Newsgroup: it.hobby.scacchi
Titolo: Perché poche ragazze-donne giocano a scacchi???

Mi sono imbattuto nell'articolo riportato in fondo, che si pone la fatidica
domanda: "Perché non insegniamo alle ragazze a giocare a scacchi?".
In effetti è una cosa che continua a stupirmi, visto che in altri paesi, citati
nell'articolo, ci sono molte più donne scacchiste!
Saluti
Ivo
________________________
Why aren't we teaching girls to play chess? - Contemporary Women's Issues
Database-03-01-2004
As I sat outside my son's middle school waiting for Chess Club to end, I watched
boy after boy emerging from the building. Then a girl walked out and I felt a
twinge of surprise, which immediately struck me as odd. Why was I surprised to
see a girl involved? In fact, why weren't more girls playing? In a game where
the queen is the most powerful piece, shouldn't more girls be chess masters?
Chess is a game for anyone--young, old, physically challenged, athletically
adept, male or female. The chessboard provides a level playing field. Anyone can
succeed, yet the game remains male-dominated.
My informal survey of girls revealed these thoughts: Sarah, 9, says that she
hasn't learned to play because "it's a boy's game." Louisa is a 15-year-old who
learned to play in fourth grade when her teacher taught the whole class how, set
aside class time for chess matches, and allowed the students to play whenever
they'd completed their work. Louisa still plays chess with both male and female
friends, and describes it as "a great game that gets your mind thinking."
Ashley, a 12-year-old who doesn't play, explained her lack of participation with
this remark: "I'm not that smart." How many other girls are telling themselves
that?
Yet it's a simple game, really. Chess can be learned in an hour, although it can
only be mastered over time. Along the way, skills of logic, reasoning, and
strategizing are learned.
The benefits of playing chess are many. Educators have learned that students who
play chess score better on both reading and math tests. Chess also leads to
marked increases in memory and organizational skills, according to Dr. Robert C.
Ferguson, who undertook a 1994 Texas study for the U.S. Chess Federation. In
this study, Ferguson found that elementary students who took part in a
school-sponsored chess club showed twice the improvement of non-chess playing
students in reading and mathematics on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills.
With all these benefits, why aren't more of our daughters playing chess? Log
onto the Internet and see the disheartening facts. The top 20 websites resulting
from a search with the keywords "girls" and "chess" tell of champion female
players in Armenia and Australia, but have little to say about U.S. girls.
Currently only about 7 percent of U.S. chess players are female.
Teasing is one reason more girls aren't found in U.S. chess. Rachel Lieberman,
national secretary of the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF), told the
chessgoddesses.com
 web site about an 11-year-old girl from Oregon who had just
begun to win tournaments. "The problem was that at every tournament the boys
would tease her," said Lieberman. "They would say things like, 'Oh I get to play
against a girl. Winning this match is going to be real easy.' That does a number
on a young chess player's self-esteem, and this girl ended up dropping out of
chess altogether."
But things are starting to change. The USCF and other chess groups are starting
programs to increase the number of women chess players, and their efforts are
already producing results, according to 
chessgoddesses.com
. "At annual chess
tournaments the number of girls participating is increasing every year," it
reports.
Chess is part of the regular school curriculum in countries like Iceland,
Russia, Venezuela and Germany. So why aren't we in the United States teaching
our daughters to play? Shouldn't we encourage them to "get their minds
thinking," as Louisa suggests?
Teaching a girl to play chess equips her with skills that will enable her to
succeed in numerous arenas, such as science, math and logic. Most parents want
to provide their daughters with every advantage to further their intellectual
development. So it's time we taught our daughters to play chess. Let's empower
them to rule the chessboard as surely as the queen herself does.
Resources
www.chessgoddesses.com
www.chessldds.com
The Kids Book of Chess by Harvey Kidder (Workman Publishing, 1990)
Chess For Kids by Michael Basman (Dorling Kindersley, 2001)
Juliann Wetz is an Ohio writer.

 Ivo
Nel mio ultimo libro ho tentato di dare una risposta.
Ciao,
Mario
PS - grazie per l'indicazione della "Febbre degli scacchi". Possiedo la
registrazione del film nella versione con i sottotitoli in italiano ma non
quella originale che, tra l'altro, mi pare si veda meglio (maggiore
contrasto ecc.). Si tratta di un film di notevole valore
storico-scacchistico, voluto da Krylenko per diffondere gli scacchi in URSS.
Uniche le riprese dei giocatori del torneo (Marshall, Reti. Yates ecc. ma
soprattutto Ilyin-Genevsky!).
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