses that she is a 'girl doctor' because she sees doctor as something that girls or boys can do, and she is a girl at a stage where she feels she needs to stress gender. She probably doesn't say 'girl nurse' because she assumes that nurse=girl.

The King is important but weak. The Queen is the best piece.
The Rooks are castles.
The Knights are horses. Man and woman horses compete pretty much with each other on ability.
The Bishops must be men at the moment, but they're really annoying to use.
The Prawns are cannon fodder common people and therefore irrelevant.

Not sexist.

Chess isn't sexist, but I remember when this first came to light. Nigel Short was involved. Makes me sick. whychess.com/node/82

www.themarysue.com/rochelle-ballantyne/

I play chess, we all had to learn in my family. I think a lack of interest by girls is the result of conditioning more than biology. But in my family everyone, boys and girls were expected to be logical, Vulcan like tacticians.

The same is true in music. how many women composers can you name? And why arent there more? there are plenty of women of high caliber in music. I'm guessing there's some odd misconceptions about the propriety of women composing and marketing, rather than women can't compose.