Hijab-ing Chess Players

Last updated on: October 4, 2016 at 11:58 am by Jane the Actuary

Hijab-ing Chess Players 2016-10-04T11:58:47-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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First of all, who knew that there was a separate world championship for female chess players? I didn’t. Sure, I knew there were chess clubs and competitions specifically for girls, which I had always figured were meant simply as encouragement for girls to play, if they’d otherwise walk into a room full of boys and turn around. But I’m surprised that there are top-level competitions.

At any rate, though, no doubt you’ve read that the next World Championship for female chess players will take place in Iran, and consequently, all women, including players, and, well, anyone else, will be required to wear headscarfs. (See CNN for a recent report.) It’s also unclear as to whether women will be able to consult privately with their male coaches or whether this will be prohibited also in accordance with sex-segregation law.

What’s odd, though, is this: Iran ended up as the host by default, since, according to Wikipedia, no other country had volunteered to be the organizer. What that means isn’t entirely clear — does the organizing body place requirements on the sponsor that limit the prospective organizers? Does the relevant federal government have to kick in a fistful of cash or meet other requirements that deter other countries? Again according to Wikipedia, the championship has been held in all manner of communist and former-communist countries, along with Turkey, India, Spain, Monaco, and the Philippines, in recent history.

But what’s shocking to me is that, according to CNN and elsewhere, no one in the international organizing body, FIDE, nor in the various national bodies, had any concern with the forced hijab, until players started making their protests public.

How’s this as a solution: during the tournament, every single person who thought this was a good idea, whether in attendance in Iran, or sitting in their comfy living rooms, and whether male or female, wears a headscarf and conforms to Iranian law. Fair’s fair, right?

image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AChessSet.jpg; By Alan Light (Own work by the original uploader) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

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