Divya Deshmukh Faces Sexism from Spectators in Chess Tournament !!

India’s chess player Divya Deshmukh has made accusations about the behavior of the audience. He has said that in the recently concluded Tata Steel Masters tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, he had to face the wrong behavior of the audience. He even said that not on girls’ games, but people’s focus is on irrelevant things like their hair, clothes, face, and accent. After this, many other women also told their stories.

‘Looks at things like children’s clothes’

Divya Deshmukh, an 18-year-old international chess player from Nagpur, Maharashtra, shared a long post on social media. Divya, who won the Asian Women’s Chess Championship last year, said women players regularly face misogyny. She wrote in the note, ‘I wanted to focus on this for some time, but I was waiting for the tournament to end. I have seen how women in chess are often taken for granted by the audience. The most recent example is the Tata Steel Masters tournament. I played good matches, but people told me how the audience didn’t care about the game, they were focusing on everything in the world apart from the game, like my clothes, hair, accent, and all other irrelevant things.’

A flood of comments

There was a flood of comments on this post. One user claimed that the same thing happened to Wenzhen Xu when she was with Magnus. He just had to stand there while others sat in his seat for photos. Georgia’s female Grandmaster Keti Satsalashvili wrote – You are right, Divya. This matter needs to be brought before everyone. Apart from this, another user wrote – that women should also get equal respect. Another user named Raman wrote – This is a bad reality. Don’t pay attention to those people. Your true supporters are with you.

‘A player doesn’t need all this’

A woman named Bhavya wrote – Glad you talked about this. I also noticed that people consider this thing very strange, I mean she is a professional chess player who represents our country internationally, but you people compliment her on how beautiful she is. How good/bad are their clothes? How she sits and blah blah, but yes, it’s all stupid and no player deserves such praise. The player just wants people to like his skills, his mentality, his way of playing. It’s time to stop supporting someone because she’s beautiful (maybe a woman) look at their talent and then support them because they get it not because of beauty but through hard work.’

Divya stood 12th in the Challengers category at the Tata Steel Masters with a score of 4.5. He said that male players were getting the spotlight for their game, while women were judged for aspects that had nothing to do with their ability on the chess board.