Female only maths/chess competitions WTF?

[Annie11111]

I recently saw a thread on another forum on how there are female only chess competitions and even female only maths olympiads. There are also women only chess titles (international master, grandmaster etc) which require a much lower score or ranking than the default ones that any gender can earn. To me as a feminist this is a fucking insult and just goes in line with the rest of the usual ''like a girl'' bs.

It also said that boys/men make up about 99% of top chess players and maths olympiad winners in the ''proper'', mixed competitions. I didn't know if the poster was trolling but after checking it looks like he was right. It's bad enough that we have to hear about how much better men are at sports and how the best female football teams in the world lose by huge margins to half-decent teenage boys, but this isn't even sports, it's ''brainy'' stuff. I think any ''girl titles'' or competitions of this sort should be banned. How else will we ever stop thinking about girls as second best when they need to have ''special'' competitions in order to win anything? ''Sorry, hun, you can't compete with the boys in the ''proper'' leagues but here's one just for you, let's see if you're good enough for a girl!'' Unfuckingreal.

End rant, sorry!

victoria coren mitchell is an interesting example

If it helps, and I'm remembering correctly. The first dot.com to go public on the stock exchange in the UK was run by a woman.

It's a self perpetuating circle. Men's competitions attract more TV coverage, which attracts more sponsorship, which means that competitors are less likely to have to work as well as practice, which means they are better, which attracts more tv coverage and so on.

The England women's rugby team is tipped to win this year's world cup. They have had 112 days of playing/travelling in order to play this year. They are amateurs, so they have to hold down jobs in order to live. Their jobs have to be really understanding in order for them to be able to take all that time off. They get no time to go on holiday though, because they have to use their holiday entitlement to play. They might not be able to beat an international men's side, but then, the men's sides are all professional, so have the time to train more. They'd sure as hell put up a good fight though.

The England women's rugby team is tipped to win this year's world cup. They have had 112 days of playing/travelling in order to play this year. They are amateurs, so they have to hold down jobs in order to live. Their jobs have to be really understanding in order for them to be able to take all that time off. They get no time to go on holiday though, because they have to use their holiday entitlement to play. They might not be able to beat an international men's side, but then, the men's sides are all professional, so have the time to train more. They'd sure as hell put up a good fight though

The average male rugby player is 6'2'' and 235 lbs. The absolute biggest woman in the english team is 5'11'' and 200 lbs. Add to that the much higher muscle ratio and testosterone that men have plus denser and stronger bones, tendons and ligaments so women get injured much more easily. It would be a massacre... in the literal sense

Can you imagine men playing like this against women?

Fara Williams, England's most capped football player, was homeless for six years of her sporting career, and yet some of the men are on £200 000 per week. I think it also has to be said that most men have a wife, mother or girlfriend who takes care of all the mundane stuff like cooking, cleaning, washing clothes and sorting out the bills, so they are totally free to devote themselves to their career. How many women have time for chess or darts or snooker?

As for the maths thing, I've come to realise recently that the one and only male teacher I had at primary school was the person who got it into my head that I was bad at maths. At the time I was at least 2 or 3 years ahead of the rest of my class at maths and because of that he left me to teach myself, never bothering to explain anything to me or to show me where I had gone wrong. He was completely unapproachable because he was one of those teachers who regarded being clever as a punishable offence. At 8 years old, having to teach myself maths made it seem more of a struggle and more boring than it really was, and it began to be the subject I wanted to avoid.

Fara Williams, England's most capped football player, was homeless for six years of her sporting career, and yet some of the men are on £200 000 per week.

That makes me sad

Unfortunately I don't know what can be done when the best female teams in the world lose to teenage boys all the time. The US women's team (probably best in the world) loses by huge margins to 15-16 year old boys. And this happens in all sports, even the ones where women make huge money like tennis or athletics. Even teenage boys are much faster and stronger than adult women and their results are far, far better. A lot of amateur men or weekend athletes would beat pro women in many sports.

As for tennis, Serena herself said: ''"Men's tennis and women's tennis are almost two separate sports. If I was to play Andy Murray I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes." Chris Evert, the most dominant female player of all time, once said her brother could easily beat her... and he wasn't even top 1000 in the men's tables. It's depressing how much better men are than us at sports.

But what is meant by men being better at women at sports? If a men's football team beats a women's football team it doesn't mean the mean are more skillful, talented or dedicated, it just means that the men are physically stronger. We don't say disabled athletes are worse than able-bodied athletes because they can't achieve the same records. We don't say Barry McGuigan is a worse boxer than Mike Tyson because he wouldn't beat him in a fight.

The other day someone asked me if I liked watching sport on television and I was about to say 'no' but then I thought about it and realised that I loved watching the Summer and Winter Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon, triathlons etc, etc. I personally enjoy watching sport in which we get to see women compete and not the male-dominated stuff like football, rugby, Formula One and so on.

Skilful, not skillful. I wouldn't win a spelling bee, obviously.

Given that I've played mixed rugby, I can tell you categorically that it isn't a massacre. You really have no clue. Nice try though.

You played rugby against pro men who are 6'2''/235 lbs on average and don't hold back? Ever taken a hit like this from a 6'4'' /260 lbs pro rugby male player? The tackled guy himself is 6'2''/233 and could barely walk after. If you can handle a hit like that I envy you, I'm only 5'3'' and that would kill me

Agree with Buffy.

Hi, Buffy. Well, yes, I do identify as a feminist. And I didn't say men are naturally better. It bugs me because I've always been a bit of a tomboy and used to play football vs guys my age all the time but when we got into our early teens it was all over, I couldn't keep up even with the worst of them. I even had ''pro dreams'' before I knew how little women made in sports. So yeah that's pretty frustrating. So I guess I am saying men are better at sports in general, I don't think that's a controversial statement.

My main point was about ''brainy'' sports or competitions and how women should not be assumed to be ''lower humans'' that need their own leagues. When talking about this on FB I explained to the resident sexists that chess is all men because men are the only ones playing it but they came up with stuff like scrabble and bridge are very popular with women but men are still pretty much 100% of top players. I don't know, stuff like this makes me feel small sometimes, like I don't stand a chance because I was born a woman.

annie are you on a mission to start as many threads as possible on different topics in FWR in the course of 24 hours?

Women regularly win ultra marathon type events I think?

Maybe men are better at things which are invented by men to air them and their skills. If rugby matches went on for 3 days non stop maybe women would win. Maybe women would be better at physical things that no-one has thought to complete in because all the games and sports were invented by men in a male dominated society.

Saying women can't beat men at their own game ergo women are shit seems short sighted and lacking in imagination to say the least.

This XKCD strip will be illuminating on the subject of women in chess. Not legible on a mobile unfortunately.

Yy seven.

Annie, I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Yes, men are better at sports. Not because they are more skilled, spend longer hours training, want it more (arguably the women who have to battle on with less reward and no funding want it more).

No, they are better because they are born with superior physical strength. That's it. What are women born with that is superior to men? The ability to give birth and feed their babies. Does this lead to them getting loads more money? No, it leads to the opposite, loss of money, career and status.

That is patriarchy.

Besides there are many reasons why we should encourage girls in sport that have nothing to do with winning stuff or being the best. Sport is good for women's wellbeing.

Hi SZS

Yes, I have heard about the ultramarathon and how women do well but if you look at the records every single male record is way better than the female one. I really can't think what kind of sport would favor women, maybe something that uses the smaller body size and increased flexibility of our bodies? But my OP was mainly about men dominating brainy games or sports, not physical. Even when women participate in greater numbers than men like scrabble or bridge, the men have pretty much all the top spots. Why do you think?

Hi SameBoat

I was mainly talking about female only leagues in sports/games that aren't about muscle power. Also, strength isn't that useful in many sports with football being a great example : Messi and Maradona, probably the 2 greatest players of all time, are 5'6'' and 5'5''. Millions of women are stronger or taller than them but it's not enough, you need much more than that, from agility to speed to coordination to that innate burst or whatever it is they naturally have. The male body is much better adapted to that sort of stuff. Take tennis for example (one of my fav sports!) : I hate to admit it but the men's game is not only faster but it has so much more finesse and sophistication than the women's. And I don't get why since all the top female players have male coaches. And of course women should be encouraged to do sports, I love sports and I agree!

What I was talking about in the OP was brainy ''activities'' or games and so on. Literally everything is dominated 99% by men, even when women take part in vast numbers, like with scrabble and bridge. Or ''sports'' that aren't physical like snooker or darts. The same way the best record for Tetris or Rubik's cube will never be held by a woman. I remember a documentary about a girl going through sex reassignment surgery and one way they tested to see if the hormonal treatment was working was asking her to press a button or something as many times as she could in a certain interval because testosterone was making her fingers much faster.

"Or ''sports'' that aren't physical like snooker or darts. "

I do think the ability to make a living has a huge bearing here - see my link above re discrepancy of snooker prize money, and that's before we get into sponsorship value etc. It's very difficult to know what the outcome would be without that.

so you have no suggestions for why men are dominant in both physical and mental competitions?

Annie I don't think you really understood my post did you :)

I also think that spanning the fwr boards with multiple threads which taken together have an agenda is a bit off really.

I can see you are interested in trying to make the women here agree with your perception that women are intellectually and physically inferior to men and at the same time advantaged above them by society. Many of the women on here are unlikely to agree with you. You might have done better with one, more subtle thread rather than so many and all with the same theme.

Anyway. If you want to learn more about women and extreme distance running, Google it and read some articles in running magazines. I would link but difficult on this device. It is a very interesting topic which turns some accepted ideas about male vs female physicality on their heads. I somehow doubt you are actually interested though.

Annie, I'm not sure what the answer is then, because how can you tell if men's superiority at competition is down to testosterone making them quicker and better under pressure or down to stereotype threat and society's expectations of them.

But either way it doesn't make them better at the actual thing. Interesting about the Scrabble because amongstmy friends it's the women who generally excel.However the idea of a public competition would petrify me and I'm sure I'd be rubbish.

I feel that somehow you are trying to make women fit into a man shaped hole. Judging women within a framework set up by men. It's natural. We all do it.

Once upon a time you could have said "why are all the top tuba players male" - then a German orchestra introduced auditioning behind a screen and lo and behold, women were suddenly "good enough" to join the orchestra.

Or maybe they were good enough all along but the people able to make the decisions about who got a spot (....attention, funding, training etc) had pre-conceived notions about sex and breath control...

Why would you envy something that I was trained to do? That I trained 6 days a week to be good enough to do? I played rugby at international level, I also trained in Chinese boxing, where I competed against people my own size and bigger, male and female, sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, sometimes I was hurt, sometimes I hurt people.

I do understand that you want to continue in your obvious belief that men are better than women. And, in some circumstances, they are. However, women's sport is not not shown on TV because it's shite, or boring, or less skillful in some way, but because the male owners of TV stations, who have the power to buy licences to show all matches, don't think people want to see it.

Because women's sport is not shown on TV, there are fewer sponsors for it, because sponsors don't give their money to teams or individuals for shits and giggles, they give it to them so that they can use them for advertising, less exposure, less advertising revenue, less sponsorship money.

Because there is less sponsorship money to go around, top female athletes either have to have VERY supportive families, who are prepared to shell out for travel, costumes/strip, medical cover etc etc etc or they have to work around their sporting commitments. This could mean that there is less money around for the amount of food you have to eat, for time with family, for a life outside work/your sport.

I know, I know, you will still think that men are just simply 'better' at sport, chess, everything than women, no matter what I or anyone else says. But I like the sound of my own voice, so.... meh!