Author: Lawrence S. Tamarkin
Date: 23:19:02 12/12/98
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On December 12, 1998 at 18:29:07, SEAN EVANS wrote: >On December 12, 1998 at 00:55:28, Lawrence S. Tamarkin wrote: > >>There once was a time when women were not allowed to vote or to be member of >>Gentlemen's clubs, especially chess clubs > >mrslug.... when you worked as an administrator at The Manhattan Chess Club what >was the percentage membership of women ?! Just an estimate is fine... > >Best regards, > >Sean Maybe 1 in 20 were women. I think most years (that I was involved with them, 1985 - 1992), they had around 180 adult members, but when they added up all the Junior memberships, and family memberships, and Bullshit members, it came to around 425. Of course more girl members can (& could), be found among the kids, as generally speaking, young kids haven't yet been discouraged (& encouraged), because of their sexuality as yet. Most of those years they had a lower price for women members, and I believe that it did make it more enticing for women to not be intimidated by men, or by the (percieved), complexity of chess, and so they had more women, then they did after the Board of Directers decided to 'give women complete equality', and made the price the same. Another bad decision on their part, IMO, but those guys never listened to any of my good advice anyway:) Anyway, though you will find some women who are very passionate about equality, even in the price of things, or that their should be no womens' championship, and so forth, it has been my experience that the women that argue for that kind of equality are not joining the Chess Club, or qualifying by rating for the womens championship. So I tend to argue toward less 'political correctness', regarding womens chess, and more practicle solutions that benifit everybody. mrslug - the inkompetent chess software addict!
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