What's the deal with female pros?

[Joaz Banbeck]

Why do we even need to distinguish between male and female players? Surely go is one game where physical differences are irrelevant.

Male and female brains are physically different. Males have more grey stuff than females; females have more white stuff than males. Some gender differences in the brains of fetuses are visible as soon as the 26th week of pregnancy.

Not surprisingly, physical differences result in cognitive differences. On the average, women tend to be better at languages, and have better fine motor skills, and recognize other's emotions more quickly; men tend to be better at math and geometry, and they are better at navigating. ( It is not clear how much of these differences is due to social conditioning. But the relevant parts of the brain appear to be different at birth before any signifcant conditioning can occur )

Go seems to be a game better suited for a male brain.

[amnal]

Why do we even need to distinguish between male and female players? Surely go is one game where physical differences are irrelevant.

Male and female brains are physically different. Males have more grey stuff than females; females have more white stuff than males. Some gender differences in the brains of fetuses are visible as soon as the 26th week of pregnancy.

This is probably true on at least some reasonable level.

But, with this kind of issue that is both biologically and socially very complex, I want to see some exact numbers. What does 'more' mean? How much more?

When it comes to going from here to making actual claims about the effect on cognitive performance, lets be even more careful. On what basis are these claims made? Are they normalised for all possible variables other than inherent brain construction? How many are there? Are they statistically significant?

From here, even if it turns out to be a biological fact go is 'better suited' to a male brain, what does that mean? How wide are the distributions? What shape are the distributions? How big is the overlap? If we aren't careful, we can lump everything from 'women can never expect more than a tiny fraction of 9ds' to 'inherent brain differences ultimately make no functional difference' under one heading.

[Phelan]

I think I've seen this male brain/female brain thing discussed before, either in senseis or the defunct GoDiscussions.

As far as I remember, there are no numbers that indicated anything strongly.

[jts]

By way of comparison - there is a much better biological basis for the claim that the best male tennis player in the world should be stronger than the best female tennis player in the world, than there is for Go. (Not saying that the argument is good or bad in either case - getting into that argument would be a horrible time-sink - just that the latter claim is much more silly than the first.)

And yet somehow female professional tennis produces matches and stories that are every bit as gripping as male professional tennis. And colleges and high schools are able to support amazing tennis teams for both genders. And tennis camps are full of little boys and girls, in equal abundance. And if you want to play a casual game for fun, you can easily find another casual player of either gender around your level.

Anyone who doesn't think that the Go world would be healthier with tennis-levels of mobilization of potential female players is neglecting the fundamentals.

[Phelan]

By way of comparison - there is a much better biological basis for the claim that the best male tennis player in the world should be stronger than the best female tennis player in the world, than there is for Go. (Not saying that the argument is good or bad in either case - getting into that argument would be a horrible time-sink - just that the latter claim is much more silly than the first.)

And yet somehow female professional tennis produces matches and stories that are every bit as gripping as male professional tennis. And colleges and high schools are able to support amazing tennis teams for both genders. And tennis camps are full of little boys and girls, in equal abundance. And if you want to play a casual game for fun, you can easily find another casual player of either gender around your level.

Anyone who doesn't think that the Go world would be healthier with tennis-levels of mobilization of potential female players is neglecting the fundamentals.

I don't think anyone ever argues against having more female players in Go. I don't see what your ultimate point is.

[billywoods]

Why do we even need to distinguish between male and female players? Surely go is one game where physical differences are irrelevant.

You only have to look at the statistics to see that physical differences are far from irrelevant. For whatever reason, female professionals are generally far fewer and weaker. The game is not devoid of context: my guess is that it has almost nothing to do with brain chemistry and everything to do with traditional men's and women's roles in China, Japan and Korea, and the fact that go is still a very male-dominated game. I'd guess that girls found the game less interesting than boys because it's male-dominated, that girls generally received less support than boys, and that strong female amateurs and female professionals experience social pressures and gender-based discrimination that their male counterparts don't. But what do I know. I'm guessing, and so is everyone else here who hasn't seen it!

[jts]

I don't think anyone ever argues against having more female players in Go. I don't see what your ultimate point is.

Well, Joaz's conclusion was:

Go seems to be a game better suited for a male brain.

It's an infelicitous phrasing. Presumably he means something like "Well, there are differences between boy-fetus brains and girl-fetus brains; and men and women participate in Go at different rates; so maybe the former explains the latter." But these hypothesized differences are much harder to establish and translate into success at Go than corresponding differences in activities with much more egalitarian participation rates (in the example I used, tennis).

[Amelia]

It's an infelicitous phrasing. Presumably he means something like "Well, there are differences between boy-fetus brains and girl-fetus brains; and men and women participate in Go at different rates; so maybe the former explains the latter." But these hypothesized differences are much harder to establish and translate into success at Go than corresponding differences in activities with much more egalitarian participation rates (in the example I used, tennis).

Yeah. It's impossible with our current knowledge to quantify the influence of biological differences and conditioning from birth. Presumably both of those have an influence but to speculate which is more relevant, well, if there is a neurobiologist around there he's welcome to try.

Possibly both play some role. Women are generally not encouraged to pick hobbies that involve lots of logical thinking and competition. Professional go is also ill suited if you plan to have a time-consuming hobby such as getting a husband and making children. I would be interested to know how many girls and boys in Korea are sent to go schools.