I was just wondering if anyone could explain why Go is gender segregated in Japan (maybe Korea and China too, I don't know much about the pro systems there.) I won't bother typing out all the benefits of having men and women competing together, because I feel like we could all come up with a sizable list, I just don't see why they haven't gotten rid of "Men's Honinbo" and "Women's Honinbo" and just have "Honinbo."

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Hi Faro,

Currently in China, the annual pro qualifying tourney is separated between male candidates and female candidates. The male candidates compete among themselves, fighting to be the top certain number (about 20, I think). The female candidates fight among themselves, to make the top certain number (4 ?). You may also ask why. If they have only one big qualifying tourney, what do you think would happen ? (This was in fact the case in the 1980's: at that time, there was no separation: the female candidates fought among the male candidates. ) You need not answer, as you probably don't have any data to show one way or another. It's a thought experiment. (But the pros know the answer. )

I don't know about the current situation in the Nihon Kiin annual pro qualifying tourney. But if the depiction in Hikaru was accurate, then at least at the time of its original publication, there was no separation between the male and female candidates. This was back in the late 1990's.

Another factoid/question: for people who are familiar with the Kansai Kiin pro system: how does a female candidate become a Kansai Kiin pro ?Research question for you: how do the prizes differ between the (open) Honinbo and Women Honinbo ? Can you come up with any reasons for the differences, if any ?

More thought experiment for you: suppose, as you asked, they got rid of the Women Honinbo and had only one Honinbo. Suppose further that they have empirical evidence to show that very few, or even zero, women pros would make it in that case. If that's the situation, would you still prefer to have only one Honinbo (with zero or very few women pros making it to the final rounds), or, would you prefer to have a separate Women Honinbo, with more women pro participation ?

If you don't have this segregation, it's highly likely that there will be few, if any, women gaining titles. There is a clear need for female titles, if you want to motivate female talent.

There's two problems, here. First is that women will compete less intensely against men. It's been extensively belabored in chess, but the findings are applicable to any mind sport. The gist of it is that if women are lied to and told their opponent is female, they'll play better than if they knew the opponent was male. They will also play worse in the inverse case.

There is nothing to prove that there is an inherently recognizable "female" kind of play, which is why they could lie to people about the gender of an opponent, so long as they weren't able to see who they were playing against. There is no proof to suggest men play significantly worse or better against women.

Second, because women are perceived to lose to men by default, there is a much smaller talent pool to recruit top players from. Who likes a game which is rigged against you?

Check this out for some science: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.440/abstract

There is no "Men's Honinbo" in Japan. Any Japanese pro can qualify to play in it.

As to why no female pro has yet to qualify... well, that's a different matter.

Ah.... As it happens, "You play like a woman" is used as an insult to go-players in Japan. There is a distinct style of play amongst Japanese women that, unfortunately, doesn't transfer very well to playing against a wider range of opponents.

There are not usually men only tournaments but open ones which men almost always win as they are stronger, and women only ones. Rui Naiwei (female) is famous for winning the "men's" Kuksu title in Korea a while back.

Were there follow-up studies to that pilot?

So it looks like my thinking of "let the women compete and they will rise to the level of the men" is not correct?

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It has to be based on evidence.
Do some research on the current empirical data.
Of course, things could change.

Here is a graph of the ratings of Japanese pros from mamumamu0413's ratings site. The figures are the brand new update for February (games played through 1/31). The graph is arranged from the top rated player (Iyama) on the left to the lowest rated player on the right. Men are coded in blue and women are coded in red. The top-rated woman player, Xei Imin, is ranked 119th overall with a rating of 6.901. Based on the rating differential, there is only a 19% probability that she would beat the 20th-ranked pro (forget Iyama!), So Yokoku, currently rated 8.197.

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- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Don't forget for a professional, playing Go is their job: they need to earn money to support their life. Female only tournaments allow women to earn more than they otherwise would. If you take that away being a female pro becomes less financially viable so they might change career (or not go into it in the first place). If you want strong women you want lots of them playing and studying Go full-time.

Could you give some specific examples of this womanish style?

It's wild and aggressive.

I read Go Nation: Chinese Masculinities and the Game of Weiqi in China a few weeks ago, and it's clear that in China there are significant social pressures associating weiqi as a masculine activity. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are similar undercurrents in Japan. The research mentioned earlier in this thread regarding women who play worse against a known male opponent would suggest that there is some sort of social/psychological conditioning to lead women to expect that they cannot compete with equally competent men. At the highest levels of play, I would think that even a slight psychological edge could make a significant difference in long term results.

I suspect that women's tournaments raise the level of female play by making go a viable professional career for more women, though women will have to play and study with the top male pros if they hope to challenge them. It will be interesting to see if the women catch up with men over time or whether the gap is rooted in physical as well as social differences. (I suspect that the top tier of women will be competitive with the men, though I don't know how long that will take.)

I'm not terribly familiar with the Japanese women's professional scene, but from what I know I think that Fujisawa Rina is probably the best hope for the current generation. She's already very strong at a young age, and her family name offers a competing social narrative to the idea that women aren't as good as men. I could be way off, though. Only time will tell!

Funny. I have heard Chinese and Koreans say, "You play like you're Japanese" with the exact same intent.

Prejudice annoys me.

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Fujisawa Rina has stated her goal is to make it to one of the major title's leagues, and she knows it's going to be very difficult. However, there is no system bias against her or any female in any of the tournaments in Japan.

In my experience, it's not a blanket insult, but more a stereotype (somewhat true I think) of Japanese Go being rather softer and less fighty, and more based on good shape than crazy reading. So if a bad move is soft it could be criticised as Japanese style, but also when ahead a solid simple honte move could also be praised as Japanese style.

Fascinating! I visited a typical weiqi school for children in a 2nd-tier Chinese city last year and the student gender was evenly split, though I didn't count heads. I had no idea that there was a gender bias. Do you recommend the book?

Yes. There are some gaps in the presentation of the material, but it was an interesting read and there are not a lot of English texts that use go as a lens for exploring broader cultural issues.

There is no systematic bias within the go world but societal in Japan there is definitely bias against women. We know of the old custom that wives walk a few paces in back of their husbands. I remember that in the mid-1980's it was considered daring and making a feminist statement for a woman to wear blue jeans. Then there are the softer language usages identified as female speech. There has been a lot of progress in societal women's treatment but these societal biases translate into concrete ways. In the USA the lower rate of achievement of women in scientific and engineering subjects, and management in business, is attributable to societal bias. I would expect that societal bias in Japan would manifest itself in women's go performance.

P.S. I believe that there are societal biases against women in Korea and China, too, and how is the male/female balance in the higher dan ranks in those societies?