Great article DagenDaDragon - thank you for posting.

I find it humorous and ironic that myhandsonfire uses the argument of "too few men choose to compete in it" to explain a lack of excellent performance, then turns around and states that "the best race car drivers are men" - a sporting event where over 99.9% of race car drivers are men. :)

However, while this great contradiction denies credibility of what was said, there is an important point to be made in terms of # of participants vs. chances of winning. Even within the ultra running results link posted, the males outnumber females with a 6:1 ratio in the 2013 100k and 12 hour races, but when the ratio drops to 3:1 as in the 48 hour race, the times become increasingly competitive with the top female finisher coming in 4th overall beating out nearly 400 top male athletes. I have no doubt that when the ratio becomes close to 1:1, that females will start turning in records in the over-50k races. At the very least, there is science to support such a statement: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9044230

1000 miles race... wow, that is dedication

Indeed! Although it's a drop in the bucket to my friend Janette who is currently on a 9,500 mile jaunt around Australia, accompanied by her husband. Both in their 60's and running a marathon a day for an entire year: http://www.runningrawaroundaustralia.com/index.html

Very inspiring! :)

Am I missing something? Dagens post was about sexism in the computer gaming industry wasnt it?

Gaia Myhands point was that too few men choose to compete in gymnastics and sych swimming because they are banned from the olympics, and this is the only reason they dont dominate (they arent encouraged and anyone aiming to be the best wont bother entering the field).

Aranka, if I was going to read contemporary writing on feminism, why would I read garbage like rock paper shotgun?

He posted the link as it related to Aranka's treatment on here, rather than the actual discussion.

Can't you argue about something more awful than this? Like American partisan politics, libertarianism, or religion? Anyone here a fan of Ayn Rand?

Notable Forum Post turned sexist flame war?

I hate chess, because you have to calculate every move. It's no fun (for me) when you have to think hard. So I basically play warlight just on intuition.

That's why I am reluctant to buy membership, cause I know I'd fail at ladders.

You play chess mostly on intution. You learn general rules and when to apply them. If you play at a high level you also learn specific opening sequences of moves from books, which again requires no calculation.

i stopped playing chess when my uncle told me that the only way to get better in it is to memorize the openings.. for me he was a chess guru that time, and i trusted in what he said.. The idea seemed borderline boring to me..

Your uncle is partly correct/partly a fool.

While it's true it's important to know the general lines of each opening only real chess guru's (like szewe for instance) would want to learn all variations of the opening by heart.
To me personally and from own experience I can say it's often more then enough to understand WHY a certain move in an opening is played instead of the simple fact that it is played.
Does it open up your development ?? Does it control key points ?? Does it guarantee safety in the longer run ?? Is there a tactical advantage to be gained from the sacrifice of this pawn (Gambit style) etc.

It’s nice to see the topic of this thread veer at least in part closer to the original subject of chess. However, there is something I would like to address because I feel it’s important. Especially as I see an ever increasing number of female WarLight players, and for the greater good of the community in general.

Nosy kity-cat and Lobstrosity: I agree that sexism is never a fun or comfortable topic – anywhere. However, if it exists in the forums does this mean we should ignore it? I don’t believe so. The most I learned from the article on sexism that Dagen posted: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/06/misogyny-sexism-and-why-rps-isnt-shutting-up/ is a resounding “no”, we should not keep silent, because by doing so only allows it to keep happening. If you don’t wish to read the entire article, scroll down to PART THREE – WHAT NOT TO WRTE.

It doesn’t have to be a flame war, and with an open discussion we can help prevent sexist comments in the future. Do I think reading an article on sexism will change sexists overnight? Of course not, but at least it’s a start. I believe everyone, not only Dead Piggy or Myhandsonfire, has the potential to benefit from reading such an article, and discussing it in a reasonable manner. It’s interesting to me that Dead Piggy quickly dismisses reading this article on sexism by calling it a work of “feminism”, which is quite different, and one need only read the title to see it is about misogyny and sexism. Then the site it was posted on is bashed by being called "garbage”, attempting to denounce the entire article as not being worthy of reading. While this is the first article I’ve read on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, I will say it’s a decent one and very relevant to the earlier discussion. It’s written from a man’s perspective, and caters to all audiences.

Dead Piggy – I have hope for you. You’ve laughed at my jokes and I truly believe you when you say “I don’t get it”, in terms of how your comments could be construed as sexist. I would like to help you and everyone here to understand, because I’m an optimist at heart.

When Aranka posted her comment about her great accomplishment of beating a Grand Master at chess, she also made a rather serious assertion that Szeweningen’s original post was, at least in part, sexist by nature. Szeweningen did not deny this assertion, but only he can clarify whether or not his original post was (if only a small portion of it), an attempt to ridicule women in general, or Aranka more specifically, because she is a woman. Personally I thought it was just a silly post, but I could be wrong.

Regardless of the intent of the original post, Aranka infers sexist behavior towards her, but counters it by telling us of her great achievement. Your response to this was, in one fell swoop, an attempt to show male superiority/dominance in athletic endeavors, which have absolutely nothing to do with a mental game of chess, enter into the equation a “males are better than you” mentality, and try and derail Aranka’s great accomplishment of beating a GM, by telling us that men have a physical advantage in non-related sports.

“Physically it seems women cannot compete with men in anything but long distance swimming. Whether Aranka beat some GM or not...”

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Nothing that’s relevant to the discussion. Not only is your assumption not true, as has been proven, it is also sexist because of both topic and even more significantly, context . It was your response to Aranka’s comments on inferred sexism and her accomplishment. At the very best, your comments use poor logic similar to a Straw Man fallacy approach: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html. But given the context, they were sexist. I’m not saying this was your intention, as sometimes discriminatory comments can be made without malicious forethought. However, you try and sway the subject by bringing into the equation male dominance in physical sports (except distance swimming because of a female’s fat percentage as opposed to athleticism), which again have nothing to do with an intellectual game of chess, all in an attempt to discredit one female’s achievement and shut her down.

It would be like you saying “I have an Elo record on the WarLight 1v1 ladder of 2357!” Then I come along and try to dismiss this record as being insignificant, by brining into the discussion an irrelevant topic and a ‘they are better than you’ mentality by saying something like: “That may all be well and good, but I know at least 1,000 people that have fasted with water only for 21 days. You have never accomplished such a feat, therefore these 1000 people are superior to you, regardless of your Elo record.”

Yes, I know this sounds absurd. What’s not absurd is that I’m certainly not the only one who construed your comments as sexist, given the context. I hope now you can understand why this is so.

As far as your interpretation of Myhandsonfire’s comments regarding synch swimming and rhythmic gymnastics:

“Myhands point was that too few men choose to compete in gymnastics and sych swimming because they are banned from the olympics, and this is the only reason they dont dominate”

He didn’t say this but if you believe this is what he meant, and read through the very articles he posted on the topics, you will realize that these statements are incorrect. It’s believed the primary reason that more males do not enter these sports is their fear of stigma associated with participating in a “female’s sport”. This apparently is changing, however. Thousands of male synch swimmers and rhythmic gymnasts are currently competing. If or when there is enough interest and enough countries with males that participate and compete in the sports, and/or the IOC is sued for discrimination, then they will be allowed to participate in the Olympics.

Bickering about whether women are superior or inferior at certain sports challenges sexism how?

Note that Fridge was the one to accuse Szew of sexist tokenism, not any of you lovely ladies. I guess this just goes to show that men are better at fighting injustice.

It's about keeping awareness up, making people have to keep thinking about it, or at least see people discussing it.
Personally I consider it a lot like racism, in that people don't consider it this big deal anymore. Now that there is a black president it looks like racism is gone. But that isn't true, it is still a problem. And of course, perfect equality is never going to happen, however that doesn't mean you should stop fighting for it!
So X bringing up the topic challenges it.
Making people think about Sexism challenges it.
Making people realize there gaming life cant be a sexist bubble anymore challenges it.

Also Lol at the note, I almost fell for that, +1. :P

(I think I must have accidentally used the "aranka" cheat code ...)

But you did fall, as I nearly did, for Gaia's statement that the topic they were discussing was sexism - it wasn't.

Fridge acknowledged the sexism of Szew's original post. He made a point of the fact that Aranka is female. I'm not interested in niche sports or chess, but I am interested in music - the analogue is when female musicians are only compared to other female musicians. Aranka's issue with this, however, was that there were stronger female chess players to which she could be compared: sexism dutifully ignored. Not every girl is a riot grrrrl.

Then, sigh, the conversation turns to the tedious realm of the gender war. "Are women better or worse at men than this or that?"

Forgetting for a moment that, due to the lack of information, any line of reasoning here is spurious, let us say that it could be objectively stated that women are, I don't fucking know, 7% better than men at chess, on average. This wouldn't be a sexist statement, any more than it would be to say that men have broader shoulders than women. So the discussion is not about sexism.

You might argue that the impetus for the men to participate in this fruitless discussion was their misogyny. If you wanted to challenge this, you ought to have said "It matters not whether women are worse at ping-pong or what-have-you, please stop making generalisations and treat me like a human being, rather than a vagina that happens to have a person attached to it".

I hope now you understand why nobody here was challenging sexism. I don't begrudge you your mistakes, naturally you would need a man to explain these things to you.

Aranka likes to post apropos songs, so here is my new favourite band: https://soundcloud.com/capturedtracks/challenge?in=capturedtracks/sets/bona-dish-zaragoza-tapes-1981

Aranka - It's more like he wanted me to start memorising some openings as this was the easiest way to teach me play better. I was in the primary school, so my memory of that is faint anyway. And my gosh! I really thought he is not a fool at all but thanks on telling me that. I will definitely revise my opinion now - your female intuition cannot be wrong, can it?
You shouldn't judge people such a scrap of information. You're a big girl. you should know better than that. It's always better to say "if that is exactly what he said i find that statement not entirely true" than telling somebody was a fool. Especially if you know nothing about the person and even no context of the situation mentioned.

DagenDaDragon - i believe x's note was not entirely a joke. If you think of my statement, you will understand that i DID point out sze's sexist approach. The whole concept of political correctness is based on prejudices. In this case on gender related. I did not tell that directly but fortunately some cought what i meant.

Hehe - love the irony in your previous post, Nosy ;) ^^^
and agreed - "bickering" never as productive as discussing.

As for my inference that sexism was additionally brought into the discussion when Aranka stated:

“Most likely szeweningen once again liked mocking the sentiment that women could be equal to men.”

I stand by that. She quickly let us know that her skills were competitive with a Grand Master’s. Sexism scoffed at, but not ignored.

“I hope now you understand why nobody here was challenging sexism. I don't begrudge you your mistakes, naturally you would need a man to explain these things to you.”

Many lols…is there one in the house? ;)

There is equality in the legal sense, which is a battle of feminism and sexism, and then there is equality in the sense of, ahem, board games, and perhaps it's not helpful to conflate the two. Not only was her evidence purely anecdotal, the point I make in the "Forgetting ..." paragraph still applies.

Let's say that you were right, and that by participating in the argument, you were battling sexism. Then it would follow that, if the men were right, and women were indeed worse at chess, then they should be treated as second-class citizens.

You don't appear to have grasped my argument, or at least you didn't rebut any of it, but you've laughed at my jokes, so I have hope for you ;)

Anyway, here's how that Aranka comment should have been phrased if it were combatting sexism: "I beat a grandmaster. Whether or not women are as good as men at chess on the whole, it's wrong to generalise me or marginalise me because of my gender." By engaging them on their own misogynistic level, you are only encouraging more such comments, and implicitly conceding a faulty premise. Girl power!

Nosy-

I agree with your “forgetting” paragraph. Unfortunately, the issue of mocking /ridiculing a person because of their sex came into play. This constitutes sexism. Debasing a person solely on their sex, race, or sexual orientation is what I take issue with or attempt to “battle” as you say.

Agreed there were several things that could have been said differently to combat sexism more efficiently earlier on in this thread (I include myself here).

“By engaging them on their own misogynistic level, you are only encouraging more such comments, implicitly conceding a faulty premise”

Many lessons learned :)

I appreciate your humility, it's a quality I certainly don't share. Thanks for confronting all this sexism with me. I think we did it.

*crosses fingers*

Mammary glands or abscond