Kenneth Dickerman for The New York Times
Posted on 05/16/2005 3:21:11 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Kenneth Dickerman for The New York Times
Alex Korves, an eighth grader from Manhattan, said that in Nashville, the hallways were filled with boys roughhousing,
and that "when they find out you're on the opposing team, they're nasty."
CHICAGO, May 15 - Suleidy Quesada, 14, said her chess coach has taught her a special strategy that goes beyond mastering openings and endgames: "I look straight in their eyes, I touch my hair, I lick my lips," explained Suleidy, who has been playing four years. "If you're losing and ask for a draw, they say yes."
But at a tournament here this weekend, Suleidy took a different tack. As the clock ticked away the other player's time, she whispered compliments about her opponent's Pink Panther T-shirt, asking where she got it and how much it cost. "She gave me all the information, and she lost about three or four minutes," a triumphant Suleidy said afterward.
Suleidy, a ninth grader in Miami, was among 209 players who traveled from 23 states for the All-Girls National Chess Championships, a rare pink-and-ponytailed respite in the testosterone universe of checkmate. In its second year, the tournament is one of several new efforts to promote chess among girls and women, who remain woefully underrepresented in an ancient, vaguely militaristic game that is widely seen as an intellectual badge.
Nine of chess's 950 international grandmasters are female, and there is just one woman, Judit Polgar of Hungary, ranked among the world's top 100 players (she is No. 8). Of the United States Chess Federation's 82,500 members, 8.5 percent are female; among the adults, it is 2.3 percent. At this weekend's tournament, more than half the players were age 10 or younger, and the teenage divisions had to be combined: just 13 girls ages 17 and 18 signed up, fewer than the 15 trophies set aside for each group.
"Girls by the age, let's say, of 11 or 12 are dropping out of chess, because they always compete against boys," said Michael Khodakovsky, president of the Kasparov Chess Foundation, the tournament's sponsor. "We have women who run companies, we have women who serve in the Army, so it's not impossible for them to play chess on the same level with men. The only thing is, we need to create an environment for them so that we can truly build up their stamina to compete equally."
The push to level the board comes amid national debate about whether there are inherent sex differences in aptitude for math and science. Male dominance in a game that does not depend on physical strength or speed remains a mystery. Players, parents and chess promoters say they see differences in play that are surprisingly stereotypical: boys are always on the attack and care above all about winning, while girls focus more on defense and admire the art of certain positions.
Kenneth Dickerman for The New York Times
Mbayang Diop, of Harlem, between moves while practicing her chess before competing in the Second Annual All Girls
Chess Championships in Chicago.
At last year's girls' gathering, veteran spectators were stunned when a player, upon hearing "checkmate," sincerely complimented the winner on a "beautiful" finish, something few could imagine in mixed play.
In part, the sex imbalance can be explained by history: men have been playing chess for 2,000 years, women only since the late 19th century. Beatriz Marinello, who is the first female president of the United States Chess Federation, said some clubs she played in as a child lacked even a girls' bathroom, so "you get the message that you're not as welcome."
Indeed, Mary Jo Kane, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, at the University of Minnesota, said generations of social conditioning that steered girls away from games with winners and losers outweighed any genetic disposition.
"The whole system is set up to discourage girls from being overly competitive, especially against males, and a true man, by definition, is somebody who wants to win at all costs," said Ms. Kane, a sociologist. "For boys, high-level competition is about take no prisoners, and let us not forget, girls are not rewarded for having a take-no-prisoners mentality, girls who have a take-no-prisoners mentality are punished."
But some worry that separate and unequal tournaments like the one here, which everyone acknowledged was weaker than mixed events in skill level, only reinforce girls' second-class status in the chess world.
"It's nice for the girls socially, to meet and get to see each other," Ms. Marinello said. "But it has to be pointed out to them that this is not the way to go. They have to be willing and able to play in competitions with boys. This is real life, this is what happens. We grow up, we become professionals, we go out in the work fields, and we have to do our best."
Here in Chicago, games were played on chess boards autographed by Susan Polgar, Judit's sister and the top-ranked woman in the United States, who started a separate girls' tournament last year with the prize of a four-year scholarship to the University of Texas at Dallas. Jennifer Shahade - Ms. Polgar's teammate on last year's United States team at the international Chess Olympiad, the first in history to take a medal, the silver - signed T-shirts, books, and boards.
Before play began, F. Leon Wilson gave a simple pep talk to the four girls from his KnightMare chess club in Columbus, Ohio: "Ladies, I want you to be aggressive."
Normally, Mr. Wilson said, "I don't encourage them to be aggressive, I encourage them to be strategic," but the girls' championship "is more of a strategic tournament," so he saw aggressiveness as the key.
Kathe Telingator of Chicago recalled a tournament last year in which her daughter, Devon Mitchell, said she agreed to a draw with an older boy because she "didn't want him to have to tell his friends he got beaten by a second-grade girl." Ms. Telingator told Devon that was kind, but unnecessary. "Now I care more about winning," said Devon, 9.
But when Ms. Telingator called parents of girls in Devon's chess club to form a team for this tournament, none was interested. "There's less competitive push for girls in this kind of endeavor than for boys," she said.
Many players said that they were the only girls in their schools' chess clubs, and that their female friends were too busy with ballet or soccer to learn a game they saw as boring.
Players said the competition here was much less intense than at the SuperNationals last month in Nashville, where more than 5,000 students played but girls were so scarce they were unlikely to face one another.
Walking out of the game room after the first round on Saturday, Kristen Walker, a 15-year-old from Detroit, turned to the girl she had just beaten in 19 moves, and asked, "You want to play me again, for fun?"
Alex Korves, an eighth grader from Manhattan, said that in Nashville, the hallways were filled with boys roughhousing, and that "when they find out you're on the opposing team, they're nasty."
"This is calmer," Alex said. "It's like, 'O.K., we played a game. O.K., you lost, I won. Want to go get some ice cream?' "
With that, she and some girls from Miami, including the flirtatious Suleidy, headed off to find some.
Indeed, Mary Jo Kane, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, at the University of Minnesota, said generations of social conditioning that steered girls away from games with winners and losers outweighed any genetic disposition. Do you have ONE shred of evidence for this, Mary Jo? What difference does it make what happened 100 years ago on the ability of a girl to play chess today?
And The Times wonders why their credibility shrinks every day...sheesh.
the sex imbalance can be explained by history: men have been playing chess for 2,000 years, women only since the late 19th centuryBy that reasoning, a 20 year old woman who has been playing chess seriously for 8 years has no chance against a 12 year old boy who's in his first year of play... because the boy can draw on that 2,000 years of experience.
Is there some kind of entrance exam to become a writer at the Slimes? Do they purposely screen out people with intelligence? Or is it something they put in the water coolers that dumbs them way down?
The Times is so sexist. Where are the articles about men cross-stitching?
Everything, and I mean everything has to be shoehorned into their PC outlook.
I'm curious about the opening para. though. It's obvious the girl has been taught to use her femininity to obtain a draw if she's being beaten by a boy and to discuss clothes, makeup or whatever with a female opponent to gain an advantage. There's no comment in the article about these tactics even though they fit an ancient feminine stereotype.
No kidding. I mean, when's the last time the NYT wrote about a man who stays home and watches the kids on his own, without a sexist 'Mr. Mom' style attitude about it?
Yet these arrogant slimeballs see themselves as above the lower life forms that are conservatives. What gall!
LOL!!
But, when it is woman against woman, the claws come out and you can almost see the hairs rise on their backs!
Their demeanor toward men is to use sexuality, rather than skill... even though most of the women show competence, and the ability to bluff, is ingrained (oh, honey, I thoroughly enjoyed that 12 seconds...).
And another thing: that headline. I don't get it ("reassert").
In Poker, I think using distracting displays of sexuality is legitimate. In poker, part of the game is inticing your opponent to make mistakes, or intimidating your opponent into undervaluing their own hand. I've read poker books that say things like, "sit on an extra couple seat cushions, you want to look taller, more intimidating" and "buy all your chips in the beginning, you want to look richer, people fear all that power". In poker, if a woman wants to wear a low-cut top or bat her eyelashes all I can say to any men at the table is: stick to your game-plan. Don't be distracted.
Even in chess, personality comes into play. The same rule applies: stick to your game. Don't be distracted.
"I look straight in their eyes, I touch my hair, I lick my lips," explained Suleidy, who has been playing four years. "If you're losing and ask for a draw, they say yes.""
My father taught me to play chess when I was eight. I had no problem learning whatsoever. I'd slap any daughter of mine who stooped so low as to act in a seductive manner.
It is no wonder these kids have nothing but contempt for each other.
Way to go NYT!!!
NY Times? How do you know this isn't just one great big fabricated lie? I am amazed that anyone smart enough to be a Freeper would be dumb enough to accept anything from the NY Times as anything other than a lie.
I absolutely agrew on poker tactics, but was using the analogy to illustrate the additional point, that women consistently use their 'tools'.
That is what life is about, not just poker! Men and women are different, for a reason. God said so... I believe Him!
PS- I'll bet the picture on the left raises more blood pressure than the one on the right!
Anna K I can understand. Brad Pitt is over rated.
I told them that people that are not hardcore feminists laugh at them when they publish nonsense like this.
You're right. But the same rule applies: don't be distracted. Stick to your game.
When I was growing up, we were continually told not to appear smarter than the boys, because boys hated girls who were 'brainy' ... and we all saw the movies where the librarian was the intellectual of the community and her real problem was sexual frustration and the fact that she wore glasses. We were also taught how to allow boys to take credit for all good ideas that we had, because it would make them like us for making them feel like real men. The underlying text of this of course was that men were stupid and easily manipulated, but the rules entitled them to be in charge and our job was "Let the man boss the job and the woman boss the man."
Looks like not much has changed in the world since the 1950s, eh?
There's a young woman currently trying to make her way as an open wheel race driver, protesting both that she's 'just one of the guys', and that she 'is a real girl who likes skirts better than jeans' -- and all the time she's demanding to be treated like one of the guys, she's doing "spreads" in mens' magazines dressed in her underwear and draped seductively across the hood of her car with her hair spread out in the classic pose.
Either you are 'one of the boys' or you are not; and I would like to point out that I have never seen Sam Hornish Jr. in a thong, draped across the hood of his car. Wonder why that is?
My ex-wife (55 yrs old), my wife (34 yrs old), my oldest daughter (26) and my youngest daughter (15) all agree that Sean Connery is the sexiest man on earth (even though he is ancient in age).
I CAN'T MAKE UP MY MIND ABOUT WOMEN... I LOVE THEM ALL!!!
Nice car, huh?
And what are those things on the guy with long hair's chest, hacky-sacks?
Ick to both of them. Got any pictures of actual women?
AV
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