Girl Kicked Out of Chess Tournament for Wearing 'Seductive Dress'
A 12-year-old chess champ was forced to pull out of a Malaysian youth tourney because the boss of the competition believed her dress was too “seductive,” according to a report.
Her coach, Kaushal Khandhar, demands an apology.
The director claimed her knee-length, short-sleeved dress was a ‘temptation from a certain angle far, far away.’ Apparently, it was enough to be barred from the tournament.
Khandhar slammed the move in a Facebook post, saying the girl had been “extremely disturbed and embarrassed” by the comments from the director of the tournament.
The incident happened during the 2017 National Scholastic Chess Championships in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
He says the tournament director had made a remark on the girl’s knee-length dress to the chief arbiter, who had stopped her competition in the middle of Round 2. The girl was told that her dress was improper and violated the dress code of the tournament.
According to the Federation Internationale des Eches (FIDE) handbook, which the tournament of course followed, the chief arbiter is in charge of “ensuring the players’ comfort during the tournament.”
The girl’s coach has been competing in chess tournaments for nearly two decades and he “has never seen an issue like this before,” according to Huffington Post.
The girl’s mother was advised too late to purchase a different outfit for her daughter. Since the shops at the local mall were already closed, her mom was unable to buy her long slacks, as instructed by the chief arbiter.
The girl — a district chess champion in Kuala Lumpur– withdrew from the competition, forgoing all of the registration fees, coaching costs, and travel expenses.
Khandar said his student had “tremendous potential.”
People responding to Khandhar’s Facebook post of the story were not happy with the tournament officials for “being perverted or sexualizing the young girl.” Others were baffled by how someone could consider this dress seductive.
As Khandhar points out, the focus shouldn’t be on what this student was wearing. Instead, the focus should be on how well she plays chess.
Just like everyone else, this girl showed up to compete in the game of chess.
Once someone sexualized the way she was dressed, she was denied the opportunities everyone else received.
Hopefully this girl will be able to compete again, and next time without having to worry about her manner of dress.
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