Emil O W Kirkegaard

14/n One question that I find more interesting is: what would happen if gender segregation in mental sports (such as chess) disappeared? Yes, women can compete with men. However, there is a women-only league, and presumably this affects practice patterns.

15/n What would happen if all tournaments always were for both men and women—no women only tournaments or leagues? Some people say that there is no reason to believe that women wouldn't catch up to men. However, I don't know how plausible this is.

16/n At this exact point in time, there is ONE woman in the top 100 rankings in chess. Hou Yifan is at number 86, and she is said to be far ahead of the current second best woman.

17/n Why are the top chess positions so dominated by men? Only one woman has ever reached a top ten ranking (Judit Polgár). I think that at least two (average) psychological sex differences contribute to this disparity.

18/n First, studies have quite conclusively shown that men are more variable in their cognitive abilities than women are. They have more 'Dumbbells' as well as 'Nobels.' I won't go into the evidence here, but I find the evidence convincing that this is true.

19/n From this a natural consequence follows. Even if there is no average difference in ability between men and women, men will still be overrepresented among the absolute best individuals (as well as the worst, but we don't notice the worst).

20/n The second possible contributor is the fact that men are possibly more competitively minded. And that men are more likely to focus narrowly on specific tasks, whereas women tend to want to live more balanced lives.

21/n This is something that Camilla Benbow has found in the lifestyle choices and preferences of the extremely intellectually gifted. Even among intellectual genius women, they are more likely to say that they want to lead a balanced life with many facets to them.