Sexism in chess, again.

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-68201529

'...it will take more time for women players to wield the same amount of influence on and off the chess board as their male counterparts. One way to alter this power imbalance is to remove socio-cultural barriers that prevent women's participation in chess at the entry level.
"Once there are more female players, there will be more of them in the top levels of the sport," says Humpy, adding that this will change prevailing perceptions.
The other way to encourage more women to play chess is by increasing the number of women-only tournaments.'

For anyone who missed it, there was a thread on TW being banned from women’s chess tournaments.

The BBC article explains beautifully why it is women’s tournaments are so important & why TW can’t be included in that. It isn’t only & always about the physical advantage - it’s about the fact that boys & men are treated differently from girls & women from babyhood - indeed even before they are born (or not).

Thanks for sharing this. Good on Divya Deshmukh for speaking up about it, given she's only 18. I hope she has very supportive family to insulate her a bit from the sexism.
It sounds like things have improved over the years, but more can be done to encourage girls into playing chess.