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.
