Many chess tournaments have overall prizes and prizes for women, for example the Gibraltar Masters http://en.chessbase.com/post/closing-gala-in-gibraltar . There is a women's world championship title with a substantial prize, and there are national women's championships as well. At the chess olympics, called "olympiads", there are overall teams and women's teams. There isn't a lot of money in chess, but a woman does not have to be as good as a man to be invited to tournaments and to win prizes. Therefore a belief that the distribution of talent in chess is not the same for males and females (although the distributions definitely overlap) need not discourage a girl from playing seriously. Female tennis players don't give up even though they know the best male players would defeat the best female ones.