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The MenaceOf SexismIn Chess

I learnedto play the gameofchess when I wasabout eight yearsold. From about the age of thirteen I developedan intenseinterest in the game and decidedthat I was going to win the countychampionship, the British cham- pionship,become a }Vl:ister,a ,andperhaps go on towin theworld title. I was rudely rebuttedwhen, in my first tourniment, I endedup with a mere four and a half points out of nine,but, undaunted,I studiedtheory and practisedintensely, and the followingyear I did indeedwin the countycham- pionship,outright,with sevenand a half points out of nine - sixwins and three draws. Okay,this wasthe junior championship,and all the really goodplayers werr playing in the national championshipsdown on the South-EastCoast at the time,but I hadwonthe MiddlesexChampionship! I went on to play for the county,and in all the time I wasplaying I neverlost for Middlesex,a recordwhich I still treasure.I playedon board oneon at least one occasion,and I neverlost a gameof chessfor my county!I playedfor my local club too, and although my results were nowherenear as impressive,I alwayswon moregames than I lost.Apart from the Middlesexjuniors,my best result wasin a congressat GantsHill, Ilford, whenI wasjoint first in a Major Tournament,(1) scoringfive and a half points out of six. ln1976 or 1977I gaveup. I playeda bit from 19&l-5,but only to pass the time and neverat a club. Apart from that I hardly looked at a chessboard againuntil Januar,yt997,when, spending some time at Her Mqiesty'sPleasure, it was an excellentway of killing time. Followingmy acquittal and releasein May 1997,I quicklyjoined my local chessclub, and on May 18th,at the ageof forty, I playedin my lirst chesscongress for 20 years.And won it! Actually,I scoredfive points out.ofsix in a Minor Tournament(for playersgraded under 135)in a oneday "Rapidplay"event. I camejoint first with two other players- both ofwhom I beat;the oneplayer who beatme havingbeen beaten by both of them. I playedin two more tournamentsin quick successionla regular (ie non- Rapidplay)congress at the samevenue, in which I scoredthree points out of five in the Minor Tournament(2 wins,2 drawsand 1 loss),and a very small THEMENACE OF'SEXISM" INCHESS

Rapidplaytournament for playersgraded under 145 in North . We playeda total of 9 gamesin oneday, each player having 25 miuutesfor all his moves.I scoredan impressive8 pointsout of 9 (7wins,2draws), andwas joint firstwith oneotherplayer. (2) I have decidedto continueplaying chess,though I haveno illusions now about ever becominga Grandmaster,although I intend to play for my local club - if they'll have me, and maybeeven for my county,Kent ' if I'm good enough.(3) A lot can happenin twentyyears, and a lot hashappened in chess.Recently' a machinehas beatenthe world championfor the first time. Someopening variations which were consideredinferior have been reappraised.The so' calledPelikan variation of the Sicilian Defencehas had newlife infusedinto it and is now considereda formidable weapon for blacl! instead of a near guaranteedwin for white when I was playing before. English classical or descriptivenotation has all but goneout of the windowlnow it's no longerP'K4 but e4.Sigh. Some things though have remainedexactlythe same; in particular, old prejudiceshave remained the same,and havein manywaysbecome more deeplyentrenched. None more so than serzsn. Now,chess is still a racist gameto someextent. As with snooker,almost all the bestplayers in the world are white, (4) althoughthere are not a fewblack and non-whiteplayers. The Rapidplaytournament I won in mid'May was controlledby a youngblack man. (5) Therewere quite a fewnon'white players' oneof whomwas joint first in the Minor Tournamentwith me.White still has the lirst move'though,in everygame ever played. And the playerwith the white piecesstill wins the majority of the games.Even so, chessis nowherenear as racistas it could be.Sexism though is a different matter.What do I mean? Well,when I ptayeilchess before, as a iunior, and briefly as a youngadult, femaleplayers were few and far between.If I recall,there werea few girls, or maybeone or two,at theMiddlesex junior championships.And at junior events generally,including weekend congresses which had lots ofentrants and many sections- includingfor juniors - therewould bea handful of younggirls. When I sayyoungI meaneight ortenyearolds. Butwomen, thatwas always a different story. I playedfor Hayes(Middlesex) Chess Club, which had no femalemembers at all, as far as I recall. I also playedat Harrow,and this club had onefemale member,who was,fypically, the wife of another player'although I gather she

2 THEMENACE OF "SEXISM' IN CHESS

girl in a junior was a strong chessplayer in her orvnright' I onceplayed a (6) There were tournament]and, lile ihe chivalrousswine I am, I beat her! very perky ten three other girls I remember- all of themyoung, including one who was or tnelve yeir o1l. Therewas a tomboytype teenagercalled Susan, Jorruof th-eboys", who was quite a good player,and there was a stunningly attractive- young thing calledLisa, whowasn't' in La therewe-re traraty any women at all. Anotherchess club I frequented thelatterpartofmyfirstchesscareer,insouthLondon,hadtwowomen player in i"-L"rr; neither ofihem werevery good.One of thesewas a chess club. her own right, though sheeventually married a player from a different her sons 1'treother ias the mother of oneof my bestfriends; her husbandand atl- played,so shedid too. goodand *rid local chessclub has onefemale membeq she is not very it is obviousthat the only reasonshe plays is becauseher son does. iainfully Rather H" i, young,about sevenor eight,and sheacts as his chaperone' that is ifru",itnpfy"""y sit iatching him play,she plays a gameor two herself.And players' it,'At that iJmy personalexperience of femalechess the Rapiitplaycongress at which I tookjoint first prize,a number girls. of women".".ntcould be seen,but thire no werefemale competitors: women or The canadian studentwho beat me in Round4 brought along his attractive younggirtfriend. Another of my opponents,a youngboy, was accompanied by the il"]f, ffi parents,and there w.". a few other womenpresent, including caterers,but that wasthe entiretyof the femalepresence' I At the next congress,a two day non.Rapidplayevent, there were, as far as graded162' could tell, four femaleplayers: two womenand two girls. one was the which is far above..; tt i others didn't appearto be very good at all. At secondRapidptay event, there were no femalecompetitors. Even the refresh' mentswere served bY a man! There alwayshave been and are still a handful of chesswomenwho play at a higher level.Literally a handful. Therewas, well beforemy time' a woman pruyZ"named Vera Menchik,who occasionallybeat the odd world contender. La toaaytttere are the Polgarsisters. And that's your lot, mate.The question hasto beasked, whY? There are only three reasonsthat I can think of: one is that there is a centuries' old conspiracyamongst the male chessplayers of the world; the secondis that womenare geneticallyinferior to menl the third is that chess

pt i. THEMENACE OF ''SEXISM" INCHESS

playersare the nastiest,most evilbunch of women-hatingsexisfs who have ever walkedthe Earth. First, let me dealwith the male conspiracytheory of chess and explainwhy I reject it. There is a schoolof thought that saysthat in g29Bc,a cabal of malechess players sat down along with King Solomonand a selectbunch of ancient plutocrats and usurers and decidedon a plan for men to dominatethe game and art of chessin perpetuity.They encoded this plan in a sinister document called'TheProtocols of rhe LeamedElders of Caissa.caissa is the goddessof chessla femaledeitywas chosen consciously to helpconceal the machinations of this clique so that if at any time in the future a womanwere to become suspiciousabout the unchallengedmale dominance of the gameand pointed to theexistence of a sinisterconspiracybehindit, she could be ridiculed. "come off it, lovey.us chessplayers aren't sexist, some of our bestfriends are women. Why,even the guidingspirit of our belovedgame is a woman.Conspiracy? Ha, ha, ha." Accordingto TheProtocols, this cliqueof maledominated ancient plutocrats and usurersmaintains its hegemonyover the gameby a numberof ploys.one is the secretmen's handshake. Any ptayerjoining a chesscrub willf naturally, shakehands with the chairmanor someother leadingmember. If the prospec- tive newmember shakes hands in a certainway the chairmanwiII realiseihat the applicantis a man, and no barriers will be raised to his joining and progressingas far as he can.But ifthe applicant'shandshake reveals her to be a woman she can expect to be subjectedto alt manner of distasteful treatment. ' First and foremost the chairman wilt say somethinglike: "Oh, you're a woman.we dontt havemany women members, but of coursewe welcome them. In fact weall wish we had more." TheProtocols claims, among other things, that as the male dominanceof chessprogresses, the symbolicsnake of caissaruns throughthe citiesof the world, linking them togetherin an unbreakablechain. starting with the birth of PaulMorphyatNeworleans in 1837thesymbolic snake progresses through san sebastian in 1911 (the site of capablanca's fine tournament victory) through NewYork in 1924(site of the historic tournament)through Estoril in 1946(the death ofAlekhine) and backto NewYorkin 1956(site ofthe 13year old RobertFischer's immortal victory overRobert Byrne in which he playeda spectacularqueen sacrifice). THEMENACE OF SEXISM"IN CHESS

TheProtocols of TheLeamed Elders of caissacame to light only in 1967, the year after the National organization for women was founded.This can hardly bea coincidence,and indeedit is clearthat theProtocols was forged for a specificpurpose, namely to discreditthe nascentwomen's movement. Fortu. oftty, tne mti-Oefamation Leagueof AmericanWomen managed to buy up the original manuscriptand to suppressthe storybefore it had beentaken up by the male dominatedmedia. The conspiracytheory of the maledominance of chessis obviouslycomplete baloney,Uut ttrai hasnit stoppedfanatics updating the course of the snake which is said to havetravelled to Reykjavikin t972 (whenFischer defeated spasslcy)and to haveoscillated between London and Leningradin 1986when K.tpa"ot retainedthe world title againstKarpov' (7) Tierc is someevidence that TheProtocols Of Caissawas plagiarisedfrom an earlier document,the Communist Manifesto, which madethe absurdclaim that the communist movementplanned to take over the world. How could anyone-Protocolsbelieve such nonsense? of caissaaside, I reject the male conspiracytheory of the domi' nation of chessfor two reasons.One is that I am myselfa man and so far have not beeninvited to join this conspiracy!The secondis becausecaissa, the goddessofchess, can be datedonly to 1763.(8) So,if the male dominanceof chessis not the result of a conspiracy,what is the cause?The secondexplanation, the onepostulated by sersfs'is that women arc geneticallyinferior. 'uit." ,h.t* - RACISM...Theassumption that one sexis superior to the other and the resultant discrimination practised against members of the supposedinferior sex'esp. by menagainst women".'' (9) The argumentspresented by the organisedserisl movement are' superfi' ciatly,extremely persuasive. For example,in their bookThe EvenMore Com- pleti Chesseaiiit,twomale authors- of course!'list the top 64players of all time.And not oneof themis a woman!(10) What other explanation could there be,the sclifs cry? It must be in their genes!The current writer finds it rather ironic that, under othercircumstances, the samemen who protestso loudly that womenhave inferior genesneYer stop trying to get into their jeans by the most outrageousforms of flattery and shallowcharm' The bestway, indeed the onlyway, to refutethe argumentsof the senslsis by the strict enforcementof a no-debatestrate5/. This has led to riots at several THEMENACE OF "SEXISM' IN CHESS

universities when male supremacistlecturers have been pelted with eggs' rotten fruit and usedsanitary towels. There can be no suggestionthat women are geneticallyinferior to men.No free speechfor serisfs. That leavesby necessityonly onepossible explanation for the underachieve' ment of womenchess players. Male chessplayers are the nastiest,most evil bunch of women-hatingsersls who haveever walked the Earth; they exclude womenfrom the gamenot by anything so overt as a conspiracybut by an unconsciousthough wilful processof discrimination. There are no secret handshakes,except among those male chess players who arealso Freemasons' (11) but there are at everylevel of the gamesophisticated barriers to female emancipationand achievement.These barriers are diflicult to detect,but occasionallythe mask slips. An excellentexample is in the biased'sexist way the historyofchess has been recorded. The 1996book The GuinnessBook Of ChessGrandrnasten is an excellent example.Written by William Hartston,for manyyears one of Britain's leading playeis,this book saysof Mir Sultan Khan (1905-66)that he was "oneof the greatestnatural talentsthe gamehas seen.n(12) Who wassultan Khan? He wasthe servantof sir umar Hayat Khan, who brought him to from his nativeIndia in1929.Khan proceededto win the British title on three occasionsand on oneoccasion even beat Capablanca. (13) Capablancaby the way,was a notorious Sacistand, womaniser, as was Alekhine.It was said of capablancathat during the1922London Tournamentwhentheywere taken to i show,Alekhine never looked up from his pocketchess set and Capablanca nevertook his eyesoffthe chorusline. Alekhine,by the way,was married four times,and like the Jewish-bornRobert Fischer, was also a raving anti-Semite, a typically bourgeois,reactionary vice. (14) Whe"e was I? I do get carried away.Yes, Sultan Khan. While we would applaud the lack of racisrnshown to Sultan Khan,we would point out that he was neverany sort of world champion,yet the namevera Menchik doesnot evenappear in the index to Hartston'sbook Yetvera Menchik waswomen's world championfrom 1927until her deathin 1944. The non-treatmentmeted out to Yera Menchik by Hartston is matchedif not exceededby the treatmentmeted out to her on her death.Vera Menchik waskilled in the secondworld war; her deathwas reported in the Times,June 30,1944,and a short appreciation,by the paper'schess correspondent, was publishedin the JulY4 issue.

6 THEMENACE OF "SEXISM''IN CHESS

The tifle of the first of thesearticles wasMR^S. VERA STEVENSON.She was,you see,the widow of R.H.S.Stevenson, the secpetaryof the British chess Federation.-shewas "easilythe strongestwoman chess player that has ever liyed", the paper said. she regularly won the women'sworld championship 'hitn ine gre;test of easen.Yet she is rememberedhere not as a chessplayer in her ownright but as the wife of a deceasedplayer! Charming' Nthoulh in his aforementionedstudy of ChessGrandmasters, William Hartston doesnot seefit to mention a lady who was at one time "easilythe strongestwoman chessptayer that has ever liYed", he does mention her ,u...iro" The youngJuait (or Judith) Polgaris said by Hartston to be "the strongestfemale player of all time". (15)She was also at onetime the youngest Granimaster ever.(16) Incredibtythough, Hartston credits this, not to Judit Polgar herselfbut to her parents (read her father) who usedhothouse tech' niquesto producea brood ofyoung chesswomen!(17) rnis uius"a and patronisingattitude permeatesthe chessworld and always has.Three examPles will suflice. The earliestknown work on modernchess was written by Luis Lucena,who flourished c1500.Almost nothing is knownabout Lucena,except that he was both a crap chessplayer and a malechauvinist pig! Accordingto chessauthor Wlliam Hartston: the secondhalf of Lucena'sbook (18) is an analysisnfull of elementaryerrors, of elevenchess openings. while, incredibly,"The first half of the book is an attack on feminism..."! (19) pig - of the modernera'is RussianGrandmaster Another malechauvinist nMen David Bronstein,who is c"editedwittttt e followingpatronising remarks' play betterthan womenbecause they know far morechess combinations of the i'p. tt ut may b6rrepeatedad infinitum in almost any game'whereas naive womenalways want to play independently,relying only on their oln beauty' imaginationand temperament'that is, not trusting in the real life of the chess pieces."(20) And, comingriglit up to date,a flyer and entryform for the2STHTHANET CHESSCONGRESS, Fliday 29th Augustto sunday31st August 1997'offers a "specialprize" f,20 for the bestscore by a lady player920. Yes, a specialprizel the hrst prize in the Openis f200 and in the Minor Tournament,S80. And the best prize for a woman is a miserabletwenty quid. If that's not proof of discriminationand blatant senslbias, what is? (21) THEMENACE OF "SEXISM" IN CHESS

Conclusion:What Is To Be Done?

elseis the king' a male Chesshas beenserzsl from the verybeginning' Why the maledomination pr"*,lrr. _"st valuable?(22) Obviously the onlycure for of is to eradicatesuism by a programme of legislation.Equality ir.rr.r, This throughoutthe chessworld must be extendedto both sexes. In practicethis will *?rls"pp"J"rray tnai affirmittve actionwill haveto be introduced. girls odds,perhaps of mean trrat men and boyswill haveto givewomen and cases'in order to q"*"t X"igttt, queentsrook, or evenodds of queenin some makeup for Pastredresses' basis of merit to .ltt prizesin chesstournaments must be awardedon the girls must receive -.n uird women'boys and girls equally'And womenand specialprizes in the nameof equalityof opportunity' discriminatesin Any tournamentorganiser, controller or other official who playersmust be thrown u"t;y, manner'shape or form againstfemale chess Acl must be extendedto orri of irr. BCF and into gaol.T\e SexDiscimination chess. to' about or Any chessplayer who makes derogatoryot sacistremarks to a mandatorTpro- ugu-i;; any femaleplayer, must be fined and subjected gaol' giu-*. oiooo'serisJeducation, and, if necessarythrovm into term chessper- The term chessmenmust be outlawedand replacedwiththe definitionsofcheck sons.A newrule must be introducedreplacing the current queenas well and checkmate.In future, a playerwhothreatens his opponent's and the gamewill end u, t i, Lirrg.nustcall ctreci.iheckmate will be delivered part of the programmeof when';d;;;r;r"tton,tnequeen either the queenor the king is captured'As wiltcontinue to havesuperior powers to the king. future whitewill not iacismmust alsobe totatly eliminatedfrom chess,and in will tossto decide moverrrst automaticatly.At the start of the game,the players if white or black has the first move'

8 THEMENACE OF 'SEXISM"IN CHESS

NotesAnd References

(1) For playersbelowa certain grade- 160in this caseI believe.In Britain, all activechess players are gradedby the British ChessFederation. (2) This will almost certainly be my last tournamentvictory for sometime maybeever, because soon I wilt be graded and will no longer be eligible for playingin Minor Tournaments.[But seealso footnote6]. (3) Which I doubtvery much. since I wrotethe bulk of this short dissertation I haveplayed in further tournaments,and the onething I canstate uncategori' cally is that the standardof play hasimproved enormously in the past twenty years.I onceplayed on board onefor Middlesexjuniorsl I doubt if I would be goodenough to play on bottom board nowadays. (4) Only two oyerseasplayers have ever won the world professionalsnooker championship:a Canadian,and the current champion,who is from the Irish Republic.No non-whitehas everwon it. (5) The personin chargeof a chesstournament is calledthe controller. (6) If I recall,her namewas Elaine Sadler;I think I playedher at a congress in Islington. The womanfrom Harrow wasindeed a strong player in her own right; she is still playing to this day, although she has since divorced and remarried (to anotherchess player! and oneI was oncebeaten by). A supplementto footnote2; sincewriting thesewords and while proofing the text I have won another Minor Tournament!On the first weekendin October 1997,I scored5 wins out of 5 in the Metropolitan ChessClub's 7th Annual Congress,(the first time I haveever scored l00Vo in anytournament). I had a very €asyride althoughin the 4th round I playedand nearly lost to' a very attractiveyoung lady who, like me was ungraded(she was coming off a four or five year lay off), and is the girlfriend of a grandmaster(who won the OpenTournament at the sameCongress). As well as nearlybecoming the first femaleI everlost to in a tournament,she scored an impressive4 points and but for me,she would surelyhave won it; (twovery strong women international playerscompeted in the OpenTournament). In August I playeda younggirl in a blitz tournament at another event (blitz doesn't count) and beat her comfortably. THEMENACE OF "SEXISM'' IN CHESS

(7)KasparovwonthetitlefromKarpovinlgS5incontroversialcircum. --61stances. cense. oR mE GAME AT 1HESS.A P)EM' bv sir wlliam Jones' of iambic was written in 1763.It is a lengthy poem composedin couplets OF CHESS; p"nt"*.t"" und canbe fountt in, amongother volume s, SWDIES IONES; 'A Systematic VOtUen UXC CAISSA,A POEM, BY SIRWLLIAM CHESS' COM' int oductionto the Game";AND THE WHOLE ANALYSIS OF P,\SEDBYMR'A.D,PHILID7R:WTHoiginalCritigqlRema|ks.INTWo-VO\UV\,S,published by SamuelBagster, London, (1803)' rnn'oxronn ixcusn DICTIONARY,published by clarendon t\ page p""st,-(I0),THEnwxM)REC7MPLETECHESSADDICT,byMikeFox& O>rford,Second Edition, (1989),Volume Xf, 112' RevisedEdition' nicnara James,published by Faber and Faber,London, p"g* tigat.There are actually67 players in this list becauseofa five iig93j, that as .ilv ii" r"" osrd place.[A stop presson pagelz3 of the samebook says gradingof2630,which oriury r, 1gg3,J;dit polgar'srating hadrisento an ELO would havemade her about the 45th strongestplayer in history.l Recently,FIDE * issued a policy iiri rrr. vast majority, it would appean also Freemasons ilocumentwhich propoies that all chessplayers who are should declaretheir todgemembership' * The international governingbody ofchess' run GuNNESS BOOKOF CHESSGRANDMASTERS, byWlliam ozj (1996)'page Hartston,published by GuinnessPublishing, Enfield, Middlesex, 2t5. (op cit). (13) Fox & James,The Even More Completechess Addict' page114, chessAddict,page 262, (ibid). iiaj no, & Ju*es, TheEven More Complete 187'(opcit). iiSi Hu.trton,The GuinnessBookOf ChessGrandmasters'page soundseven worse. ifei motn"" blatantlyse,rzsf term, but Grandmistress strong chessplayers. irn sn. has two sisterswho are also extremely partido' nepedctonde amorese arte de axedrezcon cl iuegosde - itg) (op cit). iigi Hu.trto n,The GuinnessBook Of ChessGrandmasters,page205, Mark llvoretsky,Thanslated by iZOi euoteO in Secretsof ChessTactics, by i\iatcolm Gesthuysennpo-utirn.a by B. T Batsford, London, $992). 11994 ReprintlnPage 15.

10 THEMENACE OF "SEXISM''IN CHESS

(21) I rememberone tournament from my early chesscareer in which the teenagerSusan (mentionedabove) \ilon a prize for the best femalejust by enteringthe tournament.She was the only female! (22)Critics might reply that the queen- a femalepiece ' is the most powerful' but this poweris, as ever,totally illusory.In the first place,because she is so powerful the queenis, like the ldng, vulnerableto attac\ and must be well protected.In the secondplace, chess games are frequentlywon afterthe queens havebeen exchanged or evenby a playerwho has lost or sacrificedhis queen. No chessgame has everbeen won by a playersacrificing his king!

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