I think her perspective is interesting and nearly unique given her status as an elite player for a couple of decades, but she isn't talking chess in the video. (The sociology of chess, maybe.)
I think if you're talking about a world that is pure chess, sure, but a lot of women enjoy women's only events. Ending titles like WGM would be messing with the entire structure of how thousands of women compete. I think we have more important things to worry about in chess rn.
As much as I am a fan of Judit (and always rooted for her when she was competing), not everyone wants to compete like she did. A lot of women players, for example, have talked about liking to play chess in a community of women. It seems like FIDE should not de-incentivize that.
Maybe it disincentivizes women because they're given an excuse to settle for being good compared to other women rather than just good, period? (I definitely feel that way about other non-gender-based titles like the CM [Candidate Master] title, why I suspect exists primarily to help FIDE collect fees from those who want to have those magic letters attached to their name. I'd miss my FM title a little, but a world where the FM title disappeared in exchange for eliminating all the W-- titles would be okay as well. Becoming a GM should be the dream, with the IM title a worthwhile consolation prize. For the rest of us: happy hunting--we have something to strive for.)
Also, it's not obvious that eliminating women's titles would chase women away from the game*, and I don't see why a lack of women's titles would bring an end to women's tournaments. There's no "HSM" title (High School Master), "JHSM" (Junior High School Master) title, "KM" (Kindergarten Master) title, etc. Nevertheless, junior events keep going and growing. (There's also no "Senior Grandmaster" title [there is a semi-official USCF Senior Master title, but that has nothing to do with age; it refers to someone whose USCF rating is 2400 or higher], but there are nevertheless a growing number of tournaments for relative and full-fledged old-timers.)
* Maybe a few would quit chess, but it's possible that even more would girls and women would be inspired to take up the game if the lack of women's titles challenged more women to draw closer to the level of the best male players.
Definitely the best women player of all time and a top player regardless of gender in the annals of chess. When she talks chess I listen.
I think her perspective is interesting and nearly unique given her status as an elite player for a couple of decades, but she isn't talking chess in the video. (The sociology of chess, maybe.)
I think if you're talking about a world that is pure chess, sure, but a lot of women enjoy women's only events. Ending titles like WGM would be messing with the entire structure of how thousands of women compete. I think we have more important things to worry about in chess rn.
As much as I am a fan of Judit (and always rooted for her when she was competing), not everyone wants to compete like she did. A lot of women players, for example, have talked about liking to play chess in a community of women. It seems like FIDE should not de-incentivize that.
Maybe it disincentivizes women because they're given an excuse to settle for being good compared to other women rather than just good, period? (I definitely feel that way about other non-gender-based titles like the CM [Candidate Master] title, why I suspect exists primarily to help FIDE collect fees from those who want to have those magic letters attached to their name. I'd miss my FM title a little, but a world where the FM title disappeared in exchange for eliminating all the W-- titles would be okay as well. Becoming a GM should be the dream, with the IM title a worthwhile consolation prize. For the rest of us: happy hunting--we have something to strive for.)
Also, it's not obvious that eliminating women's titles would chase women away from the game*, and I don't see why a lack of women's titles would bring an end to women's tournaments. There's no "HSM" title (High School Master), "JHSM" (Junior High School Master) title, "KM" (Kindergarten Master) title, etc. Nevertheless, junior events keep going and growing. (There's also no "Senior Grandmaster" title [there is a semi-official USCF Senior Master title, but that has nothing to do with age; it refers to someone whose USCF rating is 2400 or higher], but there are nevertheless a growing number of tournaments for relative and full-fledged old-timers.)
* Maybe a few would quit chess, but it's possible that even more would girls and women would be inspired to take up the game if the lack of women's titles challenged more women to draw closer to the level of the best male players.