"Was tired of being sexually harassed" - GM Susan Polgar backs Divya Deshmukh's outrage on women's sexualization in chess matches

Hungarian-American chess legend Susan Polgar reacted to young Indian chess player Divya Deshmukh's outrage over the sexualization of women players in chess.

On Monday, January 29, 18-year-old Divya, an International Master, took to her social media platforms to explain how the audience would pay enough attention to her clothes more than her game.

Following the conclusion of her tournament at Tata Steel Chess in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands, she wrote a lengthy note to lament over women players' chess skills being ignored. Excerpts from Divya's note on Instagram read:

"I got told and also myself noticed how women in chess are often just taken for granted by the spectators, most recent example of this on a personal level would be in this tournament."

"I played a few games which I felt were quite good and I was proud of them and I got told by people how the audience was not even bothered with the game but instead focused on every single possible thing in the world, my clothes, hair, accent and every other irrelevant thing."

Sharing her own experience from her playing days, Grand Master Susan Polgar wrote on her official X handle:

"When I was a young chess player, I never did not even touch makeup until I was in my 20s. There were two main reasons: I was tired of being sexually harassed/assaulted and hit on constantly by male chess players. And we were so poor that I had no money for fancy clothes. Sexism and discrimination in chess still exist today, just not as much."

“I wanted to prove myself on the board. I could not care less what people think about how I looked. I was NOT there to “pick up” men. I was very thankful that my parents (especially my mother) were always with me at tournaments to try to protect me. It is better today but still bad at times."

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"Behavior of some of these male chess players was absolutely appalling" - Susan Polgar

54-year-old Susan Polgar, who was the Women's World Chess Champion between 1996 and 1999, spoke about how some male chess players threatened her after their requests were denied by her. She mentioned, via the aforementioned source:

"I was often the only girl in all-men chess tournaments. And the behavior of some of these male chess players was absolutely appalling. It sometimes became very dangerous. I was many times fearful for my life. Some male chess players cannot take NO for an answer, especially when they had too much to drink. Some tried to physically and sexually assault me."

Susan started the Polgar Chess Center in New York to provide chess training to young children in 1997. She closed that in 2009 after she moved to Texas. In 2002, she established the Susan Polgar Foundation, which has sponsored many chess tournaments for both boys and girls.