Personally I dislike the idea of any kind of positive discrimination. Yes, we have youth prizes, but surely that's in part because youth players are at a disadvantage. We wouldn't ever expect that a 7-year-old, whose brain would still be developing, could beat the strongest adult players (although I'm well-aware that there are plenty who could destroy me!) Even a 17-year-old is presumably at a disadvantage - it's much harder to attend most local clubs, and harder to go off to tournaments at will as well. Equally, 'veterans' are unlikely to be able to compete on the same terms as young adults. In the case of females there's no in-built disadvantage (arguably? I did have an ex-boyfriend who argued that males are biologically more inclined to become strong go players: male brains are more suited to devoting themselves obsessively to one task, since from an evolutionary point of view, it's more important for males to excel in order to mate. We'd have to know a lot more about the human brain to judge the fairness of that, I suspect.)

I agree with the BGA, then, that we shouldn't have separate women's championships. (I was joking that if Scotland becomes independent I could declare myself women's champion, as (I believe) the only Scottish female who regularly attends tournaments. But it would be a rather empty victory!) I don't really see the point in the separate men's and women's categories at the WMSG either - I suspect it's because they're modelled on the Olympics, but for physical events there's a much more obvious justification. And theoretically I dislike the enforced male/female aspect of pair go (although I must admit than in practice I do enjoy being able to be part of a relatively strong pair go team, solely due to the shortage of females). I tend to feel that people will play go first and foremost because they enjoy it and find it interesting, not because there's a chance to become Women's Champion or whatever.

I'm also never convinced by the argument about off-putting clubs filled with socially incompetent men who enter blind panics when they see a female. I've never felt uncomfortable at go clubs or tournaments because of my gender. I attended a French club for a year where I was not only the only female, but also thirty years younger than the vast majority of the other members - it was the warmest and friendliest club I've ever been to. I think my best friend, who is also used to being the only female at club meetings, would say the same. Perhaps we're just exceptional? Sadly I've never had the chance to question any of those female beginners who came along to our club once and never returned...

But surely this is a broader socio-cultural issue, rather than one specifically related to go. There are more male computer scientists, mathematicians, video gamers. Our local board game club is dominated by males. An interest in board games or computer science seems to be the most common path for discovering go in the first place. (I was taught by a male computer scientist myself.) Men are more commonly found involved in logical, technical pursuits, whereas women are more dominant in the arts (at least at universities these days). I've no idea to what extent that's a nature or nurture thing, but I can't imagine any amount of positive discrimination achieving very much while this remains the norm.

It occurs to me that all I'm really saying is 'I don't think we can do much', which I realise isn't a very constructive response ... but there it is...!

Paternalism is about paters forcing their children to do things that they don't necessarily want to do, on the grounds that it will benefit them whether they know it or not, or that they'll grow to love it, or something similar. In a loose sense, it applies to anyone forcing anyone else to do anything, for their own good. If we passed a law forcing women to play go and frog-marched them to the goban, that would be paternalism. If we make go attractive in other ways in an attempt to inveigle female participation, our motives may involve some quiet echo of paternalism (because we think some of the people who try go will enjoy it much more than they had imagined possible), but the tearing down of gender barriers has absolutely nothing to do with paternalism either in the direct or the metaphorical sense.

What I was trying to show was a 'joke for men' , of the sort of 'beer swilling' variety. I thought it was quite relevant to the topic myself, and illustrated well what Tapir was talking about.

I am not sure how we could prove somebody was a woman on KGS, since it would involve an identity check. So I could only answer that in a rhetorical sense. Yes, I would be happy for events like that to take place on the server. There are already youth leagues, a LBGT room, school rooms, etc.

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North Lecale

I think this might be a 'self selecting pool' Personally I have met people who felt the opposite, but I can't say I've done an extensive survey on the matter.

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North Lecale

Since Javaness2 attached a picture to illustrate tapir's post, I'd like to attach a picture of a famous movie to illustrate the idea of positive discrimination in similar light. What I am trying to show is a 'joke for women', of the sort of Javaness2's BGA picture variety. I think it is quite relevant to the topic myself, and illustrates well what Javaness2 is talking about.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

@Martha Thanks for sharing your perspective, and welcome to L19. I agree that positive discrimination is generally not a good idea. It's interesting here to look at the two sides of the argument in relation to the Korean women's league. Those in favor of a separate league say that it helps support female pros who would otherwise have a hard time making a living and it increases the spotlight on female players, which in turn encourages more girls to try and turn pro. On the other hand, some argue that too many women's tournaments isolate them from valuable experience they would get playing stronger male players. This is thought to be the reason why no female players, with the exception of Rui Naiwei, have had consistent success against strong male players. From a quick glance at GoGoD, approximately 90% of men's games are played against other men, while >50% of women's games are against other women. This would seem to be a severe disadvantage in terms of experience. So it would probably have been better if a separate womens' league had never been formed, but it isn't really practical to just abolish it now that so many are involved in it.

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"Those who calculate greatly will win; those who calculate only a little will lose, but what of those who don't make any calculations at all!? This is why everything must be calculated, in order to foresee victory and defeat."-The Art of War

1) The female only tournaments give them more competition not less. They wouldn't play a single game more against male players if they were abolished. because the number of games played in a k.o. system depends exclusively on winning the previous round. = The whole argument is a bogeyman. 2) A reserved professional qualification tournament for females already is positive discrimination. If abolished you would see that the remaining female players play on par with their male colleagues (the few top players already have a positive winning rate against male players), but they would be much fewer in numbers - likely better reflecting the sex ratio among the amateur player base, but for a wide range of reasons the associations want a higher number of female professionals. 3) The thread was originally about amateur players, where there not only is little to no positive discrimination but apparently outright hostility when the topic is barely mentioned.

@tchan001: I don't think that an admin should derail a topic by trolling. You should be the good guy, remember?

Tapir, I'm appalled that the other admins allow Javaness2 to post an image which clearly shows depiction of exposed female breasts. And since I'm currently here discussing the situation in the role of a member rather than as an admin, I am not in a position to do something about it except continue a discussion which is on topic regarding aspects of positive discrimination related to the image which Javaness2 posted to illustrate your point.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I'm shocked! Shocked to see cartoon boobs in this establishment!

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Patience, grasshopper.

Regarding my position on positive discrimination in go, I'm against any form of it in the game of go. I view go as an intellectual art where the most impressive artists are given the praise they deserve for their own efforts. I view positive discrimination as demeaning as it implies that certain classes of people are inferior and deserve a helping hand from those who view themselves as superior.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Really, the best way to start encouraging anyone is as kids. Adult women may not be intimidated by going to a mostly-male tournament, but young girls might.


If you look at the pictures from the AGF's Go Camp, you MIGHT see one single girl in a pack of boys. What does that mean at a camp? It means that one girl sleeps alone, instead of with a bunch of friends. She will probably have little part in the group conversations, since kids (ESPECIALLY boys, at least when I was a kid) seem determined to band into gender groups.In short, she'll probably feel like an outsider most of the time.

Lately I've seen ads for a girl's tech camp, to encourage girls interested in engineering and technology. While I am not in favor of separate female tournaments, I do think a girl's camp would find more female takers than the mixed camp.

Encouraging your local girl scout troop to learn Go might be another option to make it an attractive social event.

And, frankly, I think the majority of Americans (especially kids) learn about go from Hikaru No Go, and while the show/manga does address the fact that women play, and there are female pros in the background, for the most part, the females are shown as weak. On the rare occaion a female is shown playing, it's usually when she's resigning or losing a game. All the super-powered, important characters are male. It is intimated that Akari only plays because she's trying to impress Hikaru. After Akari has been playing Go about two years, they show her getting a lesson from the new guy who just learned to play during the summer. Kaneko, the best of the girls, has to take a three stone handicap from Yuki Mitani. I believe the girl's team doesn't make it past the first round of their tournament. Asumi Nase, the one female insei character, is nowhere near being in the running during the pro exam. In the manga, they did a side story where she went on a blind date, and while the story was hilarious and welcome, it also reinforced the idea that it's weird for girls to play go and would freak out potential boyfriends.

I suppose it's too much to ask for a popular show or cartoon about Go that is less boy-centric, or at least has a few female characters who can kick serious butt on the goban.

*long deep breath*

This does not make sense.

Positive discrimination in most areas does not imply that people are inferior. Certainly no one who listened to its proponents would ever say that's what they thought. So the implication is entirely in your mind.

After all, if I thought that women were fundamentally inferior, and that's why they didn't play go, why on Earth would I try to fix that? It would be tilting at windmills. Indeed, everywhere you find this debate happening, the people who think there are natural and immutable differences that mean women can't be equally successful in math/go/politics/business are the ones who say efforts to include women are a crock.* People advocate positive discrimination in various fields because they believe the gender split in those fields is a historical relic that can be overcome.

In the case of women and go, what people like me believe is that our society tends to discourage women and especially young girls from these sorts of activities, that this is pointless and stupid. I do think it's possible that there's an innate gender difference that means that even absent discouraging influences, women would never play in equal numbers. But given the massive progress in intellectual endeavors (including math and physics) that women have made in a generation, assuming innate differences today would be like assuming we'd never reach the moon back in 1900.

* There are intelligible reasons to oppose positive discrimination that don't depend on thinking its targets are inferior so I'm not asserting the converse.

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Occupy Babel!

What's wrong with offering a helping hand? While the idea of positive discrimination does imply a skill gap, I think that it's more about righting a wrong than about superior feeling people patting themselves on the back. In the case of go, I don't really feel that anything wrong has been done to women that needs to be rectified, but if you took the view that some part of the population had been excluded from our circles, i.e., discriminated against, and thus as a group hadn't had the chance to develop their skills, then it might not be enough to just stop excluding them. The question regarding women is, do they tend not to play go because of their nature and their choices or because our schools and go organizations have not provided them well with the necessary skills. I personally think that it's more the former, and that fewer women become pilots or astronomers for example because they are less interested in spatial relationships than men are. But that's just conjecture. In any case, if go is treating a group of people unfairly, then it's not really fair to say that they ought to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

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Patience, grasshopper.

The other bizarre thing about this comment is that no one is proposing giving women extra komi, or lying and saying they games that they lost. We're talking about ways to encourage participation.

But if you're worried about praise on lesser artists, I suggest you visit the US Go Congress. They have prizes for kyu players. Talk about not putting the little guy in his place.

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Occupy Babel!

I wonder if I will press submit at the end of this...

Things have gotten a bit touchy here. Personally, while I think the world of tchan - I too found his "ladies night" joking response offputting - but maybe we can put a positive spin on it.

I tend to think that men and women are different, in the way they behave and the type of activities they enjoy. Now, I think these differences are NOT universal, and can certainly be overstated, but I am not sure they should be ignored.

We need more go players, and with over half of the world women, more go playing women would be great. But I tend to agree that women themselves can be offended by some forms of positive discrimination.

It may be that less women are inclined to like go - I am not sure we can do anything about that.

I think it may be that women are less inclined in general to make the time for a weekly go club, or even hopping online to play. I am not being sexist with this point - on the contrary, I truly mean this as praise for women, and shame on men, but they end up doing the lion share, rightly or wrongly, of the domestic work in this world - and this is in spite of the fact that many of them have jobs. They work all day, and can not get away from the work at home - so are less likely to make the time to travel to a go club, or sit in silence in front of a computer playing a game. This situation of course applies when comparing moms to dads and husbands to wives - yes there are exceptions - but on average the woman ends up doing more domestically, regardless of outside employment. And anyone who has visited the apartments and homes of single people, will note that attention to domestic detail will still be greater when women live alone, compared to men living on their own.

Not sure we can do much about this either....

Now, some might say - Wait a minute, woman do make times for games - look at bridge, or games on facebook. And they do sit in front of the computer - writing emails and posting on facebook - certainly in similar if not greater proportion then men. So that means that you (me) are (am) wrong.

Well that is entirely possible, but I submit that there is another difference amongst men and women, again on average. Both sexes are social - but men tend to be far more likely to compete socially - making competitive games a natural for men, women are less likely to view competition as fun socially or relaxing. The more interactive, cooperative and social a game is, the more likely in my (sexist?) view, women will enjoy it.

This is why I think Pair Go is a very good initiative. It makes the game more social, it enourages conversation, discussion and learning. The comparison to bridge is natural, and I really think it is fun, and it works.

Aside from that, I think it is important to make your club inviting to women simply by making it social. Talk, joke and review each other's games. This is going to appeal to both beginner players and women in my view. A bunch of guys, playing the same people they play every week and not talking is not going to appeal to ANY newcomers, let alone women.

So, putting a positive spin on tchan's remark, a lighter tone to go clubs is good - food, drink, conversation makes the game more inclusive and fun for EVERYONE - the grumbling serious guys can interact as little as they want, and to their own detriment.

Let me be clear here - I am NOT suggesting that female go players do not take their game seriously. On the contrary, I find that women players are more likely to record their games, more likely to study them, more likely to ask for help and far, far, far, more likely to listen to advice than male counterparts. To me, they strive to use the time set aside for go efficiently, instead of leaping suddenly, spitefully and stupidly into the next game as guys tend to do.

Caveat number two - do not treat the woman differently, change the club. Go over everyone's games, help ALL the beginners, joke with everyone. A club that grinds to a halt where 6 guys simply stop what they are doing and direct all their comments on how the woman is playing is simply going to increase the chance she does not return.

So this has been kind of rambling and I hope it does not offend anyone or everyone. Go clubs are the best way to recruit players, but they are certainly the best to recruit women - and the more interactive and social the club, the better for beginners in general, and women in particular. And sure, some food and drink would not hurt - just do not expect the women to provide the refreshments.

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My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle

How can you make such a claim with certainty? You're assuming that none of the sponsors for women's events wouldn't support new general tournaments, and that players wouldn't have freer schedules, enabling them to play in general tournaments more often than they can now. No one can say for certain how the situation would change.Of course it is, but that wouldn't be necessary either if there was no division. You are actually proving my point here by saying that the remaining women would be playing on par with the men. The level of play is currently not even close: Park Jiun is the highest Korean woman in the national rankings. She is 75th overall. Compare this with international chess rankings, where Judit Polgar is 36th overall. The current system is putting female players at a disadvantage in terms of opportunities to increase their strength. Note that this argument is not really about gender. It is about the benefits, or lack thereof, of segregating one group of people from another.Right. Why do you think I said it is not feasible to simply abolish the women's league, now that it exists?

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"Those who calculate greatly will win; those who calculate only a little will lose, but what of those who don't make any calculations at all!? This is why everything must be calculated, in order to foresee victory and defeat."-The Art of War

The issue of compensating for past injustices certainly sounds noble, and I am sure that it is well intentioned. But it eventually suffers from the same logical failing. How do you know when you have done enough?
If you have a goal - say 50% participation - you again are being paternalistic. If you have no goal, then the act of compensating never ends, and becomes a permanent guilt-ridden indulgence.
I could cite numerous examples, but that would fall afoul of the TOS ban on politics.

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

I would agree with positive incentivation, like in chess, but not discrimination (there is not such thing like possitive discrimination).


It should be a special price for the top ranked women in the tournaments as they are mixed (and must be mixed), just if she didn't get any of the regular ones (in that case it can be declared void, or given to the next woman in the list). This is similar to what we do with kids, they always get the price from top category if they reach it (a 10-years old could win the 3º post in "Under 18" even if there is an "Under 14" category).

The same could be done with girls (in chess is quite normal), but I haven't seen it in Go, at least in Spanish tournaments.



And about recruitment... I would recommend and extra efford in sending some kind of adverticements to other smaller girls clubs that are more common and well organized... as programmer girls clubs, engineers girls club, girls math clubs, geek girls club... that are people likely to like Go.

Who cares? Today isn't "eventually." If the ratio of men to women at Go clubs is 15 to 1, or 10 to 1, then we have obviously not done enough; that's a ridiculous ratio and can't possibly be explained by natural gender-related psychological differences, or similar. When it's 2 to 1, then you can start quibbling.

(Not that it would actually hurt anyone to have "too much" encouragement for some minority group; holding any realistic quantity of women's tournaments and tournaments for Bulgarians and tournaments for people who are under five feet tall and tournaments for bisexuals doesn't serve to discourage majority players.)

Would you be ok if the AGA had a positive discrimination policy which bars male go players from representing the US at the WAGC because they wanted to encourage female go players to have more chances at international events? Is that the type of righting a wrong you are looking for?

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.