The Wright Stuff TV channel 5 show on now

[Jacqui Thomas]

Apparently on this mornings show is a Grandmaster who is going to explain why women can't play chess! No there wasn't - it was the panel briefly discussing a headliner in the Dail Telegraph where apparently Nigel Short has said that they can't play as they don't have the brains!

[Jacqui Thomas]

I would edge on the side of not so much they can't play but they don't play because they do have brains

[Linda McCusker]

)

I used to play chess regularly with family members when I was a child but now I just do not have the time to play chess. Between working full time, shopping, cooking, cleaning for the family as well as being the family taxi driver, gardener, peace maker, etc etc

On a more serious note comments like Nigel Shorts could be very off putting to young girls who would like to play chess but are now being made to feel that they are inadequate ~x(

[PeterReidSmith]

Perhaps it was said in half-jest ; perhaps not - unfortunately, having returned to chess only fairly recently, my view is that discriminatory attitudes like that are fairly well entrenched. The real danger, though, is not so much the odd stupid (but at least explicit) comment, but rather the implicit or even subconscious assumptions and biases that can so easily be made - I have seen this in practice on several occasions: not "evil", just thoughtless. Sadly, there is no practical cure for that sort of thing. No one ever sees themselves as a racist, nor a sexist - there will always be a post rationalisation, or a joke.