Quote Originally Posted by Coppercloud View Post
Thanks for the reply! That's about what I thought. Which is still unsatisfying to me, as I don't think segregation is of any help at all.

Basically, if I understand the current system correctly, a woman in an unsegregated chess club/association/whatever won't be able to compete alongside most of the people she trained with, which doesn't help with motivation, and she will be in an even more masculine space since woman have their own clubs/associations/whatevers. So she is more or less forced into a "women-only" club, which might be miles further from her home because there are fewer women than men in high-level chess. How was any of this supposed to help with representation?

It just seems to me like the process creates unnecessary logistic issues. Feel free to correct me, either for my unfounded speculation or for my poor command of English.
You're not entirely wrong, but it's worth clarifying that chess tournaments aren't segregated in the sense of having a men's league and a women's league; most tournaments are open to anyone who can qualify. In practice, however, most of these open events are still overwhelmingly male-dominated, and that's a self-reinforcing tendency because a community where 19 out of 20 people are men tends to be pretty unwelcoming to anyone who isn't. The women's tournaments exist to give women a place to play where they don't have to deal with that. It's not ideal, but I'm not sure there's a good alternative - the demographic bias isn't something we can just decide to end.