“I would say that it is much easier to play chess without the burden of an Adam’s apple.” 

The Queen’s Gambit by author Walter Tevis is an American novel about a young chess prodigy by the name of Beth Harmon. This book, published in 1983, was adapted into a 2020 Netflix show. We are introduced to her story when she is only nine years old, finding her new life at a strict, Christian orphanage for girls, following her mother’s death. Walter Tevis weaves a classic Bildungsroman novel addressing themes of chess, feminism, adoption, addiction, and alcoholism.

Set during the Cold War in mid-20th-century America, Beth Harmon ultimately triumphs in a chess world dominated by males. The story skillfully dismantles the trope that “women cannot be intelligent.” Beth is again and again faced with many signals of sexist attitudes and barriers. Beth ultimately works each obstacle, starting when she registers for her first tournament, where she is not uniformly welcomed and even met with condescending attitudes.

After being interviewed, Beth unhappily remarks that all the article cares about is that she’s a girl. The piece doesn’t really talk about her chess playing; it doesn’t even mention how she plays the Sicilian. This is a reflection of prevailing cultural attitudes of the 60’s, which were wildly sexist by present-day standards: the woman’s place was at the home, cooking, cleaning and raising children. The article revealed that she was interesting not because she was a remarkable chess player, but because she was a female doing well at a “male” activity. The interest was predicated upon her gender, not so much her skills and accomplishments. She knew that male players would not have received such treatment, and she just wanted to be treated as an equal. To be respected.

Although a fictional tale, the story unearths a more profound meaning through the lens of sexism. Everyone besides the janitor who taught her chess, Mr. Shaibel, and her closest friend Jolene, had all judged her for being a girl playing chess.

The struggles of this story’s heroine reached the attention of a real competitive chess player, Judit Polgar. Like Harmon, Polgar made headlines during her career because she regularly beat the world’s top players, even the No. 1 chess player, Garry Kasparov, in 2002. As the only woman to ever rank in the Top 10 or play at the world championship, Polgar shared that she felt a sense of “déjà vu” when watching this Netflix series. 

There was only one aspect about the series that Polgar simply could not relate to, and that was how nicely the male competitors treated Beth compared to herself in reality. While the series touched upon the discriminatory comments that the public made when females were succeeding, Polgar revealed that it was worse in real life. 

“They were too nice to her,” Polgar said.

During the period in which she was rising in the world rankings, Polgar shared that men frequently made disparaging comments towards her about her “inadequate” ability in chess, as well as jokes that were truly hurtful.

Polgar recalled “there were opponents who refused to shake hands” and even one male competitor who “hit his head on the board after he lost.”

U.S. Women’s Champion and current director of the women’s program at the U.S. Chess Federation, Jennifer Shahade, reflected how she was once self-conscious about playing chess seriously. Out of the 74,000 members total, Shahade reported that only 10,500 of them are female. With the inspiration of Beth Harmon, Shahade is determined to encourage more women to play chess. Shahade began an online chess club in April 2020 to engage female players during the pandemic, and after some time, was able to get over 100 women to join. 

Remarkably, The Queen’s Gambit is not only the story of Beth Harmon but that of myriad women who face enormous obstacles in a sexist world. Through the spirit of Harmon, we learn to never succumb to disparaging comments and to be our genuine selves. The Queen’s Gambit shows how authenticity is in itself an act of feminism of the highest order.

Photo courtesy of LIFESTYLEASIA.COM