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What makes sexism more tolerable than racism?
So I was watching a video the other day about being a woman in NYC. And something this women said stuck out to me, and this something I notice In liberal/Progressive circles when it comes to Men specifically:
There is often deep talk in many feminist circles, and society, generally, about how scary it is to be a women, and how fearful women are of Men. Im not here to argue that this fear is unjustified - I understand it fully, but here is what I think is a bigger problem with this: It is, by definition, prejudice. Thats honestly not the problem I have with it, the problem is a perceived double standard between prejudices.
Im sure everyone here is aware of the not so secret that Men as a group commit more violent crime than women - Mass Shootings, Rape, ect. As a response people are more fearful and more cautious of men as a whole. And for the most part, it seems that we consider this prejudice justifiable. No one would really refer to this as "Sexism"
Yet, with race & religion (and fascinatingly enough, this young women herself, despite being very liberal, is prejudice against her own race) we would reject this very reasoning. For example, according to the Global Terrorism Index, at least 75% of global terrorism comes from Islamic Groups. Yet, if some one says that they fear Muslims, or don't think they should be able to migrate into the country, many of these liberal types would revere this as a form of "racism", after all, not all Muslims are terrorist. Same for Black Men, they have a disproportionate amount of criminality, yet if you said what this young lady said as police officer, and that you profile Black Men more often because they are more likely to do it, you'd be cooked alive.
The obvious intuitive response someone could give here is that, Men & Women are obviously different in a way that people of different races and religions are not (unless you are a race realist). We know biologically that males are more aggressive, so them engaging in more criminality and being the scarier sex overall should be no surprise, thus, this prejudice isn't wrong. But the issue here is that this is obviously not a very progressive explanation, as these progressives typically believe that differences between the sexes are due to the social construct of gender, and that society is largely responsible for this difference. But this merely mirrors the same beliefs about differences we see between races and religious groups, no? If all these differences were indeed, socially constructed, and a product of patriarchy - white supremacy, etc, Than why wouldnt it follow that this prejudice is wrong too? Is it not sexist to believe that someone is inherently more likely to kill and rape you due to a immutable and arbitrary characteristic, like gender, in the same way believing that black people are Muslims are more likely to kill and rape others because of their faith & skin color, and treat individuals within these groups accordingly based on that? Its not something inherent about men (or muslims, black people) that make them more likely to be violent, society is to blame!
So the question here is this: Why is prejudice based on sex tolerable, but prejudice based on race & religion, not?
One aspect of this is that it's plausible that men are fundamentally more violent and prone to criminal behaviour than women, outside of extraordinarily unusual cultural circumstances. Whereas it seems more likely that Islam is not fundamentally violent insofar as it can over time evolve to be less violent than other religions. It's a cultural superstructure of a type that can change radically over the centuries – we see this with religions across history in a way we don't really with gender differences.
This distinction can be hotly debated of course but one of the thoughts at play is that suspending prejudice helps allow what can improve to improve, whereas if there's not much chance of improvement, there is less motivation to suspend prejudice.
I think this is it: nobody today, even the most self-described feminist really believes in a blank slate between the sexes in areas like physical strength and capacity for violence and criminality. There was a moment where a few feminists argued against, say, Title IX sex-separated sports leagues, but realistically the consensus is that they are necessary if we want women to play sports. It's more controversial to observe differences in non-physical realms, spanning a gamut from women's chess leagues (in my observation, uncontroversial), noticing gender attendance at the local train museum (probably no complaints), and STEM jobs (controversial: see Damore).
Racial differences seem drastically smaller in most categories than sex differences, so it's easier to argue for a blank-slate null hypothesis. Even then, in areas where differences are particularly obvious, you probably won't get too much grief: "Black people have darker skin" probably has a few objectors, but likely isn't getting tarred as racism.
Oh boy, you haven't seen the controversy?
My sense of the story is basically this. The big question hanging over the game is, "Why do we not see more women at the very top tier of chess?" Interestingly, my sense has been that almost everyone involved in this conversation is actually perfectly fine in saying that physical sports are different (this does not hold for the general population, but it seems to hold within the community of folks who are involved in the conversation about top-level chess), but obviously, the question still lingers for what is mostly understood as an almost entirely cognitive game. "Sure, it makes sense that you're going to have differences in powerlifting, but what is the nature of the underlying cause of the observed difference in chess?"
Of course, folks consider the possible counter-examples, like Judit Polgar, who peaked at #8 in the world, and there is usually some debate as to whether she stands for the proposition that it is generally possible to have a higher proportion of women at the very top or whether she is just an outlier among outliers, the Bobby Fisher of women's chess, but that even the Bobby Fisher of women's chess couldn't reach the very top of the men. There is obviously no clear answer here, but it is a question that is absolutely discussed every time the controversy appears.
The immediate domain of the actual controversy is the question, "Should there be women-only events/sections?" On the one hand, if there aren't women-only events/sections, then folks worry that women will be mostly shut out of top-tier competitions (not due to active discrimination, but because their rating levels simply won't qualify them for many qualification criteria for open sections of closed events.
Aside, because I just said "open sections of closed events", and that sounds weird. Often times, the word "open" is used in two senses. In the first sense, it is that the tournament is generally open to all participants. This would be like "the US Open", where anyone, regardless of chess level or achievement, can just decide to sign up and play. This is contrasted to "closed" or "invitational" tournaments, which generally have a set of qualification criteria or are perhaps even more directly just a set of hand-picked competitors that are invited to play. The second sense is that many tournaments, whether "open" or "closed" will often have a women's section. However, like many other sports, they won't have a "men's" section; they'll have "women's" and "open", so that a female competitor can choose to play the open section if she'd like (and for cases with qualification criteria, if she qualifies), but is also able to choose to play the women's section.
If an event has a women's section, there's usually a side question about whether the prize funds in the women's section is as high as for the open, but that's usually a side question for the main question. Generally, one of the arguments for having a women's section is that if an event doesn't have a women's section, then with the current ratings of the populations of men/women at the highest level, most women would not likely be able to compete for a significant amount of prize money... or they'll be shut out entirely from closed/invitational tournaments because they're less likely to meet the qualification criteria. With less chance of winning substantial prize money, it would be more difficult for them to continue making a career out of chess, and the thought goes that not having women's only sections, with separate prize pools, will cause more women to leave competitive chess, which would either make the disparity worse or at least sort of lock in the disparity.
On the other hand, there's a competing theory concerning the reason why there aren't more women at the highest levels. The theory goes like this. In order to improve at chess, even all the way to the top level, you must have a lot of experience playing against top-tier competition. It is by having these experiences, seeing how they best attack your weaknesses, and learning from it, that you improve your own game. If you don't keep going at it against the best, you're less likely to figure out how you can be better. On this view, having women-only events/sessions might seem like a good idea in that it makes it more likely that they'll be able to partake in a prize pool, but you run the risk of 'quarantining' the women. Perhaps someone is currently good enough to consistently win good prizes in women's sections, but if she started playing open sections, she'd likely struggle. One might argue that she should, nevertheless, play open sections in the interest of her long-term improvement, gaining the experience of playing against the absolute best players. However, her direct financial incentive is to play in the women's section, where she's more likely to make more money now. This has been argued by some number of top female players, and a few have even eschewed women's events entirely, choosing to play only opens. So far, none have made it to the top top with the men, but a few are at least putting their money where their mouth is, in a sense, and playing only open sections in accordance with this line of thinking.
So, the controversy is a bit of a trap. Both having women's sections and not having women's sections can be 'problematic', depending on how you view it. The debate is still unsettled in the community for whether there is an underlying theory that can explain the current disparity or whether that disparity can, in theory, be 'fixed'. It's not the most public controversy of controversies, but within the small community of top-level chess, it's absolutely a controversy.
I'm confused by the quarantine idea. It seems obvious to me that the best way to grind hours of experience playing chess is by playing online, which is not gender segregated. Perhaps even more valuable is playing against an engine and doing analysis of games. Do people really think that lack of tournament play in open divisions is what's holding women back, or is this just an excuse/cover to try to get rid of the women's divisions?
Online games are faster and more casual, and typically don't involve both players analysing the game afterwards (a crucial part of chess improvement). The best way to gain experience is generally to play OTB (over the board) games at classical time controls (>=1 hour per player).
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