Chess and Women

Chess is a respected game, an exercise of the brain. It is played on an 8 by 8 square-board with alternating black and white squares by two players, each controlling 8 pieces and 8 pawns. It is a game of memory and tactics, requiring you to learn openings like the Spanish opening, Italian opening, etc., defenses like the Kings Indian defense, Sicilian defense, etc. Learning so much theory and piece movement can be fascinating. Yet, beyond its tactical brilliance, chess mirrors deeper social hierarchies that often go unnoticed.

Imagine two players playing chess. What did you imagine? Most of you probably pictured men playing it. This is the result of bias, the assumption that chess is a men's game. Women can play chess, and they can play brilliantly too. Let us understand the insights behind this phenomenon.

Illusion of Matriarchy in Chess

The queen is the strongest piece in chess. She can move anywhere on the board, and victory often depends on the queen. All players want to protect their queen. When the queen is gone, motivation diminishes, most players resign mentally. A queen sacrifice leading to checkmate is celebrated as a brilliant strategic move. Pawns are mostly promoted to queens when they reach the opposite end of the board. Meanwhile, the king must be protected at all costs. He is often castled behind a pawn wall for safety. Shhh.... The men will change the rules if they get to know this.

So, what is the illusion then? At first glance, chess appears to be much of a matriarchy, with roles reversed from society. Here is the catch! The queen may be the most powerful piece, but her power still revolves around the king’s safety, a poetic reflection of how even powerful women are often defined in relation to men. This mirrors how men in power often do nothing yet survive while others work around them. The most important piece is still the king, despite the queen's superior power and mobility.

Male History of Chess

Chess originated in India in the 6th century, where it was known as Chaturanga. The game represented the four divisions of the military: infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots. It then went to Persia, where it became known as Shatranj, and was subsequently introduced to the Arab world. From there, it reached Europe, where the name "chess" emerged and the game evolved manifolds with new rules and piece movements.

Chess was male centric from its early days and was usually enjoyed by elites and nobles. The Romantic era of chess influenced new rules and encouraged attacking strategies, further cementing it as a male dominated system. Women did not play it usually, facing systematic exclusion from competitive fields throughout history.

Psychological Bias

There is a widespread misunderstanding that men are better at chess biologically. However, there is no correlation between IQ and biological sex. In fact, average performance is equal, and women perform better under certain circumstances when given the same preparation and opportunities. Judit Polgár, a Hungarian Grandmaster, defeated many men including world champion Anatoly Karpov. Nona Gaprindashvili, a Soviet Grandmaster, defeated 59 male opponents, including 28 grandmasters!

Why does the bias persist then? The answer lies in more male participation, which creates a larger player pool for men and a smaller pool of female players. Male victories are obviously higher in absolute numbers due to this disparity. Often when women win, they receive comments like "she played like a man," which, honestly, is an insult. It is insulting not because of the word "men", but because her existence as a woman is questioned and her achievement is attributed to the so-called masculine qualities. Even in the top 10 chess players as of 2025, all are men, reflecting this systemic imbalance.

Small Efforts for Women's Participation

A prominent Russian-Israeli chess player, Dina Belenkaya, with the title WGM plays with a lot of women, including youtubers like the Botez sisters, to encourage more female participation. She once claimed that lower numbers of women in chess are partly due to issues of harassment faced by women in competitive settings.

Below is the link of her YouTube Channel. Go and support her!

https://www.youtube.com/@DinaBelenkaya

Women’s chess tournaments, administered by FIDE, aim to encourage more female participation and recognition in the game. Titles such as Woman Grandmaster (WGM) celebrate women’s achievements in chess, though their rating requirements are slightly lower than the open Grandmaster (GM) title. 

The Paradox of Separate Progress

However, it is worth noting that these efforts seem like progress on the surface but actually segregate women from men. They reinforce the idea that chess is a men's game and women are being "allowed" to play, when women do not need permission to play something like chess. While individual women like Dina playing with other women is indeed encouraging and brilliant and praiseworthy, organizations like FIDE have more administrative power and must encourage more women to play with men in open competitions.

Also, both the GM and WGM titles demand exceptional skill, but this distinction unintentionally reinforces a divide; implying that women need a separate category to succeed instead of being equally represented in the open field.

Real progress lies in inclusivity, otherwise these efforts take the form of performative activism that maintains rather than challenges existing barriers. True equality does not emerge from creating separate categories, but from dismantling the barriers that made separation seem necessary.

Final Thoughts

Chess is not the only sport where women are excluded or underrepresented. In sports demanding physical activity, the environment is often more friendly to men. Resources are not spent on women's teams in equal measure, creating structural under representation. Otherwise, from time to time, women have proved that they can perform equally well and even better than men when given the same opportunities, training, and support. The key is dismantling the systemic barriers that prevent equal participation rather than creating separate but supposedly equal systems.