Answers.Body: <p>The late Doreen Kimura, a world expert on sex differences, says in her book, ‘Sex and Cognition’, that men outperform women by half a standard error in maths/problem solving.  If true and it probably is, there will be 3.6 times as many men as women in the top 2.5% of ability in that vector and six times as many men as women at or above the 0.1% level, supposing my statistics is adequate.  </p>
  
  <p>Additionally men are more likely to commit absolutely, as is required at the top level.  Hence, although we may, one day, have a female world chess champ, only a few will compete at the top level.</p>
  
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Answers.Text: +1 For expressing hate facts, you will get hate mail, unfortunately.
Answers.UserDisplayName: thb
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Answers.Text: Contrary to the previous comment, I think your answer is well thought and suported. It helps explain numerically the low percentage of girls within the higher elo players. But does not explain, a possible cause for such difference in math.
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Paul Withrington
Answers.Body: <p>Excellent question. There's no good reason for it. Gender differentiation probably has a negative effect on female achievement in chess. Notably Judit Polgar (until recently the highest rated woman ever to play the game) never played in female only events. </p>
  
  <p>It might have been thought that a woman could never win a Fields medal in mathematics, and this happened recently, so there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be a female world chess champion one day.</p>
  
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Answers.UserDisplayName: magd
Answers.Body: <p>This is probably the only frequently recurring question in chess that is ideological in nature, rather than chess-related.  By this I do not mean that it is a bad question, but only that it is a question likely to elicit bad answers, and moreover to elicit bad answers with great heat.</p>
  
  <p>If you believe that men and women should not differ by sex in any significant way that is relevant to chess, then you are likely to suppose, and look for, and even imagine, bad faith as an explanation.  On the other hand, if you believe that men and women differ by sex in lots of ways, several of which are probably relevant to chess, even if we are not aware of all these ways, then there is no mystery, is there?</p>
  
  <p>I have little doubt that the typical female chess master finds tends to find male-dominated tournament conditions somewhat uncomfortable.  I have little doubt that these conditions discourage some women from seriously pursuing chess.  I have much doubt however that the problem could or should be solved.  Indeed, I have much doubt that the problem is actually a problem.</p>
  
  <p>One should not automatically assume that a woman is at a social disadvantage in chess, incidentally.  She may be (and so what?), but one should not automatically assume it.  Will I get hate mail if I notice the significant proportion of female chess masters who have <em>married</em> their top opponents?  Probably.</p>
  
  <p>Typically, obviously, for whatever reason, though of course with exceptions, women are much, much less interested in chess than men are.  We don't really know whether women, as women, are inherently less capable of top-level chess than men are (women might be <em>more</em> capable, for all I know, though I somewhat doubt it); but, if you judge by the evidence on the face of it, well, the evidence does seem to suggest that men were on average at least a little better at chess.  (I have four sons and two daughters, and in my family the top chess talent so far is a seven-year-old daughter, who probably outplays her two elder brothers at the same age, and <a href="https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6257/315">who has recently started giving me a lot of trouble with Alekhine's defense</a>; but I am aware that this is not typical.  Nor would it surprise or dismay me if the daughter in question lost interest in chess as she matured.  Nor will I condone imaginary, question-begging nonsense about women being unequal at chess because fathers like me supposedly hadn't encouraged them enough.  I encourage <em>none</em> of my children enough to make them likely future chess masters&mdash;chess just is not that important&mdash;but if I did indeed encourage my daughter less, this would be no one's business but hers and mine.)  The inherent equality of men and women as chess players was not specifically asked, but I mention it because it is usually on the mind of people who discuss such questions.</p>
  
  <p>I admit that I do not see the problem as a problem.  Since tournaments are already open to women, and since reasonable steps have already been taken to make the male-dominated atmosphere as nonthreatening as it can be under the circumstance, the circumstance is what it is.  If some women then prefer to play in strictly female tournaments, well, I have no idea (or interest) as to why they would prefer this, but it doesn't bother me.  Strictly female tournaments are fine.</p>
  
  <p>Strictly male tournaments would be fine, too, in theory, I suppose, except that no one (including me) seems to be interested in organizing or participating in those.</p>
  
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Answers.Text: Update, a year and a half later: The daughter mentioned has now more or less lost interest in chess. Her brothers still play, so there you have it. (By the way, I don't really mind whether my daughter plays chess. Like most daughters, as the years progress, she does not play chess, much. Such is life.)
Answers.UserDisplayName: thb
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Answers.Text: That's quite disappointing!
Answers.UserDisplayName: Myungjin Hyun
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Answers.CreationDate: 2014-09-12T13:28:15.583Z
Answers.Text: Also by the way, there is no evidence that any actual women are reading or commenting on this question and its answers.  A woman, or a handful of women, may be reading, for all I know, but there is no evidence of this.  The discussion is a male discussion.  This should tell us something.
Answers.UserDisplayName: thb
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Answers.LastActivityDate: 2014-09-12T14:45:41.080Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2017-04-13T12:48:53.737Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: thb
Answers.Body: <p>Just like in other sports women are less likely to be motivated by society to pursue greatness or a high skill level. It's the "you throw like a girl" concept. In this patriarchy women are taught that they should not be the ones performing in those tournaments. The separation between women and men in chess is just remnant of roots of the chess society, which is undoubtly patriarchaic. I don't think women will get less stares in an women-only tournament, and the setting itself won't be different too. Also if women where to be able to compete in such levels it would also give them the chance to improve by playing against those high-level players. It's just lazy to assume, those rulings are being made to protect women from this unfriendly competitive enviroment. It's also not a biological difference, that causes women to be less competetive and therefore not reach the level of top class chess players. The olympic games for example show us that women are just as competetive as men and can compete in the same enviroment as them. The seperation there is needed because women and men have a different physiology than women and can therefore show a higher physical capacity. </p>
  
  <p>english isn't my motherlanguage, so I want to apologize for some of my mistakes and bad expressions.</p>
  
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Answers.UserDisplayName: dude_thinks_separation_stupid
Answers.Body: <p>It may simply be that the population of advanced (i.e professional) chess players that are also women is very small (as has been pointed out). </p>
  
  <p>Statistically speaking (assuming that the skills and abilities required for chess playing are evenly distributed among the population without any bias for either sex) if there are an equal number of men and women in the professional chess world, and the chess world population is reasonably high, there should be an even distribution of skill across those players (meaning for every man of a certain skill, there is a women of about equal skill for every rating level). </p>
  
  <p>Back to the original question, because the above conditions do not exist (as some one pointed out, the top 50 chess players do not include women), perhaps it is necessary to separate the populations of women chess players from men for some "idealized" fair competition. Still, even as I write this, I am not entirely convinced that in its origin, women's tournaments were not a matter of sexism in the chess community. </p>
  
  <p>The simple solution would be to have more women in the professional chess world, which, besides creating skill equality, as mentioned above, would also create an equality in terms of voiced opinion. </p>
  
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Answers.CreationDate: 2014-12-12T15:45:37.010Z
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Dider
Answers.Body: <p>Chess as an activity is not appealing to many women. Because there are so few women in open tournaments, it can be quite intimidating for a girl or woman to start playing the game. Imagine being one of the 1-3% of female players at a large open tournament. They receive constant attention and stares (it is much worse if they are conventionally attractive). Some women like this or are not horribly pushed away by it. Many are.</p>
  
  <p>Thus, girls-only tournaments were born. In the US, there is a National Girls Championship every year near Chicago which attracts 200+ participants. This is a place for them to play without having the pressure of being basically a foreign entity at most open tournaments. I think that scholastic tournaments for girls are a very positive part of the chess world.</p>
  
  <p>On the other end of the spectrum, and what I don't like, is the structure of the Women's World Championship, Women's Olympiad and various national women's championships.</p>
  
  <p>My basic issue with these events is that they essentially encourage top women to get to a certain point (about 2500 Elo) and then stop improving. Take the history of Olga Girya (<a href="http://ratings.fide.com/hist.phtml?event=4195752" rel="noreferrer">http://ratings.fide.com/hist.phtml?event=4195752</a>) for example. I count 23 events that she has played since Novemeber 2012-the last time that she played in an open tournament. In many of those 23 she played not a single woman that was higher rated than herself. She has been making plenty of money, but her growth as a player has been stunted by playing in such a closed pool.</p>
  
  <p>Irina Krush, in the US, recently made GM. She has been playing in US Women's Championships since she was 14 and has been one of the top two or three seeds for maybe the last 10 years. How much better would she have been if she had instead been competing against the best players in the country in the Open championship? I think it is almost unquestionable that playing against inferior opponents so often been a detriment to her improvement.</p>
  
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Answers.Text: I agree with most of this answer, but this I don't understand: `I think it is almost unquestionable that playing against inferior opponents so often been a detriment to her improvement.` If that is true, why don't women start to compete in open tournaments around the time they can no longer find challenging female opponents? (It has been established they are allowed to.) Considering this happens only in the 2300+ range, manners shouldn't be an issue since at this level I feel some degree of professionalism can (and should) be demanded; less than serious chess players wouldn't make it this far.
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Answers.Text: This is obviously speculation, but my read on the situation is as follows. They can make a living by playing in women-only events. If they played in open events, which often occur in parallel with women-only events, thus preventing them from playing both, they would jeopardize prize money.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Cleveland
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Answers.Text: I can not get how exactly is it intimidating for a women to play in tournament? I can understand that I can be intimidated to participate in MMA tournament, but I would be more than happy to play in the highest rated tournament in chess. I have rarely seen girls being intimidated during football matches, in IT companies where they are only a small % population. And also - all sport is about receiving attention, stares, rumors. If you go into sport you have to be prepared that people can and will look at you through the zooming glass.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Salvador Dali
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Answers.Text: well I understand that point of view in the really beginning, when you are not sure if you want to play competitively and you're just there to play some chess. But I think that as soon as one becomes more professional the distinction should cease to exist; especially because, as Cleveland pointed out, the fact that the best women are not close to the top 50 can be explained precisely because they play in some sort of closed ecosystem
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ant
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Answers.Text: @SalvadorDali: IT is actually a good comparison, many software conferences also need special activities for women, e.g. https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2014/jun/05/free-django-workshop-women-europython/
Answers.UserDisplayName: RemcoGerlich
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Answers.Text: I think this answer is great, I'd add one more thing: sponsors like organizing all-women tournaments. The top female players demand lower financial compensation than the top male players, and pictures of attractive female players work better as marketing for your brand than pictures of male chess players.
Answers.UserDisplayName: RemcoGerlich
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Answers.Text: @RemcoGerlich why software conferences need special activities for women(I know they exist, but I don't get the point)? Software industry is doing pretty good so far, so why is such big urge to bring women there. Nothing prevents them. Why there are no such things to bring men to child care, flowering, cooking, modeling, healthcare? Top female should demand lower compensation because they are so much worse in playing than top men (the best women is 60-something in rating). How many attractive female players can you find? If someone want to look at hot girl - they can find them in other places.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Salvador Dali
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Answers.Text: Because IT is dominated by men, and many of them have bad manners (try to hit on any attractive female they see / play against). IT conferences first had to fight to get less of that behavior, and now they need a special effort to undo damage done in the past. But that's a better subject for programmers.SE or so.
Answers.UserDisplayName: RemcoGerlich
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Answers.Text: @RemcoGerlich males will always hit on attractive females. This behavior was established through years of evolution. The same as attractive females will try to use their attractiveness to lure males to do something for them (speaking in terms of IT jobs: to do their work). This is life, and people have to get use to it. Coming back to chess from the word of IT - my opinion (which no one should care about) is that separate tournaments are not good, have no reasons and should be eliminated. Especially at the time of feminism. Otherwise it looks like a double standard.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Salvador Dali
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Answers.Text: I have noticed this 'stunt' in improvement in many of the top female chess players, with Yifan and Polgar being exceptions naturally. Take Kateryna Lagno, who was at a stunning 2493 in 2004 when she was 15, enough to become a 2600+ Grandmaster by the time she was in her 20's, unfortunately at the moment, her rating has been stagnating around the 2540 mark for 5 years, take for comparison Evgeny Tomashevsky, who was 2400 when he was 16, yet now he is a 2700+ Grandmaster... The same can be said for Humpy Koneru who was 2606 when she was 20 in 2007 but has since not risen higher than 2623.
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Cleveland
Body: <p>Why are there separate tournaments for men and women?</p>
  
  <p>It is obvious that in physical sports men have a huge advantage, but what is the reason why in chess we differentiate by gender?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-12-23T00:14:46.860Z
Comments.Text: more than a few men have weak egos and fear losing to women & girls ~~ decades ago when a high school girl in Hamilton, Ontario was beating all of her male cohorts at chess their successful solution was to lobby for a girls group ~~ full disclosure, i'm male.
Comments.UserDisplayName: gerryLowry
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-12-23T00:20:02.097Z
Comments.Text: @RemcoGerlich yes, there are separate tournaments for males and females ~~ examples include "[Women's event at the 42nd Chess Olympiad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_event_at_the_42nd_Chess_Olympiad)"
Comments.UserDisplayName: gerryLowry
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Comments.CreationDate: 2016-12-23T07:46:28.487Z
Comments.Text: @gerryLowry: yes, there are separate tournaments for _women_, but not for _men_. There is a Women's event at the Olympiad and an Open event.
Comments.UserDisplayName: RemcoGerlich
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-07-07T14:36:46.847Z
Comments.Text: @gerryLowry do you have a reference to that Hamilton history event?
Comments.UserDisplayName: fche
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Comments.CreationDate: 2014-09-12T03:30:55.780Z
Comments.Text: There is absolutely no reason, especially during the rise of feminism. I might guess that it started long time ago as a way to get women into this sport. Till not the strength of women players is much lower than men. The best woman is not even close to top 50 players. It is like an island where you can still be the winner, even if you are playing significantly worse than other people.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Salvador Dali
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2014-09-12T08:19:07.040Z
Comments.Text: Note that there are no separate tournaments for men, only a large number of open tournaments and a few women only tournaments.
Comments.UserDisplayName: RemcoGerlich
Tags: <history><tournament>
Title: Why are there separate tournaments for men and women?
ThreadText: # Why are there separate tournaments for men and women?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2014-09-11)
  
  Why are there separate tournaments for men and women?
  
  It is obvious that in physical sports men have a huge advantage, but what is the reason why in chess we differentiate by gender?
  
  **Tags:** history, tournament
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_4**: There is absolutely no reason, especially during the rise of feminism. I might guess that it started long time ago as a way to get women into this sport. Till not the strength of women players is much lower than men. The best woman is not even close to top 50 players. It is like an island where you can still be the winner, even if you are playing significantly worse than other people.  
  > **username_2**: Note that there are no separate tournaments for men, only a large number of open tournaments and a few women only tournaments.  
  > **username_1**: more than a few men have weak egos and fear losing to women & girls ~~ decades ago when a high school girl in Hamilton, Ontario was beating all of her male cohorts at chess their successful solution was to lobby for a girls group ~~ full disclosure, i'm male.  
  > **username_1**: @username_2 yes, there are separate tournaments for males and females ~~ examples include "[Women's event at the 42nd Chess Olympiad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_event_at_the_42nd_Chess_Olympiad)"  
  > **username_2**: @username_1: yes, there are separate tournaments for _women_, but not for _men_. There is a Women's event at the Olympiad and an Open event.  
  > **username_3**: @username_1 do you have a reference to that Hamilton history event?  
  
  ---
  
  ## 6 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_12 on 2014-09-11. Score: 19 | Accepted answer
  
  Chess as an activity is not appealing to many women. Because there are so few women in open tournaments, it can be quite intimidating for a girl or woman to start playing the game. Imagine being one of the 1-3% of female players at a large open tournament. They receive constant attention and stares (it is much worse if they are conventionally attractive). Some women like this or are not horribly pushed away by it. Many are.
  
  Thus, girls-only tournaments were born. In the US, there is a National Girls Championship every year near Chicago which attracts 200+ participants. This is a place for them to play without having the pressure of being basically a foreign entity at most open tournaments. I think that scholastic tournaments for girls are a very positive part of the chess world.
  
  On the other end of the spectrum, and what I don't like, is the structure of the Women's World Championship, Women's Olympiad and various national women's championships.
  
  My basic issue with these events is that they essentially encourage top women to get to a certain point (about 2500 Elo) and then stop improving. Take the history of Olga Girya (<http://ratings.fide.com/hist.phtml?event=4195752>) for example. I count 23 events that she has played since Novemeber 2012-the last time that she played in an open tournament. In many of those 23 she played not a single woman that was higher rated than herself. She has been making plenty of money, but her growth as a player has been stunted by playing in such a closed pool.
  
  Irina Krush, in the US, recently made GM. She has been playing in US Women's Championships since she was 14 and has been one of the top two or three seeds for maybe the last 10 years. How much better would she have been if she had instead been competing against the best players in the country in the Open championship? I think it is almost unquestionable that playing against inferior opponents so often been a detriment to her improvement.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_4**: I can not get how exactly is it intimidating for a women to play in tournament? I can understand that I can be intimidated to participate in MMA tournament, but I would be more than happy to play in the highest rated tournament in chess. I have rarely seen girls being intimidated during football matches, in IT companies where they are only a small % population. And also - all sport is about receiving attention, stares, rumors. If you go into sport you have to be prepared that people can and will look at you through the zooming glass.  
  > **username_0**: well I understand that point of view in the really beginning, when you are not sure if you want to play competitively and you're just there to play some chess. But I think that as soon as one becomes more professional the distinction should cease to exist; especially because, as username_12 pointed out, the fact that the best women are not close to the top 50 can be explained precisely because they play in some sort of closed ecosystem  
  > **username_2**: @SalvadorDali: IT is actually a good comparison, many software conferences also need special activities for women, e.g. https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2014/jun/05/free-django-workshop-women-europython/  
  > **username_2**: I think this answer is great, I'd add one more thing: sponsors like organizing all-women tournaments. The top female players demand lower financial compensation than the top male players, and pictures of attractive female players work better as marketing for your brand than pictures of male chess players.  
  > **username_4**: @username_2 why software conferences need special activities for women(I know they exist, but I don't get the point)? Software industry is doing pretty good so far, so why is such big urge to bring women there. Nothing prevents them. Why there are no such things to bring men to child care, flowering, cooking, modeling, healthcare? Top female should demand lower compensation because they are so much worse in playing than top men (the best women is 60-something in rating). How many attractive female players can you find? If someone want to look at hot girl - they can find them in other places.  
  > **username_2**: Because IT is dominated by men, and many of them have bad manners (try to hit on any attractive female they see / play against). IT conferences first had to fight to get less of that behavior, and now they need a special effort to undo damage done in the past. But that's a better subject for programmers.SE or so.  
  > **username_4**: @username_2 males will always hit on attractive females. This behavior was established through years of evolution. The same as attractive females will try to use their attractiveness to lure males to do something for them (speaking in terms of IT jobs: to do their work). This is life, and people have to get use to it. Coming back to chess from the word of IT - my opinion (which no one should care about) is that separate tournaments are not good, have no reasons and should be eliminated. Especially at the time of feminism. Otherwise it looks like a double standard.  
  > **username_14**: I have noticed this 'stunt' in improvement in many of the top female chess players, with Yifan and Polgar being exceptions naturally. Take Kateryna Lagno, who was at a stunning 2493 in 2004 when she was 15, enough to become a 2600+ Grandmaster by the time she was in her 20's, unfortunately at the moment, her rating has been stagnating around the 2540 mark for 5 years, take for comparison Evgeny Tomashevsky, who was 2400 when he was 16, yet now he is a 2700+ Grandmaster... The same can be said for Humpy Koneru who was 2606 when she was 20 in 2007 but has since not risen higher than 2623.  
  > **username_13**: I agree with most of this answer, but this I don't understand: `I think it is almost unquestionable that playing against inferior opponents so often been a detriment to her improvement.` If that is true, why don't women start to compete in open tournaments around the time they can no longer find challenging female opponents? (It has been established they are allowed to.) Considering this happens only in the 2300+ range, manners shouldn't be an issue since at this level I feel some degree of professionalism can (and should) be demanded; less than serious chess players wouldn't make it this far.  
  > **username_12**: This is obviously speculation, but my read on the situation is as follows. They can make a living by playing in women-only events. If they played in open events, which often occur in parallel with women-only events, thus preventing them from playing both, they would jeopardize prize money.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2016-10-04. Score: 10
  
  The late Doreen Kimura, a world expert on sex differences, says in her book, ‘Sex and Cognition’, that men outperform women by half a standard error in maths/problem solving. If true and it probably is, there will be 3.6 times as many men as women in the top 2.5% of ability in that vector and six times as many men as women at or above the 0.1% level, supposing my statistics is adequate.
  
  Additionally men are more likely to commit absolutely, as is required at the top level. Hence, although we may, one day, have a female world chess champ, only a few will compete at the top level.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_6**: +1 For expressing hate facts, you will get hate mail, unfortunately.  
  > **username_7**: Contrary to the previous comment, I think your answer is well thought and suported. It helps explain numerically the low percentage of girls within the higher elo players. But does not explain, a possible cause for such difference in math.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_8 on 2015-01-31. Score: 5
  
  Excellent question. There's no good reason for it. Gender differentiation probably has a negative effect on female achievement in chess. Notably Judit Polgar (until recently the highest rated woman ever to play the game) never played in female only events.
  
  It might have been thought that a woman could never win a Fields medal in mathematics, and this happened recently, so there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be a female world chess champion one day.
  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2014-09-12. Score: 4
  
  This is probably the only frequently recurring question in chess that is ideological in nature, rather than chess-related. By this I do not mean that it is a bad question, but only that it is a question likely to elicit bad answers, and moreover to elicit bad answers with great heat.
  
  If you believe that men and women should not differ by sex in any significant way that is relevant to chess, then you are likely to suppose, and look for, and even imagine, bad faith as an explanation. On the other hand, if you believe that men and women differ by sex in lots of ways, several of which are probably relevant to chess, even if we are not aware of all these ways, then there is no mystery, is there?
  
  I have little doubt that the typical female chess master finds tends to find male-dominated tournament conditions somewhat uncomfortable. I have little doubt that these conditions discourage some women from seriously pursuing chess. I have much doubt however that the problem could or should be solved. Indeed, I have much doubt that the problem is actually a problem.
  
  One should not automatically assume that a woman is at a social disadvantage in chess, incidentally. She may be (and so what?), but one should not automatically assume it. Will I get hate mail if I notice the significant proportion of female chess masters who have *married* their top opponents? Probably.
  
  Typically, obviously, for whatever reason, though of course with exceptions, women are much, much less interested in chess than men are. We don't really know whether women, as women, are inherently less capable of top-level chess than men are (women might be *more* capable, for all I know, though I somewhat doubt it); but, if you judge by the evidence on the face of it, well, the evidence does seem to suggest that men were on average at least a little better at chess. (I have four sons and two daughters, and in my family the top chess talent so far is a seven-year-old daughter, who probably outplays her two elder brothers at the same age, and [who has recently started giving me a lot of trouble with Alekhine's defense](https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/6257/315); but I am aware that this is not typical. Nor would it surprise or dismay me if the daughter in question lost interest in chess as she matured. Nor will I condone imaginary, question-begging nonsense about women being unequal at chess because fathers like me supposedly hadn't encouraged them enough. I encourage *none* of my children enough to make them likely future chess masters—chess just is not that important—but if I did indeed encourage my daughter less, this would be no one's business but hers and mine.) The inherent equality of men and women as chess players was not specifically asked, but I mention it because it is usually on the mind of people who discuss such questions.
  
  I admit that I do not see the problem as a problem. Since tournaments are already open to women, and since reasonable steps have already been taken to make the male-dominated atmosphere as nonthreatening as it can be under the circumstance, the circumstance is what it is. If some women then prefer to play in strictly female tournaments, well, I have no idea (or interest) as to why they would prefer this, but it doesn't bother me. Strictly female tournaments are fine.
  
  Strictly male tournaments would be fine, too, in theory, I suppose, except that no one (including me) seems to be interested in organizing or participating in those.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_6**: Also by the way, there is no evidence that any actual women are reading or commenting on this question and its answers.  A woman, or a handful of women, may be reading, for all I know, but there is no evidence of this.  The discussion is a male discussion.  This should tell us something.  
  > **username_6**: Update, a year and a half later: The daughter mentioned has now more or less lost interest in chess. Her brothers still play, so there you have it. (By the way, I don't really mind whether my daughter plays chess. Like most daughters, as the years progress, she does not play chess, much. Such is life.)  
  > **username_9**: That's quite disappointing!  
  
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  ### Answer by username_10 on 2015-01-30. Score: 2
  
  Just like in other sports women are less likely to be motivated by society to pursue greatness or a high skill level. It's the "you throw like a girl" concept. In this patriarchy women are taught that they should not be the ones performing in those tournaments. The separation between women and men in chess is just remnant of roots of the chess society, which is undoubtly patriarchaic. I don't think women will get less stares in an women-only tournament, and the setting itself won't be different too. Also if women where to be able to compete in such levels it would also give them the chance to improve by playing against those high-level players. It's just lazy to assume, those rulings are being made to protect women from this unfriendly competitive enviroment. It's also not a biological difference, that causes women to be less competetive and therefore not reach the level of top class chess players. The olympic games for example show us that women are just as competetive as men and can compete in the same enviroment as them. The seperation there is needed because women and men have a different physiology than women and can therefore show a higher physical capacity.
  
  english isn't my motherlanguage, so I want to apologize for some of my mistakes and bad expressions.
  
  
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  ### Answer by username_11 on 2014-12-12. Score: 0
  
  It may simply be that the population of advanced (i.e professional) chess players that are also women is very small (as has been pointed out).
  
  Statistically speaking (assuming that the skills and abilities required for chess playing are evenly distributed among the population without any bias for either sex) if there are an equal number of men and women in the professional chess world, and the chess world population is reasonably high, there should be an even distribution of skill across those players (meaning for every man of a certain skill, there is a women of about equal skill for every rating level).
  
  Back to the original question, because the above conditions do not exist (as some one pointed out, the top 50 chess players do not include women), perhaps it is necessary to separate the populations of women chess players from men for some "idealized" fair competition. Still, even as I write this, I am not entirely convinced that in its origin, women's tournaments were not a matter of sexism in the chess community.
  
  The simple solution would be to have more women in the professional chess world, which, besides creating skill equality, as mentioned above, would also create an equality in terms of voiced opinion.
  
  
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