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Another day, another outrageous story about adult men deciding a child is dressed too “sexually”.
A 12-year-old has been forced to withdraw from a Malaysian chess tournament – a competition celebrating her analytical skills and having a good time as kid – because her dress was deemed too “seductive”.
Not that it matters, but this is the dress.
The girl’s chess coach Kaushal Khandhar detailed the “disturbing incident” which left the chess player “harassed and humiliated” on Facebook.
The Chief Arbiter told the student and her mother that the Tournament Director had deemed the student’s dress to be “seductive” and a “temptation from a certain angle far, far away”.
What does that even mean – “a certain angle far, far away”? Not to the children she’s playing, but someone peeking through binoculars across the road?
Tournament officials’ solution to the ‘problem’ was to demand the girl buy another outfit at a nearby mall before the next round the next day. At this time, it was already 10pm and wouldn’t open until the matches had already begun the next day, meaning the girl had to withdraw from the chess tournament.
“This incident has resulted in loss of time and money which was invested before, during and after the tournament on coaching, registration fees, travelling, accommodation and other incurred cost,” Khandhar said.
So to recap, a child, who was recently the champion of her district in Kuala Lumpur, was not allowed to compete in a sport she and her parents had invested considerable time and money into because she dared to wear a modest dress that covered her shoulders and came to her knees.
To be honest, that doesn’t even feel like it needs to be mentioned. She could’ve competed in a unicorn onesie or a crop top and bike shorts and this story would be exactly the same.
Stop embarrassing girls for being girls, because at its core that’s exactly what this is.
Khandhar said unless the girl receives a public apology from Tournament Director of National Scholastic Chess Championship, they will undertake legal proceedings.
“I have been playing chess in Malaysia for almost 2 decades and I have never heard this type of issue ever in any tournaments in Malaysia. This should be the first and last time this kind of issue ever appears, I or anyone of us should never accept this in our Chess Community,” he said.
