Empowering Women in Chess: ECU Women’s Commission Overview 2024
Over the past year, the ECU Women’s Commission has been at the forefront of initiatives aimed at fostering inclusivity, empowering female players, and creating a safer and more supportive environment in chess. Here’s an overview of our key achievements and activities in 2024.
Safer Play Initiative
Creating a safer chess environment remains a priority. Our Safer Play Initiative focuses on:
- Raising Awareness of safety issues in chess through articles and semianrs
- Training Advocates: In collaboration with the Women in Chess Foundation, we’ve trained 33 advocates from all over Europe
- Developing Guidelines: We are integrating Safer Play Guidelines into ECU’s existing Fair Play regulations to address cases of harassment and promote safer play.
Supporting Female Coaches and Arbiters
To increase the number of female chess professionals, we supported 12 women to participation in various ECU Trainer Seminars, resulting in 11 new ECU-certified Expert Coaches, and one ECU Junior Coach. We also held an online FIDE Arbiter’s seminar for women in which 18 female arbiters from 13 national federations participated. These efforts are vital to empowering women in all aspects of chess.
Educational and Inspirational Events
This year featured several engaging events:
- Time Management Workshop: GM Jan Markos led a seminar on mastering time management and avoiding time trouble in chess games.
- Mental Resilience Seminar: Benjamin Portheault shared strategies on resilience and mental strength, to help players stay focused during tournaments.
- Typical Mistakes in Chess: GM Sergei Movsesian led a discussion on the typical mistakes in chess, how to avoid them, and the role of psychology in games
- Simultaneous Exhibition: During the European Youth Chess Championships, WGM/IM Zuzana Hagarova inspired young players with a memorable simultaneous exhibition.
- Exchange Forum: We hosted an online seminar addressing key gender-related topics in chess. Two impactful talks, “Checking Gender Bias: Parents and Mentors Perceive Less Chess Potential in Girls” and “Gender-Inclusive Language,” sparked discussions about biases in chess education and promotion.
Recognizing Excellence
At the European Women’s Chess Championship, we introduced the Excellence on Board Awards to celebrate outstanding games. Winners were selected through a Commission jury and People’s Choice voting, highlighting the talent and dedication of female players.
Supporting Women’s Tournaments
We financially supported WIM and WGM norm tournaments in Austria, Denmark, England, Croatia, and Romania. This money allocated to this program supports both top female chess players and tournament organisers of women’s tournaments.
Inspiring Participation
The European Women’s Chess Trophy was introduced to encourage participation in women-only tournaments. With categories for juniors, <2200, <2400, and open, this initiative promotes competitive and inclusive play across Europe through financial incentivisation of top performing females.
3rd ECU Girls’ and Women’s Chess Weekend
This event combined tournaments, coaching sessions, and seminars in a friendly and inclusive atmosphere. With over 100 participants, it highlighted the vibrancy and talent within the European chess community.
Overall, the ECU Women’s Commission remains committed to advancing gender equality and empowering women in chess. We offer a diverse range of events and support women in all areas of the game, from players to tournament organizers, arbiters, and coaches. We look back on a successful year 2024, and are hoping to continue our established events in 2025, while adding one some new ideas.
