Why Top-Level Chess is Still a Boys' Club
There are certainly fewerfemale chess players to begin with, but it appearsunlikely participation can explain the whole story.
Unlike the wildly popular Netflix chess-themed series The Queen’s Gambit, female players have struggled to climb to the top of the real-life chess world. Just 37 of the more than 1,600 international chess grandmasters are women. The current top-rated female, Hou Yifan, is ranked 89th in the world, while the reigning women’s world champion Ju Wenjun is 404th.
Why? There are certainly fewerfemale chess players to begin with, but it appearsunlikely participation can explain the whole story.