Elisabeth Paehtz on women in chess
In an exclusive interview with World Chess, IM and WGM Elisabeth Paehtz talked about her positive experience as a female professional player in Germany over the past 4 years and acknowledged that everything is pointing in the direction that things are going to improve even more for women in chess.
Being a national player since 1998, Elisabeth Paehtz has witnessed all the support and all the kind of privileges women could experience. “I can tell that from my young age until 2019-2020 you could feel that there was a difference in the approach of treating women and men in the German chess. For example, men had more training possibilities, they had higher budgets for tournaments, and they had all the better payments after all.” Elisabeth states.
In the past years though, the WGM can totally see the shift in the opposite direction. Not just in Germany but also in FIDE, because women have the same system as men with the World Cup, the Candidates, and challenging the World Champion. “I’m looking forward to seeing what this FIDE statement actually means” Elisabeth adds.
This interview comes after a painful year for women in chess, in which media exposed an alleged criminal who sent pornography and condoms to underage chess players, and the Botez Sisters spoke up on their personal experience about sexual harassment & predatory behavior in Chess. At the same time, we see a growing number of supporters – especially on Twitter -, having the backs of female chess players who are treated disrespectfully, finding more and more inspiration in their achievements, following and studying them.
So how close is FIDE’s Manifesto to the Year of the Woman in Chess?
Watch the full interview with Elisabeth Paehtz on World Chess!
