QUEENS OF THE BOARD Louisa Thomas’s piece on the chess champion 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán) highlights the unending comparison between female and male intelligence (“Queenside”, August 2nd). From my perspective as a therapist in training, it seems that the obstacles that female chess players confront have much to do with the weight of a psychological phenomenon called “stereotype threat” — a situational predicament in which people feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to negative stereotypes of their social group. Studies have shown that stereotype-threat conditions, such as a standardized test of one’s intellectual ability, can result in measurable deficits in performance. In the presence of the limiting notions — expressed by both female chess players and their male competitors — about women’s “physical endurance” and their “nature”, it is not surprising that female players may begin to feel doubt and anxiety, or that, as Thomas mentions, “many girls drop away from the more competitive tracks of the game when they reach high school”. I applaud women like 侯 (Hóu) who beat on against the current, but I also support the players who choose to explore other avenues for their talents. Gabriella Hiatt Warren, Conn. |
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