In the history of chess, hundreds of thousands of women have played the game. Only one has reached the top level. Why is this the case? Some where along the way, they seem to lose the energy for the game. Is it the prospect of child-bearing? Perhaps. Is it the predominately-male environment? Perhaps. I believe men are simply more enamored with chess for longer periods of time. At some point, women simply find other things to do with their time.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news150954140.html

Well said! Here is a scene from the movie “Predator.” Take a survey of how many men get a charge from this scene (versus women) and that may provide some data.

Clearly multiple factors are important.
The selection effect discussed in the article–fewer women get into chess in the first place so of course there will be fewer GMs just via probability arguments.

Why do fewer women get into chess? The structure of tournaments appeals to boys who want to be at war with one another. Two, the very structure of the game is bellicose. Come on it’s a battle between two midevil armies for goodness’ sake: how many little girls like that?

With the advent of Polgar’s girl-centric tournaments and web sites I think we are headed in the right direction. And as more girls and women participate in tournaments, the more those that come once just “to check it out” will be likely to stay for another as they won’t feel like an outsider, as likely happens now.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some genetic push either: girls tend to value collaboration and cooperation while boys tend to enjoy battles and competition. There isn’t enough data to say this with authority, but it wouldn’t be surprising given the hormonal differences. So if we want girls, have tournaments that stress collaboration and cooperation more. I’m not sure how this could be done (teams perhaps?), but those of you into scholastic chess probably have good ideas.

Incidentally, a great site that for some reason has been under my radar. I’m linking on my sidebar now.

Focus is why Armenia (pop 3M) has several of the world’s elite GM’s, even though they are a small country. Focus is why the Lithuainian (pop 3M) men’s Olympic basketball team won 3 straight bronze medals since 1992, and hasn’t finished lower than 4th.

And focus is definitely why of the 30 top money leaders on the ladies Professional Golf Tour, 11 are from South Korea. And 3 of the others are of Korean heritage. What’s the explanation? Playing golf is the in thing to do for girls in Korea .. they all play, and aspire to excel, resulting in the discovery and development of the best.

Just like the harvesting of urban black male basketball players in the US .. it’s the sport of choice, everyone plays, resulting in the truly talented being discovered and developed (or exploited depending upon your perspective ) If it was just because they were black, then Nigeria and Brazil would dominate world basketball by a considerable margin. But as we know, all of their youngsters play soccer.

I don’t believe women look at chess as war either and that is point I’m making. It is not at that level of seriousness for them. Most females that I know view chess as a game you play, win/lose, have fun with it and then put it away at some point and do something else. Men seem to have much more of a determination at proving something in chess and it continues throughout life given our obsession with sports/combat.

Their analysis fails to get at the reason of why men are superior in chess. Looking at numbers tells you nothing about why women don’t excel as much. As I stated, numbers did not prevent the Polgars from excelling, two of which (at a young age) were playing at Grandmaster level. I believe it has to do more with psychological differences between the genders. Perhaps these types of activities do not interest women as much… as a whole.

There are many casual factors involved. I would love to take a look at their research model to see why they used the conceptual framework they did.