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Comment by mikepurvis | Hacker News Reader

I think Alexandra Botez manages this kind of thing well— obviously she's young and attractive, and there's a certain amount of goofing around that goes on (her younger sister is a co-host), but overall the channel is pretty tightly focused on chess games, commentary, etc. And she's certainly a very serious player herself and has specifically spoken out on sexism issues in tournaments and the larger chess community, eg:

https://www.insider.com/how-chess-was-more-sexist-than-its-p...

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I'm curious what would constitute managing well or not well in your opinion. She certainly uses it to her advantage, while nonetheless being a very strong player.

I'm not a regular follower so I don't have a lot of history to base it on, but based on the streams I've caught, it just seems well balanced— like the presentation is definitely not "sexy" in the way of, like, a hot tub streamer, but it's also not completely locked down and soulless— there's personality and shenanigans in the way of a radio host or commentator, and also a lot of great chess-playing.

Another good example is Xyla Foxlin, who walks a similar line with a YouTube engineering/maker channel and has been very explicit about her approach: "I refuse to “act more like a man” in order to achieve legitimate and respectable success in the professional world. I happen to be someone who embraces her femininity and feels powerful in cute shoes and sparkly makeup, and I don’t see how any of that makes me less of an engineer." [0]

[0]: https://medium.com/1517/beauty-and-the-invisible-beast-c2a8d...

There is certainly sexism built into the rating system, as woman titles require 200 less Elo points to achieve. https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-become-a-chess-gra...

They're different titles though. Grandmaster (GM) != Woman Grandmaster (WGM). Judit Polgár, for example, peaked at an Elo of over 2,700, so she easily qualified for Grandmaster (requirement of 2,500).

Similarly, a Brigadier General is not the same rank as a General, despite some commonality in word choice between the two ranks.

Well OK, but it doesn’t explain why there’s a WGM. There isn’t a “woman sergeant” position, and we’d definitely take offense at a company defining separate “senior engineer” and “woman senior engineer” positions.. so why accept the condescension of WGM?

Not all female players do:

"These titles are sometimes criticized and some female players elect not to take them, preferring to compete for open titles. For example, Grandmaster Judit Polgár, in keeping with her policy of playing only open competitions, never took a women's title."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles#Women's_titles

If the titles required the same Elo to achieve then there wouldn't be a point to have separate titles. The female-only titles are useful to encourage women to compete imo.

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