A brief history of women playing chess

Judit Polgar….living women chess playing legend. Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by former World Champion Bobby Fischer.

This synopsis includes female chess players that received official FIDE titles or are otherwise renowned. From the Middle Ages through the 18th century, chess was a popular social pastime for both men and women of the upper classes. Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I played, and Thomas Jefferson wrote several times about Benjamin Franklin's playing chess in Paris with socially important women, including the Duchess of Bourbon Bathilde d'Orléans, who was "a chess player of about his force".[1] Chess games between men and women were a common theme of European art[2][3] and literature in the fourteenth through 18th centuries.[4] By the 19th century, however, the chess world had become dominated by male chess players. During the 20th century, female players made significant progress in breaking male dominance on the game, and a few female players (such as Vera Menchik) could compete successfully with men. By the mid-1980s a number of women were competing regularly in events with men. The country of Georgia produced some of the best women chess players of the later 20th century, including the first female International Grandmaster, Nona Gaprindashvili, who was awarded the title in 1978. Judit Polgar was the first female player to compete in a World Chess Championship, in the 2005 edition. She is also the only female player to have defeated the reigning world number one in a game, when she beat Garry Kasparov in 2002.[5][6] More recently, Hou Yifan has been the leading female player, winning the Biel GM tournament[7] and being rated among the world's top hundred players for several years. There is also the title Woman Grandmaster (WGM), but the requirements for achieving it are lower. As of 2020, no woman has ever been the world champion. In September 2005, Judit Polgár of Hungary, then rated #8 in the world by the international chess organization FIDE, became the first woman to play for the World Championship title.[10] South Africa also has its share of women excelling at chess, i.e. the following players achieved Fide titles over the years: Bijoux, Caroline (1976)untitled, Solomons, Anzel (1978)WIM Frick, Denise (1980)WIM, Meyer, Marany (1984)WIM has SA and Nieu Zealand status, van der Merwe, Cecile (1987)WIM, Selkirk, Rebecca (1993)WCM, Melissa Greeff (1994)WGM, February, Jesse (1997)WIM, Fisher, Michelle (1997)WFM, In the West Coast in South Africa, Jesse February and Anzel Solomons has become household names due to the efforts of the West Coast Chess Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_chess_players https://www.google.com/search?q=women+and+chess+pics&sxsrf=ALeKk019XA7gvqWEqTitSC_E _DC3Ja88qQ:1598454877576&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=L5f64- jDA3w_yM%252CmeI8rPstY1M8MM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_- kTyCElPb3ufdTrKX6dDDNRFnxKE1A&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi6hKu5lLnrAhVyQkEAHaQWAZ0 Q9QEwAHoECAoQFQ#imgrc=h9LF2zu9i37zyM