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Playing chess is suffocating, like all the air has been sucked from the room as I move the pieces to win. I usually win. Chess isn't suffocating because of the game itself, in fact, I quite enjoy it. Chess is suffocating because I'm a girl. Now, if you're thinking about saying something along the lines of "misogony doesn't exist anymore" or, "you're just being dramatic", I know you're a man. God, you think you have it so hard don't you. You think it's such a burden that not everything is handed to you like it used to be. Still, in the world of chess, a world that has always been dominated by men, you have everything. I watch from across the room as the boys crowd together, in their own little chess world, like a proper team, and I'm left sitting alone. It's like chess was a party that I wasn't invited to, and from the second I showed up, everyone has been doing everything they can to make me go home, give up, forget about it. I'll never make it in the chess world, that's too hard. I'll never be as good as the boys. I constantly hear comments, some from boys, and some even from girls, comments about me being a girl. "It's crazy to see a girl playing at such a high level!" They say, passive aggressively feuling the dissapoinment every time I walk into those doors. "You remind me of that show, the queens gambit." They say, missing the point of "That show" completely. Beth just wanted to play chess. She wanted to win and not have everything be about her gender. She wanted to have the same opportunities. She wanted to be special because she was good at chess, but not because she was a girl. So few women play chess, so few actually make it past middle school tournaments, and I know why. I know why women's tournaments are separate. I know why theres never been a female world champion. It's not because of brain capacity, I can tell you that. It's because every man in chess is rallying against us, constantly pushing us out so we can't succeed. In chess club I have to be the best. In the famous words of Bobby FIscher, “Genius. It’s a word. What does it really mean? If I win I’m a genius. If I don’t, I’m not.” Fischer was also a Misogonist. Another of his most inspiring quotes was indeed very interesting; "They're all weak, all women. They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know. They're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn't a woman player in the world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat." Sounds like someone who's threatened. Beth Harmon would have beaten Bobby Fischer. She would have destroyed him if she was real.
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