FRANCOISE CAMPBELL writes:
It makes me extremely proud to be a Kemptonian after reading in Kempton Express about a superb Hoërskool Kempton Park chess contestant Anika du Plessis.
Anika recently achieved the “King of the Chess championship” at the African youth championships in Cairo, Egypt (Express January 25, Kempie is die Afrika-wenner).
She is now a prestigious “women’s international master” title holder. Well done, Anika.
As the saying goes, ‘not just a pretty face’. Indeed, not only does it take an extremely astute mind but also total dedication and hard training hours.
Also read:
• KYK: Kempie (17) is Afrika-skaakkampioen
In the wake of such excellence, I regret having to air my slight grievance about the ancient sport of chess. It seems chess is still rooted in the past and dominated by outdated male chauvinistic conventions.
Apparently, chess tournaments are still segregated according to male and female gender classification. Not only that, but it is inexplicable that women’s chess champions are subjected to male-oriented titles such as being masters.
And why should Anika be referred to as the king of the chess board, which is a male description of a monarch?
After consulting ‘Professor Google’, I found that women’s chess contestants do sometimes compete against their male counterparts in top international tournaments and that there are some lady grandmasters, albeit at a lower status than the male grandmaster.
I pose the question, when is international chess going to catch up to modern 21st-century norms of gender equality? Probably that will only happen when the top female contestants themselves contest the outmoded discriminatory status quo.
No longer are women second class citizens being barefoot in the kitchen with their sole function of bringing up babies. They are now prominent in the arts, sciences and commerce.
In the same edition of Kempton Express, I read that the top achieving matric Kempie in 2017 was a brilliant young woman named Lieze-Mari van Tonder, who achieved a whopping nine distinctions. Clearly it is time for the leading lady chess contestants to insist on a change from the masculine titles to more universal gender neutral type terminology.
And they should start challenging their male counterparts to contests at every level of competition so as to prove their undoubted competence and gender equality. How about it, Anika?
As you progress further in your endeavours, I hope you challenge your male counterparts’ chauvinistic privileged glass ceiling prerogative. It would be wonderful to see a new generation of brilliant South African women chess grand ‘matrons’ challenging the mettle of the grand masters across the chess board.
Check mate.
