‘Avoiding trouble? A narrativediscursive approach to sexism and
women’s identity work’
Stephanie Taylor
[email protected]
8 May 2015
Women stage counterattack in chess sexism row
THE GUARDIAN Tuesday 21 April 2015
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Nigel Short:
‘I never said that women have inferior brains’
‘Women have all sorts of skills where they are superior to
men’
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Nigel Short:
‘Why should they function in the same way? I don’t have
the slightest problem in acknowledging that my wife
possesses a much higher degree of emotional intelligence
than I do.
‘Likewise, she doesn’t feel embarrassed in asking me to
manoeuvre the car out of our narrow garage. One is not
better than the other, we just have different skills. It would
be wonderful to see more girls playing chess, and at a
higher level, but rather than fretting about inequality,
perhaps we should just gracefully accept it as a fact.’
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‘The comments have been derided as sexist and ignorant
by the chess community.’
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Sue Maroroa:
‘There is an attitude within the chess community that
women are worse than men. It’s just like any old boys’ club
which is dominated by older men who still have that
attitude, ‘Oh, she’s a girl, so she can’t play.’
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Amanda Ross:
“She must have brought her man brain. Let’s just hope
Nigel didn’t crash his car on those days, trying to park it. At
least this resolves the age-old debate as to whether there’s
a direct link between chess-playing ability and intelligence.
Clearly not.”
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Rita Atkins:
“I teach a lot of chess to schoolkids and I think it is to do
with the fact that girls shy away from aggressive
competitiveness at a young age whereas young boys are
very competitive. I think that is the main reason why girls
don’t get into it as much when they are young, and so don’t
get to competition level.”
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‘education and employment’ contribute to ‘re-designating
young women as subjects of capacity who will refrain from
challenging existing gender hierarchies as they come
forward to occupy a position of visibility’ (McRobbie 2009,
p. 72)
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