Are women inferior to men?

By Frank "Boy" Pestaño
Chessmoso

IN philosophy, literature, arts, music and sciences men are clearly the dominant specie. It is even more so in chess.

A review of chess players of the past and the present shows a considerable difference between men and women in playing skills. With the exception of the phenomenal Judit Polgar of Hungary, there’s no woman today in Fide’s list of top 100 players.

There has been a lot of discussion on why this is so. Chess demands good memory, logical thinking, concentration and a strong desire to win. Do women lack these qualities? Of course not. So why?

The reason is fairly obvious. Women are not interested to play chess! The ratio between chess-playing men and women is about 30 to one.

I have been personally involved in chess not only in playing the game, but also organizing tournaments and clubs. The Cebu Executives Professionals Chess Association (Cepca) which was founded in 1990 has no woman member although we are more than 100.

Let’s examine the reason why women are not interested. I will be quoting from various personalities on the reasons behind this. Garry Kasparov says, “Chess demands immense strain and desire to always win. And for many centuries this type of mentality has been formed in men, who are the militant part of the world’s population and 20 to 30 years of women’s emancipation is not enough to change this mentality. We need another 30 to 40 years in order to fill the difference between men and women intellect.”

Harry Golombek says, “This maybe ungallant, but I think chess is really a game for the masculine imagination. There is a different quality of imagination involved. Men are more imaginative and women are better technically.”

Jan Donner adds, “Women can do everything but they cannot think logically. They have no intuition.”

Another reason why women are not interested is this line by Alex Yermolinsky: “The exodus of women from chess is a social phenomenon. As long as playing chess remains a borderline outlaw occupation with no social status, financial security, or career options, young women will run away.”

Angelina Belakovskaya is more to the point, “Why do young girls want to be movie stars or models? Because they see plenty of role models who are making a lot of money, are famous and have a good life. How many women chess players do we have as role models?”

The ultimate chauvinist in chess is Bobby Fischer who once withdrew from a tournament because a woman was playing (she was Lisa Lane, a US Women champion). Bobby says, “They are all weak, all women. They are stupid compared to men. They should not play chess, you know. They are like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn’t a woman player in the world I can’t give knight-odd and still beat.” When Mikhael Tal heard this, he said this famous line, “Fischer is Fischer, but a horse is a horse.”

Here is another line from Garry Kasparov, who seems to be the most observant when it comes to Women’s chess: “Men are less affected by what are known in computer language as “interrupts”, this means, for example, that a women’s train of thought can be broken easily by extraneous events, such as a baby crying upstairs. This is not part of their environmental conditioning but organic, part of their genetic molecular structure. The effect, in computer terms, is to overload their memory banks with a series of little events to which they are programmed to respond, thereby limiting their powers of concentration.”

So there you are, the next time you play a woman, give her some respect because she is a rare breed.

CEPCA AUGUST TOURNAMENT. Our next tournament, for members only, is on Aug. 15, Sunday. I am urging all members to participate, now that we are forging ahead, to take timeout from their busy schedules. For tournament details call me at 231-76-56.

Congratulations to the Lapu-Lapu Chess Club for their 19-15 win over us last Aug. 1 at the Cebu Youth Chess Center. We demand a rematch!