Thursday, March 02, 2006

Boys & Girls - What's the diff?

Susan Polgar asks, "Can female players be as good in chess as male players?" Answer: yes, but here's the follow-up, "how come very few female players can compete on the same level as their male counterpart?"

Polgar discusses some possible reasons, including "Physiological and Physical differences". When she writes, "As they get older, girls tend to develop faster in many ways", she probably has in mind the very obvious. Love humps! For the life of me, I can't think of why these should be problematic. Hec, in many ways love humps are apparently an advantage. Who can forget this celebrated case from South Australia?

What Polgar doesn't mention is menstruation. In Chess Bitch, the author, Jennifer Shahade, lambasted Polgar for giving menstruation as an excuse for poor play and even as a deciding factor in the choice of opening! Of course, such an idea is quite ridiculous, so maybe Polgar has learnt her lesson.

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