> Nobody has ever said that WGM is equivalent to GM, everybody knows it's not the case, WGM is just a step towards IM then GM, to make sure the player does not lose interest as it is so hard to attain the higher titles.
That's all well and good, but what prize is there to encourage men who are at the level of WGM? Why is no prize needed for men?
Women are consistently and institutionally disadvantaged across the board. Why do so many men fail to understand this? For the record I'm a man, and I see women face issues on a daily basis that I have never had to deal with, so by all means, give them a prize.
> Women are consistently and institutionally disadvantaged across the board. Why do so many men fail to understand this?
I think because it isn't true? Assuming 'across the board' means 'in every aggregate scenario', then there certainly are places where it's men who are consistently and institutionally disadvantaged (two classic examples are judicial sentencing and when a victim of domestic violence).
One can think that women are disadvantaged 'overall', if one wanted to construct a score-card, without believing that women are disadvantaged in every (aggregate) scenario.
In this particular scenario I think it makes sense to say "We wanted more female participation, so we introduced an incentive". This addresses a particular point, and people can argue about whether the goal (more women at high levels of chess) is worthwhile, but at least that doesn't turn the whole discussion into an 'us against them' mentality.
IOW: Please try to raise the level of debate.
"Across the board" and "overall" seem synonymous to me, I did not mean to imply that men have the advantage in literally every conceivable scenario/dimension.
In this situation I would just tend to err on the side of graciousness and over-correction...men have been calling the shots and having their way with nothing to stop them for so long, for most of us it is impossible to empathize with the challenges faced by the other half. Due to this long legacy there is a tangled web of deep-seated factors contributing to why women might not be competitive with men in chess, and why we might look into ways we can attempt to balance for that. I strongly believe that "just toss them in the ring, no special considerations, because lassiez-faire competition is the best and most fair" totally ignores the larger picture of these issues.
So yes, it is not insane to consider both sides, but in this particular instance - of someone claiming "unfairness" to men because women have their own bracket where it may be "easier" to get a cool title (and you see this argument all over sports) - I find it pretty gauche. It's just the same general issue where people of privilege see no problems because they aren't affected by them, and then label attempts to correct them as "unfair", I guess because of the explicit and intentional nature of the initiative? (Contrasted to the "naturally occurring" or "subconscious" unfairness all over, which I guess is acceptable?)
How does it hurt men, hurt competition, for women to have their own prize? For whatever reasons, women aren't competitive with men (in chess, at this point in time), men are the best, everyone knows that as a given, do we really need to rub it in by forcing them to be ranked alongside men? Is that really preserving some concept of integrity of the sport? Is that helping women get better? Or does it just further discourage them? Obviously some people are fine if women are muscled out of playing chess, if they can't hang that's their problem, right? There I go with the mocking, but agh! Have some compassion, understanding, graciousness...
I urge you to consider that aggregate statistics are not individual experiences. It is a totally normal, expected outcome that there are individual men who have had deeply unfair experiences based on their gender. The fact that 'overall' men have better experiences will be cold comfort to such people. While in aggregate we tend to encourage men/boys to play chess, and as such there are a lot of competitive men, an individual man/boy may have a very different experience. Telling that one man/boy that overall men have it better in this scenario (and others) just won't be compelling. That's why I tend to argue that we should consider these incentives. It's a group-modification action, not an individual-modification. But understanding this may help you to have compassion for people who, for whatever reason, are blind to the 'tipping of the scales' that you mention.
Good luck.
This has already been answered and I'd like to hear your rebuttal.
It hurts men and competition by devaluing the prizes. To quote jstanley again:
"She's no better than me, but she is a WGM and I am nothing".
Do you see how this hurts competition directly? Like it or not people compete for the recognition which is embodied by the prize. If the prize can now be given out without full attainment of the skill being tested for, then it loses its meaning and its signaling value.
> For whatever reasons, women aren't competitive with men (in chess, at this point in time)
I'd also be curious to hear from you why you think the reasons for this are "whatever reasons" - I'm presuming by that you mean, that the reasons are inconsequential or they don't matter or they are not important. Why do you believe that to be the case, without first knowing what the reasons actually are?
EDIT: all players have their own ELO score but they are still competing for the prize, which is the embodiment of the attainment of certain skills. If women can win this prize without attaining the same skills then this is devaluing the prize. Please address this directly, if you will. Again, to make this clear, players compete for the prize, not for the ELO score. If players did not compete for the prize, there would not be a prize.
> To quote jstanley again: "She's no better than me, but she is a WGM and I am nothing"
Well, don't they still have their score? I mean, I'm not into competitive chess, but everyone has their own ELO, no?
> > For whatever reasons, women aren't competitive with men (in chess, at this point in time)
> I'd also be curious to hear from you why you think the reasons for this are "whatever reasons" - I'm presuming by that you mean, that the reasons are inconsequential or they don't matter or they are not important. Why do you believe that to be the case, without first knowing what the reasons actually are?
I'm not the author, but what I would have meant by that phrase is "regardless of what the reasons are". I would have used it because the reasons are essentially unknowable, probably have many different overlapping reasons, and any discussion of those reasons is extremely likely to get bogged down in useless arguments given our collective scientific understanding of this issue at this time.
Then, if there isn't one, why not?
What would be your view of a tournament which only allows people to enter if they have a different <x> than the majority of the winners of the "main" tournament during the last 5 years?
(Example: If <x> is gender, then if 3 men had won the "main tournament" in the last 5 years, then only people who are not men could enter the alternate tournament, and if 3 women had won the "main tournament" in the last 5 years, only people who are not women could enter the alternate tournament.
(If there was no most common <x> then the alternate tournament would not be run, because there would not be any eligible participants. For example if one year, the two semifinalists refuse to continue.)
Would you say that there should also be another alternative tournament in which participants are only eligible if they have the same <x> as the majority of winners of the "main tournament" over the last 5 years?
I agree that there is not /inherently/ a problem if one gender (or other quality) is more common in an activity, and that the problems are in the causes or effects of such a situation. But I am not certain that trying to apply pressure to make the ratio closer to equal can't be a good way to address whatever problem might be causing , or caused by, the ratio to be unequal. I'm not certain that doing that when there aren't problems related to the inequality in outcome causes any harm.
If someone decides they want to give money to left handed, or to right handed, people, what harm does that cause?
And why single out the women prize, as opposed to the over 65 or under 13 prizes?
I like to think of positive discrimination as a cosine wave that cancels out the sine wave of sexism/racism/etc.
If you think positive discrimination is a bad thing then I suggest you work on getting rid of the negative discrimination, and the 'problem' will magically resolve itself.
IMHO positive discrimination might only reinforce those prejudices.
"Haha, look at those women, they need a head start!"
"Damm, women are so weak they need lower standards to join the firefighters."
"Women need their own separate tournaments because they couldn't even face the worst male team."
All things I heard.
I'm pretty sure there is discrimination around. I'm just not sure positive discrimination helps at all, or only makes us feel like we're doing something.
On the other hand, female-only tournaments (like in some sports) encourage the underrepresented gender to participate, since they're more likely to succeed and feel like they can achieve something, and then maybe get to the same level as males in the long run.
It's a complex problem, though. Teenage females are, on average, slower when running than their male counterparts, and this won't change no matter how much positive discrimination you throw at it. I feel like a bigot just by saying it but, hey, I think it's true and it's been proven (e.g. soccer USWNT scrimmaged against the U-17 USMNT and was beaten 8-2, purely by physical advantage). Sometimes life itself discriminates and IMHO we have to accept it too. Maybe positive discrimination is the only way to work around it? How are we going to get rid of the biological discrimination, to then then get rid of the positive discrimination? I don't think we can. I think we just have to accept it and normalize it and be fine with each person having different aptitudes and traits.
Unfortunately I don't have any alternative methods to get rid of negative discrimination :( I like to think this is an education issue that will get fixed over generations and, in my eyes, it's indeed slowly getting fixed (unless some event sets the progress back, like it's happened in history multiple times... that's what we'd have to work against.)
I like to think my country (Spain) is pretty progressive on getting rid of discrimination, be it gay, female, racial, etc. I think we've come a long way on getting rid of it, and I think education (e.g. TV shows including gay people) was the only factor that helped. I mention gay people because we're one of the most progressive countries on that regard and, indeed, the problem wasn't solved by positive discrimination but, simply, by normalization.
Change came from heroes setting example, not underdogs in need of help.
Which is why, as an enlightened and intelligent person, when you hear things like that it's your job to point out that the positive discrimination is only necessary because of the negative attitudes people have towards minority groups. All the remarks you heard are examples of negative, sexist discrimination. We should all be willing to speak out against it, and all work to resolve the issue of inequality. And that includes defending positive discrimination for the good it does.
> And that includes defending positive discrimination for the good it does.
Does it? I feel you think that's an axiom. Is it? You didn't argue why, and it's the crux of my comment: if it does good or not. I'm not convinced it does good (or bad), but you seem so convinced I hoped you could answer my comment instead of reinstating how good you think positive discrimination is.
I'll quote myself:
> How are we going to get rid of the biological discrimination, to then then get rid of the positive discrimination? I don't think we can. I think we just have to accept it and normalize it and be fine with each person having different aptitudes and traits.
I invite you to read my comment carefully and reflect on it. IMHO it's not an issue as simple as you seem to think it is. And if it is, please enlighten me (I'm genuinely open to it!)
https://millionairechess.com/prizes
Also prizes in each division for "Top senior prize (65+)" and "Best child under 13 yrs old"
[0] http://www.chessblog.com/2009/10/abolish-womens-itles-ridicu...
And yet the topic comes up repeatedly every time there is the slightest possible way to bring it up, even if it's completely unrelated to the article, like the grandparent's post. The original article had no mention of female prize or anything related to discrimination.
Edit: reduced hyperbole
I don't really like clicking on the comments for an article about the economics of a chess tournament to find somebody whining about a prize for women players that isn't even mentioned in that article. It's just uncouth. Even if such prizes are a bad idea, there's not worth derailing the conversation, and it's rude to track down some nitpicky complaint to jump on.
Why should there be a section for people who want to talk about the aspects you want to talk about, but not a section for stuff I and others want to talk about?
I understand you might not like to click on a chess article to find something else being discussed. Well, that happens to all of us in different ways. The way I deal with it is, I simply skip the comment branches that I don't care for.
The thing is though that women have it harder in chess the same way as in boxing, tennis or sprinting.
People try to run circles about the fact that there are very significant biological differences which influence performance in chess but if you ever were a part of competitive chess world (or any intellectual game really, for example bridge) you wouldn't argue with that. It's just too obvious looking at children taking up chess and seeing the pace of progress they make. There are many lazy slobs who are better at chess than the most dedicated women out there (maybe with exception of Hou Yifan). It's the same way a lazy smoking overweight aged player from somewhere in top 200 of ATP would absolutely destroy Serena Williams, it's just the difference is smaller in chess but it's still there.