question: How come the Queen in Chess is the strongest if women have been second class citizens for much of history?
comment: The pieces in chess have not always had the same names and shapes as they do today. One of chess's predecessors was the vizier, and acted much like a queen, but was male. But I think the main reason is that chess was never really a commentary on gender, and the queen was made powerful because it makes the game better.
passages: In the game "shatranj", the ancestor of chess that included only male figures, the closest thing to the queen was the "ferz", a weak piece only able to move or capture one step diagonally and not at all in any other direction. The modern chess queen gained power in the 15th century.
  
  Section::::Nomenclature.
   The empress was first used in Turkish Great Chess, a large medieval variant of chess, where it was called the "war machine" (dabbabah; not to be confused with the piece more commonly referred to as the dabbaba today, which is the (2,0) leaper). It was introduced in the West with Carrera's chess from 1617, where it was called a "champion", and has been used in many chess variants since then.
  
  Section::::Value.
   Ordinarily, the queen is slightly stronger than a rook and a bishop together, while slightly less strong than two rooks. It is almost always disadvantageous to exchange the queen for a single piece other than the enemy's queen.
   The queen is strongest when the board is open, when the enemy king is poorly defended, or when there are "loose" (i.e. undefended) pieces in the enemy camp. Because of her long range and ability to move in multiple directions, the queen is well equipped to execute forks. Compared to other long range pieces (i.e. rooks and bishops), the queen is less restricted and stronger in closed positions.
  
  Section::::Strategy.
   BULLET::::- Though her reign was primarily peaceful, the pharaoh Hatshepsut fought in several battles during her younger years.
  
  BULLET::::- Nefertiti, wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten, has been at times depicted as smiting enemies in a manner similar to how a male ruler typically would.
  
  BULLET::::- Ahhotep, wife of Seqenenre Tao II, was believed to have been in command of the army while her son Ahmose I was still young.
  
  Section::::Africa.:Ethiopia.
   In Russia for a long time the queen could also move like a knight; some players disapproved of this ability to "gallop like the horse" (knight). The book "A History of Chess" by H.J.R. Murray, page 384, says that William Coxe who was in Russia in 1772 saw chess played with the queen also moving like a knight. Such an augmented queen piece is now known as the fairy chess piece "amazon".
   The queen and bishop remained relatively weak until between 1475 AD and 1500 AD, in either Spain, Portugal, France or Italy, the queen's and bishop's modern moves started and spread, making chess close to its modern form. This form of chess got such names as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess" (Italian "alla rabiosa" = "with the madwoman"). This led to much more value being attached to the previously minor tactic of pawn promotion. Checkmate became easier and games could now be won in fewer moves. These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe and in Spain, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century. The modern move of the queen may have started as an extension of its older ability to once move two squares with jump, diagonally or straight. Marilyn Yalom says that the new move of the queen started in Spain: see history of the queen.
   In most languages the piece is known as "queen" or "lady" (e.g. Italian "donna"). Asian and Eastern European languages tend to refer to it as "vizier", minister or advisor (e.g. Arabic/Persian وزیر "wazir", Russian ферзь "ferz"). In Polish it is known as the "hetman" – the name of a major historical military-political office, while in Estonian it is called "lipp" ("flag", "standard").
  
  Section::::Placement and movement.
   The amazon is one of the most simply described fairy chess pieces and as such has a long history and has gone by many names. It was experimented with and used widely in the Middle Ages to replace the old slow ferz, and competed with the orthodox queen for this role; however, the normal queen eventually won out, because of the excessive power of an amazon. In Russia for a long time the queen could also move like a knight; some players disapproved of this ability to "gallop like the horse" (= knight). The book "A History of Chess" by H. J. R. Murray, page 384, says that a Mr. Coxe who was in Russia in 1772 saw chess played with the queen also moving like a knight.
   The queen was originally the counsellor or prime minister or vizier (Sanskrit "mantri", Persian "farzīn", Arabic "firzān", "firz" or "wazīr"). Initially its only move was one square diagonally. Around 1300 CE its move was enhanced to allow it to jump two squares diagonally (onto a same-colored square) for its first move.
   In the endgame of king and amazon (queen+knight compound) versus king and empress, the amazon usually wins, but in a few positions the weaker side may force a draw by setting up a fortress. These fortresses force the side with the amazon to give perpetual check, as otherwise the side with the empress can force a simplification or give its own perpetual check. King and empress versus king is a forced win for the side with the empress; checkmate can be forced within 11 moves. In comparison, the queen requires 10 moves and the rook requires 16.
   At various times, the ability of pawns to be queened was restricted while the original queen was still on the board, so as not to cause scandal by providing the king with more than one queen. An early 12th-century Latin poem refers to a queened pawn as a "ferzia", as opposed to the original queen or "regina", to account for this.
   During the 15th century the queen's move took its modern form as a combination of the move of the rook and the current move of the bishop. Starting from Spain, this new version – called "queen's chess" ("scacchi de la donna"), or pejoratively "madwoman's chess" ("scacchi alla rabiosa") – spread throughout Europe rapidly, partly due to the advent of the printing press and the popularity of new books on chess. The new rules faced a backlash in some quarters, ranging from anxiety over a powerful female warrior figure to frank abuse against women in general.
   The original idea was that a foot soldier that advanced all the way through the enemy lines was promoted to the lowest rank of officer. In the Middle Ages, the queen was much weaker than now, and its only allowed move was one square diagonally. (It was earlier called "farzin" or "ferz", from the Persian for "vizier"). When the queen and bishop got their new moves, chess was radically altered. When the "fers" became the queen, there were objections that a king should not have more than one queen .
   Marilyn Yalom wrote that:
  
  BULLET::::- The chess queen, rather than ferz or similar, is known of in what is now Spain and Portugal only from the 12th century, but started sooner elsewhere.
  
  BULLET::::- The modern move of the Queen started in Spain during Isabella I's reign, perhaps inspired by her great political power, and spread from there, perhaps being spread by the invention of printing and the 1492 Expulsion from Spain of the Jews who carried the new chess rule with them as they fled.
   Meanwhile, the Indo-Europeans were known to have practiced multiple succession systems, and there is much better evidence of matrilineal customs among the Indo-European Celts and Germanics than among any ancient Semitic peoples.
  
  Women were running Sparta while the men were often away fighting. Gorgo, Queen of Sparta, was asked by a woman in Attica something along the lines of, "why are Spartan women the only women in the world who could rule men?" Gorgo replied, "Because we are the only women who are mothers of men."
  
  Section::::History and distribution.:By chronology.:Iron Age to Middle Ages.
   In Russian it keeps its Persian name of "ferz"; "koroleva" (queen) is colloquial and is never used by professional chess players. However, the names "korolevna" (king's daughter), "tsaritsa" (tsar's wife), and "baba" (old woman) are attested as early as 1694. In Arabic countries the queen remains termed, and in some cases depicted as a vizier.
   BULLET::::- Queen Zara of the United Kingdom
  
  BULLET::::- Queen in "V for Vendetta" (comic book)
  
  BULLET::::- Following a nuclear war in the 1980s, the crown falls to Zara, a 16-year-old queen who serves as a puppet monarch for Adam Susan and his fascist Norsefire party.
  
  Section::::Fictional countries.
  
  Section::::Fictional countries.:Agatean Empire.
  
  BULLET::::- One Sung Mirror, the first Agatean Emperor and unifier of the Counterweight Continent.
   Replacing queens with chancellors imparts a radical change to the nature of the chess game, despite the queen and chancellor having equal strengths. For example, bishops are stronger and knights are weaker. Betza commented that Almost Chess is a good introductory chess variant for players, due to its great similarity to standard chess and the naturalness of the change from queen to chancellor.
  
  Section::::Sort of Almost Chess.
   Wachtmeister described Elisa Servenius to the queen as a former kitchen maid, with "energetic, expressive eyes, vivid in her ways and appearance, and even intelligent, so much so as one could ask from a person of her class", and that she "made herself noted with a natural fearlessness before danger" When asked, if she was afraid during the firing on the battlefield, she had replied: 
   Section::::Design.:Armament.:Bronze and iron guns.
   Many chess variants use a rook+knight compound, but due to its powerful ability, it is uncommon for variants to use more than one per colour on a normal 8×8 board. Seirawan Chess uses one such piece (called elephant) per colour. Capablanca Chess uses one chancellor per colour on a 10×8 board. When the playing area is larger, the ratio of squares which powerful pieces can control is decreased, and variants will then often have a greater combination of powerful pieces. 
  
  Almost Chess replaced queens with chancellors, because they have approximately equal value.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Amazon—the rook+bishop+knight compound
   Historian Marilyn Yalom proposes that the prominence of medieval queens such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Blanche of Castile and Isabella I of Castile, the cult of the Virgin Mary, and the power ascribed to women in the troubadour tradition of courtly love, might have been partly responsible for influencing the piece towards its identity as a queen and later its modern great power on the board, as might the medieval popularity of chess as a game particularly suitable for women to play on equal terms with men. She points to medieval poetry depicting the Virgin as the chess-queen of God or "Fierce Dieu". Significantly, the earliest surviving treatise to describe the modern movement of the queen (as well as the bishop and pawn), "Repetición de amores e arte de axedres con CL iuegos de partido" ("Discourses on Love and the Art of Chess with 150 Problems") by Luis Ramírez de Lucena, was published during the reign of Isabella I of Castile. Even before that, the Valencian poem Scachs d'amor ("Chess of Love") depicted a chess game between Francesc de Castellví and Narcís de Vinyoles and commented on by Bernat Fenollar, which clearly had the modern moves of the queen and the bishop. Well before the queen's powers expanded, it was already being romantically described as essential to the king's survival, so that when the queen was lost, there was nothing more of value on the board.
   In Greek mythology, while the royal function was a male privilege, power devolution often came through women, and the future king inherited power through marrying the queen heiress. This is illustrated in the Homeric myths where all the noblest men in Greece vie for the hand of Helen (and the throne of Sparta), as well as the Oedipian cycle where Oedipus weds the recently widowed queen at the same time he assumes the Theban kingship.
   BULLET::::- Late 9th century BCE – 8th century BCE – Shammuramat (Semiramis) ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire. She was the first woman to rule an empire without a man ruling with her. She is believed to have been the inspiration for the legendary warrior queen Semiramis.
  
  BULLET::::- Late 9th century – 8th century BCE – According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Queen Cordelia, on whom the character in Shakespeare's King Lear is based, battled her nephews for control of her kingdom. However, Geoffrey of Monmouth is not considered a reliable historical source.
  
  Section::::Timeline of women in ancient warfare worldwide.:8th century BCE.
  
presuppositions: Queen was always represented as a woman in chess. The queen in chess is female because it was chosen that way.
corrections: Queen used to be a piece called the Vizier which was a male.  The piece that became the queen used to be the vizier, which was male.
raw_presuppositions: Queen was always represented as a woman in chess. The queen in chess is female because it was chosen that way.
raw_corrections: Queen used to be a piece called the Vizier which was a male.  The piece that became the queen used to be the vizier, which was male.