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 here is my response.
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 and sexually selected. Environments determined which physical and psychological traits were most successful in creating successful offspring. Females also choose mates and males competed for females. Females selected males with traits they wanted for their offspring. Males more likely to be aggressive and muscular is common in mammals. Regardless of culture, biology affects motivation and personality.
For good and bad reasons, society assumes males are more ambitions than females. Susan Mattern's 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 greatest woman to play chess. 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:
Thought Experiment
What would happen if 5000 random healthy female babies and 5000 random healthy male babies were raised in a nurturing compound focused on creating chess grandmasters?
Imagine a 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 qualified instructors. The school would have zero sexism. Students would go to school which would include chess practice. Students would have plenty of free time. They would live great lives. Chess would be how they are graded in school. And chess would be the highest honor given. Teachers would motivate, but not force students to play or practice chess outside of classes. What would happened with the students chess abilities?
Would the gender gap disappear?
Would the females care more about friendships and other social activities? Would the most obsessive, competitive, and determined students be overwhelmingly male?
I suspect yes and yes.
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 equal ratings, 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 the school's grading. What would be the medians, means, and top performers for both sexes? What are the readers' predictions?
12 Year Experiment |
| Female | Male |
Mean |
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Median |
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Top Performer |
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18 Year Experiment |
| Female | Male |
Mean |
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Median |
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Top Performer |
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30 Year Experiment |
| Female | Male |
Mean |
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Median |
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Top Performer |
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I'd love to see any readers predictions in the comments section.
Conclusion
Chess is physical. Biology probably matters.
I predict as time goes on, males will pull away from the females. Maybe something like the table below.
12 Year Experiment |
| Female | Male |
Mean | 1480
| 1520
|
Median | 1490
| 1470
|
Top Performer | 2300
| 2400
|
18 Year Experiment |
| Female | Male |
Mean | 1440
| 1560
|
Median | 1480
| 1470
|
Top Performer | 2400
| 2600
|
30 Year Experiment |
| Female | Male |
Mean | 1400
| 1600
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Median | 1460
| 1500
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Top Performer | 2500
| 3000
|
This is really based on intuition. I think the females will be better students at earlier ages. With time, females will care less and less about being really good at chess. Males should get more competitive over time. The most ambitious chess players will be male and they will lift u the average male (mean scores).
