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Sawyer is already there. Waiting. Sitting on Black, tracking all my movements. His eyes on me are unsettling. There’s something too sharp, too ravenous, almost acquisitive about them. Like the match is an afterthought, and I am what he came here for.
“Some scientist in Europe took a bunch of women and had them play online chess against male opponents in their same rating bracket. When the female players didn’t know the gender of their opponent, they won fifty percent of the games. When the female players were led to believe that their opponent was a woman, they won fifty percent of the games. When they were told that they were playing against men, their performance dropped. But in truth, their opponents were always the same.” She shrugs. Her earrings jingle again, despondent. “If you’re a woman, this system tears you down. Makes you doubt
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They don’t know what it’s like, being told that you’re inherently destined to be second best.”
“I’ve got you, Mallory. Nothing bad is going to happen. You can let yourself want this, because you already have it. You have me.”
“It’s lonely, chess. You may have a team around you, but when it really comes down to it, you’re on your own. You play on your own. You lose and win on your own. You go home, and you’re on your own.”
“Guilt and responsibility are heavy burdens, Mallory. But they’re also something we can hide behind, and now you can’t do that anymore. You are free to do what you love.
“Because when I’m with you, Mallory, everything is different. When I’m with you, I want to play more than I want to win.”
the concept of stereotype threat: when people find themselves in situations in which their social group is stereotyped to be inferior, they are more likely to perform poorly (I highly recommend you check out Claude Steele’s original study on the topic, and anything by Nalini Ambady’s group, but if you run into paywalls the Wikipedia entry will do).
