On chessgames.com, by a chessplayer with the username Big Dave, said, "I love women and sex is great and all, but seriously—all the attention on female chessplayers who are really just average to look at and play at a much lower skill level when compared against their male peers is a little tiring."

According to Jennifer Shahade, the number of women among chessplayers sits at about 5%. Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport is a call to arms for girls and women alike to line up their pawns and take up the sport. In that respect the book does a wonderful job, showing that the women who play chess are a diverse and interesting spectrum, not reserved to bookworms and nerds.

Chess Bitch profiles several women around the world who have played, or are currently playing, at a professional level of chess. Using both a research based method and in interviews with players, Jenn tries her hardest to examine these women from a feminist perspective, only to be geninely suprised to find that many of her heroes hold incredibly conservative views. Susan Polgar, the first woman to ever hold the title of grandmaster, goes as far as saying that, "the 'monthly problem' gets in the way of the full development of many woman chessplayers, since women may be menstruatng during a crucial game." Tina Koptinas, an Austrian tournement player was much more straightforward: "I don't think about feminism in relation to the chess world [...] Anyone who is playing chess has got it pretty good already."

During an interview with Cathy Forbes, the author of The Polgar Sisters: Training or Genius. Cathy, talking about her 14-year-old biography states: "Such a young biography is bound to tell more about the writer than the subjects [...]" Scattered throughout the text, Jenn interjects with observatons and insights that reveal her own thoughts on both the game and the women involved.

A talented writer, Jen deftly profiles each player from chess pioneers Vera Menchik and Sofia Graf (1937), to the 2000 Texas Women's Champion, Angela Alston including some truly lovely moments. A single line about Iranian Shadi Paridar, who at seventeen, is unable to find other women to play suceeds in getting to the heart of the book: "Iranian laws prohibit her from playing against men, but there is only one other girl who is at her level, Atousa Pourkashian."

The attitudes and obstacles against women in the male-dominated sport are given cohesion, and Chess Bitch voices the love and excitement that each player feels for the game. As a volunteer for Chess-in-the-School's programme, Jen is well aware that there is a long and changing path ahead. Dedicated to promoting the game of chess and interested in increasing the number of women (and girls) who play the game, it is in this aspect where the book makes its greatest impact. Though Jenn asks the question throughout the book, "who are your chess heroes?" a new generation of girls needs only to turn to this book to find inspiration. An impressive accomplishment.

The book is not without its flaws, however. There are times when Jenn struggles to find a feminist slant, where there appears to be none. Unable to offer insight, there are a few passages that struggle to find resoloution. Occasionally, the transitions between stories also suffer with jarring shifts from one player to the next. They could have benefitted from a larger visual break in the text. Both are minor flaws, to be expected in an authors first work, and not distracting enough to take away from the overall quality of the writing.

Recommended.

See also my earlier post, complete with interview.

Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport can be ordered in Canada by clicking here, in the US from here, or directly from the publisher.