The feats of Jewish-Hungarian sisters and prodigies Susan, Sofia, and Judit Polgar made them heroines in the largely men’s world of chess. But their feminism is no less heroic because it’s of an earlier, more egalitarian vintage than newer radical, all-or-nothing feminism.
Fashionably, radfems denounce and try to dismantle the very institutions these sisters gratefully, humbly acknowledge as freeing rather than oppressive.
In contrast, Judit clarifies, the institutions of marriage, family, and children were central to her success. Her fantastic résumé would have stayed fantastical without the inherently conservative support systems she cites.
No, independence and interdependence aren’t mutually exclusive. Lived wisely, they can thrive because they’re cultivated alongside each other.
Susan’s recent book, Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny and the Making of a Grandmaster, tells of how, as the eldest, she battled sexism, communism, and antisemitism. A Polgar pioneer, she faced down a version of cancel culture as far back as the 1970s. Some, from the then chess-world bully, communist Russia; the rest, from sexist Hungary. Worse, she had lost several elders to the Holocaust. Whenever she felt like giving up, she would recall her grandmother’s hint, “You think this is tough? You don’t know what tough is.” Instead of rebelling, rubbishing comparisons, singling out her trauma as unique or more pitiable, Susan took that nudge to heart, then worked harder and wiser.
Infuriatingly for radfems who’re “against marriage” and to whom motherhood is “selfish,” Susan dedicates her book to “My parents, who sacrificed so much to give me an opportunity to succeed. My sisters, for their love and support. My husband, Paul, who has been an amazing partner in the adventure of life. My kids, who make my life complete.”
As if to rub it in, both her kids are men.
Like the Polgars, women prioritizing their children perceive motherhood as an exchange, one win for another, not a loss, even if it costs them a career-competitive edge.
The Polgars struggled to be recognized fairly in a field hogged by men. But instead of striving independently of, at the expense of (or despite) men, they embraced egalitarians who happened to be men, starting with their coach-mentor father. They sought out enlightened men, husbands, and chess rivals as collaborators. They convinced—through their victories, not words—less enlightened men into rethinking their sexism. Susan recounts how her family, on separate occasions, had to extract her and Sofia, then pre-teens, from dangerous men.
Proud of victories against accomplished men, Susan graciously admits that some, like Vladimir Kramnik, were just “much better” than her. She calls Mikahil Tal “brilliant … one of the truest gentlemen.” Yes, there are sexists, but also “a lot of, in fact, more and more so, wonderful” men in the chess world.
The Polgars are proof: Two seemingly conflicting realities can be true at once.
First, on intellectual-analytical attributes (which chess tests as pastime or profession), sex differences are, usually, negligible enough to obviate the need for preferential treatment. Both sexes, granted similar opportunities, can achieve similar success. The sisters checkmated men when even competing against them was inconceivable. Here, women-only contests pretend that the—essentially cerebral—starting blocks are different when they are not.
Given shared opportunities, women aren’t inferior as lawyers, care professionals, scientists, teachers, bankers, economists, designers, journalists, and the like. Thanks to Susan skyrocketing her way to the top, most elite ‘Men’s championships’ are now ‘Open championships’. That said, not every girl gets the starting blocks that the Polgars did. So, women-only rewards must matter still, acknowledging half the planet, who would never be recognized if sex-specific categories didn’t exist.
Second, on attributes of physical power, endurance, speed, or strength, (which other games/occupations test more), sex differences are, usually, near-irreconcilable. Sure, women are free to become lumberjacks, firefighters, or commandos, free to work heavy machinery, oil rigs, skyscrapers, mines, or docks. But they shouldn’t expect to be rated with men, whose very physicality privileges them. Even with similar opportunities, women can’t consistently pull off the success men can. Here, women-only contests ennoble both, especially if men recognize their privileges and victories, and women recognize their protections and vulnerabilities as given, not earned. No need to pretend that the starting blocks are different; they are.
In an innately intellectual world, Susan was the first woman to become a Grandmaster as men did, through norms and rating. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Judit becoming the first and only woman among the world’s top ten and the first woman in a men’s world championship final. Even as a 14-year-old, Sofia stunned the world with a 2900 rating, brushing aside proven men.
In physicality, however, the Polgars imply, feminine ambition untethered from truth will flounder. Preferentialism is essential to simulate equality, cutting slack not just for relative weakness but also for menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, child-rearing, menopause. That’s sense, not sexism.
As a girl, holding aloft her featherweight Knight, Susan joked, she wasn’t trying to lift “real horses,” hinting that she wouldn’t conceive of competing with men in physicality. Ambition can be tall. But it must be “realistic.” Aged or consistently amateurish players fancying becoming grandmasters are like midgets fancying becoming “seven feet tall.”
Susan explains, 10% of effort usually delivers 90% of success. But the remaining 10% success requires another 90% of effort. It’s hard beating those with a 1900 rating, but beating grandmasters is unimaginably harder. It requires perfection in endgame, technical mastery, capacity to sleep soundly “after a loss,” calculated risk-taking, putting “everything together,” predicting moves, managing nerves and time, and self-confidence.
It is as if Susan is describing why it’s so hard for children to better adults or amateurs to beat professionals. It also proxies as an analogy for the very real physicality gap between the sexes that classical feminists sensibly acknowledge.
Radfems, though, in demanding equality always, everywhere, at any cost, dismiss or denounce the very idea of a gap, arming their followers with dangerously fanciful expectations, and triggering needless enmity between the sexes. If anything, they enforce inequality, sameness, and uniformity favoring women, all disguised as DEI.
On cheating in chess, Susan agrees: cheaters must be punished, men and women. But, unlike radfem-fueled #MeToo’s fondness for courts of public opinion (“Believe all women,” “Yes, all men”), she prefers due process, mimicking courts of law; the accused must be treated as innocent until proven guilty.
Chess requires winners to checkmate a rival’s King, an otherwise powerless piece, rendering the masculine seemingly more decisive. But it’s the Queen that’s more powerful; those who surrender it early normally lose, rendering the feminine seemingly more decisive. That’s chess, cheekily commending the real-life complex and complicated dance of the sexes; pushing here, pulling there, only apparently off-balance, when in fact, they ought to complement and collaborate, rather than compete, in the service of an elegant whole.
Witness trends in women’s chess: September 30, 2025, brings up the newest edition of the decade-old Judit Polgar Global Chess Festival. Between 2001 and 2020, the number of internationally rated women more than doubled from 6% to 15%. Newer women grandmasters more routinely achieve ratings of 2300+. Elite women players believe that a World Champion (who happens to be a woman) is no longer a matter of if, but when.
Now, mentally try and erase the sisters from chess history. Don’t these milestones just evaporate? That’s the impact they’ve had. Women seeking sustainable models of feminism can learn much from the soft-spoken Polgars, still empowering thousands in chess, millions outside it. After all, there’s little to be learned from raucous radfems, still alienating the sisterhood they claim to save.
Hungary’s Polgar Sisters: The Classical Feminists of Chess
The Polgár girls: Judit, Susan, Sofia and their father, László Polgár in 1989.
Fortepan contributor URBÁN TAMÁS, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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The feats of Jewish-Hungarian sisters and prodigies Susan, Sofia, and Judit Polgar made them heroines in the largely men’s world of chess. But their feminism is no less heroic because it’s of an earlier, more egalitarian vintage than newer radical, all-or-nothing feminism.
Fashionably, radfems denounce and try to dismantle the very institutions these sisters gratefully, humbly acknowledge as freeing rather than oppressive.
In contrast, Judit clarifies, the institutions of marriage, family, and children were central to her success. Her fantastic résumé would have stayed fantastical without the inherently conservative support systems she cites.
No, independence and interdependence aren’t mutually exclusive. Lived wisely, they can thrive because they’re cultivated alongside each other.
Susan’s recent book, Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny and the Making of a Grandmaster, tells of how, as the eldest, she battled sexism, communism, and antisemitism. A Polgar pioneer, she faced down a version of cancel culture as far back as the 1970s. Some, from the then chess-world bully, communist Russia; the rest, from sexist Hungary. Worse, she had lost several elders to the Holocaust. Whenever she felt like giving up, she would recall her grandmother’s hint, “You think this is tough? You don’t know what tough is.” Instead of rebelling, rubbishing comparisons, singling out her trauma as unique or more pitiable, Susan took that nudge to heart, then worked harder and wiser.
Infuriatingly for radfems who’re “against marriage” and to whom motherhood is “selfish,” Susan dedicates her book to “My parents, who sacrificed so much to give me an opportunity to succeed. My sisters, for their love and support. My husband, Paul, who has been an amazing partner in the adventure of life. My kids, who make my life complete.”
As if to rub it in, both her kids are men.
Like the Polgars, women prioritizing their children perceive motherhood as an exchange, one win for another, not a loss, even if it costs them a career-competitive edge.
The Polgars struggled to be recognized fairly in a field hogged by men. But instead of striving independently of, at the expense of (or despite) men, they embraced egalitarians who happened to be men, starting with their coach-mentor father. They sought out enlightened men, husbands, and chess rivals as collaborators. They convinced—through their victories, not words—less enlightened men into rethinking their sexism. Susan recounts how her family, on separate occasions, had to extract her and Sofia, then pre-teens, from dangerous men.
Proud of victories against accomplished men, Susan graciously admits that some, like Vladimir Kramnik, were just “much better” than her. She calls Mikahil Tal “brilliant … one of the truest gentlemen.” Yes, there are sexists, but also “a lot of, in fact, more and more so, wonderful” men in the chess world.
The Polgars are proof: Two seemingly conflicting realities can be true at once.
First, on intellectual-analytical attributes (which chess tests as pastime or profession), sex differences are, usually, negligible enough to obviate the need for preferential treatment. Both sexes, granted similar opportunities, can achieve similar success. The sisters checkmated men when even competing against them was inconceivable. Here, women-only contests pretend that the—essentially cerebral—starting blocks are different when they are not.
Given shared opportunities, women aren’t inferior as lawyers, care professionals, scientists, teachers, bankers, economists, designers, journalists, and the like. Thanks to Susan skyrocketing her way to the top, most elite ‘Men’s championships’ are now ‘Open championships’. That said, not every girl gets the starting blocks that the Polgars did. So, women-only rewards must matter still, acknowledging half the planet, who would never be recognized if sex-specific categories didn’t exist.
Second, on attributes of physical power, endurance, speed, or strength, (which other games/occupations test more), sex differences are, usually, near-irreconcilable. Sure, women are free to become lumberjacks, firefighters, or commandos, free to work heavy machinery, oil rigs, skyscrapers, mines, or docks. But they shouldn’t expect to be rated with men, whose very physicality privileges them. Even with similar opportunities, women can’t consistently pull off the success men can. Here, women-only contests ennoble both, especially if men recognize their privileges and victories, and women recognize their protections and vulnerabilities as given, not earned. No need to pretend that the starting blocks are different; they are.
In an innately intellectual world, Susan was the first woman to become a Grandmaster as men did, through norms and rating. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Judit becoming the first and only woman among the world’s top ten and the first woman in a men’s world championship final. Even as a 14-year-old, Sofia stunned the world with a 2900 rating, brushing aside proven men.
In physicality, however, the Polgars imply, feminine ambition untethered from truth will flounder. Preferentialism is essential to simulate equality, cutting slack not just for relative weakness but also for menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, child-rearing, menopause. That’s sense, not sexism.
As a girl, holding aloft her featherweight Knight, Susan joked, she wasn’t trying to lift “real horses,” hinting that she wouldn’t conceive of competing with men in physicality. Ambition can be tall. But it must be “realistic.” Aged or consistently amateurish players fancying becoming grandmasters are like midgets fancying becoming “seven feet tall.”
Susan explains, 10% of effort usually delivers 90% of success. But the remaining 10% success requires another 90% of effort. It’s hard beating those with a 1900 rating, but beating grandmasters is unimaginably harder. It requires perfection in endgame, technical mastery, capacity to sleep soundly “after a loss,” calculated risk-taking, putting “everything together,” predicting moves, managing nerves and time, and self-confidence.
It is as if Susan is describing why it’s so hard for children to better adults or amateurs to beat professionals. It also proxies as an analogy for the very real physicality gap between the sexes that classical feminists sensibly acknowledge.
Radfems, though, in demanding equality always, everywhere, at any cost, dismiss or denounce the very idea of a gap, arming their followers with dangerously fanciful expectations, and triggering needless enmity between the sexes. If anything, they enforce inequality, sameness, and uniformity favoring women, all disguised as DEI.
On cheating in chess, Susan agrees: cheaters must be punished, men and women. But, unlike radfem-fueled #MeToo’s fondness for courts of public opinion (“Believe all women,” “Yes, all men”), she prefers due process, mimicking courts of law; the accused must be treated as innocent until proven guilty.
Chess requires winners to checkmate a rival’s King, an otherwise powerless piece, rendering the masculine seemingly more decisive. But it’s the Queen that’s more powerful; those who surrender it early normally lose, rendering the feminine seemingly more decisive. That’s chess, cheekily commending the real-life complex and complicated dance of the sexes; pushing here, pulling there, only apparently off-balance, when in fact, they ought to complement and collaborate, rather than compete, in the service of an elegant whole.
Witness trends in women’s chess: September 30, 2025, brings up the newest edition of the decade-old Judit Polgar Global Chess Festival. Between 2001 and 2020, the number of internationally rated women more than doubled from 6% to 15%. Newer women grandmasters more routinely achieve ratings of 2300+. Elite women players believe that a World Champion (who happens to be a woman) is no longer a matter of if, but when.
Now, mentally try and erase the sisters from chess history. Don’t these milestones just evaporate? That’s the impact they’ve had. Women seeking sustainable models of feminism can learn much from the soft-spoken Polgars, still empowering thousands in chess, millions outside it. After all, there’s little to be learned from raucous radfems, still alienating the sisterhood they claim to save.
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