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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Supports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and today we are doing a podcast

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Speaker 1: all about chess, which I have a feeling sounds like

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Speaker 1: it has the potential to be the most boring podcast

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Speaker 1: in the world, as though we are commentating a golf game,

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Speaker 1: which reminds me we haven't done a podcast on golf yet,

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Speaker 1: so maybe that's in the future. But Caroline, let's reassure

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Speaker 1: our listeners that there's some fascinating stuff to talk about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: hold onto your butts, people, this is exciting stuff. Chess,

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Speaker 1: the history of women playing chess, but the history of

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Speaker 1: the chess game itself has a lot to do with women. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so hold onto your butts. Also, hold onto your ponds

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Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be trying to throw out some chess

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Speaker 1: puns throughout this podcast. So there's that to look forward

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Speaker 1: to as well. So we do have a news item

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Speaker 1: to kick things off with that initially got us thinking

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Speaker 1: about women and chess because there is a new Lady

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Speaker 1: grand Master of Chess in the making and she is

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Speaker 1: twelve years old. Yeah, when you say lady grand Master,

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Speaker 1: I picture not only a fully grown adult woman, but

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Speaker 1: someone wearing like a cape a wizard cloak perhaps, but no, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is twelve year old Jennifer You, who back in

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Speaker 1: October became the first American girl in twenty seven years

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Speaker 1: to win the title at the World Youth Chess Championship.

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Speaker 1: She won eleven matches in a row and has rated

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Speaker 1: a National Master by the US Chess Federation. She's also

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Speaker 1: rated a Women's National Master by the World Chess Federation.

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Speaker 1: And she is the best twelve year old female player

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Speaker 1: in the world and the seventeen best female player of

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Speaker 1: any age in the United States. So Jennifer You is,

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Speaker 1: in other words, really really, really good at chess. But

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Speaker 1: what's also fascinating about Jennifer is that she picked up

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Speaker 1: chess on her own. She wasn't prodded by her parents.

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Speaker 1: It was just something that she took a liking to. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: her parents are scientists and researchers, and they were like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's that's nice, that's fine, you can play chess. They

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Speaker 1: didn't like take her to camps or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't until one of Jennifer's coaches. I think

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Speaker 1: the family was about to move from one coast to

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Speaker 1: the other coast, and one of the coaches was like, hey, um,

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Speaker 1: by the way, your daughter is brilliant, so you're gonna

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Speaker 1: need to go ahead and take her to to chess

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Speaker 1: championships and things like that. And it's also such a

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Speaker 1: big deal though, because she's a girl. So not only

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Speaker 1: is it rare to find a talent at this age,

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Speaker 1: just being twelve years old, but also a female talent. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you know the history of this particular game, I mean,

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Speaker 1: women have played it, but in terms of the modern

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Speaker 1: era and competitive chess, I mean, you just do not

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Speaker 1: see a lot of women. So let's get into a

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Speaker 1: bit of that history. Now, we could do an entire

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Speaker 1: podcast just on the history of chess because it is

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Speaker 1: long and it is fascinating, but we have a lot

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Speaker 1: to talk about in terms of women in chess, so

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Speaker 1: we just have to give you the condensed version. So

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Speaker 1: chess is one of the oldest games in the world.

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Speaker 1: It was likely invented in Eastern India by the sixth century,

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Speaker 1: and it was first referred to as chataranga in Sanskrit,

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Speaker 1: which might sound familiar to any yogi's out there because

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Speaker 1: chataranga which translates to the four members is the common

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Speaker 1: move that you do throughout your yoga practice. Um. But

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Speaker 1: the four members in that original chess represented the four

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Speaker 1: parts of the Indian army chariots, elephants, cavalry, infantry, and

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Speaker 1: then you have the king and the general. No queen

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Speaker 1: at this point, no queen. So the game quickly spreads

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Speaker 1: from India to Persia by the seventh century, and then

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Speaker 1: onto China, Russia and Europe thanks to Muslim traders. And

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Speaker 1: what I did not realize, I mean, why would I

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Speaker 1: am not really a chess player. I didn't learn until

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Speaker 1: college and I have since forgotten how to play. I

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Speaker 1: hate admitting that, but fun fact, we get our word

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Speaker 1: check as in checkmate, from the Persian word shaw because

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Speaker 1: the whole thing with king and checkmate basically means the

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Speaker 1: king is, the king is exhausted, the king is spent,

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Speaker 1: and so sha mat evolved into checkmate. Yeah. And as

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Speaker 1: chess spread around the Middle East and into Europe, it

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Speaker 1: became a really fashionable game among the medieval elite, and

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Speaker 1: by the fifteenth century the game had undergone a major

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Speaker 1: change with the introduction of the queen piece. Because at

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Speaker 1: first it was just the visier or general who would

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Speaker 1: sit next to the king, and that was the weakest

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Speaker 1: piece on the board. But then the queen comes along

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Speaker 1: replaces the visier, and at first she also is the

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Speaker 1: weakest piece on the board, can only move one diagonal

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Speaker 1: space at a time, but not for long, that's right.

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Speaker 1: And in this fascinating information that Chris seriously, christ and

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Speaker 1: I could spend a whole episode talking about is coming

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Speaker 1: from Marylyn Yalom, who wrote an entire book about it

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Speaker 1: called Birth of the Chess Queen, which seriously, we're going

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Speaker 1: to have to get that book. So she talks about

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Speaker 1: how in the late nineties, not n nineties, we have

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Speaker 1: the first recorded sighting of a queen piece in a

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Speaker 1: Swiss monastery in a Latin poem Versus on Chess, and

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Speaker 1: like Kristen said, this original queen still didn't have much power.

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Speaker 1: She was really we couldn't move around the board a

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Speaker 1: whole lot. But in the fifteenth century the queen gets

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Speaker 1: more power. So the Birth of the Chess Queen that

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Speaker 1: Elm rights is essentially a thesis of how the evolution

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Speaker 1: of the queen piece into becoming the most powerful piece

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Speaker 1: on the chess board parallels the real world medieval warrior

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Speaker 1: queens who were wielding incredible amounts of power around the

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Speaker 1: same time. For instance, in tenth century Spain, you up

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Speaker 1: Toote of Navarre, who went to battle to install her

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Speaker 1: grandson on the throne of Leone. So Grandma out to war,

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Speaker 1: although Grandma at the time was probably like thirty oh Grandma.

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Speaker 1: And then one of my favorite queens of all time

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Speaker 1: in twelfth century France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was the

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Speaker 1: most powerful woman of the Middle Ages, who actually when

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Speaker 1: she was born, her dad died left her all of

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Speaker 1: this land in France, and she actually owned more land

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Speaker 1: in France than the King of France at the time.

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Speaker 1: That's just how powerful she was. Um And at one

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Speaker 1: point though after she had married, she had married and

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Speaker 1: then divorced the King of France and ends up marrying

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Speaker 1: the King of England and at one point plotted to

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Speaker 1: kill her husband, Henry the Second of England, to rest

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Speaker 1: the power through her sons, and she ended up outliving

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Speaker 1: her son Richard the Lionhearted, and sort of held this

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Speaker 1: kingdom together. That's sort of not sort of, that's very

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Speaker 1: game of throne. It's a very game of thrones well

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Speaker 1: in speaking of chess in medieval times and how in

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Speaker 1: this much slower game before the queen could zoom all

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Speaker 1: over the place and it really sped up the pace.

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Speaker 1: It was associated with medieval courtship and courtly love, and

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Speaker 1: the fact that these chess games kind of like anytime

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Speaker 1: I play Monopoly, would take place over an entire day.

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Speaker 1: You would have breaks for I imagined, you know, chicken, drumsticks,

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Speaker 1: and goblets of wine. And that was how men and

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Speaker 1: women flirted because it was what you know. They could

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Speaker 1: sit at a table, their knees might even touch underneath.

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Speaker 1: And Eleanor of Aquitaine is known in history as sort

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Speaker 1: of developing this system of courtly love, although as fans

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Speaker 1: of stuff he missed in history class might know the

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Speaker 1: whole idea of Eleanor forging this courtly love as we

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Speaker 1: think of it today is a bit of historical myth,

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Speaker 1: but still a fun one. Yeah, I love it and

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Speaker 1: I love that Ylum draws these parallels between queen's power

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Speaker 1: and the revolutionizing of the game thanks to the queen

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Speaker 1: peace and in reference to Eleanor as well as Blanche

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Speaker 1: of Castile, the twelfth century Queen of France, Lam writes

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Speaker 1: their illustrious rains coincided with the spread of chess in

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Speaker 1: France and England and enhanced the prestige of the queen

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Speaker 1: on the board. Yeah, and some examples of these warrior

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Speaker 1: queens get pretty intense as well, which only makes this,

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Speaker 1: to me her thesis even stronger, because when you think

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Speaker 1: about fifteenth century Portuguese queen Queen Isabella of Castile, who

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Speaker 1: not only united the country financed Christopher Columbus is foreign travel,

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Speaker 1: she also exiled Spain's Jews, expelled the Moors, and ran

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Speaker 1: the Spanish Inquisition. That woman was terrifying, She hurt to do.

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Speaker 1: List was a mile long, yes, and vengeful, yeah, a

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Speaker 1: little a little bit of a controversial historical figure, probably

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Speaker 1: racist a little bit, yeah. Um. But so if we

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Speaker 1: moved to the eighteenth century, it's notable that in Russia

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Speaker 1: that old vizier piece, the the general, the weak piece

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Speaker 1: that sat next to the king, did not become the

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Speaker 1: queen or zaritza until the historical example of Catherine the

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Speaker 1: Great was available. Yeah. So there seems to be a

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Speaker 1: really compelling parallel between history and the development of this game.

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Speaker 1: But the ironic thing about the queen and chess becoming

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Speaker 1: the most powerful piece on the board, perhaps as some

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Speaker 1: kind of homage to these real world queens wielding all

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Speaker 1: sorts of power. Is that it increased the competitiveness of

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Speaker 1: chess and essentially, in doing so, excluded the women, even

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Speaker 1: though in the early days of chess women were welcome

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Speaker 1: to play in a to tow a d For instance,

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Speaker 1: one of the earliest known references to a woman playing

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Speaker 1: chess comes from a letter written in Sanskrit mentioning the

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Speaker 1: purchase of a slave girl quote for her skill in

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Speaker 1: chess and talented chess playing women are also a common

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Speaker 1: feature in early Arabic literature. Yeah, and so you know,

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Speaker 1: back in the days before the game was changed by

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Speaker 1: the more aggressive queen peace, as Krista mentioned, it was

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Speaker 1: a great way for men and women, especially wealthy men

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Speaker 1: and women to spend endless monopoly esk hours together, cording

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Speaker 1: to the point where in the Middle Ages there was

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Speaker 1: even a book of erotic chess published. And so when

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Speaker 1: we get this newly aggressive game, it's much more competitive,

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Speaker 1: it's much more becomes much more masculine and male dominated

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Speaker 1: and a lot less erotic. I think we should bring

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Speaker 1: back erotic chess totally. Apparently there's this I didn't have

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Speaker 1: time to google image it, but there's apparently this painting,

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Speaker 1: uh depicting Napoleon playing chess with a woman and she's naked.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know if they were reading from the

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Speaker 1: Book of Erotic Chess, if they were playing strip chess

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Speaker 1: or what. Strip chess the slowest, the slowest drinking and

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Speaker 1: game playing ever. You yeah, you'll you'll be probably naked

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Speaker 1: and passed out before before anyone wins. But it's you.

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Speaker 1: I never would have thought about that side of the

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Speaker 1: history of chess too, as it being this tool for,

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Speaker 1: if not sex, sometimes just this medieval courting. Yeah, as

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Speaker 1: a kind of innocent basically excuse to hang out yea

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Speaker 1: and touch knees. So here's a fun tip for any

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Speaker 1: singles out there. You could you could play chess. No,

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Speaker 1: but I mean, okay, so not to play at all

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Speaker 1: about me, but it was a boyfriend in college who

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Speaker 1: taught me how to play chess, and it was that

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Speaker 1: was a nice way to spend evenings. Yeah, in college,

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Speaker 1: in college, drinking and playing chess, smoking your pipe that's

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Speaker 1: right with my smoking jacket. Yep, yes, um, but again

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Speaker 1: the Once the game sped up, the women were excluded

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Speaker 1: espec essentially as we became more of a competition. But

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Speaker 1: if you jump forward to the nineteenth century, it's really

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Speaker 1: interesting to see how women tried to keep the competitive

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Speaker 1: chess dream alive. And a lot of this timeline is

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Speaker 1: coming from a fantastic and indispensable post over its skep

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Speaker 1: Chick by Brian m and also from Encyclopedia Britannica, which

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Speaker 1: talks about how as competitive chess really ramps up in

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, women weren't welcome in the coffee houses

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Speaker 1: or in chess clubs where guys were playing chess. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: we've talked about that in our coffee episode, that like

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Speaker 1: these these great places for hanging out and developing business

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Speaker 1: bonds and personal bonds and getting a leg up in

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Speaker 1: society playing chess, playing chess, women just weren't permitted entrance,

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Speaker 1: but that did not keep them from playing. In eighteen thirty,

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Speaker 1: that's when we get our first recorded modern female chess player.

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Speaker 1: But I believe that her name wasn't recorded, Is that right? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I tried to track down a name, but it was unsuccessful. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so then in eighty seven, the first or one

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Speaker 1: of the first ever women's chess clubs opens in Holland,

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Speaker 1: so you can play chess and have your tulips. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure it was lovely. Yes, there was always a vase

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Speaker 1: of tulips on every table at the Women's chest Club. Perfect.

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Speaker 1: And then in eighteen sixty we get the publication of

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Speaker 1: a wonderful book which I should read if I ever

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Speaker 1: want to remember how to play chess. It's called The A. B.

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Speaker 1: C's of Chess by a Lady and it actually ended

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Speaker 1: up going into ten editions. Yeah. I was reading through

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Speaker 1: it and was expecting it to be some since it

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Speaker 1: was authored by this anonymous lady. I was thinking it

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Speaker 1: was going to be some kind of ladies guide to chess.

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Speaker 1: But it's really straightforward. It's just a basic, gender neutral

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Speaker 1: this is how to play chess, no other mention of ladies.

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Speaker 1: So it's not like keep your eyes down, cross your

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Speaker 1: legs now. If you're feeling fancy, touches me with your

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Speaker 1: own and the table. And then as far as competition goes,

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy nine, Ellen Gilbert defeated strong English amateur

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Speaker 1: George Gossip, which that just sounds like a fake George Gossip.

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Speaker 1: See exactly, she defeated him twice in an international correspondence match,

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Speaker 1: which is chess by letter, chess by mail. That was

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Speaker 1: really hot back then there was no cable. But talk

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Speaker 1: about a slow game, especially if it's a transatlantic correspondence match. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you'd be playing that game for years. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess that's that that ties very well into the

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Speaker 1: whole thing about chess, which is, um, you need such

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Speaker 1: concentration skills, such power of of memory and forethought and planning,

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Speaker 1: and so I would imagine that you know, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you have your board at home that you're working with,

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Speaker 1: and then you mail off your your thing to your competitor,

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Speaker 1: and so I mean that is a lot of built

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Speaker 1: in time to just sit there and stare at the

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Speaker 1: board and thing. Yeah. But I also wonder if correspondence

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Speaker 1: matches between male and female players at the time we've

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Speaker 1: seen as more acceptable than Ellen Gilbert actually sitting down

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Speaker 1: across the table from George Gossip. That probably would have

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Speaker 1: been unheard of because even today, as we'll talk about more,

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Speaker 1: chess games are highly gender segregated, where women play women

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Speaker 1: and men play men. And I could only imagine that

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Speaker 1: if that's the way it often is today, it would

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Speaker 1: certainly have been that way in eighteen seventy nine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so then in eighteen eighty four the Sussex Chess

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Speaker 1: Association sponsors the first women's tournament, and then in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty nine we have the earliest known women's simultaneous chess exhibition. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's where you are playing multiple games at one time.

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Speaker 1: You kind of just go around and make your move,

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Speaker 1: next table, make your move, and talk about needing some

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Speaker 1: focus and attention and memory um on that. Yeah, that's no,

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Speaker 1: I can't. Well, in the Women's Chess Association of America

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Speaker 1: forms Vira Menschick wins the first women's World Chess Championship.

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Speaker 1: Not keep in mind that that all of these milestones

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Speaker 1: are about thirty to fifty years behind men's chess milestones.

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Speaker 1: So long before Vera mens Chick one, men were playing

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Speaker 1: in their own world championships and forming their own clubs

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Speaker 1: and their own associations. And as with a lot of

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Speaker 1: topics that we've talked about before, women kind of it

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Speaker 1: took a bit longer for women to organize and start

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Speaker 1: their own thing. And of course, even this is something

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Speaker 1: we still see today in chess is these women's groups.

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Speaker 1: By virtue of being the women's groups are usually seen

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Speaker 1: as secondary in terms of the level of competition. So,

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Speaker 1: for instance, famed American grand master Bobby Fisher, who's probably

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Speaker 1: the most famous chess player in American history, once said

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Speaker 1: about women playing chess, quote, they're all weak, all women.

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Speaker 1: They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man.

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Speaker 1: There isn't a woman player in the world. I can't

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Speaker 1: give night odds to and still beat so and and

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Speaker 1: and that. And that sums up a lot of the

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Speaker 1: sentiment regarding women's talent with chess, because there's this whole

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Speaker 1: question of, well, maybe women don't play chess as much,

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Speaker 1: and there aren't as many female grand masters because women

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Speaker 1: aren't as good at chess, and because chess is such

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Speaker 1: a highly intellectual game, then perhaps this is a great

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Speaker 1: example about women and men's brains are different, and perhaps

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Speaker 1: guys are just well smarter. I'm literally I I was

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Speaker 1: just faking an eyed spasm, but I now have a

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Speaker 1: realized spasm in my high after you just said that,

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Speaker 1: because of course that's bull hank, because of course this

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Speaker 1: is super paralleled, and it is just in my brain,

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Speaker 1: but also in so many different things that Kristen and

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Speaker 1: I read super paralleled with conversations about the stem field.

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Speaker 1: But Caroline, the Devil's Advocate, would say, riddle me this.

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Speaker 1: Why out of one thousand, four three current grand masters,

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Speaker 1: that's as of only three are women. There has never

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Speaker 1: been a female chess World championship, and only three percent

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Speaker 1: of all international masters or women, and only point two

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Speaker 1: percent of chess masters are women based on the E

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Speaker 1: l O rating system, because there and and the E

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Speaker 1: l O system is or l O is the universal

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Speaker 1: chess rating system where this is how you get worldwide rankings.

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Speaker 1: So why why is that? Caroline? Well, I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: as as you might expect from listening to a stuff

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Speaker 1: Mom Ever told you podcast, there there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of things that go into this, into this reasoning. Part

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Speaker 1: of it is that women only titles require fewer points,

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Speaker 1: for example, hundred points to become a woman grand Master

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Speaker 1: versus d to become a gender neutral just general grand

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Speaker 1: master person. Yeah, and and the guy who developed the

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Speaker 1: l rating system, whose last name is Llo. Then's the

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Speaker 1: Namestake has in more recent years called for just gender

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Speaker 1: neutrality across the board. Now, in more recent years, the

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Speaker 1: l rating system essentially took away most of the waiting

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Speaker 1: that it gave two women sort of compensate for the

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Speaker 1: gender gap to try to put them on a level

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Speaker 1: playing field. But the fact that you still have a

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Speaker 1: designated woman grand master that requires twohun or less points

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Speaker 1: still shows that it's they're they're in their own league. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was definitely arguing with myself in my

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Speaker 1: own brain reading all of these sources because on the

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Speaker 1: one hand, I totally disagree with the notion that women

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Speaker 1: should have lower qualifying scores. I totally think that, And

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Speaker 1: of course I'm just kind of shooting from the hip

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Speaker 1: right now, so bear with me. But um, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I totally think there should just be a grand master period,

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Speaker 1: you know, just gender neutral man or woman whoever can

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Speaker 1: qualify that women should have the same level of qualifying

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Speaker 1: points as men. Um But on the other hand, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I see the argument from some female chess players on

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Speaker 1: the scene today who say, Okay, yeah, I get it, equality,

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Speaker 1: gender parody, all that stuff. However, because of certain issues

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Speaker 1: that we haven't been able to fix yet for instance,

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Speaker 1: women chess players not being able to secure as many

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Speaker 1: sponsorships or as lucrative of sponsorships as men can, and

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Speaker 1: not having as much prize money. This like harkens back

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Speaker 1: to our tennis episode. Um, if some of the qualifying

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Speaker 1: rules are made to be more stringent or too stringent,

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Speaker 1: that could drive away more casual chess players who say

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Speaker 1: I'll just go get a job where I can actually

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Speaker 1: make money. Well, in speaking of tennis for instance, and

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Speaker 1: the fact that you know, in most professional sports you

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Speaker 1: have the men's game and the women's game. Chess is

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Speaker 1: looked at so much in terms of gender because it

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Speaker 1: is considered one of the only sports and yes, people

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Speaker 1: consider this a sport, one of the only sports where

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Speaker 1: men and women can play each other. And so that's

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Speaker 1: why there there is this focus on what role women

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Speaker 1: have in it because, like you said, Caroline, like there's

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Speaker 1: an argument for taking away all of like making it

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Speaker 1: all gender neutral, but there's also valid argument for having

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Speaker 1: giving more of a space for women to play to

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Speaker 1: begin with, right, And so we are getting ahead of ourselves.

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Speaker 1: Will get into more of these issues in just a second.

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Speaker 1: But if we look back to night no na Ga

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Speaker 1: Prentishvilli became the first female chess player to achieve grand master,

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Speaker 1: but it was because she defeated for male grand masters,

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Speaker 1: not because she had actually accumulated the requisite number of points. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So some people said that's awesome, but not really because

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Speaker 1: she didn't go through the traditional channels. Because this was

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Speaker 1: around the time when people were thinking, you know what,

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Speaker 1: let's let's see if we can get more women in

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Speaker 1: the upper ranks of chess. But then the Pulgar sisters

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Speaker 1: from Hungary came along and filipp the gender segregated chess

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Speaker 1: table over. In nine six, Susan Pulgar, who was the

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Speaker 1: top rated female player in the world at age fifteen,

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Speaker 1: she became the first woman to ever qualify for the

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Speaker 1: quote Men's World Chess Championship, and she earned the grand

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Speaker 1: master her status through the traditional route of earning all

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Speaker 1: of those points. Yeah, I mean, and she was not

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Speaker 1: alone in this. Much like if we're continuing to draw

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Speaker 1: tennis parallels, like the Williams sisters who are amazing at

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Speaker 1: what they do, but who had parents who were dedicated

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Speaker 1: to making them amazing, the Pulgar sisters had parents who

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Speaker 1: were pushing them into chess too, but so Jude, it

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Speaker 1: was even better. She's probably the best female player in history,

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Speaker 1: and she just recently retired. Actually, yeah, she was the

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Speaker 1: number ten player in the world, which is the highest

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Speaker 1: ranking worldwide ranking a woman has achieved in chess. At

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Speaker 1: her height, she was the number ten player in the world,

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Speaker 1: which is the highest worldwide ranking of female chess players

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Speaker 1: ever achieved, with an l score of two thousand, seven

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Speaker 1: hundred thirty five, the highest ever achieved by a female player.

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Speaker 1: And she even beat Bobby Fisher as a record. And

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that Bobby Fisher was aware of the Pulgar Sisters.

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Speaker 1: She ended up haying out with them, He played chess

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Speaker 1: with them, and they had a pretty good relationship. Like

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Speaker 1: when he died, they you know, had very nice things

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Speaker 1: to say about him, which is so which is interesting

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Speaker 1: considering that quote that I read. But I have a

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Speaker 1: feeling that he saw them as obviously as outliers. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they are outliers in terms of um achievement of women

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Speaker 1: in chess, as evidenced further by this lead from a

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Speaker 1: two thousand one New York Times article talking about Judah,

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Speaker 1: which said, in the highly masculine world of top level chess.

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Speaker 1: It's no disgrace to lose to Juda Pulgar. In person,

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Speaker 1: Ms Pulgar gives no hint that she is a tigress

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Speaker 1: at the chessboard. She is soft spoken, modest, and very feminine.

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Speaker 1: Come on, I okay, you know. I mean the two

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Speaker 1: are not mutually exclusively, but they also don't depend on

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Speaker 1: each other either. I mean. But what's really fascinating though

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Speaker 1: about the older sisters is that none of them ever

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Speaker 1: won a women's world championship title because they never bothered

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Speaker 1: to compete for it. They were so good and so

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Speaker 1: focused and probably so parentally driven in that focus that

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Speaker 1: they avoided women's competitions all together because they said, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's screw it with those women's titles. It doesn't require

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Speaker 1: as many points. We want to go for the full

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Speaker 1: on grand mastership. And they did. And even even their

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Speaker 1: middle sister, Sophia, is also herself an international master. So

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Speaker 1: this is I mean, those parents didn't bother with piano

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Speaker 1: less them, No, no, they clearly stuck to chess. But

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Speaker 1: with Judah Pulgar being the only woman who has ever

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Speaker 1: broken the top one hundred world rankings and still no

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Speaker 1: woman to ever win the world title. There's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of research though on this lingering gender gap, not

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Speaker 1: only in participation but also in performance at the chess board,

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Speaker 1: and it's really fascinating to see how academics have looked

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Speaker 1: into chess as this broader um investigation into perhaps sex

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Speaker 1: differences in intelligence. Well, so, there are four major predictors

429
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: of chess performance and those include ability, verbal knowledge, memory,

430
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: and motivation. And furthermore, chess ability is best predicted by

431
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: deliberate practice. So much so much practice. It's not are

432
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: you such a smart cookie? Are you born with some

433
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: inherent chess ability? Like where you playing chess in utero?

434
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: It is certain skills, yes, it's certain memory skills and

435
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: certain motivational skills, but it is also do you have

436
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: the ability and the time and the drive to practice. So,

437
00:27:57,520 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: going back, for instance, to Jennifer You, who we talked

438
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: about at the top but the podcast, who recently took

439
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 1: the title at the World Youth Chess Championship, Grand Master

440
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: Larry Christiansen told the Washington Post quote, she has great

441
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: vision of the sixty four squares, tactical alertness, superior memory,

442
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: will to win, and most especially strong mental stamina, So

443
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: you need a whole tool set in order to really

444
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: dominate at the table. But some people think though that

445
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: boys are likelier to have that tool set because of

446
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: their testosterone mediated visio spatial skills. Because if you think

447
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: about it, um, and I didn't realize this before we're

448
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: searching for this podcast, how when you're playing competitive chess,

449
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: it does require the ability to see in your mind

450
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: the chess tape, the chess board from the reverse angle, right, yeah,

451
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: And I mean this is the same stuff. Not to

452
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 1: continue to site amazing stuff overteld you episodes, but it's

453
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: similar to what we talked about in our Lego episode

454
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: about the importance of playing with those kinds of toys

455
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: to develop these videospatial skills, to be able to plan

456
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: how something will look as you're creating it, and how

457
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: big it will be and what that means for the

458
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: size of the rooms, etcetera, etcetera. Things like that. But

459
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: the same sort of mental skills go into chess, and

460
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: that is not a gendered thing, as so many people suspect.

461
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: It's simply that boys are likelier to play with toys

462
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: like that, and perhaps boys are also likelier to learn

463
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: from a young age how to play chess, whereas perhaps

464
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: girls parents aren't as keen on teaching them. Yeah, when

465
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:44,479
Speaker 1: it comes to the research on the gender gap in chess,

466
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: they really attribute this performance gap to two big things

467
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: that lower participation rate and also stereotype threat. So there

468
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: was a study published in two thousand nine and the

469
00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: proceedings of the Royal Society be titled why are the

470
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: best women so good at Chess? Participation Rates and Gender

471
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: Differences in Intellectual Domains, And it noted that the best

472
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 1: male chess players are better than the best female chess players. Yes,

473
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: but they found nine percent of that difference is accounted

474
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 1: for by the size of the male brain simply being larger.

475
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: And I'm just kidding. It was accounted for by statistical

476
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: sampling of the best men coming from a huge pool

477
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 1: of players compared to the best women coming from a

478
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: tiny pool of female players. Yeah, and so talking about

479
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: the size of those pools from which the talent is drawn,

480
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: it's not a factor purely of girls just dropping out

481
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 1: of competitive chess at equal skill levels. Boys and girls

482
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: both drop out roughly at the same rate. It's just

483
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: that from the get go they're way more boys than

484
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: girls participating. Yeah, that was that was something that seemed

485
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,239
Speaker 1: to surprise most of the researchers, that uh, equality in

486
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: the dropout right, because initially the assumption was, well, girls

487
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: just drop out because a lot of times when it

488
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: comes to girls and you know, childhood sports or early

489
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: kinds of talents, there is a bit of a drop

490
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: off that tends to happen around puberty. Um, but boys

491
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: drop out. Two and a two thousand six study in

492
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: Psychological Science also notes that once the World Chess Federation

493
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: quit gender waiting those l O scores, men's bottom averages

494
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 1: have actually drifted lower while women's have risen. So without

495
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: that waiting, they it's interesting to see how both of

496
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: them are kind of shaking out a little more equally.

497
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: But we also need to talk about that stereotype threat

498
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: because women have been systematically excluded from the game of

499
00:31:55,800 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: chess for centuries now, and it is such a male

500
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: dominated game that there is a pervasive stereotype that men

501
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: are simply better at chess. Just as a man's game.

502
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: It's something that father has passed down the son's and

503
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: it's this male to male battle of intellect at the board,

504
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: usually with thick grimmed glasses and tweed blazers involved, at

505
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: least in my mind's eye. Yeah, exactly, And basically, the

506
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: stereotype threat has a lot to do with, in this instance,

507
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: the way a woman performs when she's playing chess depending

508
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: on who she thinks she's playing. This is coming from

509
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: a two thousand seven study in the European Journal of

510
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: Social Psychology called Checkmate, the Role of Gender Stereotypes in

511
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 1: the Ultimate Intellectual Sport. So basically they had a woman

512
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: playing a person, the same person each time, and when

513
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 1: she thought it was a woman, she played great, she

514
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: played to the best of her ability, and she played aggressively. Yeah,

515
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: she played aggressively exactly. When she thought she was playing

516
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: a man, she played a more defensive strategy and her

517
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: play actually suffered. And that plays into a common pattern

518
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: of how men and women might play each other differently,

519
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: in that men and boys are likelier to play to win,

520
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: whereas women are likelier to play to not lose. In

521
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:27,719
Speaker 1: other words, so there's more risk taking involved sometimes in

522
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: the man's game, especially if he's playing um a female player,

523
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: whereas women might tend to play more on the defensive,

524
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: which again can might be influencing the gap in performance too,

525
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: because it's a highly aggressive game and you want to

526
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: play to win. But speaking about how the women's game

527
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: is still kind of segmented off, chess champion and author

528
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: of the book Chess Bitch, Jennifer Schadate said, quote, the

529
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,959
Speaker 1: category of women's chess does not refer to some intrinsically

530
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,719
Speaker 1: female way of playing chess, but rather to being a

531
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: minority in the chess world, which can affect the way

532
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: a woman plays because again, like we've said, boys tend

533
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: to play more often, they play more competitive, they play

534
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: at higher levels just because the pool is larger, there

535
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 1: are more opportunities. So the question and the answer then

536
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: to the gender gap in chess for the game today,

537
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: for the sport, I should say today is really twelve

538
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 1: year old Jennifer you because she's the future and she

539
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 1: is a girl, and she's excelling at this high level.

540
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: But at the same time she's also she leaves a

541
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:48,399
Speaker 1: question of how chess advocates like Susan Polgar, who's still

542
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 1: highly involved in the chess world, how do they get

543
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: more girls into the game, because a lot of them

544
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: do want more girls to play, But can the sport

545
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:03,760
Speaker 1: overcome centuries of susion and also would it be useful

546
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 1: to get more women playing in just general tournaments and

547
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: sort of do away with the women's only system. Man,

548
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: I I don't know about doing away with the women's system,

549
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: because I mean a lot of women players have said,

550
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, especially like Jennifer Shadaid who you just mentioned,

551
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:28,439
Speaker 1: have argued for keeping it around just just to keep

552
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: women in chess and keep up that visibility. And like

553
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,439
Speaker 1: you know, if you listen to the podcast and christ

554
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: and I have talked endlessly about, is the issue of

555
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: visibility of getting those women role models in front of

556
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: young girls to not only make it seem cool or

557
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 1: neat or fun, but to just make it seem normal. Yeah.

558
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: But I just wonder though, if as long as there

559
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: is the segmenting off of women into their own own tournaments,

560
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:02,879
Speaker 1: in their own bubble, if the problem will persist. Yeah,

561
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: I mean personally, like non podcast official person Caroline I, I,

562
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 1: you know, non chess playing Caroline too, I think that

563
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,280
Speaker 1: why shouldn't it all just be one yeah, big tournament,

564
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: just one big game of chess. That's what life is.

565
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: Because aren't we all pawns? Where are the Queen's girl,

566
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:24,279
Speaker 1: I'm a queen. I did not toss in as many

567
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: puns as I would have liked. It was totally surprised.

568
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: I think I only got in one. I know, well,

569
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 1: checkmate myself, it's not even a pun. Okay, I'm going

570
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: to give up. Well, I hope there are some chess

571
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: players listening, because we want to hear your thoughts on

572
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: this mom Stuff at how Steve works dot com is

573
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: our email address. Let us know if you played chess

574
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: and why you do, what do you enjoy about it?

575
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: Email us. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff Podcast.

576
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: Our messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of

577
00:36:54,280 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 1: messages to share with you right now. Blan gotta let

578
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: her here from Molly about her episode on PMS, and

579
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 1: she writes, I wrote my thesis on how pmd D

580
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,799
Speaker 1: is communicated to women on the internet, and so I

581
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,360
Speaker 1: wrote wrote a lot on the cultural constructions and the

582
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: d legitimization of women's experiences in the proposal, you guys

583
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: were spot on with everything about the feminist critique, the

584
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,359
Speaker 1: medicalization of women, and the genealogical analyzes of the time

585
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: periods in which the diagnoses and quotes were invented for women.

586
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: I am so proud that there is a podcast about

587
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: women's experiences that takes a scholarly feminist pack. In the

588
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: end of your podcast, you posed some questions about which

589
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: directions we need to go with research. Now. My feeling

590
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 1: is that we must first leave behind the dichotomists thinking

591
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,280
Speaker 1: that got us here sick not sick, women not women,

592
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: p ms, PMDD, et cetera. By focusing on continuums of emotions,

593
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: hormonal levels and depressive states, or men's tuating states, we

594
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:59,399
Speaker 1: can find a lot more inclusion and understanding of these

595
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:03,879
Speaker 1: experience is that are not so deterministic lee categorized. After all,

596
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: to categorize is to control and to maintain control over

597
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: our bodies. We must resist binary categorization within the heterosexual

598
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: matrix of patriarchy. Secondly, along these lines, research needs to

599
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: move to gathering data for women by women. Women are

600
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 1: the experts in the experience of menstruation and not the

601
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 1: kind of women who betray us to the patriarchy, like

602
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: Katherine Horney. We need women like Usher and Aaron Reich

603
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 1: at the forefront. We must move research toward by bringing

604
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 1: power to the female voice in these situations. We must

605
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 1: find ways to define ourselves outside the patriarchal discourse and

606
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 1: have our experiences without feeling bad about them. So thank you, Molly.

607
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: That was a very exciting, empowering email to read. Well.

608
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Amy again about our

609
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: PMS episode. She says, in grade school, during sex we

610
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: were taught the symptoms of PMS, and every time the

611
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 1: topic came up, which was maybe two or three times,

612
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 1: people would immediately launch into discussions of their minstrel cramps,

613
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: muddying the two. More than once, I've heard a woman

614
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: say I'm PMS NG so bad right now when referring

615
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 1: to minstrel cramps, which added to my confusion and I

616
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: think adds to the current misunderstanding of the term. Overall,

617
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: getting your period is a woman's right of passage, but

618
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: is still treated like something to be swept under the

619
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 1: rug and dealt with quietly and meekly, because you blood.

620
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 1: The idea of PMS is tied so heavily to menstrution

621
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 1: that announcing how badly you're PMS NG, especially in high school,

622
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: was basically announcing that you're part of that super secret

623
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,319
Speaker 1: club and are officially a woman. The sad thing is

624
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: that we're more likely to make a joke than to

625
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: learn about our bodies, and no one to ask for help.

626
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: I learned about what age men needed to get their

627
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: prostate exams, why they turn and cough during exams, and

628
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: all sorts of penis related facts, before I learned that

629
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: the crippling, depressing, and crawling out of my skin feeling

630
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,400
Speaker 1: the week before my period wasn't something I had to

631
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: quietly deal with alone. Love the show and the topics,

632
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: maybe not this one so much so, Thanks Amy, and

633
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: thanks to everybody who's written into us mom stuff at

634
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com is our email address and for

635
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: links to all of our social media as well as

636
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,439
Speaker 1: all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including this one

637
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,720
Speaker 1: with sources so you can read along with us, head

638
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:17,839
Speaker 1: on over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com

639
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: for moral this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how

640
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com