One of those usual questions raised by misogynists. A Harvard study has the facts and figures (PDF), in short, they don’t start playing…
ABSTRACT—Only 1% of the world’s chess grandmasters are women. This underrepresentation is unlikely to be caused by discrimination, because chess ratings objectively reflect competitive results. Using data on the ratings of more than 250,000 tournament players over 13 years, we investigated several potential explanations for the male domination of elite chess. We found that (a) the ratings of men are higher on average than those of women, but no more variable; (b) matched boys and girls improve and drop out at equal rates, but boys begin chess competition in greater numbers and at higher performance levels than girls; and (c) in locales where at least 50% of the new young players are girls, their initial ratings are not lower than those of boys. We conclude that the greater number of men at the highest levels in chess can be explained by the greater number of boys who enter chess at the lowest levels.
Seems clear enough – I spent a brief period as the “great white hope” of the North Rocks chess club when as a 13-year-old I drew with a visiting master playing multiple boards (pure fluke I’m sure). But it was only because I was a very odd adolescent girl that I was there in the first place.
(Thanks Tony for the link!)
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