Three in Four Women in Chess Experience Discrimination or Harassament
By Douglas C. · Mon, 09 Nov 2026
76% of women in FIDE’s survey faced discrimination or harassment and 44% considered quitting. What do the numbers mean, and when will FIDE act?
Three in Four Women in Chess Have Faced Discrimination or Harassment. What Happens Now?
Chess likes to tell itself it is a meritocracy: the board does not care who you are. FIDE's new survey of women in the game makes that story harder to repeat. Of the 672 women from 127 federations who answered, 76 percent had experienced at least one of eight forms of discrimination or harassment, and 44 percent had thought about leaving chess altogether. Numbers like that deserve more than a nod.
First, the fine print
It is worth being fair to the survey before leaning on it. Taking part was voluntary, most questions were optional, and the sample leans toward active and titled players and toward federations that promoted the questionnaire. Women who have already left the game are not in it, and that matters, because they are the people the survey is really about. So these figures describe the women who answered, not every woman in chess, and the authors say so themselves. Even so, a sample can be imperfect and still tell you something uncomfortable.
The numbers that stand out
Gender bias or sexism led the list at 63 percent. Sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior and online abuse each came in at 38 percent, and 37 percent said they had been shut out of coaching, teams, tournaments or leadership roles. Sixteen percent said they met bias often.
The pattern that deserves the most attention is who reports the most. Among adults, 70 percent reported bias and 46 percent sexual harassment. Among FIDE-titled women, it was 81 percent and 55 percent. Because the sample leans toward titled players, that gap should be read with care. Still, these are the women chess points to when it talks about a pipeline, and more than half of them reported sexual harassment.
The quiet exit
Then there is the question of who stays. Sixty-four percent of 18 to 24 year olds had considered leaving, and so had 65 percent of women's title holders. Among respondents who reported gender bias, 56 percent had thought about quitting, against 23 percent of those who had not. After adjusting for age, title, region and involvement, the report put the odds at roughly three times higher. That shows a strong link, though not proof of cause.
The ages in that list are the ones where a young player usually decides whether chess is worth the cost. If a large share of them are already wavering, keeping them is a bigger job than recruiting new ones.
The less dramatic problem is money
Not everything in the survey is about misconduct. Asked to pick up to three barriers, 66 percent chose costs such as travel, coaching and entry fees, and 48 percent named time pressure from school, work or family. A separate look by the Women in Chess Foundation at 175 scholarship applications found 41 percent mentioning financial constraints and 33 percent a lack of coaching. Respondents asked for more financial support (65 percent), more local tournaments (60 percent) and better coaching (52 percent). Those are the easiest requests on the list to act on, and they do not need anyone to win an argument first.
Where this lands
Women in Chess Foundation president Emilia Castelao said the findings did not surprise her and called on FIDE and its president, Timur Turlov, to build an international SafePlay policy that national federations can adopt flexibly. Commission chair Tris-Ann Richards, who presented the survey in Samarkand on September 22, wants a clear FIDE policy on incidents, procedures in every federation, safeguarding training for arbiters and officials, and public disclosure of safeguarding measures at major events. That she is asking suggests those things are not yet in place. FIDE announced a safeguarding partnership with Safe Sport International back in November 2023.
The survey has done its job, which was to put numbers on something the game has mostly discussed in whispers. The real test starts now. When a new administration is writing its priorities, a policy, a reporting channel and a travel fund are exactly the sort of concrete steps that would show these answers were heard.
