> 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?
It isn't needed to make "more men" play chess. But for an individual, it's pretty unfair: "She's no better than me, but she is a WGM and I am nothing".
Lol. Women and all their unfair advantages over men, right? It's tough for a guy out here...
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.
Please rein in your dismissiveness. It is not insane to consider the ways that men and women have advantages. I'm not trying to step into this argument on one side or the other, but this kind of mocking is unhelpful.
> 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.
You're right, the mockery was unnecessary. It's just, agh, so frustrating to me, for men to call out gender-related "unfairness," based on just how far the scales are tipped to one side (imo).
"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...
Please note that I am against extra prizes (because of private bits or skin colour) in open tournaments. Women can have their titles, their own tournaments, their own prizes ( in their tournaments) as long as men can have same. I just request everyone be treated same in tournament where everyone is alowed and fights free for all ( if tournament is split into two separate groups - prizes can be different too)
First off, I'd like to mention that I don't think that sounds very unreasonable, so I'm not responding out of feeling offended. I am taking that as being a fairly reasonable position. I just currently think it is probably at least incomplete. Now on to the actual response:
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?
> 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?