How big, would you say, is the difference in chess ability between male and female players back then compared to now?

In my opinion, there are many sides to it. For starters, chess is a very ancient game, so generations pick up where previous generations left off — learning from their shortcomings and building on top of their experience. The fact that chess has been viewed as a male game for a very long time means that male players today naturally have so much more of that chess “heritage”.

On the other hand, with the chess supercomputers available today, the role of preparation and theory knowledge is immensely larger, so one may argue that the gap is nowhere near as big as it used to be.

There’s also a lot more media coverage nowadays, so I’m sure that has a role to play.

I’d love to know what you think.