[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]

StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About


Referenced by
ToBeMasterEdited
Women

 

Discrimination in Go
   
Summary: In professional tournaments and title matches, there is no indication of gender based discrimination against women. Women are free to enter all professional tournaments under the same qualifying conditions as men. There are tournaments reserved for women only. Men are excluded from these tournaments. We have not been able to reach a consensus conclusion why the percentage of go professionals or open title holders that are women is significantly less than the percentage of women in the general population. There are indications that certain national professional go organizations may exclude certain individuals from joining the organization. This may be based upon nationality or age of the individual. (summarized by Velobici)
We have focused on Japan in the discussion below. Can anyone provide information regarding China and South Korea?

This is a page for discussing whether or not women (and others) are discriminated against in the go world. A [ext] article written in 1992 by Samuel H Sloan discusses a particular situation concerming Rui Naiwei.[1] Rui participates in a study group with Go Seigen who has also been the victim of discrimination in Japanese go. See [ext] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/JTsearch3.pl5?Go+Seigen [2]

Velobici: Having read the article, it is not at all clear that this is a case of discrimination against women. Rather the Nihon Kiin has decided that Rui Naiwei will not play professionally in Japan. In the intervening years, Rui has become a guest member of the Korean Go Association and in 2002 won all the women's titles in Korea. It appears that Rui's future is bright indeed. Korea has become a very strong go playing country. Her earlier troubles in Japan could be a blessing in disguise for it lead to her travelling to Korea and enjoying great success in that country.

Velobici: The issue may be non-Japanese coming to Japan at a later age or after becoming a professional elsewhere. Kobayashi Izumi played with the men in the [ext] Judan Tournament Given this information, perhaps the issue is not sexism.

HolIgor: Actually, all female professional players compete in all tournaments. The example above is of a rare success when Izumi made it to the final stages.

Dieter: There is discrimination in the Go World. There are pro competitions in which men cannot participate. I find that very disturbing, even more for the women than for the discriminated men.

RafaelCaetano: I find it quite natural. Perhaps they exist for the same reason female-only tennis competitions exist, i.e., in general women cannot compete on par with men at tennis. Discrimination is not necessarily evil.

dnerra: And that is exactly the point. Women can compete on par with men in go, and the existence of women-only events encourages the prejudice that they cannot.

TimBrent: or there are women's only tournaments because someone or some company is willing to put up the prize fund for such a tournament (as in Chess).

dnerra: I just realize that this sounds like the start of a flame-ware. I hope it will not turn out to be one. But I couldn't leave Rafael's statement unanswered, sorry. If someone thinks both our contributions should be deleted from this page, please go ahead.

BobMcGuigan: I'll add to dnerra's remark and say that while there may (I say may) be some physical basis [3] for the existence of women-only tennis or golf, go is a mind sport so there is really no inherent reason why women and men shouldn't compete on an equal basis. There may be societal bias which affects women and their ability or willingness to compete. And there are several women who are very strong pro players, even Rui who won an open title in Korea (the Kuksu).

Tamsin: There are various physical reasons why women might be less disposed toward playing go than men, in fact. Testosterone and oestrogen have radically different effects on a person's temperament and style of thinking. These hormones have profound effects on different structures in the brain. Believe me, I know a great deal more about this than you might realise. I.e., for complicated medical reasons, my body no longer produces testosterone, but oestrogen instead. Since this began, I have played go a lot less frequently - I don't feel the competitive urge for it.

Rich: I agree, Tamsin; in fact, while the influence of various sex hormones affect temperament, Perhaps the most obvious way they affect people is developmentally. The quote "go is a mind sport so there is really no inherent reason why women and men shouldn't compete on an equal basis" seems idealistic; since sex hormones during development radically affect almost every aspect of the body - muscle, hair growth, skin tone and so on - why should it be a surprise that it affects brain structure? Other individual competitive mind sports, like chess, are equally male-dominated.
I don't know one way or the other, and personally have no clue whether it's nature or nurture; but consider this - if women are generally less physiologically disposed to high-level success in go than men, so what? Go-playing strength should not be the measure of a person's worth, just because we on this board rate it highly as a desirable attribute. I find the suggestion that it should be, and that women must therefore be held to be being discriminated against, at least as worrying as the charge of discrimination.

RafaelCaetano: But noone said that "go-playing strength should be the measure of a person's worth", at least not in this discussion. No strawmen, please. We were talking about go tournaments, where go-playing strength tends to be important.
Rich: Just to clarify; this was only in answer to the perceived proposition that women *must* be as good as men and that it is sexist behaviour to not rule out other possibilities.
Rafael: I see now. I found strange that I could agree with all your paragraph except the last 2 sentences. :-) Still I think it's kind of strawmen, since nobody used that argument.

Tamsin: I feel Rich makes a good point here. In discussions about men and women in various spheres of activity, people make the same mistake time and again, which is that in order for males and females to be equal they must be the same. Men and women are not mentally the same. They are equal but different. I don't think it is accidental that men tend to be better at activities involving visual-spatial ability. After all, historically it is men who have done most of the hunting, fighting and war-mongering. Neither do I think it is only chance that women tend to be better at reading people's feelings than men. After all, women have historically been more involved in caring for the young, sick and elderly. I mean, I've met lots of crashing bores of the male persuasion at chess tournaments and the like, but rather more seldom have I met a woman who did not realise when she was talking about something with which the other person was uncomfortable. Anyway, to get back on track: aside from social reasons, it seems probable to me that men do have intrinsic advantages in games like go, simply because these games emphasise the very types of reasoning at which men have historically excelled.

What I do think is absolutely typical of men is to believe that something like go or chess or driving a car well or similar is a measure of a person's worth. It isn't. If, indeed, women are less good at go for biological reasons, well, so what? Being good at go is not important-it really, really isn't. (With the obvious exception of go professionals.)

The issue of women's-only tournaments is difficult. If the female professionals on the whole were as strong as the men, then there would be no need for them. On the other hand, as dnerra pointed out, they might help perpetuate the falsehood that women can never compete at go on equal terms with men. Perhaps the only "fair" thing to do would be to abolish these events, but that would leave many female pros without titles or significant prize money to aim for.

In my opinion, for the very little it is worth, we should recognise that for social and possibly biological reasons, men tend to be better at go. It should be understood that sometimes female players like Rui Nai Wei will emerge who can compete at any level, and those in official positions who try to block them purely on grounds of sex should be rooted out. Everyone who plays go should be encouraged, no matter what their sex, and talented boys and girls should be treated as their talents merit. Unfortunately, it is probable that sexual discrimination in Asian go exists and will go on existing. We're talking about male-dominated cultures that are historically resistant to external influences and change. What can you do?

Velobici: In Go, the results to date show that only one woman, Rui Naiwei, has won a top Asian tournament, the Kuksu in 1999. Rui may win again or win other tournaments in the future. Kobayashi Izumi created quite a stir recently with a good record in the 39th Judan Tournament. The extent of news coverage of this event is an indication of the rarity of women achieving this level of success. Perhaps this will change significantly in the future. At this time, it is hard to support a contention that discrimination in go against women is preventing more women greater success in the top title tournament in Asia. This is not a popular observation in the current cutural climate. Nonetheless, the truth of the matter (tournament results) is uncontestable. Discussion of the reason for this fact is all that is left to us.

Perhaps it would be best to conduct this conversation on the basis of the [ext] scientific method. The first step of which is Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena. The phenomenon may be described as:

The percentage of women among the top go players in the world is significantly less than the percentage of women in the population.

RafaelCaetano: I agree. I don't claim that men are smarter. As Rich, I don't know if it's nature or nurture, and it might as well be the case that women reach men's level in the future. It's just that, currently and generally speaking, female pro level is significantly below men's level.

As for discovering the reason, have you read section [ext] V. Are there circumstances in which the Scientific Method is not applicable? item on the page you linked? Maybe this phenomenon is not amenable to the scientific method.

Velobici: It is my understanding that that section applies strongly to the example cited, trying a case before a jury, and other activities where the subject of the study is a group of people that experience shared set of events. These events and the societally accepted meaning of the events change the outlook of the individuals in the group. One can not apply scientific method because the object under investigation is changing a rate that is comparable to the rate of investigation. The need for repeatability in experimentation is missing. In the behavioral sciences, there are areas more closely tied to nature than to nurture, these areas are more suitable for study using the scientific method than those related to nuture, a cultural phemonenon, which may change quite rapidly.
Go ability, most likely, is strongly determined by ones innate ability (nature) which can be fostered or hindered by the environment in which the person lives (nuture). There are families that have produced a statisically anomalous number of professional strength go players: Cho Chikun, his brother Cho Shoen, his uncle Cho Nam-ch'eol. Cho Chikun's natural gift was nutured in the Kitani dojo. Another example is Kitani Minoru and his family: Kitani Minoru himself, his daughter Kitani Reiko, her husband Kobayashi Koichi, Kitani's granddaughter Kobayashi Izumi who is the finance of Cho U. It seems that one's best hope of being a strong go player is to be the child Cho U and Kobayashi Izumi! Failing that, one can always study harder, though the odds of overcoming the disadvantage of having other parents may be quite steep.
This phemonemon is not particular to go. The Bach family in Europe is quite well known for the number of musicians and composers born into it. Similarly there are families that have a large number of actors (Fairbanks, Barrymore, Douglas), politicians (Kennedy, Bush) and other avocations. Go is much more interesting to this line of inquiry, because go skill (the combination of nature and nurture) can be measured and measured with some reasonable accuracy. By contrast, distinguishing between nature and nuture in political families is particularly difficult.
Many interesting questions remain (NOTE: no disrespect of any kind is intended. These questions are stated purely from a scientific viewpoint and in no way meant to suggest or effect a course of behavior):
Did Kobayashi Koichi and Kitani Reiko have more than one child? If so, what are the go abilities of those offspring?
Will Cho U and Kobayashi Izumi have children and what will be the go abilities of those children?
If Cho U and Kobayashi Izumi have both children adopted very soon after birth and children born to them, will there be a significant difference in go abilities of the two sets of children.
If Cho U was to have a second wife, or Kobayashi Izumi a second husband, of poor go abilities what will be the abilities of children born to that couple.
While we are not free to perform these investigations, we can observe the results of the choices made by these individuals and strengthen or weaken posited hypotheses.
While this smacks of [ext] Eugenics, there is an sigificant scientific element here, the recognition of which should not be discarded. We are all the result of selective adaptation acting upon our forebears. Not all genetic differences are cosmetic. The gene that causes sickle cell anemia has been [ext] linked to resistence to malaria. The gene is recessive, like blue eyes, one copy of the gene confers the benefit of resistence to malaria, two copies of the gene produce sickle cell anemia. One final example is [ext] Lance Armstrong, the second person to win 5 Tours de France in a row. Medical testing has shown that Lance is particularly endowed with aerobic potential. The man simply can process more oxygen, more efficiently, than any other professional bicyclist. When a race of about 2500 km (about 90 hours) is decided by less than a minute, a small difference in aerobic potential is significant. (NOTE: we are speaking of potenital. Lance is well known for working extremely hard to realize that potential and translate it into results on the bicycle. Reading his [ext] book about testicular cancer, his treatment and his recovery is highly recommended) While we are all endowed with a set of natural abilities, we are not endowed equally, fortunately for some they have the option to choose a path in life that is in accordance with their natural abilities. Hopefully, this freedom can be enjoyed by a growning percentage of the world's population.

Dieter: I'm willing to continue this interesting off-topic discussion in private e-mail. Dieter underscore Verhofstadt at hotmail dot com.


[1] Bill: Not to diminish the importance of this question, I must add that Sam Sloan is not the most reliable source. I am not going to get into a discussion about him, but people can check out his writings on the Web and in newsgroups and make up their own minds.

PurpleHaze: Sam Sloan has made a spectacle of himself on the US chess scene for more than twenty years, that I am aware of. I do not know if he plays go or not, but he is obsessed with asian women. His home pages should give more than one could care to know about him: [ext] http://www.ishipress.com/ or [ext] http://www.samsloan.com/

[2] Bill: The second link did not work for me.

BobMcGuigan: I found the article by going to the Japan Times web page (first part of URL above) and searching for Go Seigen.

Bill: Thanks, Bob. :-)

[3] Velobici: Even among primarily physical activities, one need to distinguish between those that are endurance based and those that are not. I doubt we will ever see the top womans weightlifter outdo the top mens weightlifter. Among marathon runners, the best mens time is about 10 minutes faster then the best womens time. Perhaps women are genetically favored in endurance events, though the [ext] issue is not crystal clear.



This is a copy of the living page "Discrimination in Go" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.