Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Stereotype threat: girls and chess

This has been an interesting discusssion. At times, it called to mind the story about blind men arguing about an elephant. Personally, I agreed with many different people who appear to disagree with each other.

While the average visual spatial ability may be higher for males versus female, it hardly explains the disportionate gender particpation at a base level chess club. At the same time, I do believe the gender disparity at the top (national/international competition level)is partly due to the disparity in visual spatial ability at the extreme tails. I have read about this phenomenon in so many sources that I have trouble pin-pointing the original studies but I believe Dr. Stanley (father of above-level testing, SET creater, etc.) is one of them. Apparently, the fact that males are more genetically vulnerable (to disorders, etc.)is tied in to the higher occurrence of "extreme" visual spatial/mathematical ability in males versus females. Even as recently as three years ago when DS and DD took the SCAT as 2nd graders through Hopkins, the charts for quantitative scores were considerably different at the very top for males versus females 2nd graders.

I am a female who attended excellent schools and was always the top math student in her grade until college. I know that I was better than at least 99%+ of males in mathematics but the truly extreme math abilities in my encounters have all been male. In other words, I have met males who were above my league but I have not met any females who were (although I am sure there are some).

The disparity in gender participation at base level chess club and local level math competitions could be partly innate personal characteristics and partly cultural indoctrination. I have a DS and DD who are the same age and there is a huge stereotypical difference in their math and chess abilities, but that is neither here nor there as that is a single anecdotal example. Interestingly,notwithstanding DS' vastly superior math ability, my DD, who is very artistic, actually has the superior visual spatial ability and working memory. What struck me recently was the realization that DD was taking it easy and purposely not trying to win during the first couple of weeks when she was competing against her girl classmates at 24 (a math game/competition that relies heavily on working memory and processing speed) but she beat her whole group (including one of the top players) when the coach changed her group to all boys the following weeks.