A friend made a comment about how chess was a sport that didn't need a women's and men's category because it's intellectual and not physical. We argued about this for a while and I ended up looking into it.
As of today, it’s factual to state that males are better chess players than females on average and at the elite levels. The question is why? Chess has a history of sexism. Research suggests that stereotypes in gender negatively impact female players. How much of the gender gap in chess is cultural vs biological? T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us by Carole Hooven gives a lot of evidence for physical and personality differences between biological sexes. If all cultural factors were erased, differences between men and women would exist. It is unclear whether those differences would affect chess performance between men and women (see thought experiment below).
Physically, females experience fatigue earlier than males due to glycogen stores in the body. “During physical stress and during chess playing, mental fatigue occurs earlier in women.” With that said, “There exists no gender specific intellectual performance in humans for chess playing.” At the highest level where chess matches take several hours, elite women may fatigue earlier than elite men. This biological difference in sex could account for gaps between male and female grandmasters.
How does biological sex affect people’s motivation and preferences to play chess? Humans, and their common ancestors, were naturally selected. Environments determined which physical and psychological traits were most successful in creating successful offspring. Regardless of culture, biology affects motivation and personality. (If any readers know evidence for or against males having more ambitions, I’d love to read it)
For good and bad reasons, society assumes males are more ambitions than females. Susan Mattern book on the science and history of menopause called The Slow Moon Climbs gives a great general explanation of how sexual selection can determine competitiveness: (She references Robert L. Trivers' 1972 classic discussion of sexual
selection; and The Myth of Monogamy by Barash and Lipton 2001.)
"In species that compete for mating opportunities, males’ potential reproductive rate is much higher than that of females. Because they are constrained by the rate of female reproduction—a population can only produce as many children as the females can bear— some males may have many more offspring than others. Among these species, males gain more fitness by competing for mates than by providing for offspring. There is also more sexual dimorphism, because males evolve traits, such as large body size, that help them in this competition, a process that tends to escalate like an arms race."Judit Polgár is the best counter to biological factors. Her parents raised and educated her and her sisters through specializing in chess. Polgár’s father believed geniuses were made, not born. He is wrong. Geniuses are born and then made; they need both genes and environment. With that said, most people are born with the potential to acquire expertise in any field, including the ability to be good chess players.
Facts:
- Hou Yifan was the only female chess player rated in the top 100 world ranking in Feb 2022. She is the 2nd highest ranking woman of all time (#55).
- Judit Polgár is the highest ranked woman all time, #8 in June 2004
- Female Chess Players Show Typical Stereotype-Threat Effects: Commentary on Stafford:
- Average tournament ratings were: men 1,855 (SD 289), women 1,689 (SD 308)
- Mean ages were: men 36.8 (SD 18.8), women 21.6 (SD 13.5)
- There is no scientific evidence for sex specific intellectual performance differences.
- Women experience mentally fatigue earlier than men in physical activity, including chess.
Thought Experiment
What would happen if 500 random healthy female babies and 500 random healthy male babies were raised in a nurturing compound focused on creating chess grandmasters?
Imagine the compound being run like a dream boarding school. Chess would be the means to learn reading, math, and all the basic skills. All teachers would be chess players of equal ability and balanced gender. The school would have zero sexism. Students would go to school followed by chess practice. In the evening, students would have free time to relax/recover. Teachers would not influence students’ motivation for free time. For the most determined and obsessive students, free time would offer a competitive advantage over students not practicing chess in their free time.
Would the gender gap disappear?
Depending on the duration of the experiment, there would be different results. Assuming there were three experiment durations: 12 year, 18 year, and 30 year. And assuming all players start with a 1500 rating using the ELO, an objective rating system based on players ratings at the start of a game and the game’s outcome. Tournaments would be run similar to chess tournaments outside the compound. What would be the medians, means, and top performers for both sexes? What are the readers' predictions?
I'd love to see any readers predictions in the comments section.
Conclusion
Chess is physical. Biology probably matters. When I make up my mind, I will add my predictions below.
No comments:
Post a Comment